A reading of the literature on" modem"-ie, large-scale, complex, industrialized-nation-states, often uncovers contradictory views regarding the essential quality of these entities. On the one hand, we find convincing analyses like Shils's, 1 or Geertz's2 which underscore the importance of social centers where leading ideas, institutions, and personages come together to create an arena in which the events that most vitally affect society's members take place. These kind of studies counter the social scientific tradition that has posited an increased rationalization-ie, specialization, mechanization, and depersonalization-of the modem world. 3 They do so by focusing on the continued importance of public rituals in the production and reproduction of contemporary nation-states. Rather than viewing such occasions as vestiges of a" transitional" past soon destined to disappear, Geertz posits that:

A world wholly demystified is a …