XI. Class X 

Common Grammar Mistakes

Possessive Case of Krebs

Krebs is a Noun. Krebs is the last name of a guy named Harold Krebs.

The pronoun for Harold Krebs would be he.

The possessive case of he is his. [no apostrophe- you do not use apostrophes with pronouns.]

The possessive case of Krebs is either Krebs’ or Krebs’s.

Almost everyone failed to show the possessive case of Krebs. It is tricky to show the possessive case of words that end in “s.”

You can choose either of the following forms to show possession of the name Krebs:

Krebs’
Krebs’s

When you talk about Krebs’s mother, you could either write Krebs’ mother or Krebs’s mother.

The same would be true about punctuating Krebs’s nightmare.

Krebs’s worst nightmare had not yet begun.

Krebs’ worst nightmare had not yet begun.

News Flash: Objects also show possession.

The wall’s stones had fallen to the ground.

Transition Words or Phrases and Commas

What is a transition word or phrase?

When do you use Commas after Introductory Words, Phrases, and Clauses?

Academic Language

Do not use contractions in your writing assignments for this class.

In your writing assignments, do not use colloquial or slang expressions like “hang out,” “hook up,”and “get with.” Find a more formal way to express yourself.

Let’s Discuss Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” Meyer and Miller, pages 763– 764.

Mending Wall
BY ROBERT FROST

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.

Ritual – “a ceremony or series of acts that is always performed the same way.” Merriam Webster

“He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.” Frost, The Mending Wall

Ritualistic – “of, relating to, or being an act or series of acts regularly repeated in a set precise manner

To avoid thinking and feeling, many people engage in ritualistic behavior. In the story “Soldier’s Home,” Krebs engages in ritualistic behavior.

In “Mending Wall,” the neighbors ritualistically meet each spring to reconstruct the stone wall that stands between them. [Keep in mind that the stone wall is both a physical one and an emotional one.]

“Spring is the mischief in me” – This alludes to the way that human behavior resembles the seasons in nature. Childhood is springtime. Autumn is maturity — nearing death.

“He moves in darkness as it seems to me” This seems to be alluding to the symbols of darkness versus light, night versus day, and evil versus good.

Analyzing Frost’s Mending Wall

Robert Frost was from New England. Imagine a huge field there, and imagine a stone wall running across the middle of a field. The stones in that wall were not cemented together. Stones were simply stacked on top of each other, and somehow, many of the stones were repeatedly knocked out of place. Perhaps the earth had frozen and swollen, and that freezing and thawing had caused stones to fall. Perhaps hunters had knocked stones out of place, but by the spring of every year, there were intermittent gaps along the fence. Note: the word gaps probably has more than one meaning. The most obvious meaning stems from the fact that there were spaces along the wall that had no stones. But the word “gaps” probably also refers to the fact that there were gaps in the relationship between the two neighbors.

The neighbors are not alike. One neighbor is all apple trees, and the other is all pine. If the trees are images, the piney neighbor is more bristly and sharp. The one that is more like apple trees would be sweeter. He has no sharp bristles. The more apple-like neighbor thinks and wonders. The more piney neighbor just spouts off words rhetorically–and ritualistically. He simply says things, without thinking about what he is saying, In his poem, The Mending Wall,  the piney neighbor ritualistically repeats a line that he had heard his father say: “Good fences make good neighbors.” The piney neighbor repeats that phrase twice. In his repetitive, seemingly unthinking abuse of words, the piney neighbor is more ritualistic. But the apple neighbor questions his neighbor’s opinions. He challenges the piney neighbor to think: “Why do fences make good neighbors?” Because neither of the two neighbors has livestock, the apple neighbor is especially perplexed. One might wonder if the piney neighbor wants to fence something in or whether he wants to keep something out, Notice also that the piney neighbor  is compared to a stone savage who “…moves in darkness….” Frost. Mending Wall. 763.

Mending Wall Assignment

Writing Assignment about Robert Frost’s Mending Wall: Write an essay in response to the following quote:

If “Fences Make Good Neighbors,” What Is the Purpose of a Gate?

You might also like to discuss the following in that paragraph:

How are Krebs and the Piney neighbor alike? 

When is ritualistic behavior bad?

Note: At times, things that repeat themselves over and over and over again become ritualistic. In “Soldier’s Home,” Krebs had slipped into several patterns that had become ritualistic. At times, rituals are okay, but in Krebs’s life, his ritual behaviors have become ways to avoid life around him. Ritualistic behavior requires no thinking. Ritualistic behavior is mechanical, and it requires no feeling either. In fact, ritualistic behavior is a way to avoid thinking or feeling. 

Works Cited

Frost, Robert. “Mending Wall.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, edited by Michael Meyer and D. Quentin Miller, 12th ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2020, p. 763.

Hemingway, Ernest. “Soldier’s Home.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, edited by Michael Meyer and D. Quentin Miller, 12th ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2020, pgs. 110-115.

XII. Class XII

Read “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin

Le Guin, Ursula K. “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, Edited by Michael Meyer and D. Quentin Miller, 12th Ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2020. pp. 116-120.

Among other things, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is a brilliant example of Setting in writing. Reminer: The setting is a description of the area where a story or book takes place.

Your assignment is to Outline the following paragraphs from “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” and to add numbers beneath either the A point or the B point or both to describe the setting. Do not use quotes. Paraphrase your points, and Write the points in complete sentences.

In an outline, if you add additional points that explain the A, B, C, points, you must number those points 1, 2, 3. For this outline, you will add points A, B, C, D, E, and beneath some of those points, you will add additional data with numbers 1, 2, 3. Please complete the entire outline as I have presented it.

An Outline of “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin

1. “With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea. The ringing of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved. Some were decorous: old people in long stiff robes of mauve and gray, grave master workmen, quiet, merry women carrying their babies and chatting as they walked. In other streets the music beat faster, a shimmering of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing, the procession was a dance. Children dodged in and out, their high calls rising like the swallows’ crossing flights over the music and the singing. All the processions wound towards the north side of the city, where on the great water-meadow called the Green Fields boys and girls, naked in the bright air, with mud-stained feet and ankles and long, lithe arms, exercised their restive horses before the race. The horses wore no gear at all but a halter without bit. Their manes were braided with streamers of silver, gold, and green. They flared their nostrils and pranced and boasted to one another; they were vastly excited, the horse being the only animal who has adopted our ceremonies as his own. Far off to the north and west the mountains stood up half encircling Omelas on her bay. The air of morning was so clear that the snow still crowning the Eighteen Peaks burned with white-gold fire across the miles of sunlit air, under the dark blue of the sky. There was just enough wind to make the banners that marked the racecourse snap and flutter now and then. In the silence of the broad green meadows one could hear the music winding throughout the city streets, farther and nearer and ever approaching, a cheerful faint sweetness of the air from time to time trembled and gathered together and broke out into the great joyous clanging of the bells.”

I. The Festival of Summer is celebrated by the people from Omelas.

A. The town of Omelas was filled with an air of festivity .

1.

2.

3.

B. People marched by in processions.

1.

2. 

C. The people were marching to the north side of the city.

D. The boys and girls were exercising their horses on the north side of the city.

1.

2.

E. It was morning, and the air was clear.

1.

2.

************************************************

For the next paragraph, you don’t need to add numbers, but you must list at least 5 things that describe the people from Omelas. Use complete paragraphs. Paraphrase. 

2. “Joyous! How is one to tell about joy? How describe the citizens of Omelas?

“They were not simple folk, you see, though they were happy. But we do not say the words of cheer much any more. All smiles have become archaic. Given a description such as this one tends to make certain assumptions. Given a description such as this one tends to look next for the King, mounted on a splendid stallion and surrounded by his noble knights, or perhaps in a golden litter borne by great-muscled slaves. But there was no king. They did not use swords, or keep slaves. They were not barbarians, I do not know the rules and laws of their society, but I suspect that they were singularly few. As they did without monarchy and slavery, so they also got on without the stock exchange, the advertisement, the secret police, and the bomb. Yet I repeat that these were not simple folk, not dulcet shepherds, noble savages, bland utopians. There were not less complex than us. The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almostlost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy. How can I tell you about the people of Omelas? They were not naive and happy children–though their children were, in fact, happy. They were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched. O miracle! But I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you. Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all. For instance, how about technology? I think that there would be no cars or helicopters in and above the streets; this follows from the fact that the people of Omelas are happy people. Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive. In the middle category, however–that of the unnecessary but undestructive, that of comfort, luxury, exuberance, etc.–they could perfectly well have central heating, subway trains, washing machines, and all kinds of marvelous devices not yet invented here, floating light-sources, fuelless power, a cure for the common cold. Or they could have none of that: it doesn’t matter. As you like it. I incline to think that people from towns up and down the coast have been coming to Omelas during the last days before the Festival on very fast little trains and double-decked trams, and that the trains station of Omelas is actually the handsomest building in town, though plainer than the magnificent Farmers’ Market. But even granted trains, I fear that Omelas so far strikes some of you as goody-goody. Smiles, bells, parades, horses, bleh. If so, please add an orgy. If an orgy would help, don’t hesitate. Let us not, however, have temples from which issue beautiful nude priests and priestesses already half in ecstasy and ready to copulate with any man or woman, lover or stranger, who desires union with the deep godhead of the blood, although that was my first idea. But really it would be better not to have any temples in Omelas–at least, not manned temples. Religion yes, clergy no. Surely the beautiful nudes can just wander about, offering themselves like divine souffles to the hunger of the needy and the rapture of the flesh. Let them join the processions. Let tambourines be struck above the copulations, and the gory of desire be proclaimed upon the gongs, and (a not unimportant point) let the offspring of these delightful rituals be beloved and looked after by all.

II. How could someone describe the people from Omelas?

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

3. “One thing I know there is none of in Omelas is guilt. But what else should there be? I thought at first there were no drugs, but that is puritanical. For those who like it, the faint insistent sweetness of drooz may perfume the ways of the city, drooz which first brings a great lightness and brilliance to the mind and limbs, and then after some hours a dreamy languor, and wonderful visions at last of the very arcane and inmost secrets of the Universe, as well as exciting the pleasure of sex beyond all belief; and it is not habit-forming. For more modest tastes I think there ought to be beer. What else, what else belongs in the joyous city? The sense of victory, surely, the celebration of courage. But as we did without clergy, let us do without soldiers. The joy built upon successful slaughter is not the right kind of joy; it will not do; it is fearful and it is trivial. A boundless and generous contentment, a magnanimous triumph felt not against some outer enemy but in communion with the finest and fairest in the souls of all men everywhere and the splendor of the world’s summer: This is what swells the hearts of the people of Omelas, and the victory they celebrate is that of life. I don’t think many of them need to take drooz.””

III.

A.

B.

C.

IV. 

A.

B.

5. “In a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its spacious private homes, there is a room. It has one locked door, and no window. A little light seeps in dustily between cracks in the boards, secondhand from a cobwebbed window somewhere across the cellar. In one corner of the little room a couple of mops, with stiff, clotted, foul-smelling heads, stand near a rusty bucket. The floor is dirt, a little damp to the touch, as cellar dirt usually is. The room is about three paces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused tool room. In the room, a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect. It picks its nose and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or genitals, as it sits hunched in the corner farthest from the bucket and the two mops. It is afraid of the mops. It finds them horrible. It shuts its eyes, but it knows the mops are still standing there; and the door is locked; and nobody will come. The door is always locked; and nobody ever comes, except that sometimes–the  child has no understanding of time or interval–sometimes the door rattles terribly and opens, and a person, or several people, are there. One of them may come in and kick the child to make it stand up. The others never come close, but peer in at it with frightened, disgusted eyes. The food bowl and the water jug are hastily filled, the door is locked; the eyes disappear. The people at the door never say anything, but the child, who has not always lived in the tool room, and can remember sunlight and its mother’s voice, sometimes speaks. “I will be good, ” it says. “Please let me out. I will be good!” They never answer. The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining, “eh-haa, eh-haa,” and it speaks less and less often. It is so thin there are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on a half-bowl of corn meal and grease a day. It is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually.”

V.

A.

B.

C.

D.

E

6. “They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery.”

VI.

A.

B.

C.

7. “This is usually explained to children when they are between eight and twelve, whenever they seem capable of understanding; and most of those who come to see the child are young people, though often enough an adult comes, or comes back, to see the child. No matter how well the matter has been explained to them, these young spectators are always shocked and sickened at the sight. They feel disgust, which they had thought themselves superior to. They feel anger, outrage, impotence, despite all the explanations. They would like to do something for the child. But there is nothing they can do. If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.”

VII.

A.

B.

C.

8. “

The terms are strict and absolute; there may not even be a kind word spoken to the child.

Often the young people go home in tears, or in a tearless rage, when they have seen the child and faced this terrible paradox. They may brood over it for weeks or years. But as time goes on they begin to realize that even if the child could be released, it would not get much good of its freedom: a little vague pleasure of warmth and food, no real doubt, but little more. It is too degraded and imbecile to know any real joy. It has been afraid too long ever to be free of fear. Its habits are too uncouth for it to respond to humane treatment. Indeed, after so long it would probably be wretched without walls about it to protect it, and darkness for its eyes, and its own excrement to sit in. Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it. Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives. Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not  free. They know compassion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science. It is because of the child that they are so gentle with children. They know that if the wretched one were not there sniveling in the dark, the other one, the flute-player, could make no joyful music as the young riders line up in their beauty for the race in the sunlight of the first morning of summer.”

VIII.

A.

B.

9. “At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go see the child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or a woman much older falls silent for a day or two, then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone, youth or girl, man or woman. Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the houses with yellow- lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

IX.

A.

B.

C.

Descriptive Writing and Setting in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”

In “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” Ursula Le Guin paints several pictures with words. First, she describes a festive harbor scene, a parade, and the people who had gathered for the annual celebration of the first day of summer.  [Note: In that this event occurs every year, it is repetitive, possibly ritualistic behavior.]

1. Le Guin described the City of Omelas as one that is bright-towered and by the sea.
2. There must be bells in the tower [s]. Bells are ringing, and as they ring, swallows flush and scatter across the sky.
3. The boats in the harbor sparkle and their flags rip through the air.
4. The houses have red roofs, and old, mossy gardens grow around them.
5. Parks are dotted around the city.
6. A line of trees arch over the roads that wind through the town.
7. A procession of joyous people parade down the roads.
8. It was a bright, clear morning, and there was just enough wind to make the flags dance in the breeze.
9. The mountains in the city’s background were snow-covered, and the sun made them glisten. The light that reflected from the mountains was a brilliant contrast to the deep, blue sky. 

If you close your eyes, you should be able to see Omelas in your mind’s eye.

Next, Le Guin described the people of Omelas: 

1. Older people were dressed in long gray and mauve robes. [The colors that Le Guin chose for the peoples’ robes speak volumes. The robes are not red or yellow-orange, or spring green. They are gray and mauve. Mauve is a dusty, muted pink.]

2. Grave workmen were in the parade.
[Define grave:”
adjective serious in appearance or manner
a grave voice” Merriam-Webster]

XIII. Class XIII

Read about Shirley Jackson & “The Lottery”
Meyer & Miller pp. 191-197

“The Lottery” is a story about a ritual of human sacrifice. Since the lottery takes place in June of every year, one might assume that this was an annual agricultural sacrifice. During ancient civilizations, human sacrifices were offered to the gods and goddesses who controlled whether or not the crops would be good each year. Other humans were sacrificed to die inside a burning volcano. In offering the sacrifice, it was hoped that the volcano would be happy and take mercy upon the village and thus, not flood it with hot, molten fire.  It is not clear why there is a lottery in Jackson’s story. The important point is that the lottery is something that has taken place ritualistically for many, many years. It seems that people have become numb to the horrors of the lottery.

Assignment: Outline the following paragraphs from “The Lottery.” This assignment is due Tuesday, September 27. 2022. Paraphrase. Do not use quotes. 

1. “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o’clock; in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 26th. but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.”

I.

A.

B.

2. “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix– the villagers pronounced this name “Dellacroy”–eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys. The girls stood aside, talking among themselves, looking over their shoulders at the boys and very small children rolled in the dust or clung to the hands of their older brothers or sisters.”

II.

A.

B.

3. “Soon the men began to gather. surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes. They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed. The women, wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came shortly after their menfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands.”
III.

A.

B.

4. “The lottery was conducted–as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program–by Mr. Summers. who had time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a round-faced, jovial man and he ran the coal business…. When he arrived in the square, carrying the black wooden box, there was a murmur of conversation among the villagers….”

IV.

A.

B.

5. “The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born. … There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here. … The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained.”

V.

A.

B.

6. “A sudden hush fell on the crowd as Mr. Summers cleared his throat and looked at the list. “All ready?” he called. “Now, I’ll read the names–heads of families first–and the men come up and take a paper out of the box. Keep the paper folded in your hand without looking at it until everyone has had a turn. Everything clear?”

“The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions: most of them were quiet. wetting their lips. not looking around.”

VI.

A.

B.

7. “‘They do say,’ Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, ‘that over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery.’

“Old Man Warner snorted. ‘Pack of crazy fools,.’ he said. ‘Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while. Used to be a saying about “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.” First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There’s always been a lottery,’ he added petulantly. …

“‘Some places have already quit lotteries.’ Mrs. Adams said.

“’Nothing but trouble in that,’ Old Man Warner said stoutly. ‘Pack of young fools.’”

VII.

A.

B.

Writing Assignment

You will look at ritualistic behavior or lack of ritualistic behavior in the following stories and poems:
“Mending Wall,” “The Road Not Taken,” “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” and “The Lottery.”

Describe how ritualistic behavior presents itself in each piece. Answer the following questions: “How is ritualistic behavior good? [Keep in mind that our observance of holidays is ritualistic. We celebrate holidays on certain days each year and we eat certain foods or do certain other things ritualistically on those holidays. At Halloween, most people go trick-or-treating, and on Thanksgiving, most people eat turkey. Not all rituals are bad, but when people are ritualistic to the point that they become numb, their behaviors might become dangerous.