Moral obligation? Hell no. But the rituals should be studied before they disappear.
I’m something of a utilitarian, sort of. I figure that value adheres to the individual, and that any talk of cultural preservation or annihilation should be examined on the level of its benefits or harms to the individual.
Many people feel tremendous value from the continuation of cultural rituals, and since they feel that value, that value is real.
Old people may feel great distress at watching their cultural traditions die out; that distress is not to be dismissed.
It cannot be used to compel youth, however, although it may be used to persuade youth. A young person who continues practicing the language of her elders is doing a lovely thing, but should she change her mind and stop that practice, I don’t think she’s done anything wrong.
That said, there’s also the question of whether youth sometimes make poor decisions they’ll regret later in life. I think there’s a chance that abandoning traditions may seem like a better idea when you’re young than it does when you’re middle-aged, or even when you’re a parent yourself. Young folks may want to keep that in mind when deciding whether to abandon rituals.
Absolutely – and I think I stipulated this in the OP. There is definitely value lost if a practice disappears without having been documented.
Reconstructionist Judaism is not an off-shoot of Conservative Judaism. Reconstructionist Judaism was founded in the 1920s. Conservative Judaism was founded in the 1950s. Conservative Judaism was something more like Modern Orthodoxy when it started out. Reconstructionist Judaism was an attempt to restore some traditions to Reform Judaism in the US, which had gone so far as to begin calling rabbis ministers. Some Reform synagogues even held Shabbes services on Sunday instead of Saturday.
After WWII, Reform Jews began to re-embrace Jewish identity and old traditions, so 21st century Reform Judaism actually has more Yiddishkeit than it did 100 years ago.
I’ve got more thoughts, but I’ve got to go pick up my boychik at school.
There maybe some differing opinions on Reconstructionist movement connection to Conservative movement, as my understanding was taught to me by my Reconstructionist Rabbi at my Conservative (yet very egalitarian and socially liberal) shul, and seems to be supported by this cite: Reconstructionist Judaism - Wikipedia and others. However, even if I’m wrong, my point remains. Regardless of the timeline, a central feature of the movement is the idea that holding on to traditions for tradition sake is not necessary.
Having been raised in a Lubovitch shul as a young child, the daughter of a former Hasidic Jew and granddaughter of a Hasidic Rebbe, I find Reconstructionist Judaism what most closely fits, for me. However, I maintain my membership in a Conservative shul, since in most practical ways it most closely resembles what I like about Reconstructionist Judaism. It certainly fits much better than it would in either the Orthodoxy or Reform movements.
However, shouldn’t hijack this thread…
The value of cultural rituals are defined by the cultures themselves. Cultures change over time, new ones splinter off of existing ones, old ones fade away or get assimilated. Some cultures take greater pride in their cultural identity than others, and even of those that take pride in their identity may define it differently.
In the end, the younger generations are the future of the culture, so if they see reduced or no value in those rituals, then that’s their value. Who am I, not a member of that culture, to decide what value those rituals should have and argue that they should be important? After all, some cultures put greater value in their history than others. As an American, while some of us put significance on our history, in general many other cultures put a lot more significance on it, so other cultures might be more inclined to hold onto what we might deem as an artifact from the past.
I agree with you - there’s no reason to force the next generation to conduct empty ritual just for some ideal of cultural preservation.
Can’t think of any.
Of course, there are real-world cases where while one particular generation may have abandoned rituals, the ones that came after them have wanted to pick up the rituals again, but because of a lack of cultural continuity, they could never be sure they were doing things right, which always creates a niggling doubt in participants. I know of this in the case of reconstructed religious rites, but I’m sure it’s similar for other groups.
I would say no. If you think it’s worth saving, you can preserve it on your own dime.
Then your efforts to propagate an inferior, backward, primitive ritual aren’t going to help matters.
What makes you think it’s their culture? It is their grandparents’ culture, not theirs.
I was raised in a traditional Jewish home. I wasn’t rebellious, because I was with my aunt and uncle during my most rebellious age, and happy to be there, but my rebellious cousin (who grew up to be an officer in the Israeli army) could feel really badass by sneaking off to have a pepperoni pizza with his gentile friends on the weekend.
If he hadn’t had a lot of tradition in his upbringing to rebel against, when he needed to define himself, he might have done really stupid shit. Kids want to test limits, so you have to give them limits in the first place. Traditions make the framework of one kind of structure-- one that it’s very safe to test.
Also, there’s a lot to be said for rites of passage. Jewish kids really do grow-up for their b’nei mitzvah. My son, even, when he wasn’t quote three almost magically became a “big boy” over night when he had his upsharen (ceremonial first haircut). He shared the event with two friends (twins) who have since moved away, but with whom he still stays in touch. He’s even been motivated to learn to spell and use email in order to stay in touch with them.
I really hope when my son is angry about something, and feeling rebellious, he won’t commit an act of vandalism, or do something else criminal, but will go and get a bacon double cheeseburger.
It is their culture. Take Native Americans. In a lot of places they are under enormous pressure to abandon their old way of life, and have been for centuries. They weren’t even allowed to speak their own language in a lot of cases. Many of my Latino coworkers growing up in the US mentioned getting punished if the teacher overheard a student talking in Spanish (this was in Texas).
You really don’t think there’s any value to a person continuing to follow their family’s traditions? That we should just coerce minorities to abandon their language, culture, and practices because the majority deems it no longer ‘relevant’? That sounds like the logic of the privleged, who is in a position to dicate what is and isn’t neccessary in our modern world, and comes off as a very anglocentric way of thinking.
Wait, what? No, no one here is arguing for coercing anyone. Put your strawman back where you found him, please.
What TheSeaOtter said. Not encouraging one thing =/= coercing its opposite.
Good point. For a good example, take the situation of the German language in Pennsylvania. It has been kept alive in some communities for generations after immigration from Germany fell to a near halt. It stays alive because enough people want to speak German and consider it important enough to learn and teach without any support from the government. The government doesn’t care.
The OP was never talking about coercion. The ostensible problem was not that today’s kids are being pressured to give up old cultural traditions, but that sometimes kids just lose interest in those traditions and stop participating. Whether that’s a tragedy or just a fact of life is a matter of opinion, and that opinion may vary, depending on how you feel about the tradition in question.
Never mind native fertility dances. Let’s look at a few real life situations.
“The blues” is a musical genre created by black American musicians. Today, very, very few young black Americans have any interest in listening to (let alone playing) the blues. Nobody has pressured black kids to abandon the blues. It just happened. That msuic just doesn’t speak to them as it once did to their ancestors.
Is that something to mourn? Aren’t kids allowed to decide what music they like?
If modern Japenese kids lose interest in Kabuki theater, is that tragic? Or just an inevitability?
If young Mexican kids find mariachi music boring and silly, is that sad? Or just a fact of life?
Nobody does the Charleston or the Shing-a-ling any more- is that a tragedy?
I agree. I think that it’s important for a record to be preserved, but ‘moral obligation’ for young people to HAVE to continue to do it? I’m good with people who want to preserve these sorts of rituals or cultural aspects if they really want too, and think they should be encouraged to do so, but there is no moral obligation for anyone to have to continue practicing a religion or performing a ritual or whatever.
Thanks – this is a good summation of my view.
For the last questions, “no” and “yes”, in my opinion. Every generation seems to have their own musical styles and tastes, and it’s usually quite different from their parents’ generation. Blues has been recorded, and is even still performed widely, so there is nothing to mourn here. Even if it becomes as rare to perform as Mongolian throat-singing, this is nothing to mourn because it has been extremely well recorded and preserved, and there will be undoubtedly new and interesting styles of music that replace it.
The same applies to these scenarios as well.
I’ll meet you half way: I favor subsidies to help preserve some kinds of cultural arts. A foundation that raises money to fund performances, for instance. The foundation might be tax-exempt, or might actually receive tax money.
This could preserve arts which people believe are important, but which the same people nevertheless do not patronize themselves in numbers large enough to make the arts viable in the free market. Many of us might donate money, or vote to give tax money, to the Kabuki Foundation…and yet not care enough to go and watch Kabuki.
I don’t know how the OP can divorce the desire to preserve a cultural element without concerning themselves with its continued practice. For something like a ritual, it’s practice is what emotionally binds the practitioner with their ethnic roots and/or lineage, that’s the value, not the magical words and gestures. Preserving those alone is meaningless.
Growing emotionally distant from your heritage and choosing to identify with a different group of people is just an anthropological inevitability. But if you feel a certain cultures death is unfortunate, recording cultural practices for posterity is simply not enough.
Good points.
Some rituals may have had a practical, utilitarian purpose in the past (whether the participants fully understood the mechanism is another question). E.g. some washing rituals (e.g. ritual baths, ritual handwashing) may have promoted health and people may have recognized some cause and effect and therefore encouraged the practice to continue and possibly spread. E.g. this town over here does twice-weekly ritual baths in honor of the God of Water and that town over there doesn’t, and people in the second town seem to be sick more often.
In other cases, rituals may have had a social bonding purpose or may have had a positive psychological effect on participants. E.g. maybe a practice of medieval farmers having a yearly, communal ritual chanting slogans by the river at dawn wearing white robes might not have had a direct impact on crop or livestock health, but it might have improved things indirectly by promoting communication and knowledge sharing (plenty of time afterward to share experiences with your neighbors), meet potential marriage partners who aren’t your cousins, and inspire people to think positively and work harder.
It’s a nice idea, but the devil is in the details as they say. You have to make the following decisions wisely without offending people:
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Decide what groups “count” as bona-fide ethnic or cultural groups entitled to funding. E.g. do Appalachian Hillbillies get funding to preserve mountain fiddle tunes, or do we tell them they are considered Scottish and need to share funding with the Highland Games?
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Decide who is entitled to make decisions related to cultural practices in a group. E.g. if there is a disagreement over the definition and scope of “blues” music, who adjudicates the controversy? Some government busybody? A referendum of all citizens? A referendum of all African-American citizens? Experts hand-selected by the University of Podunk Department of Cultural Anthropology? Your mom?
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Decide who “counts” as a member of a cultural group. E.g. if I claim to be Pennsylvania Dutch, can I just declare it on a form and claim my funds to buy tickets to the National Barnstar Exposition and Traditional German Quilting Fair, or do I have to be ethnically evaluated by some committee?