"Rituals and ceremonies help define a culture. Without them, societies or groups of people
have a diminished sense of who they are."The speaker asserts that rituals and ceremonies
are needed for any culture or group of people to retain a strong sense of identity. I agre
e that one purpose of ritual and ceremony is to preserve cultural identity, at least in mo
dern times. However, this is not their sole purpose; nor are ritual and ceremony the only
means of preserving cultural identity.I agree with the speaker insofar as one purpose of r
itual and ceremony in today's world is to preserve cultural identity. Native American trib
es, for example, cling tenaciously to their traditional ceremonies and rituals, which typi
cally tell a story about tribal heritage. The reason for maintaining these rituals and cus
toms lies largely in the tribes' 500-year struggle against assimilation, even extinction,
at the hands of European intruders. An outward display of traditional customs and distinct
heritage is needed to put the world on notice that each tribe is a distinct and autonomou
s people, with its own heritage, values, and ideas. Otherwise, the tribe risks total assim
ilation and loss of identity. The lack of meaningful ritual and ceremony in homogenous mai
nstream America underscores this point. Other than a few gratuitous ceremonies such as wed
dings and funerals, we maintain no common rituals to set us apart from other cultures. The
reason for this is that as a whole America has little cultural identity of its own anymor
e. Instead, it has become a patchwork quilt of many subcultures, such as Native Americans,
Hasidic Jews, Amish, and urban African Americans--each of which resort to some outward de
monstration of its distinctiveness in order to establish and maintain a unique cultural id
entity.Nevertheless, preserving cultural identify cannot be the only purpose of ritual and
ceremony. Otherwise, how would one explain why isolated cultures that don't need to disti
nguish themselves to preserve their identity nevertheless engage in their own distinct rit
uals and ceremonies? In fact, the initial purpose of ritual and ceremony is rooted not in
cultural identity but rather superstition and spiritual belief. The original purpose of a
ritual might have been to frighten away evil spirits, to bring about weather conditions fa
vorable to bountiful harvests, or to entreat the gods for a successful hunt or for victory
in battle. Even today some primitive cultures engage in rituals primarily for such reason
s. Nor are ritual and ceremony the only means of preserving cultural identity. For example
, our Amish culture demonstrates its distinctiveness through dress and life-style. Hasidic
Jews set themselves apart by their dress, vocational choices, and dietary habits. And Afr
ican-Americans distinguish themselves today by their manner of speech and gesture. Of cour
se, these subcultures have their own distinct ways of cerebrating events such as weddings,
coming of age, and so forth. Yet ritual and ceremony are not the primary means by which t
hese subcultures maintain their identity.In sum, to prevent total cultural assimilation in
to our modern-day homogenous soup, a subculture with a unique and proud heritage must main
tain an outward display of that heritage--by way of ritual and ceremony. Nevertheless, rit
ual and ceremony serve a spiritual function as well--one that has little to do with preven
ting cultural assimilation. Moreover, rituals and ceremonies are not the only means of pre
serving cultural identity.