That is what Our Father said it was

UPDATE: I made slight modifications to the text to make my final point more clear.

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Just finished reading Transformations: Identity Construction in Contemporary Culture by Grant McCracken.

Difficult read in places, but paints a picture of the development of the concept of self-hood and how an individual can/cannot change within a culture through different "transformations" (e.g. rites of passage, for example) which demarcate modifications in the nature of the self.

I will probably have multiple entries on the book (since there is much richness to draw on), but I'll try to summarize the thesis broadly below. He describes our culture as transitioning from:

1. Traditional - Face-to-face societies where ritual and myth are the means of transformation. Only prescribed types of transformations are allowed. Individuals may not choose or invent their transformational routines.
2. Status - Hierarchical societies where individual station is defined by birth (e.g. class or caste systems). Individuals could endeavor to change their status by cultivating exteriors (clothing, speech, deportment) and interiors (thought, emotion, outlook) to create a convincing performance of the social self.
3. Modern - Beat poets (previewing the 60s social upheaval) declared war on status transformation and adopted an oppositional cultural stance against the pretensions of bourgeois society. Authenticity and the individual self were valued above (and were in conflict with) mainstream social norms. Even within the mainstream, modern faith in technology and progress depicted an evolutionary self, one with the capacity for self-directed change, that was always forward looking and unmoored from its past.
4. Postmodern - The self is porous, fluid and open to near complete self-determination. The individual claims the right of self-authorship and the right to change the cultural categories that define him/her. Moreover, the individual consists of many "selves" with an emphasis on exploration of multiplicity over singular authenticity.

In short, the portrait moves from a sense of selfhood that is defined and limited by the outer societal norms, to one where the self is free to become nearly anything that one can imagine.

Now, the thesis is NOT that we shifted through all 4 phases, one displacing the one prior, but that they are additive. We still have "traditional" forms (e.g. weddings, etc.) but the power of society to define and control those meanings is limited and even contested (e.g. Prop 8).

I found this quote regarding traditional societies to be an echo of many present day culture war issues:

The ruling ideas of a traditional society are truly sovereign. They discourage criticism, originality and the "disposition to change." They discourage the very concept of reform. As J.S. La Fontaine puts it, these societies "base their concept of society on the idea of tradition, established once and for all. Society is the projection over time of the original founders, heroes or ancestors."

[snip]

What does not serve the "traditional forms" of a society is not allowed to matter. For many of these societies it isn't wisdom unless it is received.

When questioned as to why a particular ceremonial activity is carried out in a particular way, Navajo singers will most often say, "because the kiyin dine - the Holy People - did it that way in the first place." The ultima ratio of non-literates tends to be "that is what our fathers said it was." [em: mine]

The quote above reminded me of this recent Dreher post on the schism within the Anglican church.

Damon is troubled, and understandably so, by the fact that American churches are breaking apart based on positions congregations and individuals within them hold on culture-war issues. I don't see how any serious believer, whichever side he takes, can be cheered by schism. But I am inclined to think of schism as the second-worst option, if the only other is to accommodate one's church to a serious heresy.

As Damon notes, the stance a believer takes on issues like abortion, homosexuality, order and authority in the family, and a related constellation of concerns, typically places one within one camp or the other. It's no accident that there's a thread connecting stances on both sides; i.e., there's a reason why Christians who oppose abortion rights are more likely to oppose same-sex marriage rights, and vice versa. It all comes down, in the end, to Authority. [em: original]

If you believe that Scripture, or Scripture and the institutional Church, is the Authority for deciding questions of meaning and morality, then you are far more likely to fall on the traditionalist side of these questions. If you believe that individual conscience is the Authority, then you are likely to be a progressive.

To Dreher, a social conservative, the ultima ratio on any such question comes down to: that is what Our Father said it was.