Laudator Temporis Acti

Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023), p. 332:

As Mary [Douglas] described them, the "Bog Irish" were tenaciously attached to the observation of fasts and Friday abstinence. Mary did not defend their practices because she was notably conservative or reactionary in liturgical matters (as were many of the opponents of the reforms of Vatican II). She did it for reasons that were continuous with her attitude to contemporary British society. She was convinced that to sweep away such rituals—as if they were external and trivial practices—belittled the humanity of those who remained attached to them: it showed a high-minded contempt for the efforts of vulnerable groups to maintain their human dignity. In her view, a society without rituals was an impoverished society, stripped of its defenses against the antisocial behavior of its less community-minded members—many of whom, alas!, were rich, powerful, well educated, and, often, lethally high-minded.