and I might be getting off topic.
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
There is a vision going around since Auguste Comte, that religion and religious behaviour does not exist for people that have a scientific , positivistic worldview. Offering is one of those religion and magic related behaviours that cannot occur in “modern scientific” defined and behaving humans. People in ancient, primitive, religious or sub- cultures though, do offer in that vision. Not we, scientifically positivisticaly trained it seems. But appearances can be deceptive.
Some time ago a very learned scholar lectured about offerings in the ancient yi. Interesting, only, in the introduction he declared that offering wasn't done so much in our society no more.
Perhaps he meant to say that offerings aren't acknowledged as offerings no more, or that everyone with a scientific training doesn't acknowledge offering as an important part of behaviour and that scientific ideolized people have no need for religion, or that offerings for people still behaving with old fashioned calvinistic patterning only feel offering is done as in putting some money for the church on sunday in a very special sock. But, from an anthropological perspective offerings are an integral part of modern western society.
A whole load of highly trained professionals prepare us for doing our offerings in the shopping malls and on the web. This process is called marketing, it makes us buy things we don't need at all.
In advertisements on screens, in papers, magazines, on the radio and on billboards, with smells and music, with sex and suggestions for enlightenment, we are seduced to identify with a brand, convinced that offering to that brand, eat it, wear it, drive it etc. will bring status, sex, power and a connection with the groups uphill.
Driving merc, walking nike, drinking coke, wearing prada, scenting chanel, flying klm, sleeping swedish and reading elegance is nothing more then old fashoined totemism, and it needs a lot of offering in the malls. That offering is called consuming (think about this term, the opposite of offering?).
This totemisn even works so well, that we, the participants forget about the massive character of this consuming and therefore the massive impact it has on the ecology. We prefer to hide in totem.
And this part of modern offerings is only about money. I haven't been talking about the massive offerings of pigs, cows and chicks on our dishes. Eating lots of meat gives an impression of wealth, status and power. Raising and butchering animals is called food production, not industrial production of sacrificial animals that enhance status and power. I can imagine that most people think of this as food. They learned to think like this. The moment we realize it is an offering, we might ask what we are offering for.
In western use of language the word victim is used e.g. in the case of traffic-accidents. At first glance you might think that the word victim is just a relic from the religious past: not so.
We gladly accept some victims for the sake of our traffic-system (changing it would be much to complicated and expensive). On of our ministers propagated faster driving on highways. Statistics showed that it only would take a few more victims per year. She accepted gladly a bit more sacrifices offered to keep up with the system and thanks to statistics the victims are randomly chosen.
Victims go with systems that must be maintained, there is no difference in secular of religious systems, they all need sacrificing and totem.
Cattle disease evoke a lot of un-ease. When some accounting shows that killing the animals is cheaper then curing them, then for the sake of the broader economy those animals are richly butchered; a collective offer to keep the economy going.
A lot of offering has to be made to keep the modern society going, even so much that it has become extremely destructive to it's source, the eco-system. Offerings are not called offerings nomore, but it has become consuming. We have to consume to keep the offerings going. In terms of the yi modern society does a lot of 63-5, massive offering without the heart involved.
Some time ago a very learned scholar lectured about offerings in the ancient yi. Interesting, only, in the introduction he declared that offering wasn't done so much in our society no more.
Perhaps he meant to say that offerings aren't acknowledged as offerings no more, or that everyone with a scientific training doesn't acknowledge offering as an important part of behaviour and that scientific ideolized people have no need for religion, or that offerings for people still behaving with old fashioned calvinistic patterning only feel offering is done as in putting some money for the church on sunday in a very special sock. But, from an anthropological perspective offerings are an integral part of modern western society.
A whole load of highly trained professionals prepare us for doing our offerings in the shopping malls and on the web. This process is called marketing, it makes us buy things we don't need at all.
In advertisements on screens, in papers, magazines, on the radio and on billboards, with smells and music, with sex and suggestions for enlightenment, we are seduced to identify with a brand, convinced that offering to that brand, eat it, wear it, drive it etc. will bring status, sex, power and a connection with the groups uphill.
Driving merc, walking nike, drinking coke, wearing prada, scenting chanel, flying klm, sleeping swedish and reading elegance is nothing more then old fashoined totemism, and it needs a lot of offering in the malls. That offering is called consuming (think about this term, the opposite of offering?).
This totemisn even works so well, that we, the participants forget about the massive character of this consuming and therefore the massive impact it has on the ecology. We prefer to hide in totem.
And this part of modern offerings is only about money. I haven't been talking about the massive offerings of pigs, cows and chicks on our dishes. Eating lots of meat gives an impression of wealth, status and power. Raising and butchering animals is called food production, not industrial production of sacrificial animals that enhance status and power. I can imagine that most people think of this as food. They learned to think like this. The moment we realize it is an offering, we might ask what we are offering for.
In western use of language the word victim is used e.g. in the case of traffic-accidents. At first glance you might think that the word victim is just a relic from the religious past: not so.
We gladly accept some victims for the sake of our traffic-system (changing it would be much to complicated and expensive). On of our ministers propagated faster driving on highways. Statistics showed that it only would take a few more victims per year. She accepted gladly a bit more sacrifices offered to keep up with the system and thanks to statistics the victims are randomly chosen.
Victims go with systems that must be maintained, there is no difference in secular of religious systems, they all need sacrificing and totem.
Cattle disease evoke a lot of un-ease. When some accounting shows that killing the animals is cheaper then curing them, then for the sake of the broader economy those animals are richly butchered; a collective offer to keep the economy going.
A lot of offering has to be made to keep the modern society going, even so much that it has become extremely destructive to it's source, the eco-system. Offerings are not called offerings nomore, but it has become consuming. We have to consume to keep the offerings going. In terms of the yi modern society does a lot of 63-5, massive offering without the heart involved.