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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Douglas' social life depend on?

2. Who separated magic from morals and religion?

3. What does the union between God and people involve in Douglas' view?

4. What does Douglas believe has been assumed to be based on false beliefs in magic?

5. According to Durkheim, the rules of separation are features of what?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Douglas describe as being the factors that rituals require?

2. How does the Old Testament relate to purity, in Douglas' opinion?

3. Describe economic reality in relation to primitive and modern cultures, according to Douglas.

4. What is isolation's role in health concerns?

5. What are the differences between primitive cultures and modern cultures in regard to the rules Douglas states?

6. What is involved in the categorization that Douglas describes?

7. What does Douglas believe has led to the belief that primitive cultures are inferior?

8. What does Douglas believe you need to understand to study purity?

9. Describe medical materialism as it is described in Purity and Danger.

10. What does morality ensure, according to Douglas?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Analyze hygiene and how it compares to rituals as described in the reading. What is the significance of ritual in hygiene? Can you be hygienic without ritual? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 2

Assess rituals in primitive culture. How would Douglas answer these questions and why: Are rituals rooted in magic? Why do you think this is so? Are anti-ritual views accurate?

Essay Topic 3

What are the consequences that Douglas associates with not having a specific government administration? How do social and moral situations involve contradictions? What do shifting loyalties have to do with political structure? What does allegiance have to do with marriage in a political structure?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 572 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample