Jeff Russell

Hmm, so I finally had a chance to read the full Eisenstein pice, and it was quite interesting. Overall, I think he has a very important point, that "real" culture and ritual isn't consciously adopted/invented, it just feels like how things are. On the other hand, I think he might be giving short shrift to the process of internalizing a ritual, perhaps for rhetorical effect. For example, I say a short prayer whenever I put on my Thunor's Hammer necklace - these days, that just feels like part of the putting-on process, it's fairly "automatic." Somehow, though, blessing my food before I eat it, despite growing up with that habit, is less automatic, but when I do it, it feels pretty natural. Other prayers are less well-established, and have flashes of feeling true and authentic, and long stretches of feeling like going through the motions. So, I think that's a normal and natural part of an individual adopting ritual, and it wouldn't surprise me if something like that plays out at the large scale of groups of folks trying to work out "culture."

As for what this has to do with slack? Hmmm. Well, disciplined practice is one non-intuitive way to get to slack. When you become very good at something, and it becomes automatic, then all of a sudden you have more slack around doing it than when you had to concentrate as hard as you could to do it. So, departing wildly from what the Church of the Subgenius might say, if the rituals of the culture around you are accpeted and made a routine part of your life, maybe they save you the work of figuring a lot of stuff out for yourself, and thus can grant you slack.