Abstract
What connects us with primitive cultures in spite of the discovery of bacteria in the 19th century is the symbolic fear of the impure. In her book Purity and Danger anthropologist Mary Douglas has shown that there is no such thing as dirt in the absolute sense. Dirt only assumes existence through the viewer’s position. The fear of impurity is, in abstract terms, the fear of disorder. Dirt violates order. Its elimination is a positive effort to organize the universe.52 Systems of purity are thus symbolic systems. Rituals of purity return these symbolic systems to a state of order and purity is established.
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References
The kitchen saying is embroidered on to a hand towel depicting a housewife cleaning a pot and a counter work surface. Such kitchen sayings with different appellative messages were common in Germany between 1870 and 1930. Cf. Majonica (2002: 164 ff)
Cf. Douglas (1966/2002: 1 ff)
The example is taken from Karmasin (1998: 363), a market research manual.
Ibid., p. 441 ff
Ibid., p. 412
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(2008). Cleaning Rituals. In: The Cooked Kitchen. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-77642-1_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-77642-1_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Vienna
Print ISBN: 978-3-211-77641-4
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