Order of Rituals: The Interpretation of Everyday Life

To those still accustomed to seeing social order depicted in classes, strata, central groups, or institutions, and who measure and classify the social world according to "centers" and "margins," modern society presents itself as ambiguous and unmanageable. This is not unprecedented. Human societies often discover themselves in situations in which the traditional grids of order and stratification lose their value and fail to serve as guideposts for individuals.

In The Order of Rituals, Hans-G...