> You misinterpret me. I'm talking about a number of people (e.g. family
> members) returning to the one grave.
I see, OK - but I don't think it changes my point. If (by analogy with your
example) I agree to meet some people at a cinema and go to see a film in
their company, that's not a group ritual. If they don't turn up and I go in
alone, both the structure and the significance of the activity would be
unchanged. It would also be functionally the same if I had asked them to
come and they couldn't, or if I had decided to go on my own in the first
place. This is to say that the set of presuppositions that operate in an
event like this are not actually presuppositions about collective action as
such (maybe, for you, in the commemoration event you stipulate, they *are*;
but they wouldn't be for me; I don't experience personal loss as something
that 'unites' me with others, rather as something that I and others
experience, sometimes simultaneously, but almost invariably in
significantly different ways - rather like going to the cinema, in fact).
As other posts have suggested, it seems to me fairly important to maintain a
more nuanced set of distinctions about collective action than some of this
discussion has implied - not least because otherwise we lose sight of the
supremely important positive horizon of collective reference identified by
Michael. Going back to our point of departure - it's a wonderful life... -
the way we are now (Sept.11 rather than Dec. 25) may make it hard for anyone
to see a response to 'God' as anything other than a dangerous ritual. But
arguably the kind of sacredness Derrida discusses - 'God' as a secret
possibility, however secular that possibility is - is the necessary
condition for any truly collective value or committment. Happy Christmas,
everyone.
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