The Disappearance of Rituals

My 3 highlights

• tice is an exercise in attention. A temple is a place of the highest degree of attention. According to Malebranche, attention is the natural pra ye r of the soul. Toda y, the soul does not pra y. It is permanentl y producing itself .

• tion surrounds us with disappearance, thus destabilizing life. Ritual practices ensure that we treat not onl y other people but also things in beautiful wa ys , that there is an affinit y between us and other people as well as things: Mass teaches the priests to handle things in beautiful

• A smartphone is not a ‘thing’ in Arendt’s sense. It lacks the ver y self-sameness that stabilizes life. It is also not a particularl y enduring object. It differs from a thing like a table, which confronts me in its self-sameness. The content displa ye d on a smartphone, which demands our constant attention, is an yt hing but self-same; the quick succession of bits of content displa ye d on a smartphone makes an y lingering impossible. The restlessness inherent in the apparatus makes it a non-thing