Derek, the Cooker and Superstition

Derek, my landlady’s son-in-law, is called upon each time the flat is faced with some problem. This time it was the replacement of the Cooker. One of the hobs would continue to burn, even when turned off. This problem was graciously rectified by our generous landlady, by replacing it with a brand new Cooker, and Derek had been called again to install it. He is a genuinely lovely man, who took pride in his workmanship and meticulous execution of jobs. He was very knowledgeable about structure of buildings, water supply systems, electrical appliances and just about everything that goes into the making of a house, which we are all dependent on and yet take for granted without giving it much thought. He was a builder by profession.

Today, even as he was installing the Cooker, I was standing next to him, offering a hand whenever required and shooting questions at him at periodic intervals. He was explaining the difference between electric and gas Cookers and the advantages of the old wood burning range Cookers when he suddenly noticed a wire slightly protruding out and asked me to pull the Cooker to one side. He had connected the wires and turned all the hobs on. Even as I replied, ‘sure, will do’, I was leaning over him, to put off the main Cooker switch. Derek turned to me with incredulity in his eyes, ‘you don’t have to turn it off’, he exclaimed. ‘But if I am going to move the Cooker, won’t it be safer to first turn it off?’ I questioned back. He looked at me bewildered, and asked bluntly, ‘are you superstitious?’ ‘These things go through rigorous safety checks and they are completely safe’, he explained and I, ‘non-superstitious’ that I was, reluctantly pulled the Cooker to one side leaving the switch on. Job done, pleasantries exchanged, Derek was on his way out. But his question ‘are you superstitious?’ stayed with me, even as he left. What action or disposition of mine was superstitious? What does he mean by the word ‘superstitious’? And am I really superstitious?

Derek’s question got me thinking...

And led me to inquire into what ‘superstition’ meant. Of course, I am aware of the common usage of this term and what it means in contemporary parlance. Any online dictionary would give you a definition similar to this: ‘A belief, practice, or rite irrationally maintained by ignorance of the laws of nature or by faith in magic or chance’. According to this definition the main ideas behind ‘superstition’ are ‘irrationality’ and a belief in ‘supernatural causation’ – in other words, superstition is anything that on one hand went against the demands of ‘reason’ and ‘natural law’ and on the other positively a belief in the ‘supernatural’. Therefore, the modern understanding of ‘superstition’ can said to be defined by two other categories – ‘rationality’ and ‘religion’, in that it has a negative relationship with the former and a positive relationship with the latter – the absence of rationality and the presence of religion (qualified by irrationality) is superstition.

But what has this got to do with my leaning over Derek to turn off the Cooker mains? How is that ‘irrational’ or a ‘belief in supernatural causation’? A clue immediately comes to our cognitive visibility, and we can attempt to infer an answer to this question, but rushing into that answer would only be at the expense of missing out on the deep structures of the imaginaire out of which Derek’s question flowed. So you will have to bear with me for a very brief detour into the history of this fascinating term, which I promise, will not only give us a richer answer to our interrogation of Derek, but also provide some fodder for thought about our own worldview.

An important point to keep in mind is that words change meaning, even drastically, over time. A good example is found in an article by Megan Lane of BBC News Magazine titled ‘Disgust: How did the word change so completely?’ which held the number one position in the ‘most popular read’ story in BBC News today (15^th November 2011). Here she investigates how the term ‘disgust’  which was used to 'express distaste for rotten food or filth' at the time of its inclusion into the English language in early seventeenth century, is presently deployed to express a negative sentiment 'against looters, phone hackers and others whose actions many find morally murky.' Thus, words change meaning over time and they therefore have to be understood in the historical context in which they are used. This insight is important for our modern times when we work under a paradigm that presupposes that meanings are essential and universal in nature, transcending cultural and historical situatedness. Maybe my obliviousness to Derek’s context was responsible for my inability to understand his usage of the term ‘superstition’ for my action. Thus our investigation must lead us to explore Derek’s contextually-defined usage of the term.

Mary R. O’Neil in her article Superstition in the 2005 Encyclopaedia of Religion recognises that the term ‘superstition’ too has changed its meaning over time and argues that ‘its specific meanings vary widely in different periods and contexts, so that a survey of its historical application rather than an abstract definition is the best approach to the concept of superstition’. However, in spite of her cautioning, her own historical trace of this term appears to be dominated by the idea of ‘rationality’ informed by the modern understanding of ‘superstition’  resonating with the online definition we considered above rather than reveal the self-understanding of the earlier historical periods. For example describing the classical usage of ‘superstition’ she writes that the ‘classical world criticized certain religious behaviours as irrational, or as reflecting an incorrect understanding of both nature and divinity’ and this was ‘superstition’ in Antiquity for O’Neil. However the Classical understanding of superstition can she shown to be different during different periods even within the classical epoch and there are understandings of ‘superstition’ within the Classical period that have nothing to do with ‘rationality’.

Although her use of ‘rationality’ to interpret ‘superstition’ does not do justice to her own observation that the term needs to be studied in its historical location, she however makes an explicit connection between ‘superstition’ and ‘religion’. For O’Neil irrational religion is equivalent to superstition, an idea which we have already seen contained in our online definition. William Pitt in 1800 in his tract Superstition takes this argument to its logical conclusion. He makes a distinction between ‘religion of reason’ which focuses on the ‘eternal moral law of God’ and ordinary religion which for him emphasised on ‘holy romances, sacred fables, and traditionary tales’. His definition of ‘ordinary religion’ which he declares as ‘superstition’ practically encompasses all religious beliefs and practices. Thus, for Pitt, religion is superstition. To sum up, superstition is defined both (a) in opposition to rationality, and (b) as identical to irrational religion. Thus the modern view of superstition as religion is largely defined in opposition to what is seen as rational.

The obsession with ‘rationality’ and ‘superstition as the lack of it’ is uniquely characteristic of us moderns. The philosopher Alexander Lesser in 1931 has astutely observed that we moderns uncritically impose our view of superstition on our construction of knowledge of both other cultures and of different times. He argues that ‘a vague  differentiation  of  the  superstitious  from  the  rational  has  for the  most  part  availed,  because  all  issues  have  been  drawn  in  the universe  of  discourse  of  our  own  culture,  and  between  credulous, ignorant  belief  and  the  reasoned  thinking  of  the  logically  trained. In  so  far  as  the  intellectual  life  of  other  cultures,  particularly  the primitive,  have  been  drawn  into  discussion,  there  has  been  tacit agreement  that  unless  rationalism  can  be  shown  to  dominate  them, these  alien  realms  of  discourse  are  superstition.  Ethnologists  as well  as philosophers  have  assumed  this  attitude,  partly,  I  think,  because  the  ethnologists  have  uncritically  carried  the  distinction,  or lack of distinction,  over into  their  subject-matter.’ Similar to our critique of Mary R. O’Neil, Lesser’s critique is directed against Alice Gardner’s account of superstition in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. Gardner defines superstition as ‘ a  number  of  beliefs,  habits  and fancies,  tribal  and  individual,  which we regard  as not  being  founded on reasonable conceptions  of the world and of human life,  necessities and obligations.’ Lesser considers this as an ‘undiscriminating use’ of the term and questions back ‘what is such a “reasonable conception”?’ and ‘who is to judge its reasonableness and by what standard?’ Lesser’s critique is followed by a proposal which is equally exciting as his critique but before we get into that, we need to respond to the critique. The critique is that we are using our ‘modern’ understanding of ‘rationality’ to define ‘superstition’ pejoratively as ‘irrationality’ either in our description of other cultures, or even in tracing the historical development of this term. So the question is – was superstition understood in any other way, especially in the history of this term and was it defined in ways that have nothing to do with (ir)rationality?

The term ‘superstition’ etymologically comes from the Latin superstitio (noun) which is traced back to the first century AD and superstitiosus (adjective) which can be traced back to early antiquity for example going all the way back to Plautus in the fourth century BC. The first interesting insight we get from Ross is that the term superstition is non-pejorative in its usage in both Plautus’ usage of superstitiosus as well as Statius’ usage of superstitio in Thebaid in the first century AD where it is positively used analogous to the Roman religio signifying the rite and method of worship of the Roman goddess of forgiveness and mercy, Clementia. This brings the second insight that superstitio refers to a rite or a method of worship. Thirdly, Ross argues that while the Ennian usage in the second century BC is similarly non-pejorative as Plautus, its usage of superstitiosi  vates (superstitious seers) however contains a hint of sneer thus leading to a ‘extraordinary controversy about the meaning and development of superstitio’ in classical literature. So what was the controversy? Finally, Ross shows that in Seneca, in the first century BC, there is a divide between religio and superstitio, where religio is taken as the worship of the gods and supersitio as the violation of that worship, thus it appears that superstitio is beginning to get a pejorative nuance. But what is the basis of this pejoration? Here also originates the dichotomy between religion and superstition, but the dichotomy unlike our modern usage is not based on rationality, rather on other factors. Ross shows how the Ciceronian view gives a clue into the basis of this distinction which also reveals the source of pejoration – for Cicero a religio becomes superstitiosa if it is infected with ‘new or strange rites’. Therefore it was not religio becoming irrational, but it being supplemented or supplanted with rites different from those of religio that made it superstition.

Janssen in his article on ‘Superstitio’ and the Persecution of the Christians brings to light the distinction between superstitio and religio by investigating why the Romans considered Christianity as superstitio and worthy of persecution.

Janssen offers a fascinating historical trace of superstitio basing on the works of Otto, Linkomies and Benveniste on this term: first, in Plautus comedies superstitio refers to a clairvoyant who ‘in a supernatural  way have a clear knowledge about events that happened in the past and who are aware of things present which are beyond ordinary  human perception.’ However secondly, Janssen argues that in the first century BC the meaning of ‘superstitiosus and its derivative superstitio had shifted from clairvoyant to prophesying, foretelling future events’. Thirdly, Superstitio in this sense of prophesy introduced ‘un-Roman rites’ many of which came to the Roman republics from cults of foreign origin. If religio was seen as Roman rites to their gods then superstitio was seen as competing rites with allegiances to strange deities which were considered as ‘a serious offence to the Roman gods and a direct attack on the Roman state’. Fourthly, superstitio in Cicero has to do with people’s practicing of these new rites to ensure that their children survived them. Thus the emphasis was on individual welfare as opposed to the welfare of the Roman state – fostering one’s own interest before that of the res publica. Finally, if religio was seen as rites and rituals that kept the Roman republic together with its pietas and virtus then superstitio as strange and foreign rites with a focus on the individual and disregard for the community of the Roman republic (nomen Romanum) had to be destroyed. In short, superstitio was seen as a competing cult with rites that drew people, away from religio which were Roman rites exalting the Roman Empire, to a way of life consisting of foreign practices that even sought the end of Rome. Thus, in classical times, religion and superstition were opposed to each other not on the basis of reason or rationality but on the basis of political allegiance to the Roman state.

What has all this got to do with Derek and my leaning over him? Before we conclude with that answer, let’s summarise what we have learnt from this incursion into the study of superstition. We have looked at two periods – Classical and Modern – and their usage of the term superstition respectively. In the modern period ‘superstition’ has been used as opposed to reason and analogous to irrational religion. However, in the Classical period superstition is primarily used as opposed to religion but religion was defined by its allegiance to the Roman state rather than by rationality and hence, superstition was anything that opposed the Roman state. Thus in antiquity religio and superstitio were two ways of living lives, possessing two different allegiances and two separate kinds of rites and rituals, in short, two traditions. In modern times, in both religio and superstitio being bundled together as irrational, what is missed is that these terms are being defined against and in opposition to another tradition or cult, namely the cult of scientific material rationalism. In other words, religion and superstition being termed irrational has to taken as differently-rational, contrary to the rationality of scientific materialism. Scientific materialism too has its own rites, rationality, allegiance-demands, and therefore in short is a tradition. Just as in Classical times the competition was between two distinct traditions of superstitio and religio, similarly in our modern age the conflict is between the two distinct traditions of superstition/religion and scientific materialism. Each of these traditions have their own practices and texts and authorities and demand allegiance and punish disobedience.

It is against this background that Derek’s incredulity and admonishing gathers meaning. My failure to trust the safety of modern science made me an apostate, someone who did not believe in the reigning religio of our modern times and thus in that sense was acting superstitiously. The god of modern science was not given her due by my action. I was performing a strange rite of turning off the Cooker, which went against the established authority of science. The manufacturers of the Cooker rigorously following the dictates of Science, according to Derek, have produced a Cooker that guarantees my safety and my failing to recognise that and not trusting it, made me superstitious. My act, however insignificant, was going against the res publica of Science and therefore I had to be admonished and my disbelief destroyed, lest these tiny drops of dissent form a torrent that would threaten Rome. But Science is much more a dangerous religion than the Roman religio, because it does not define itself only by some specific rites or allegiances as the Roman religio, but it defines itself by the nature of what is rational. In that it has subsumed everything rational, as its own and in that it terms everything that is against its rationality as irrational and as religious superstition. But the crucial question upon which the ‘god of science’ stands or falls has to do the nature of rationality and particularly if it is universal?

But here is where we must return to Lesser’s proposal. With some clever work, Lesser establishes that rationalism can be seen in two senses – first, in the narrow sense of justification through formal logical statements and secondly, in the broader sense of the possession of reasoning powers in a systematic sense, however without regard to a defined logic. Therefore what is pre-logical while it goes against the narrow sense of rationalism, is however not ipso facto irrational as it is still within the purview of the broader sense of rationalism. In other words every religious or superstitious practice or rite has its own rationality within its own system of reference. It is only an isolated belief or practice that could appear irrational, however, when it is seen in its systematic interrelations with other beliefs and practices, its own rationality will emerge. This insight that every religio/superstitio possesses a competing rationality challenges the hegemony of the god of science just as Christian superstitio challenged the Roman religio. There is no single rationality, but a plurality of rationalities. Different religious traditions possessing differing rationalities are able to offer alternative beliefs and practices and visions of the good life, even if they are contrary to the claims of modern scientific rationality.

It appears that the central questions for us is – to whom do we give our allegiance, whom do we worship, whose texts and practices have supremacy in our lives, and which tradition do we follow? I am happy to have Derek follow his scientific religion and perform rites dictated by it even if they are different than mine, but probably what raised my curiosity was his incredulity in me not subscribing to his god and rites. It appeared as if suddenly the Roman Empire had reincarnated as modern science which taking on eagle’s wings was demanding my obeisance.

Derek had long gone, and it was a week later and the incident nearly forgotten. Keeping in line with my rigorous diet that had nothing to do with religio or superstitio or science, I was getting ready a tray of veggies to be grilled for my dinner. As l turned the Cooker on to pre-heat the grill – suddenly, lo and behold – flashing lights and a loud noise, and the Cooker went out with a big bang. I stood frozen next to it, glad to have my shoes on and I thought – even the scientific god cannot be completely trusted, and maybe my earlier act of defiance was not all too unwise.

Every Rome has its fall.