The term "superstition" is not used by Anglophone social scientists as an analytical concept, but the term is very much alive in popular language, both in English and (even more so) in Chinese.
The English word derives from the Latin superstitio, the parts of which mean "standing over," as in transcending or standing outside of ordinary logic.
In the western world, there have been three particularly influential interpretations of what superstition is all about, all three compatible with this etymology:
- St. Augustine (354-430) was inclined to the view that the essential characteristic of superstition was excess in one's belief or behavior. A superstitious person was, for Augustine, a person who was too religious, in some sense, who was gullible in belief or overzealous in practice.
- By the 700s, Christian thinkers in Europe, facing the stubborn continuation of pagan ideas long after an area had been Christianized, came to define superstition as the remnants of earlier beliefs, "standing over" later Christian belief.
- St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), in contrast, saw superstition as erroneous belief rather than a residuum or an excess. A superstitious person was one who uncritically and often stubbornly believed things that were false.
In a class discussion several years ago, an astute student proposed that the word superstition as used in ordinary English today normally refers to the conscious or semi-conscious awareness that a belief or practice is inconsistent with much that we know or at least firmly believe. In other words, we know better, and we know that we know better, but we find it attractive to pretend we don't. This cleverly places superstition in the borderland between belief and play, and takes graceful account of coins tossed in fountains, birthday cake candle wishes, and "lucky exam shirts."
In contrast to the embarrassment that English speakers feel about the term "superstition," the word is much used in Chinese, where, for example, it is used in many book titles about popular Chinese religious practice. The (modern) Chinese term is míxìn 迷信 ("misleading belief"). It apparently was borrowed sometime early in the XXth century from Japanese attempts to translate the Western word, possibly in the works of Aquinas. (At the beginning of the XXth century, Chinese writers used a number of other expressions to translate the English word "superstition.")
However, in my experience, popular Chinese feeling is not actually very close to that of Aquinas and his view of superstition as error. Most ordinary Chinese are more "Augustinian," in that they tend to see míxìn as a matter of excess in one's concern with religious affairs, individually or collectively. Popular usage describes a person as míxìn who spends a great deal of time on religious matters, or who is gullible about the claims of religious entrepreneurs. But this does not mean the person has beliefs that are strongly at variance to what other people believe.
A very salient issue in Chinese discussions of superstition is its relationship to exploitation and mountebankery. Exploitation of the religiously gullibile by self-proclaimed healers and gurus was a very ancient concern in China, reflected in centuries of government anti-religious rhetoric. (Obviously the issue is still with us today.)
On the whole, I think I best like the student's definition of superstition as ideas and practices that we like, even though we also know that we don't "really" believe them. It raises excellent questions about semi-belief (an unexplored theoretical issue) and about the relationship between play and religion.
Content Revised: 2009-10-21
Software Last Modified: 2025-02-04
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