You know what\u2019s been in the news a lot lately? Twitter<\/a>. The erstwhile social media haunt of the dorky Beltway set circa 2009 is now being used for propaganda<\/a>, for international communication<\/a>, and potentially for fomenting<\/a> Thucydidean wars<\/a>. That\u2019s right: we\u2019ve literally entered a time in history when the president-elect of the United States can cause a major international incident by blurting out a half-formed thought directly onto Twitter. But you know what? He\u2019s not alone. The internet is a place where all of our thoughts go live<\/a>, just about as soon as we\u2019ve thought them (and sometimes before). As it turns out, this is a major problem. It\u2019s destabilizing. And religious studies<\/i> \u2013 of all things \u2013 can help us understand why.<\/p>\n Wait. Religious studies? Isn\u2019t that\u00a0where people learn how to preach so they can become pastors or missionaries or whatever? No.\u00a0Religious studies isn\u2019t theology (the confessional study of sacred texts and beliefs). And it isn\u2019t training for ministry. Religious studies is an academic field<\/a> where researchers use secular<\/i> methods to learn more about human religion. Religious studies scholars are historians<\/a>, textual scholars<\/a>, linguists<\/a>, anthropologists<\/a>, sociologists<\/a>, and \u2013 increasingly \u2013 cognitive and evolutionary scientists<\/a>. As professionals, they don\u2019t advocate for any religion or creed. Instead, they study<\/i> those systems, the way that biologists slap amoebae onto microscope slides at 100x magnification.<\/p>\n The field of religious studies has existed for more than a century, and during that time, it\u2019s built up a massive storehouse of useful findings and knowledge that could really help society come to grips with the enormous<\/a> problems<\/a> we\u2019re facing<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n For instance, a religious studies scholar could tell why Twitter-caused international destabilization is really a problem of ritual<\/i>.<\/p>\n #NoFilter Communication and the Ritual-Free Internet<\/strong><\/p>\n There was a time when everybody assumed that the internet, with its unprecedented democratizing power, would lead to radical freedom and openness, break down national boundaries and historical divisions, and eventually birth a Golden Age<\/a> of decentralized universal brotherhood, like in a Coke commercial<\/a>. But that\u2019s not what happened. Instead, the Web\u2019s amorphous decentralization seems to have given people everywhere license to retreat into homogenous echo-chamber subcultures<\/a>, severed from civic society and responsibilities, with standards of behavior<\/a> and grammar that make 12-year-olds look like Oxford-educated diplomats. \u201cFake news<\/a>\u201d flourishes in this new, horizontal information ecology, because older authority structures \u2013 like network news or newspapers of record \u2013 can\u2019t keep up with social networking sites and aggregated news feeds. No one has the position to enforce common standards or narratives. There are no filters<\/i>. And without filters, disinformation and opinion spread like brush fire.<\/p>\n That\u2019s where religious studies comes in. Religious studies scholars understand ritual. And lack<\/em>\u00a0of ritual is one of the major reasons<\/i> why there are\u00a0so few filters for information on the Web.<\/em> Why the internet is a massive soup of heaving disinformation and groundless opinions. Why international leaders stand a chance of getting us all killed<\/a>\u00a0with poorly thought-out Tweets.<\/p>\n Let me explain.<\/p>\n The average American\u2019s definition of ritual is \u201ca stodgy or meaningless action done for no very good reason, probably while wearing a silly hat.\u201d But in fact, rituals are everywhere. <\/i>They make social life possible. Whenever we shake hands with a new acquaintance, or say \u201chello\u201d when we pick up the phone, that\u2019s ritual. When we kiss our kids goodbye in the morning, that\u2019s ritual. Simply put, rituals are socially constructed standards\u00a0for behavior that ask us to act in certain ways regardless of how we\u2019re feeling internally. <\/i>Do you want<\/i> to shake hands with that awkward co-worker from accounting? Maybe not. But you shake hands anyway, because that\u2019s the appropriate<\/i> thing to do.\u00a0It\u2019s a ritual.<\/p>\n Hence, although ritual is often associated with religion, not all rituals are religious. Many are what sociologist Erving Goffman called \u201cinteraction rituals<\/a>,\u201d or social <\/i>rituals. And even the rituals that are<\/i> religious, like a Passover seder<\/a> \u2013 the annual dinner at which Jewish believers commemorate the Exodus from Egypt \u2013 are kind of like very complicated handshakes. If you\u2019re Jewish and it\u2019s Passover, you\u2019re supposed to attend a seder regardless of whether you feel like it or not. Your personal feelings \u2013 whether you\u2019re tired, hungover, happy, whatever \u2013 are less important than the obligation.\u00a0In the words of anthropologist Roy Rappaport<\/a>, \u201critual demarcates a boundary\u2026between private and public processes.\u201d<\/p>\n So in a ritualistic society, people\u2019s feelings don\u2019t fly all over the place. People act more on the basis of how they\u2019re supposed<\/i> to act \u2013 dictated by their role and by the situation \u2013 and less at the prompting of fleeting urges and emotions. Even when someone does<\/i> have an outburst, other people won\u2019t easily pick it up and pass it on. The outburst tends to die down with the person who started it.<\/p>\n What about a non<\/i>-ritualistic society, though? Well, take a look at the internet. It\u2019s a social environment with practically no ritual. After all, ritual is usually an embodied thing \u2013 handshakes, bows, kneeling at an altar rail. So in a virtual world without tangible bodies, it makes sense that ritual is scarce.<\/p>\n But this means there\u2019s no boundary between public and private<\/i>. Or between people. As a result, we say things on Facebook we wouldn\u2019t say in front of our boss. We emote. We broadcast our opinions reflexively, thanks to the online disinhibition effect<\/a>. And the internet becomes an roiling mel\u00e9e of opinions and emotional outbursts, each picked up on, retweeted, and amplified.<\/p>\n What does all this emoting and public self-expression lead to? When everyone reacts to everyone else\u2019s mental states, each momentary, personal opinion can influenc the entire wider community. Rappaport called this \u201chypercoherence.\u201d He\u00a0feared that, if\u00a0the entire world system became too tightly connected, \u201cdisorders originating anywhere could quickly spread everywhere.\u201d\u00a0Arthur Demarest, a professor of anthropology at Vanderbilt University, agrees<\/a>:<\/p>\n Hypercoherence is the close efficient linkage of all parts of the world economic, communication and transport systems.\u2026Perturbations, even small ones, immediately radiate throughout the entire system.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, compare Rappaport\u2019s and Demarest\u2019s warnings about the dangers of hypercoherence with a recent article in The Atlantic<\/i><\/a>, about the threat of weaponized social media:<\/p>\n Messages that resonate can be endorsed, adapted, and instantly amplified\u2026Today, national leaders engage in Twitter spats, and rapid-fire hashtags draw international attention\u2026events, filtered through social media, can quickly go viral \u2013 the very definition of spinning out of control.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Scary, right?<\/p>\n How Lack of Ritual Feeds Polarization<\/b><\/p>\n![\"Grumpy](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/131\/2016\/12\/Grumpy_Computer.jpg\")
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