Rituals Without Religion (with Michael Norton) 4/8/24

While religion may play less of a role in many people’s lives, rituals-the lifeblood of religion-remain central to the human experience. Listen as Michael Norton of the Harvard Business School explains how and why rituals remain at the center of our lives-they give meaning to life-cycle events and secular holidays, calm our fears, and give us a sense of control when the pressure to perform can otherwise overwhelm us.
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[@andrewrussell6806]

Wonderful topic. I think about rituals a lot. My wife and I have 4 kids. Her parents were hippies and she had an extremely secular chidhood. I grew up in a fairly devout Christian household, but now I'm agnostic. Establishing meaningful rituals has proven very challenging. For example, holidays are often vapid and relatively meaningless for me, although the kids seem happy. Dinner time is just a task to knock out. We do have many micro rituals. Not sure how to establish more substantive rituals or give my kids some knowledge about a variety of religious traditions. Some of my favorite episodes are on parenting or peri-parenting. On today's topic, one book that's proved helpful is The Blessing of a Skinned Knee which is about parenting with Jewish rituals. Anyway, I greatly enjoyed the discussion. I'm a big fan of Econtalk and Russ Roberts. Glimpsing his window into the devastating attack of 10/7 and the aftermath has been moving and illuminating. Thank you for this and the podcast. I've learned a lot over the years.

[@DanHowardMtl]

32:43 Sounds like that could have been a good Seinfeld episode.

[@gerardomenendez8912]

Who said rituals are the liveblood of religion?

[@wankim1]

43:02 that team that takes turns getting lunch for everyone…I’d quit. Lunch is my time to break away from the “team” 🤣