Ritual as Self-Negation

How ritual undermines the narcissism of the neoliberal order

In a previous post, I reflected on the connection between liturgy and meditation. I mentioned at one point that many contemporary masters and practitioners of meditation set up a false dichotomy between meditation and ritual. Meditation, for them, is the way of spontaneity and freedom, whereas ritual is the way of stodgy traditionalism and oppressive rigidity, or something like that. I can’t now recall all the places where I’ve heard this thought expressed, but it seems ubiquitous in the modern revival of meditation. (One person I recall uttering this thought was Fr. Richard Rohr, the Franciscan priest and meditation teacher, of questionable orthodoxy…)

Recently, however, I’ve been reading the Korean-German philosopher, Byung-Chul Han, who offers a different perspective. Han is a fascinating figure in German philosophy. He is still quite young, but his books offer incisive postmodern critiques of contemporary neoliberal society and modern capitalism that rival the critiques of the Frankfurt Marxists — indeed, in some ways they are even more radical and more pessimistic than the traditional Marxist critiques. By the same token, Han’s critique of capitalism also includes a revival of pre-modern concepts and values which I think would make ordinary Marxists uncomfortable.

One of Han’s books is called The Disappearance of Rituals, which was recently reviewed quite favorably by the Catholic traditionalist author (and liturgical expert), Dr. Joseph Shaw. In one chapter, Han takes a look at the example of the Japanese tea ceremonies, which were once hailed by the Marxist philosopher, Alexandre Kojeve, as the consummate example of ritual form for a society beyond historical conflict. According to Han, the function of the Japanese ritual is almost exactly identical to the function of meditation, as understood in the Zen tradition which has undoubtedly influenced Japanese culture, and which is (supposedly) being revived in the modern “mindfulness” movement.

For some brief background, the practice of meditation in Zen is a practice of “no-self,” to use the phrase popularized by the late Thich Nhat Hanh. In other words, it is a practice meant to dissolve the illusion of a separate individualized ego, and it seeks instead the cultivation of a kind of inner “emptiness.” It is a practice of self-negation. For Zen Buddhism, it is the false affirmation of the ego and its illusions of itself as a separately subsisting entity that are responsible for all suffering and pain. The liberation achieved through meditation is thus a matter of negating the false self, the self imagined as a self-subsisting ego identity.

Byung-Chul Han’s analysis of neoliberal capitalism is based on a similar idea. According to Han, in books like The Burnout Society or Psychopolitics, neoliberal society is an “achievement society,” in contrast to the “disciplinary society” of the earlier 20th century. (Interestingly, this means that Michel Foucault wrongly diagnosed neoliberalism as a form of disciplinary society.) In other words, rather than being subject to commands and rigid forms of discipline, the subjects of achievement society are subject to the imperative to achieve: they are what Han calls “entrepreneurs of the self.” They are engaged in a constant project of self-creation and self-exploitation, the glorification of their individualized egos. They are endlessly encouraged and pressured to obsess over themselves, which results in the proliferation of psychic maladies like depression and burnout. As taught by Zen, suffering is the result of the illusion of a separate self.

Meditation, in Zen, is proposed as the antidote to such a cycle of illusions. Byung-Chul Han, likewise, advocates in several of his books for the recovery of “the art of lingering,” by which he means the capacity to resist the imperative to achieve, with all of its demands of hyperactivity and endless labor and consumption, and instead rest in the simple and intentional inactivity of doing nothing. In other words, contemplation — or meditation.

Ritual, in Han’s interpretation of the Japanese tea ceremonies, is nothing other than a form of meditation. The formalized gestures of a true ritual have the effect of erasing the possibility of self-expression and self-affirmation that is so characteristic of a narcissistic achievement society. In a ritual,

there is no space for psychology. Participants are truly de-psychologized. . . The actors immerse themselves in ritual gestures, and these gestures create an absence, a forgetfulness of self. In a tea ceremony, there is no communication. Nothing is communicated. There is ritual silence. Ritual gesture takes the place of communication. The soul falls silent. In the stillness, participants exchange gestures which generate an intense being-with. The soothing effect of a tea ceremony results from the fact that its ritual silence is so strongly opposed to today’s communicative noise, today’s communication without community. The ceremony brings forth a community without communication. (64-65)

Han’s terminology is perhaps somewhat unconventional (“community without communication”), but the point he is making is truly remarkable. Because of the formal gestures of a ritual, the self must renounce its propensity to assert itself, its propensity to achieve something, and it must lose itself — forget itself — in the pre-determined motion of the ritual itself. The ritual itself is thus nothing but an act of meditation, because it accomplishes exactly the form of self-negation and self-emptying that is the very purpose of meditation, at least in the tradition of Zen Buddhism — and I would argue, the tradition of Catholic mysticism as well.

Thus, contrary to many other practitioners of meditation, I would argue (following Byung-Chul Han) that the revival of meditation will never be authentic if it is not also accompanied by a revival of ritual. Rightly understood and rightly executed, it will be a radically traditionalist revival every bit as much as it will also constitute an act of radical subversion against the neoliberal capitalist order.