{"id":315,"date":"2009-01-23T07:09:16","date_gmt":"2009-01-23T06:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/?p=315"},"modified":"2023-08-07T11:05:52","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T09:05:52","slug":"presidential-ocd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/dimitris-xygalatas-blog\/presidential-ocd\/","title":{"rendered":"Presidential OCD ?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>President Obama <a href=\"http:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/Obama-inauguration-_-The-Guardian.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">having to retake the presidential oath<\/a> because a single word was out of sequence when he was sworn in last Tuesday, January 20, 2009, made me thing of the relation between ritual and Obsessive-Compulsive Behaviour (OCD), as suggested most notably\u00a0by Pascal Boyer and Pierre Lienard (in &#8220;Why Ritualized Behavior? Precaution Systems and Action-Parsing in Developmental, Pathological and Cultural Rituals&#8221; Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2006) 29: 1-56 available <a href=\"http:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/BoyerLienardBBS.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>; see also a shorter paper of theirs <a href=\"http:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008BoyerLienardCurrDirectionsPsych.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>The White House counsel, Greg Craig,\u00a0reassured\u00a0the public that Obama&#8217;s inauguration was effective and that he has indeed been president since inauguration day. However, he said,\u00a0the repeat was motivated by &#8220;an abundance of caution&#8221;. Which means&#8230; by obsessive-compulsive behaviour. Note that the misspoken sentence was 100% identical in meaning, but contained a single slight difference in word order.\u00a0According to the US Constitution, the oath reads: &#8220;I will faithfully execute the office of president of the\u00a0United States&#8221;, while Obama said: &#8220;I will execute the office of president of the United States faithfully.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, some claim that even the second oath is not valid and that Obama is still not president, because he forgot to bring a Bible for the second oath. And although the Bible is not a legal requirement, the fact that it is traditionally used in presidential inaugurations makes it part of the ritual. And as ritual practitioners often tell anthropologists, a ritual must be performed\u00a0accurately\u00a0in order to be effective&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Obama having to retake the presidential oath because a single word was out of sequence when he was sworn in last Tuesday, January 20, 2009, made me thing of the relation between ritual and Obsessive-Compulsive Behaviour (OCD), as suggested most notably\u00a0by Pascal Boyer and Pierre Lienard (in &#8220;Why Ritualized Behavior? Precaution Systems and Action-Parsing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":838,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Presidential OCD ? - International Cognition and Culture Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/dimitris-xygalatas-blog\/presidential-ocd\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Presidential OCD ? - International Cognition and Culture Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President Obama having to retake the presidential oath because a single word was out of sequence when he was sworn in last Tuesday, January 20, 2009, made me thing of the relation between ritual and Obsessive-Compulsive Behaviour (OCD), as suggested most notably\u00a0by Pascal Boyer and Pierre Lienard (in &#8220;Why Ritualized Behavior? 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