{"id":1768,"date":"2018-02-02T07:00:43","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T13:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=1768"},"modified":"2018-02-20T15:19:03","modified_gmt":"2018-02-20T21:19:03","slug":"groundhog-day-and-the-purpose-of-strange-rituals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2018\/02\/02\/groundhog-day-and-the-purpose-of-strange-rituals\/","title":{"rendered":"Groundhog Day and the Purpose of Strange Rituals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Photo by Anthony Quintano, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every February, people in the United States participate in this strange ritual where we entrust a large rodent to predict whether winter will last six more weeks (about average for much of the northern United States) or if spring will come early. Yep, it\u2019s Groundhog Day. And as strange as this practice might seem, superstitions and rituals like it actually play an important role in how people form identities and communities. <\/span><\/p>\n

While scholars first studied rituals primarily in relation to religion, eventually they realized that rituals, whether religious or not, were important ways of bringing people together through shared practices. Emile Durkheim was the first to point to ritual\u2019s community forming potential. He argued that rituals are the collective representations of the social group itself — rituals arouse passion, feelings of connectedness, and an experience of something larger than the individual. These features of ritual are conducive to identifying with social groups in an emotional and empowering way.<\/h5>\n