Cultural Rituals: Universal Functions, Arbitrary Expressions

Cultures across the world, regardless of their perceived advancement, share fundamental structures that shape human experience. This is exemplified through the use of binary oppositions, which underpin cultural meanings similarly throughout diverse societies. While customs such as greetings may differ—handshakes in one culture versus bows in another—they fulfill the same social function, revealing that rituals are essentially arbitrary. This understanding expands traditional views of cultural superiority, emphasizing that all cultures perform similar structural roles and that distinctions lie solely in the specific rituals they adopt.