Celebrations: The social science behind them
By. Jaypee
What is the social science behind celebrations? Have we ever thought of how would our life be like without celebrations? Has anyone ever had the inclination to wholeheartedly participate in a particular celebration which is not his/her celebration? What purpose does a celebration serve when it is done in isolation? And finally, if celebration is an occasion for better human well being, cannot all celebrations be participated by all? It is the last question I would like to answer in a social-scientific perspective. I think this line of thinking has got some relevance in today’s world of individual, polarized and nuclear celebrations?

What is a celebration?

It is an event that marks a special occasion. This may happen in a person’s life, family, school, community, society or the whole country!

They may include birthdays, presentation day, the opening of a new building in the community, or those days the whole nation celebrates - when our victorious cricket team is welcomed home.

Strengths of celebrations

If we look at the greater strengths every individual society enjoys in these days of polarized world of individual successes, we can see that celebrations down the ages, celebrations pertaining to individuals, families, societies, communities and nations, have contributed greatly to strengthening their social fabrics. This contribution is a kind of input to integration, and this is meticulously being done by people of all ages without knowing the very fact that they are doing something that cannot be equated in terms of any cache of money human exchequer could hold. So we are societies unique and at the same time different in our own ways.

‘In social science parlance, celebrations are periodic reinforcements that every society and individual needs to have for their own better subsistence in the constantly changing social orders of all times’. These celebrations themselves may take up changes, but the changes they take up due to their being subject to changes in attitudes, influences and other socio economic forces have a rare quality of adjusting themselves with the society they represent.

This ubiquitous nature of celebrations makes people of all times absorb the changes as they are, and the days that follow coolly accept the fact that a particular celebration has taken up a ‘timely’ change in its form. What form we make it to have today is its ‘societal actual’ form, because it is not the form that keeps the social fabrics strengthened, rather it is the state of mind that celebration brings in to the minds of the people that does the miracle.

Weakness of celebrations

Do celebrations have some weaknesses? Or are they able to make some kind of weakening in the social, personal and cultural order of an established society? Social scientists say these celebrations are as constructive and strengthening as they are destructive and weakening. How does it happen?

It is hard to believe that celebrations have done many damages to society. These events are free times, and people do have a tendency to take everything for granted when this or that not-socially-acceptable activity is carried out during a celebration.


People conveniently cut it into what they call, it-is-not-everyday-we-get-to-do this or that. But in real terms, the licensing spree a celebration puts in the minds of the growing generation gets rooted deep as they grow up. And celebrations recur every year. When there is regularity for something, there is room for more possibilities and habit building. Possibilities portent practices.

When it comes to practices, it is worth remembering that unless they are good, they are worst. No celebration should be allowed to extend venues to pick up practices that disrupt the fabric of a society. Celebrations are for cementing healthy social activities; healthy social coexistence of people beyond borders set by religions, faiths and the so-called philosophies.
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