Talk:Rite of passage/Archives/2015

This isn't right
I was just reading Gennep. The view presented here is not right. Gennep says that society is divided into a great many subgroups. A passage is when individuals change subgroups. It is marked by various sorts of rituals, and he goes on to define them. Growing up, initiation, and all that, is only one aspect of a passage and the attendant ritual. So, the article does not pay attention to basic definitions. It is not comprehensive in scope. I do believe Gennep devised the term, but that needs to be checked. We are talking French terms here. Rite de Passage is nothing you would say in English if it did not already exist in French. Groups also can change subgroups. I tired to check the editor's refs, but he has a convenient system of avoiding them and making it look right. Very clever. Might have been easier just to learn the way to do it. He sets up what looks like a harvard ref in a footnote, so you do not expect a complete ref there. However, you may not get the complete ref in the Bibliography, either. Neither chapter nor pages might be specified. He does not say where in Gennep all this stuff comes from. In fact, nowhere. Gennep has a different idea. This is not a bad article; in fact, I like it. No one can be expected to do everything right. I think though we need to begin with basic definitions. What is a Rite of Passage, who defined it, and when? Why is it called rite of passage or is that just something any sophomore would be expected to imbibe through the skin? As a handmaiden to this effort we need correctly formatted and filled out references, just like in a real academic article. So, I will at some point start on this, since I am looking at the Anthropology of Religion articles. The French article is better, I think, but let's see what we can do.Botteville (talk) 21:56, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Replaced intro
"is a ritual event that marks a person's transition from one status to another. Rites of passage explore and describe various notable milestones in an individual's life, for any marked transitional stage, when one's social status is altered.

The concept of rites of passage as a general theory of socialization was first formally articulated by Arnold van Gennep in his book The Rites of Passage to denote rituals marking the transitional phase between childhood and full inclusion into a tribe or social group. Van Gennep's work exercised a deep impact on anthropological thought. Milestones include transitions from puberty, junior, middle and high school, coming of age, marriage, family and death."

My reasons are, it is unreferenced, unencyclopedic and wrong. I apologize for any upset such a statement may cause you. Do you hate me? Transition from one social status to another. Gennep does not mention any social status. That is editorial interpretation. In Gennep, people pass between groups. The passage might be a milestone and it might not be. What's milestone? A planned success? Let's use Gennep's language. Not all milestones are ritualized. A murderer is executed while praying. Is that milestone? It is a rite of passage. Gennep is not describing a debutante ball here. The milestone might not be notable. Moreover, rites do not alter anything, they only celebrate alteration. Moreover, Gennep's purpose was not to denote rituals marking the transition between childhood and full inclusion. He tries to be quite general. Any sort of a passage in the sacred sphere will do. Maybe the worst item is the the general theory of socialization. Rites of passage have nothing at all to do with socialization. You have to do that independently. Let's take infant baptism. Exactly what socialization takes place there? Or, the Bar Mitzvah. If you can't already read your Hebrew or have an idea how to behave as a man in the Jewish religion, you don't get the Bar Mitzvah. It's a rite not a socialization. We don't educate our children with rites of passage. Now, the deep impact. You don't say? How deep? Are you able to say at this point? Non-encyclopedic and obvious. Well, I need to get more of the new intro in there. Ciao.Botteville (talk) 17:11, 11 March 2015 (UTC).

Here's another removal:

"Initiation ceremonies such as baptism, akika, upanayana, confirmation and Bar or Bat Mitzvah are considered important rites of passage for people of their respective religions. Rites of passage show anthropologists what social hierarchies, values and beliefs are important in specific cultures."

I'm following the principle that whatever says nothing can't be encyclopedic The editor seems to have intended some fluff, or fill-in, but I think we are better than that.. The examples of initiation, those are given in a distinct section below. The editor seems fixated of statuses and social hierarchies - social climbing - but the book is not about social climbing. You could follow a similar course in describing, say, the decline of an alcoholic: the loss of a job, the divorce, the court hearings, the expulsion from the clubs, the associations with the organizations intended to help alcoholics, the prison sentence, etc. Those are groups too, those are rite of passage too. This is a general model here, which is so life-like it was immediately recognizd as true.Botteville (talk) 00:07, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Confusion about the Intro
I guess the intro featuring 'a monkey raping a patato' is a hoax. It may have replaced the original short definition and description that are easy to understand at first glance, which is the most important part. Can anyone locate the original first part and fix that? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TMA-1701 (talk • contribs) 10:35, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Vandalism neutralised, thanks. Should I delete this passage in the Talk page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TMA-1701 (talk • contribs) 11:53, 21 October 2015 (UTC)