Since the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 8, the power of ritual has been front and center. It’s been moving to witness, and even some people who are skeptical of the monarchy — including Americans — have reacted strongly. Why?
For sociologists like me, the answer has to do with the fundamentals of how human communities persist. For any group, death is an existential threat. All of us are invested in other people and their places in our communities and social order. When leaders die, we need to find a way to go on without them.
Emile Durkheim — a founding figure in sociology and anthropology — famously pointed out that rituals have the power to produce emotions, remind us of our obligations and ties to one another, and make intangibles tangible, including in unexpected ways. Think of the people who cry at weddings, surprising even themselves.
Durkheim theorized that society was not a physical entity but a powerful idea. For this reason, members must find a way to make this abstraction real: to invest it with weight and feeling. Otherwise, our natural hedonism threatens to overwhelm the collective good and weaken society.
One important way that we make ideas real is by creating powerful symbols — crowns, flags at half-staff, the wearing of black clothing — and incorporating these into public rituals. The collective aspect of rituals is key to their power. And one of the oldest symbols is, of course, the physical body as a stand-in for the body politic: Though the queen lacked political power, she was a symbol of the British people.
Once deceased, her son, King Charles III, immediately replaced her. Though it might seem surprising that people in crowds outside Buckingham Palace would immediately proclaim, “God save the King,” doing so for them is an expression of continuity.
Durkheim was preoccupied with maintaining an orderly, tolerant society despite internal conflict and divisions over religion, class, ethnicity and politics. Though one might not agree with his emphasis on order, it’s hard to argue with his assessment of the power of ritual. In fact, resistance also requires it.
