polity
Copyright © Byung-Chul Han 2020
First published in German as Vom Verschwinden der Rituale by Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH 2019
This English edition © 2020 by Polity Press
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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4277-2
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The present essay is not animated by a desire to return to ritual. Rather, rituals serve as a background against which our present times may be seen to stand out more clearly. Avoiding nostalgia, I sketch a genealogy of their disappearance, a disappearance which, however, I do not interpret as an emancipatory process. Along the way, the pathologies of the present day will become visible, most of all the erosion of community. At the same time, I offer reflections on different forms of life that might be able to free our society from its collective narcissism.