Word: ritualization
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...park benches for glimpses of colored plastic, being shoved by some clambering kid who stole all the eggs we had clearly seen first—yes, those were the innocent days when we didn’t know or care about the essentially pagan origins of this holy day ritual...
...think it's good for the simple reason that it's still around today. It's obviously conferred some advantages. I think it's adaptive on the individual level in that, if you believe you can control uncontrollable situations, it makes them less stressful. So the role of personal ritual is very useful in dealing with situations where you feel threatened. But I also think that the supersense could operate at the social level. What I mean by that is that if everyone in a group buys into the possibility that there are some values that are sacred...
Softball players are known for their superstitions, and freshman pitcher Rachel Brown is no exception. Before and during each game, she makes sure to avoid stepping on the chalk lines of the infield. This ritual is just about the only concession Brown makes to forces that are beyond her control...
...Quad boat incident.” For several years, freshmen students have trudged to the Charles River to light small boats on fire on the eve of Housing Day in hope of securing a desired House placement. This year, however, Cambridge and Harvard police aggressively shut down the ritual. Several boats of more outlandish construction may have merited intervention, but the overall crackdown carried out by HUPD was excessive. It seems incredible that a few flimsy craft, doomed to sail a few feet and then crumple in flames, posed a real safety threat. Obviously, students cannot be allowed to endanger...
After Kosberg the history of River Run becomes fuzzy. Kosberg said he passed down the ritual to a fellow student in HRTV. But in 2001 the tradition seemed to disappear for a year, to resurface in recent years with minor additions and metamorphose. However, in 1997 the Crimson published an article publishing Kosberg’s exploits, so in our small way, Flyby and The Crimson would like to think that we have contributed to the posterity of this most excellent tradition...