Musings Report 2018-43 10-27-18 Rituals and Rummage Sales
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Welcome to October's MUS (Margins of the Unfiltered Swamp)
The last Musings of the month is a free-form exploration of the reaches of the fecund swamp that is the source of the blog, Musings and my books.
Rituals and Rummage Sales
I'm going to try something different in this month's MUS (Margins of the Unfiltered Swamp)" rather than the usual essay on a single topic, I'm going with a grab-bag of two unrelated topics: rituals and rummage sales.
Many observers decry the decline of ritual in modern life, as opportunities to recognize moments of importance become fewer. One of the few recognized rituals that is still universal is graduation from formal training or education. Another is honoring the winners of a competition.
Religious rituals remain, of course (baptism, etc.), and life transitions such as getting married and funerals remain ubiquitous.
Being admitted into a club or organization might be observed, and there are time-honored rituals such as crossing the equator for sailors, etc. within professions.
There many kinds of rituals, but perhaps we can divide them roughly into 1) rituals that recognize the completion of a process or a victory in competition; 2) rituals that change the legal or social status of participants and 3) rituals designed to manifest a transformation.
The first type of ritual is teleological: it comes at the end of a process aimed at the completion of a formal progression: from acceptance into a program to graduation.
In a competitive society that values public, institutionally certified success, these rituals support and encourage accomplishment and winning.
Rituals marking major life transitions such as marriage have deep cultural roots, and in many cases these rituals change the legal, secular or spiritual status of the participants.
The third type is rare in our society, and those that do exist may not hold the same power that such rituals hold in other cultures. These rituals don't mark legal changes of status or membership; rather, the rituals are themselves lengthy enough and arduous enough to transform the participants.
These rituals don't recognize the completion of some process; they are the process participants undergo and emerge changed in some fashion that is not just publicly recognized but internalized.
Perhaps when we feel our society lacks meaningful rituals, what we're pining for is not more public displays marking completion or victory but rituals that are themselves transformative.
* * *
Rummage sales have many names--jumble sales, white elephants, bazaars, and so on, but the basic idea is that goods which are no longer of use to their previous owners still have value-- either intrinsic value (they still perform some task such as a pitcher holds water) or cultural value (vintage items, mementos, etc.)
Since we mostly outfitted our house from Buddhist temple bazaars, I've spent quite a few hours going through piles of cast-offs of a mass consumer society.
As we all know, stuff made decades ago tends to last a long time, and so new owners can get years or even decades of use from the old goods.
Since the vast majority of the goods manufactured in the past 20 years are poorly made and designed, how much of this vast production will still be functional in 20 years?
Since the vast majority of what's been produced in the past 25 years ends up in the landfill, what will be left to recycle in rummage sales? Very little.
So what happens if all this cheap disposable junk is no longer available due to trade wars, rising cost of energy, etc.? Could all the well-made durable goods currently dismissed as near-worthless gain in value due to their relative scarcity?
It's something to ponder the next time you sort through the jumble of cast-offs from an industrialized, mass consumer global economy.
From Left Field
Why the world’s recycling system stopped working-- China stopped accepting mixed recycling on 1/1/18...
Have You Been Shadow Banned? -- impossible to tell...
Silicon Valley Can’t Escape the Business of War
A Listless VIX Says This Sell-Off Reeks of ‘Dumb Money’
Can tiny doses of magic mushrooms unlock creativity?
This chart reveals a growing problem for Apple — that 'customers are getting less excited for each new generation of iPhone'
THE STATE OF THE HEARTLAND FACTBOOK 2018
These Are the Economies With the Most (and Least) Efficient Health Care
Association of Cardiorespiratory Fitness With Long-term Mortality Among Adults Undergoing Exercise Treadmill Testing (via John F.) -- yes, exercise has positive consequences...
Visualizing The 8 Major Forces Shaping The Future Of The Global Economy-- these are the happy forces; this doesn't list depletion of resources, pandemics, global drought and food shortages, etc.
Basic Income Isn't the Solution --It's a Band-Aid on a Broken System -- finally, somebody else states the obvious...
Market Forces Are Driving A Clean Energy Revolution In The US -- this is good news, but this is about electricity, not the entire energy spectrum.
"The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls." Pablo Picasso
Thanks for reading--
charles
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