Пустой ритуал: повседневность как пространство секулярной сакральной симуляции

Empty Ritual: Everyday Life as a Space of Secular Sacred Simulation

This article introduces the concept of the “empty ritual”, which refers to the regular, emotionally charged actions that make up everyday life in secular societies. In terms of formal characteristics (regularity, separation from routine, emotional intensity), these practices resemble religious or quasi-religious rituals; yet they lack a transcendental referent or a sacred source of transformation. Thus, secularization does not produce a deficit of rituals, but generates a new type of them. The individual acts as the guarantor of meaning, which leads to a paradox of self-reference and the inevitable repetition of ritual actions. The article analyzes the temporal dimension of these rituals. A religious ritual is embedded in sacred history and is directed toward the eschaton. The Soviet quasi-ritual preserved the eschatological horizon of communism. The “empty ritual” exists in cyclical time, which has no ultimate goal. The cycle simulates progress through “empty innovations”, but essentially, it amounts to spinning in place. The anthropological consequence is the loss of the capacity for symbolic experience and contemplation of the image: everyday life functions at the level of isolated signs rather than symbols or images. This conceptual framework can be used to analyze the ritualization of the profane in modern societies.