K O D I K A S / C O D E Volume 43 (2020) · No. 3 - 4 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen From Skinner ’ s Verbal Behavior to Miner ’ s Nacirema: American Identity Between Causal Chains and Rituals Mathias Spohr Abstract: The two publications Verbal Behavior (1957) by Burrhus Frederic Skinner and Body Ritual among the Nacirema (1956) by Horace Mitchell Miner appeared at a time when behaviorism was a dominant trend in psychology, especially in the United States. In this essay, I juxtapose them in order to make it plausible that Miner ’ s fictional investigation can be understood as a critique of behaviorism, and furthermore that both publications illustrate the extent to which a paradoxical connection between causality and rituality has shaped North American self-understanding. Keywords: history of psychology, history of anthropology, ritualization, self-control, causality, behaviorism, motivation, North American identity, vanitas. Zusammenfassung: Die beiden Publikationen Verbal Behavior (1957) von Burrhus Frederic Skinner und Body Ritual among the Nacirema (1956) von Horace Mitchell Miner erschienen zu einer Zeit, als der Behaviorismus eine dominierende Strömung in der Psychologie war, insbesondere in den Vereinigten Staaten. In diesem Aufsatz stelle ich sie einander gegenüber, um plausibel zu machen, dass Miners fiktive Untersuchung als Kritik am Behaviorismus verstanden werden kann und dass beide Publikationen darüber hinaus veranschaulichen, in welchem Maß eine paradoxe Verbindung zwischen Kausalität und Ritualität das nordamerikanische Selbstverständnis geprägt hat. Schlüsselbegriffe: Geschichte der Psychologie, Geschichte der Ethnologie, Ritualisierung, Selbstkontrolle, Kausalität, Behaviorismus, Motivation, Nordamerikanische Identität, Vanitas. 1 Verbal Behavior The psychologist B. F. Skinner considered Verbal Behavior to be his magnum opus, although it was not widely accepted in the fields of psychology and linguistics. In a youthful encounter with the British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead in 1934, Whitehead pointed out to Skinner that his behaviorist beliefs could not be applied to language. Since Skinner was convinced that language was a behavior like any other, his principles had to apply to language if they were to claim general validity. This led to his foray into linguistics (Claus 2007). Because Skinner worked on his theory for a long time, there are various preliminary stages, such as the manuscript of a lecture he gave in 1948 (Skinner 1948/ 2009). Skinner ’ s work is based on theory and contains few examples, but these can easily be added. The following table is based on an essay by Lori Frost and Andi Bondy (Frost/ Bondy 2006) and can be found in Wikipedia 1 in a slightly more pointed version. Skinner ’ s operands Mand, Tact, Intraverbal, Echoic and Autoclitic are explained here. It is not necessary to discuss them in more detail in this context. Noam Chomsky ’ s critique of Skinner ’ s theory (Chomsky 1959) is familiar, but I will take a slightly different approach that is not limited to language learning: in contrast to Skinner, the last column I have added here shows possible reactions in a world that cannot be controlled. Precondition Verbal Operant Consequence Example The same without control Motivating operation Mand Directly Effective A child comes into the kitchen where a mother is, and says: “ I want milk ” . The mother opens the refrigerator and gives the child milk. A child comes into the kitchen where a mother is, and says: “ I want milk ” . The mother says: “ Let us pray. ” (She has no milk.) Feature of the physical environment Tact Educational A child looks out of the window, turns to his mother and says: “ It is hot today. ” The mother says, “ Right! ” A child looks out of the window, turns to his mother and says: “ It is hot today. ” The mother says, “ Let us pray. ” (The harvest is withering.) Verbal behavior of another person Intraverbal Educational A mother asks her daughter: “ What grade did you get in math? ” The daughter replies, “ An A. ” The mother says: “ Very good! ” A mother asks her daughter: “ What grade did you get in math? ” The daughter replies, “ An A. ” The mother says: “ Let us pray. ” (She knows that it doesn ’ t have to mean anything.) Verbal behavior of another person Echoic Educational A teacher says to a student: “ Behavior in German is ‘ Verhalten. ’” The student repeats “ Behavior is ‘ Verhalten ’” . The teacher says “ Correct. ” A teacher says to a student: “ Behavior in German is ‘ Verhalten. ’” The student says “ Let us pray. ” The teacher repeats “ Let us pray. ” (During World War II) 1 https: / / en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Verbal_Behavior [accessed 1/ 21/ 2024] From Skinner ’ s Verbal Behavior to Miner ’ s Nacirema: 303 Precondition Verbal Operant Consequence Example The same without control A person ’ s own verbal behavior Autoclitic Directly Effective A child comes into his parents ’ bedroom at night and says “ I think I am sick. ” The mother takes the child and brings him to a hospital. A child comes into his parents ’ bedroom at night and says “ I think I am sick. ” The mother says: “ Let us pray. ” (There is no remedy.) The speech acts that are distinguished and categorized into variants here have a direct or an educational effect. According to the beliefs of behaviorism, a cause (stimulus) is followed by an effect (response), and this effect can be promoted by rewarding actions (reinforcement). A sensation such as thirst or feeling sick leads to a verbal expression, which in turn may lead to the elimination of the deficiency: a causal chain is set in motion. A perception like heat, thirst or sickness or a perception of a verbal utterance triggers another verbal utterance, which in turn triggers another action. The success of the triggering confirms any action. Speech acts thus have an effect. They master situations. The problem with this approach is that it can only be relevant in an environment where control exists and is encouraged. Following the rules, as Robinson Crusoe does (Defoe 1719), resolves the situation of deprivation. The child recognizes its thirst, it masters language and good behavior instead of just trying to take the milk, and the mother rewards the child for this self-control by helping to quench the thirst. The mother will do this regularly so as not to disrupt this routine, and the child will come to rely on it. The child may take advantage of the rule until the mother explains that she is not a machine. Then the rules will be renegotiated. But it is not necessary to make rules that guarantee anything. Situational behavior might suffice, but then it ’ s a matter of obeying. Neither side can then invoke rules to justify its behavior. If there is no control, the speech act remains a wish and a request on all sides. It ‘ does ’ nothing, but at best it attracts some attention. Doing things with words depends on causality (Austin 1955: 14 f.). If the mother cannot satisfy the desire for milk herself, she must pass it on. If she sees no way, she can only pray - just as the child can only ask. The emphasis is no longer on control, but on confirming or creating specific relationships. Reinforcement here is the affirmation of specific relationships, not the general satisfaction that the rules have been followed and especially not the expectation of automatic success. Causality becomes ritual. If the child recognizes that the weather is hot and thus reminds the mother that a crop failure and famine are imminent, then rewarding the child ’ s observation ( “ right! ” ) does not contribute to solving any problem, but rather emphasizes the problem in a sarcastic way. Confirming the linguistic or factual accuracy of the statement is useless and irrelevant. The statement “ it is hot today ” is a plea that the mother repeats in a different way. Shared concern is more important than a theater of illusory control. In a formal learning situation, however, reward and punishment may be understood as direct effects of performance. A student should get a grade for his or her performance, not 304 Mathias Spohr for flattering the teacher and regardless of a difficult situation. They should be treated neutrally, without personal favor or situational caprice. This belongs to the ‘ civilized ’ 2 understanding of justice. The objective assessment in the classroom, with its assumed irrelevance of relationships and situations, is an ideal and a role play. If the play does not lead to success, there is no reason to do it. When the child brings home a good grade from school, she has demonstrated control and expects a reward for this. By giving this reward, the mother is maintaining control herself by encouraging the child to behave in a controlled and controlling way. This is the mutual reinforcement, not the grade itself. If she is not convinced because the good grade might lead to jealousy and arrogance or might not be relevant later in life, the reward and therefore the reinforcement of this behavior will not take place. The mother does not believe in the positive effect of control. When a student learned the German translation of “ behavior ” in the situation of World War II, this only made it clear that behavior cannot be mastered by perfecting language skills. Repetition as training becomes repetition as ritual through the student ’ s response suggested here. They imitate in order to be understood, not to perfect an action, as the consequences are uncertain. It is not about know-how but about hope for the future. In the absence of control, requests are made instead of triggering effects, requests to authorities who might have the power to fulfil desires. It ’ s not about perfecting language or any other behavior, but about convincing a counterpart. Mutually confirmed control, on the other hand, is a different kind of reinforcement, it confirms a more general relationship of shared dominance. When a child says: “ it is hot today ” while the fields are withering, and the mother defiantly confirms the statement, it can mean: “ you are one of the rulers, you know the rules. ” The common denominator is then: “ we won ’ t be defeated. ” It is not God that is invoked, but nature that is hopefully controlled. Reinforcement comes from the affirmation of a relationship, not directly from a triggered effect. But an effect can be mutually confirmed as a success by its observers, as in sports, and thus reinforced. If performance no longer matters or is seen as harmful, it will not be reinforced. Causal chains formed by controlled behavior collapse into a desire that is passed on and ultimately shared by the powerless, a ritual toward an authority, that is: “ help me! ” With technology, a behavior that seeks relationship becomes a behavior that seeks effect. Ritual is the opposite. Effect is anonymous, relationship is personal, which is why relationships resist effect. Effect is a prey, relationship is a reward. Compromise is needed to bring the two together, and civilized rules result from those compromises. They only work when actions trigger effects and affirm relationships at the same time. Hence the general praise for good performance ( “ you have mastered the rules ” ), even if it is not directly beneficial. In a specific case, you may signal that either the relationship or the effect is more important, for example in a professional matter: if a longer collaboration is planned, a mistake may not matter; but if the collaboration is limited to one project, a mistake may be fatal. In the first case, you think that a good relationship is the basis for performance. In the 2 ‘ Civilized ’ in this context means: an understanding of justice and governance by a bourgeoisie in the Western world, which in the course of modernity sought to replace an aristocratic upper class. From Skinner ’ s Verbal Behavior to Miner ’ s Nacirema: 305 second case performance will hopefully lead to good relationships. In the first case the repeated actions consist of requests and courtesies, in the second case they are a perfect functioning. The first behavior is predominantly ritual, the second predominantly causal with a ritual aspect. Because the service is aimed at a certain public, the relationship partners are less defined here. Success can lead to a greater impact or, conversely, to a specific relationship. Both the service and the money earned could be seen as prey (with a predominant utility value: causality) or as reward (with a predominant relationship value: ritual). The security that civilized rules provide consists, on the one hand, of the technical security that causes have the safest possible effects, and on the other hand, of the social security that one does not lose the sphere of influence that the rule guarantees. If one or the other is missing, the rules have to be renegotiated in order to remain valid. The ‘ rules of the game ’ then guarantee everyone a self-controlled sphere, and obedience to the rules becomes an attractive exercise of power in that sphere: it leads to utility values independent of specific relationships, such as a fixed price that excludes any negotiation or haggling. Fixed prices still have a bad reputation in some parts of the world. They may be practical, but they limit social interaction. Effective causation, as long as it is tolerated or even rewarded, is a ritual act toward the outside world, because it signals reassuring self-control: “ I am successful, but I follow the rules. This is how I contribute to your success. ” A burglar may be effective in what he does, but he doesn ’ t follow the rules. If he sees his prey as a reinforcement, he needs to be counteracted. Performance without permission is rarely rewarded. A general distrust of performance can be countered by enforcing consensus, which is what sports is all about. This means that effective causation and ritual are two facets of the same behavior and should ideally align with each other. In Western music, performance seems to be basically harmless and attractive to the audience, it seems a ritual to them, but a virtuoso concert in church would be controversial (cf. Pesic 2021). Technical control over a musical instrument or over own ’ s own voice may create a sense of community, but this shared triumph may be seen as vanity, not an appropriate prayer. Performance and ritual can only be combined to a limited extent. 2 Motivation The psychologist Clark Leonhard Hull tried to make calculable and predictable what distinguishes the acting organism from the functioning machine: it is motivation. Hull defined motivation as a drive, as in mechanics, and distinguished between drive as a pushing force and incentive as a pulling force for action (Hull 1943). In Hull ’ s view, motivation is a desire that can be diminished by reinforcement, be it the loot of the burglar or the praise of the teacher. For Hull, satisfaction reduces drive, like eating reduces hunger, and he represented this mathematically as subtraction. He adapted his mathematical formalism to the measured data until it allowed predictions to be made. As a prerequisite for this endeavor, there is no concrete relationship that can serve as a motivating factor. Subjects, actions and experimenters may be interchangeable serving as media for a general principle. The 306 Mathias Spohr causal utility value of any reinforcement, be it the rats ’ prey or the scientific success of their observers, is thus not disturbed by any relationship value, or at least it seems so. Desire seems to be the only driver of behavior, for the rats as well as for the scientists. As in sports, there is a consensus that should enable causal behavior, because this behavior can be reproduced, compared and, to a certain extent, predicted. Sigmund Freud for his part had made the scientific observation of desire his primary task, and also spoke of drive, but still without a quantifiable dimension. Just as Hull observed his rats, Freud had observed a kind of inner machinery that seemed to oppose human consciousness, and that, like the activity of rats, was traditionally reviled but to be valorized by science. Manual labor and the mere satisfaction of needs once had a bad reputation, which prevented their improvement until the 18th century. Freud was interested in observing a ‘ natural ’ function, just as a craftsman observes the function of his tools or a musician his instrument. According to Hull, the need and greed that motivate rats as well as humans are measurable physical quantities. Measurements seem to regulate embarrassing, dubious or dangerous motivations. Sizes of dimensions are harmless: as soon as energy can be measured, it no longer appears as a fundamentally destructive force. Control and detached observation of motivations were a feat akin to circus dressage. Hull ’ s experimental designs thus had a ritual motivation, separate from the artificially isolated causal motivation of laboratory rats: the benevolent observation of a good and safe performance united the scientists with concert-goers or vaudeville audience. Dimensions have two opposite properties: the dimension of money, for example, appears as a ritual aspect (shared trust) and its size as a technical aspect (performance). The dimension of money shows confidence in a common standard; because everyone agrees on a value, it can be counted. Ideally, a gross national product is the sum of economic win-win situations and thus a measure of a performance that unites the measured users as a nation. It does not (or should not) measure a war of all against all. Money fuels greed and helps keep greed in check. It can be used to measure or create motivation, but it is not a natural prerequisite for motivation. Otherwise, there would be no motivation without money. This is even more true of Hull ’ s dimension: he tried to measure motivation as pure performance in a reliable dimension, be it that of rats or burglars. But he didn ’ t want to believe in the conventionality of this dimension, which is obvious in the case of money. As in physics, the mathematical description seemed to become reality the moment it allowed predictions to be made. Then his experiments could be simulated with the mathematical formalism. When asked why he did not leave it at mathematizing his findings, Hull once replied that he did not want to do without causality (Smith 1990: 11). Motivation thus appears like a quantity of money or electricity that you can put into a machine for an expected output. The expected success gave causal behavior a ritual sense: together we master nature and enable performance, and this confirms our relationship, especially when low-valued rats or burglars are not included. Until the eighteenth century, anonymous desire was considered harmful and kept out of human relationships. But when it is seen as a measurable quality, desire loses its indecency. Like a tamed force of nature, Hull ’ s observed motivation became the drive for machines made up of beings in experimental setups. Success in this definition is From Skinner ’ s Verbal Behavior to Miner ’ s Nacirema: 307 a prey of observed individuals that leads to a relationship of observers. The observed predators are kept at a distance by measurement and calculation. By mechanizing motivation in this way, it becomes neutral. To make experimental results reproducible and comparable, incentives must be anonymous, such as money, which has value to most subjects, or a food that all lab rats like and can access in the same way. Behavior motivated by pure desire seemed to embody the laws of nature. A specific affiliation would be at odds with Hull ’ s scientific framework. The experimental animals rewarded themselves through their successful behavior. Indirectly, the rats ’ prey was a reward for regular behavior within the experimental apparatus, but any relationship related rewards or punishments were suppressed, so the rats could not share the experimenters ’ motivation. Hunting dogs do not eat their prey because their relationship with their owners is more important to them. Breaking into a pantry would probably be reinforcing to the rats as well, but not as a reward from their human observers. Humans may disagree, but they can ’ t accuse the rats of irregular behavior. This means that we can only speak of the rats ’ touching loyalty to the laws of nature as long as they remain confined. When they use their trained skills against humans, their success appears less touching. As long as the rats ’ success is not a collective success that includes humans, they remain dangerous. Relationship as the most important condition for ‘ reinforcement by prey ’ , that would reward or punish it, is missing. By neutralizing the rats ’ motivation through measurement, the crucial reasons for motivation have been removed. The idea of nature as a machine probably stems from situations of this kind. When the rats began to team up, it was a detriment to Hull ’ s experimental design (cf. Ben- Ami Bartal et al. 2016). He wanted to find abstract rules rather than a concrete network of relationships, so his rats had to learn rules without caring about each other. Hull believed that mechanistic causality was a property of nature, not only a property of a selfconstructed machine (Smith 1990: 9 f.). This is where the confusion between the experimental set-up and natural conditions come from. Rather, it was a motivational idea for the observer: his freely chosen experimental designs attempted to turn motivation into a mechanical force until it worked. As an engineer, Hull enthusiastically designed machines to simulate this behavior. He needed this artificial situation so that reinforcement would appear as the effect of a cause, i. e. a prey for the researchers, and not as the mutual confirmation of a relationship, as is usually the case. Perhaps the rats understood their relationship with the experimenters better than the experimenters realized, and the results were affected by this. By isolating the causal aspect of these actions from specific relationships, the observation became value-free in a moral sense. Burglars or plunderers may be loyal to their companions, but they are unfaithful to their victims. Whether they do so skilfully is not in question. It only seems relevant to warfare, and that is the area in which technology has been able to develop since the early modern period. When relationships are removed, all that remains is value-free skill: how does it work? On closer inspection, this concept of nature is a justification strategy for skilful behavior in general, which has much in common with the musical soloists since the 18th century, who were no longer despised as craftsmen of low origin, who could easily misuse their skills, but 308 Mathias Spohr were highly esteemed as artists (cf. Spohr 2011). If it ’ s not a game, it can be a reasonable goal not to promote the development of skills. In a computer game, the motivations of fictional characters can be calculated according to Hull ’ s criteria. However, their success remains symbolic as long as the players are not playing for money. The symbolic prey is then a means of reinforcing the relationship between players who dominate the game. The situation is similar to the observed laboratory rats. A distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation (Reid 2012) is not very helpful here: the illusory relationship with the computer can lead to addictive behavior just as much as the illusory relationship with fictitious opponents or with money. Relationship as a reward for the prey may fail to materialize. Objectification removes the crucial motivation of behavior directed towards particular relationships, and this isolation of skills may lead to the Hobbesian conclusion that the satisfaction of needs is fundamentally destructive, as a machine-like drive. But one ritual reinforcement remains: a mutual affirmation of the observers as rulers. They create motivational freedom for themselves by transforming the observed into an unfree function, as with a practiced musical instrument, a trained body, a domestic animal or a computer game. Mastering an instrument may be more predictable than mastering a pathogen or a criminal. The belief in mastering nature was a ritual that did not harm any of the observers; it gave them security and seemed to unite them. The thesis put forward here, then, is that there are no drives without an advanced mechanization of society. The idea of instinct as a drive comes from the observation of machines. 3 Self-control The mother says “ I am not a machine ” when the child tries to turn its wish for milk into a switch for a desired effect. However, she may not feel like a musical instrument being practiced by the child, or like a lab rat, but may understand her behavior as a reward for the child ’ s success in an educational game in which she is a role player, without being coerced as a person. She believes she is rewarding the child. In this case, she is not the instrument, but the musician, so to speak; she is not only part of a machine, but also its observer, and this keeps her motivated. She shares with the child the sense of being in control, like musicians in an orchestra. Perhaps she understands her self-controlled function as her identity: obeying the rules ( “ you must ” ) has thus become mastering the rules ( “ you may ” ) in order to be proud of a performance. The ritual aspect of obeying has become causal because she controls herself as a free person, it seems, and it ’ s easier when she has machines such as the fridge to support her behavior. The satisfaction that something is working reinforces the action. Machines help maintain self-control, a controversial issue when it comes to guns. Self-control can be lost or used to control others, and this is exploited by terrorism as a social weakness (Ravenscroft 2019). It is a common fear that things organized by users will become selforganized without legitimate self-control. When someone lacks self-control or does not play by the rules, public spaces become dangerous. When people fear being controlled like a machine that has to produce effects, they do not reward control and may refuse the desired response. The lab rats simply don ’ t have a choice. They don ’ t belong to a world of ruling observers. But, like humans, they reward effects From Skinner ’ s Verbal Behavior to Miner ’ s Nacirema: 309 when they benefit from them, and their relationships adapt to this behavior. When control is generally accepted, it is self-control, for example of traffic rules (Elias 1991). Self-control seems harmless; it obeys common rules. Self-controlled people, animals and things seem to say to their observers: “ I am faithful to you. ” But in doing so, they themselves hope that they belong to a community of observant rulers. If not, they are either machines or they refuse the loyalty and practice their skills. Loyalty is the ritual (supplicatory) aspect, while control is the causal or technical (domineering) aspect of this behavior. Self-control can be mechanized to make it a technical safety for users, and loyalty thus becomes indifference to the user. A machine lacks the loyal observation of its own function; rules are followed, but their ritual aspect is lost. Anyone who has access to these machines could use them. This creates a growing uncertainty in proportion to increased technical security. Machines that used to consist of reliable people are now often just machines. From David Hume (Hume 1748) to John Austin, custom or habit is the definition of causality; it once seemed to be identical to ritual, but now the two are different. The ritual aspect of habit is missing when machines are trusted. Machine parts do not say: “ we belong together being loyal to the users ” . Is trust in vote-counting machines during elections a trust in the state or a trust in correct results? The two are inseparable, because relationship and performance are expected at the same time (cf. Mankin 2023). 4 Nacirema In his essay Body Ritual among the Nacirema, anthropologist Horace Miner describes the rituals of a supposed tribe of Native Americans. On closer inspection, he is referring to modern Americans. “ Nacirema ” , read backwards, means “ American ” . Body rituals include shaving and the creating permanent waves with the help of dry hoods, as was popular in the 1950s. Miner analyzes the maltreatment of faces with knives and the “ baking ” of heads with fascination and disgust (Miner 1956: 505). Individual or collective self-control is not necessarily harmless to the controlled body; it can be seen as a machine. Controlling behavior within the rules of the game is empowering. People exercise their own rights, so no one needs to ask. But Miner consistently describes self-control as a ritual. Instead of describing the technical aspect of behavior and leaving out the ritual, as Skinner does, Miner does the opposite: he describes the ritual aspect and leaves out the technical. Instead of reflecting the functionalist notion of achieving something through the mastery of tools and techniques leading to recognition and reinforcement as a well-shaved and coiffed person, these activities appeared as a kind of exotic prayer to mysterious gods and spirits. Tools became sacred objects, service providers became magicians, such as dentists as “ holymouth-men ” , and their payment became an offering (Miner 1956: 504). Perfection of the body seemed to be a cruel self-torture in order to plead powerlessly with authority. The effect is established, but any relationship that this effect could confirm is questionable. For the Nacirema, a shaved face or neat hairstyle does not seem to be a confident sign of belonging to the community, but merely a desperate plea to be noticed and recognized. The successful operation of the hood dryer is not a sign of integration in the modern society, it ’ s just a request that shows a helpless effort. The Nacirema have no control 310 Mathias Spohr over the world in which they live. Triggered effects as such are not a confirmation of relationship and therefore cannot directly cause reinforcement. They appear merely as violence. In the absence of reinforcement, the idea of doing things gives way to the need to ask for a favor. That was Miner ’ s implicit critique of behaviorism. There is always a ritual aspect of technical security, and suddenly it becomes important. Because Miner spoke the language of anthropologists, his essay was taken seriously by more than a few readers and caused consternation about the practices of the supposed savages. It took on lasting significance as a critique of science and society (Johnson 2012). 5 Dimensions and totems There was an important tradition in psychology and anthropology of understanding the technology-based sense of identity as the primal nature of human beings. Nature seemed to be governed not by concrete relationships but by anonymous drives, imagined to be like the forces in physics. So-called totems seemed to limit the sex drive (as a command for exogamy: Lang 1905), which fascinated people at the end of the 19th century. It was not the consideration of personal relationships but the control of blind instincts that appeared to be a prerequisite for social behavior. Primitive man seemed to be an uncontrolled machine. Sigmund Freud turned this into a theory. He considered totemism to be a prerequisite for all cultures, and it seems reasonable to conclude that he was referring to his own culture. In fact, he compared the “ savages ” to the “ neurotics ” (Freud 1913), i. e. people in his time who had difficulty integrating into their environment. They were unwilling or unable to adapt to civilized rules. Freud ’ s observation was a modern culture clash, interpreted in a gray prehistoric age. Savages and neurotics seemed to need to regulate their drives by rules, like motorists, and they seemed to be still learning this self-control, while the civilized world watched them. Legitimizing greed as determinism and mastering it through technology appeared to be a natural phenomenon that the savages had simply not yet fully understood. The totem was a name or image, embodied by a community, with a striking resemblance to family crests, company logos or brand names: something inanimate, a sign, an object, is collectively controlled, it defines communities by self-control, but the idea of loyalty to a superior being remains (cf. Jerolmack & Tavory 2014). Totems seemed plausible as humanity ’ s first signs of identity: an authority that was more an image than a living authority. A totem is a frozen authority that people can obey and master at the same time. It seemed to emerge as a primitive Leviathan (cf. Manow 2011): not as a divine or human ruler, but as a structure, a basic institution, that made relationships possible, as if they could not exist otherwise. The conviction behind it was unshakable: while the savage invokes illusory deities with helpless actions, we understand and master the rules, and that ’ s why we get along. Conversely, it is the case that relationships exist before drives. Primitive man is not a machine, but has little experience with machines. Hull removed the beings to create measurable, value-free drives. When there is no money, but only concrete values without a common dimension, there is no greed for money. Mere possibilities then cannot replace the things or beings. In modern society, however, existing relationships give way to anonymous rules imposed by money, administration, traffic regulations, school, or scientific experiments. When people say: “ I am not a number, ” there can be no sport, but when they take their own From Skinner ’ s Verbal Behavior to Miner ’ s Nacirema: 311 starting number as a basis for performance, they accept the dimension of that number as a fair set of rules: having their own number does not deprive them of their freedom, but guarantees them rights. The totem of the team badge and the dimension have something in common: some people even wear T-shirts with the numbers of fictitious athletes. Dimensions are a basis of trust, and the personal number and size are supposed to guarantee possibilities. This is their ritual meaning. Taking dimensions as given, fails to recognize their ritual significance (cf. Martins 2009). As totems, they are basic social frames, not for primitive man, but for civilized people. Personalizing the anonymity of functions may help relationships to emerge. Totemism implanted this civilized consciousness in primitive man as if it were a matter of course. In the form of totems, modern classification systems seemed the most natural and original. This spared the classifications their justification: it was not the concrete relationships that seemed to reluctantly give way to anonymous rules (an arduous challenge), but, conversely, the anonymous rule that seemed to make relationships possible (a pleasing reward). The focus here is not on the concerns of ‘ savage ’ students and parents, but on the opportunities that their accommodation should provide. Behavior to secure effects, such as training, becomes a wish or demand when we understand it as a ritual, in the hope that relationships will develop or endure. If, on the other hand, frequent prayer becomes a sport by counting repetitions, performance moves away from ritual. More abstractly: performance is measured in a dimension, but the dimension may be more important than its size. The dimension is a wish, and its size is a prey. Performance then becomes a behavior that is merely an invocation: “ I ’ m doing my best to make sure we belong together. ” From a functionalist perspective, this may seem pointless. When a promised effect does not materialize or is no longer sought, technology becomes pure ritual, with “ the crudity and irrelevance of magic, ” as Miner ironically put it (Miner 1956: 507). A successful performance can demonstrate loyalty on the one hand, but can also appear indifferent or threatening on the other. The best candidate may be the most sophisticated, and for reasons of loyalty you may prefer the clumsy one. A helpless performance is a clearer sign of loyalty. 5 Safety and security The Nacirema hoard medicines as magical remedies in a “ charm-box ” , but do not dare to use them again (Miner 1956: 504). A disease as a triggering cause can trigger a successful medication, if there is a cure and the symptoms are correctly identified. But a threatening causer might be better deterred by a threat: with a stockpile of drugs like weapons (cf. Al Zoubi et al. 2021). The threat to an opponent is then more important than the healing effect: magic instead of causality. A threat is a ritual, because it tries to define a relationship. Even a virus is sometimes a causer rather than a cause, seemingly rebelling against the role that medicine has assigned it. When the virus adapts to its treatment, it is not a regularly controllable cause of disease anymore, but a living adversary. Mathematics as a forecasting tool will fail. These considerations are intended to show that mechanistic causality is an artificial construct, not a natural fact. The effort to turn free-acting causers into sure-fire causes is a 312 Mathias Spohr civilizational one. When the causal chain breaks down because there is no reliable functioning, what remains is, in Skinner ’ s words, “ self-reinforcement ” (Skinner 1948: 41). This is the case with the Nacirema body ritual. Things are done with technical success, but the goal is a relationship that is not necessarily available. Personal styling must then suffice, as prey without expectation of reward. Relationships without secure effects characterize pure ritual, secure effects without relationships characterize pure technique. Tools can indeed become sacred objects: the effects they promise then come to represent desirable relationships that may be an illusion. You can ’ t buy relationships directly, but you can buy frames for them. Advertising plays on this expectation. The sociologists Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann tried to summarize rituals in a causally determined world with the concept of ‘ double contingency ’ (Luhmann 1976). The counterpart can accept or reject the frame as a common dimension. For Miner, Skinner ’ s speech acts that express and create reality would all be spells and incantations. However, brushing one ’ s teeth, shaving or getting a perm can be seen as part of one ’ s personal identity even without the need for a successful performance: a perfected self-control without any further social relationship. But this ‘ vanity seen as identity ’ is a kind of relationship: it is almost inevitable that not only the individual, but a community will adopt this perspective. The fashionable hairstyle, for example, must be recognized as fashionable by that community in order to be successfully created. An insecure personality may think while doing this: “ please, please, accept me! ” So the relationship to the mirror image is the relationship to a community, i. e. it is about the publication of reflections and there has to be a consensus with this community of followers when it comes to self-control in front of the mirror. The observer of a mirror image is the observer of a functioning machine. Bringing the machine to life is a traditional idea that makes their perspective that of the mirror. The technical functioning is not enough to reinforce the actions. The feeling of “ it works ” comes only when the desired relationships are confirmed. Ritual needs two sides between which a relationship is to be confirmed, technology apparently needs only one side and a success. When guaranteed effects become increasingly automated, repetition loses the rituality of habit and becomes indifferent machinery. You can do sports (a regular behavior that requires effort) just to improve your performance or just to cultivate relationships. A shared mastery of the rules creates and maintains the relationship. The relationship ‘ to oneself ’ , to the individual as well as to the group, constitutes the ritual potential of technical behavior. If this self is simultaneously tormented by self-control, the imploring ritual and the domineering technical effort paradoxically have the same goal. As many functions as possible are therefore transferred to machines. The awareness of mastery can become an awareness of disconnection, and the ritual component of technology is then in demand again. Self-control is the central and most vulnerable aspect of identity. Is it loyalty to a community, and is it recognized by that community? Civilized observers are well aware of the ritual potential of technology, and this explains the fascination that Miner ’ s satire has aroused. In recent years, there has been interest in the connection between ritualized behavior and norms (Chvaja et al. 2022). The concept of a ritualized technology corresponds to Gregory Bateson ’ s and Erving Goffman ’ s understanding of “ framing ” rituals (Bateson 1957, Goffman 1967), whereas Skinner omits the aspect of ritualization, although he admits that reinforcements are From Skinner ’ s Verbal Behavior to Miner ’ s Nacirema: 313 uncertain, and thus he has difficulty explaining the echoic response. Ritualized technology leads to the shared ‘ rules of the game ’ described by Goffman (Goffman 1956). The roleplaying he observed in social life is not a natural phenomenon, but the constant selfchecking in the mirror that constitutes civilized identities like a musician ’ s control of beat and pitch. The reliability of the mirror makes it possible to realize models such as fashionable hairstyles whose rules are jointly defined (cf. Barthes 1968). The affirmation or renegotiation of the rules have replaced the ancient rituals in the face of authority. The rules seem manageable, the mirror seems reliable, and together the people make sure that the rules are not overturned. The game or play, even the fire drill or the military maneuver, is a paradoxical reality from a functionalist point of view because it strengthens the relationship between the participants and deters opponents without any utility value as long as it does not become serious. The idea of motivation as a battery charge and fighting spirit does not correspond to the facts. Only when the threat of the enemy or fire is not successful do the preparations materialize. Then the failed ritual turns into a causal procedure. Up to this point, the drill must be magic, according to Miner. When the awareness that “ I belong to the rulers because I master the rules ” no longer exists or is never established, there are problems with causality. 6 Conclusion The American self-image is strongly defined in terms of overcoming submissive behavior. Skinnerian behaviorism has elevated this to a general principle of action. It stands in contrast to an older view of life that said: “ stay humble, you don ’ t know whether your intentions will come true. ” Since the United States Constitution, following and mastering rules seemed to be a liberation from obedience to Old World rulers, even if it was and is not feasible for everyone. The reverse shift from powerful technology to powerless ritual (or Miner ’ s unmasking of technology as pure ritual) can be seen as a relapse and a failure: the mastery of effects, the self-made success as a proudly presented self-control becomes a futile and desperate plea. This was the trouble Miner caused. 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