What happened? A ritualist and an arts educator dissect the Inauguration.
How do we interpret the inauguration?
For better or for worse, when it comes to interpreting an experience, I default to one of two approaches. The first is BART, a theory of group dynamics, whose acronym points to four aspects of group life - boundary, authority, role, task. As the theory goes (which assumes the development of a collective unconscious in the group), if any one of those aspects is out of whack (unclear, undefined, competing understandings, etc.) the group is vulnerable to dysfunction. I learned this theory while pursuing a master’s in education leadership, and as an educator I applied it every day. When I was putting a team together, observing a group of students, concerned about the flow of a meeting, walking into a room of people, organizing a retreat, facilitating PD with colleagues, engaging in strategic planning for the school - anything that involved a group, miniscule or institutional - BART gave me a checklist to get my bearings. What are the boundaries of and inside the group - physical boundaries, identity boundaries, time boundaries…? Where is the authority - formally recognized, informally assumed, by whom and respected by whom…? What are the roles in the group - formal and informal, stereotypical or conspicuous…? What is the task or primary function of the group (and what’s helping the group get there/obstructing it from getting there)? In the case of the Inauguration, though it is a goldmine for armchair group-psychologizing, it seems to be a little too obvious. All the formality of the occasion brought all that to the surface, and the tense days preceding it magnified all that. I think this is where most of the coverage is focusing - and rightly so - so it doesn’t seem as useful to go down that interpretive route.
So my second default approach is to tap my lens as a ritualist. It’s not that I see everything as a ritual - rather, that lens gives me a vocabulary that is transferable to the rest of mundane (in this case, not shade...just meaning not-ritualized) life. In particular, I adopt a method known as the “performance approach” as articulated by the late scholar Catherine Bell. Instead of trying to define and experience or “ritual” in the abstract, this approach is all about paying attention to the details of an experience, avoiding imposing values or expectations onto it, and letting its meaning emerge. So, considering the Inauguration, I’m going to try to set my own social, political, and cultural values aside to let the event tell me what it meant. The performance approach pays attention to four aspects of a ritual: ritual as event, ritual as interpretive framework, the efficacy of the ritual, and the reflexivity of the ritual. I don’t intend to do an exhaustive performance analysis of the Inauguration, but I’ll briefly reflect on one or two things that emerges through each of these four frames and what meaning it helps us construct.
The Inauguration as an event: Yeah, it’s an event. Something happened. I mean an event distinct from ordinary, mundane (there’s that word again), natural life. It’s intended to reflect certain values and ideas and to effect changes in people’s perceptions. Looking through this frame, I focus on the physical aspects of the ritual - both expansively (its geography, climate, season) and specifically (who sits where, who wears what, where my focus is drawn). The setting of the Capitol Building’s balcony over the National Mall is very obviously purposeful and symbolic. Representatives of each branch of government convene almost geographically in the middle of their respective temples (the western balconies of the Capitol are right smack in the middle of the White House, the Supreme Court, and the House and Senate legislative chambers. More, the National Mall is federal property carved out of state boundaries and home to the many museums of the Smithsonian Institute, a series of neo-Classical monuments to past Presidents, and memorials to the nation’s most impactful wars. So basically, symbolically, the Mall is America’s backyard. When things happen on the Mall, the technology of the day mediates the virtual presence of the broader population (reported via newspaper, then by radio, then by television, now streaming). So, the Inauguration is the rare event that quite literally and quite uniquely brings the entire nation together in one place at one time. The (amended) Constitution prescribes the January date and time, but I’d suggest that it’s this intersection that actually makes it sacred (that is, profoundly other and distinctive). So, Inauguration as event: intersections bring about a sacred encounter.
The Inauguration as interpretive framework: In a performance approach, the event (the collection of actions, messages, symbols, relationships, etc.) establishes a context for interpreting our experiences. During most inaugurations, speakers and commentators invoke the roster of American heroes, thinkers, and big moments, but this time around, those were not at the fore. The single podium is usually surrounded by a packed audience on the steps of the Capitol and across the lawns of the Mall. However, the events of the past year dominated the ritual space of the Inauguration and impact our interpretations. The pandemic severely limited the numbers of participants in the actual space, and the steps of the Capitol looked more freckled than packed. “Social distancing” was, quite literally, integrated into this sacred encounter, and that distancing disrupted the norms for displaying confidence and unity. The pandemic kept a profound presence through a rather mundane addition to this year’s ritual: the flow of speakers and performers was stagnated by long pauses while the podium was sanitized by a designated staffer. Literally, the Inauguration was being sanitized. A cynical take would suggest that sanitization had a diluting effect, that it made the event prim or too cautious, but I’m reminded of sacred rituals that integrate hygiene into the use and maintenance of an icon or ritual object. Hindus bathe murti in temples - the more elaborate the temple, the more elaborate the bathing. Catholics treat consecrated bread and wine with utmost care - unconsumed bread is stored in elaborate and safe cupboards, and wine cups are washed with precision and intention. Seen in this context, the sanitizing of the podium was a kind of baptism, a primal cleansing of this most sacred space in the nation. Of course, the insurrection that overtook the very setting of the Inauguration a week before was frequently described as a “desecration” of the Capitol - it made the space un-sacred, un-profoundly different, even...mundane (ooh! Four times!). Seen this way, the injection of hygiene into the sacred ritual points to some unintended (but pretty interesting) messaging: the tool that restored (or started to restore) the sacred space was quite an ordinary tool - a pack of wipes. The interpretive framework of the Inauguration made me look at the pack of wipes under our sink (and the bottle of Purell in the drawer, and the big stand of sanitizer at the grocery store entrance…) very differently. Hygiene would restore the health of the nation, and every one of us has the tool to make that happen.
Inauguration as efficacious: Rituals are designed to bring something about - a change, an imprint, an insight, a relationship. The Inauguration clearly intends to change the status of particular people (Prez & VP), but what are the unintended effects of this Inauguration? The visual impact of people of color at the center of national identity and power is hard to overestimate. I remember Maya Angelou reading at the Clinton Inauguration, marking a particular shift. When President Obama was the first Black person to stand at that podium for the oath, it reflected (not quite the end of but a magnificent summit on) a long struggle for access and power for Black people in the US. This time around, when Vice President Harris, a woman of South Asian and Black descent, the child of two immigrants, the spouse of a Jewish man and step-mother to his children, stood at the podium for her oath, the Obamas were in the background. Lady Gaga, queen of the gays, sang the nation’s anthem in an outfit recalling The Hunger Games. JLo, who broke barriers herself as a Latina performer, sang a socialist anthem borne of the Great Depression. Garth Brooks, who showed up in blue jeans and boots (you can blame it all on his roots), sang “Amazing Grace,” memorably sung by President Obama amidst a previous national tragedy and written as a confessional by a former slave-ship captain who renounced his ways and committed his ministry to the abolition of enslaved people. And Amanda Gorman, a 22-year old Black poet, wearing earrings gifted by Oprah, folded homage to Hamilton into a mesmerizing meditation on the moment. In this light, the unintended effect of the Inauguration was the reconstruction of the American canon - who, whose voices, which media, and what ideas are formally and institutionally recognized as fundamental in American culture.
The Inauguration as reflexive: A performance approach affords attention not only to the actions inside the boundaries of the event but also to the reflexivity of the event, that is, how the event provides what Catherine Bell described as “mirroring that enables the community to stand back and reflect upon their actions and identity.” So, sure, the Inauguration was a chance to reflect on President Biden, and everyone on the dais, and all the performers and politicians and the setting...but consciously or not we learned something about ourselves while watching it. I was surprised at my own emotional investment in the Inauguration - I was much more nervous about the transition of power (violence in the Capitol rattled me - as a pacifist, as a gay man, as a former resident of DC) than I thought, and I’m still sorting through how I might or should respond to that insight. Collectively, what did we learn about ourselves? There was a lot of symbolic projection of unity, but that was tempered by the distance on the dais, making a crowded event seem sparse.
My friend and colleague, arts educator Jenn Katona, offers a fascinating take on the role of the arts in the Inauguration. Read her piece and stay tuned for the dialogue between us that followed.
