Rituals console only after deep time makes them customs

Evidence

Partly, as Jameson suggests in his LRB piece on The Year of the Flood, the problem is time: any new “belief system” “demands a supplement in the form of deep time, ancient cultural custom, or revelation itself”. Time precisely allows a ritual to become a custom, an empty form to which the individual is subjected — and, very far from being a disadvantage, this is what yields funeral rites much of their power to console. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 270

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly supports the interest in small acts of decorum toward corpses — explains why such acts console through their very age and impersonality.
• XREF: connects to: Correctly timed prayer still fails without properly performed ritual — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 898; Ritual forms are arbitrary so long as some ritual exists — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 399; Blame for failed rituals is displaced onto hidden enemies — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1437

Broader Connections

• Ritual forms are arbitrary so long as some ritual exists #qualifies (0.80) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 399
• Correctly timed prayer still fails without properly performed ritual #complicates (0.75) — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 898
• Blame for failed rituals is displaced onto hidden enemies #expands (0.72) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1437