The Endless Metamorphoses of Sacrifice and Its Clashing Narratives
Abstract
:1. Introduction: Distinction between Offerings and Sacrifice
2. Social Origins of Sacrifice
3. Conceptual Origins of Sacrifice
4. Archetypical Anti-Sacrificial Landmarks and the New Anti-Immolation Narrative
5. The Clash of the Sacrificial and Anti-Sacrificial Narratives in Modern Times
5.1. The Narrative of the Sacralization of the Nation and the National Hero
5.1.1. The Transition to Modernity: “Pro Patria Mori”
Who that is true would hesitate to give his life for her [one’s native land] if by his death he could render her a service?
- “They gave their lives, to her and to all of us,
- and for their own selves they won praises that never grow old,
- the most splendid sepulchres -nor the sepulchres
- in which their bodies are laid, but where their glory remains eternal in
- men’s minds, always there in the right occasion to stir
- to speech or action. For famous men have the whole earth
- as their memorial: it is not only their inscriptions on their graves
- in their own country that mark them out; no, in foreign lands also,
- not in any visible form but in people’s hearts, their memory abides
- and grows. It is for you to try to be like them. Make up your minds
- that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends
- on being courageous. Let there be no relaxation in face of the perils of war”.
5.1.2. The nation as a New “Sacred Form” of Modernity with Its Altars, Monuments and Sacrificial Commemorations
5.2. Landmarks in the Anti-Sactificial Narrative of the Sacralization of the Person
“This human person (personne humaine), the definition of which is like the touchstone which distinguishes good from evil, is considered sacred in the ritual sense of the word. It partakes of the transcendent majesty that churches of all time lend to their gods; it is conceived of as being invested with that mysterious property which creates a void about sacred things, which removes them from vulgar contacts and withdraws them from common circulation. And the respect which is given it comes precisely from this source. Whoever makes an attempt on a man’s life, on a man’s liberty, on a man’s honor, inspires in us a feeling of horror analogous in every way to that which the believer experiences when he sees his idol profaned. Such an ethic is therefore not simply a hygienic discipline or a prudent economy of existence; it is a religion in which man is at once the worshipper and the god”.
6. Conclusions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References
Primary Sources and Collections
Biblia de Jerusalén. 1998. Bilbao: Desclée de Brouwer.Secondary Sources
- Akenson, Donald Harman. 1992. God’s Peoples. Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel and Ulster. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2013. Trauma. A Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Google Scholar]
- Alexander, Jeffrey C., Ron Eyerman, and Elizabeth Butler Breese, eds. 2013. Narrating Trauma. On the Impact of Collective Suffering. London: Palgrave. [Google Scholar]
- Alexander, Jeffrey C., Ron Eyerman, Bernhard Giesen, Neil J. Smelser, and Piotr Sztomka. 2004. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press. [Google Scholar]
- Bauman, Zygmunt. 2005. Liquid Life. Londres: Polity Press. [Google Scholar]
- Benveniste, Emile. 1969. Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes II. París: Les Editions de Minuit. [Google Scholar]
- Beriain, Josetxo. 2011. El sujeto transgresor (y transgredido). Barcelona: Anthropos-Siglo XXI. [Google Scholar]
- Beriain, Josetxo. 2015. “Genealogía afirmativa” del hecho religioso en perspectiva sociológica. Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, REIS 151: 3–22. [Google Scholar]
- Beriain, Josetxo. 2017. Las metamorfosis del don: Ofrenda, sacrificio, gracia, substituto técnico de Dios y vida regalada. Revista Política y Sociedad 54: 641–63. [Google Scholar]
- Bröckling, Ullrich. 2020. Postheroische Helden. Ein Zeitbild. Francfort: Suhrkamp. [Google Scholar]
- Butler, Judith. 2002. Antigona’s Claim. Kinship Between Life and Death. New York: Columbia University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Casquete, Jesús. 2020. El culto a los mártires nazis. Alemania, 1920–1939. Madrid: Alianza. [Google Scholar]
- Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 2018. Los deberes. Madrid: Gredos. [Google Scholar]
- Derrida, Jacques. 1995. The Gift of Death. Chicago: Chicago University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Donald, Merlin. 1990. The Origins of the Modern Mind. Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Durkheim, Emile. 1973. Individualism and the Intellectuals. In Emile Durkheim on Morality and Society. Edited by Robert Neelly Bellah. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 43–57. First published 1898. [Google Scholar]
- Durkheim, Emile. 1982. Las Formas Elementales de la Vida Religiosa. Madrid: Akal. First published 1912. [Google Scholar]
- Eisenstadt, Shmuel Noah. 1986. “Introduction” in The Origin and Diversity of Axial Civilizations. Edited by Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 1–29. [Google Scholar]
- Erkens, Franz-Reiner. 2013. Herrschersakralität. In Sakralität und Sakralisierung. Perspektiven des Heiligen. Stuttgart: Editorial Franz Steiner. [Google Scholar]
- Evans-Pritchard, Edward Evan. 1981. La religión Nuer. Madrid: Taurus. First published 1956. [Google Scholar]
- Girard, René. 1982. El misterio de nuestro mundo. Salamanca: Sígueme (Abbreviated NMN). First published 1978. [Google Scholar]
- Gordon, Neil. 1995. Sacrifice of Isaac. Nueva York: Bantam Books. [Google Scholar]
- Habermas, Jürgen. 2003. Fundamentalism and Terror. A Dialogue with Jürgen Habermas. In Philosophy in a Time of Terror. Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida. Edited by Giovanna Borradori. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, pp. 25–43. [Google Scholar]
- Hamayon, Roberte. 1990. La chasse à l`âme. Esquissed’une Theorie Chamanienne Siberienne. Nanterre: Societéd`Ethnologie. [Google Scholar]
- Harrison, Jane Ellen. 1912. Themis. The Social Origins of the Greek Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Heidegger, Martin. 1984. Gesamtausgabe. Francfort: Vittorio Klosterman, vol. 53. [Google Scholar]
- Hénaff, Marcel. 2010. The Price of Truth. Gift, Money and Philosophy. Stanford: Stanford University Press. First published 2002. [Google Scholar]
- Henninger, Joseph. 1995. Sacrifice. In The Encyclopaedia of Religion. Edited by Mircea Eliade. London: Macmillan, vol. 11, pp. 544–57. [Google Scholar]
- Hubert, Henry, and Marcel Mauss. 1981. Sacrifice. Its Nature and Functions. Chicago: Chicago University Press. First published 1898. [Google Scholar]
- Irigaray, Luce. 1992. Belief Itself. In Sexes and Genealogies. Nueva York: Columbia University Press, pp. 23–53. [Google Scholar]
- Isaacs, Harold R. 1975. Idols of the Tribe. Group Identity and Political Change. Cambridge: Harvard. [Google Scholar]
- Joas, Hans. 2013. The Sacredness of the Person. A New Genealogy of the Human Rights. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Joas, Hans. 2017. Die Macht des Heiligen. Francfort: Suhrkamp. [Google Scholar]
- Kantorowicz, Ernst H. 2012. Los dos Cuerpos del rey. Un estudio de Teología Política Medieval. Madrid: Akal. [Google Scholar]
- Keenan, Dennis King. 2005. The Question of Sacrifice. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Kierkegaard, Sören. 1976. Diario de un Seductor/Temor y Temblor. Madrid: Guadarrama. [Google Scholar]
- Koselleck, Reinhart. 2020. Modernidad, Culto a la Muerte y Memoria Nacional. Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales. [Google Scholar]
- Lacan, Jacques. 1992. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959–1960. Nueva York: Norton. [Google Scholar]
- Lachmann, Richard. 2016. The culture of sacrifice in conscript and volunteer militaries: The U.S. Medal of Honor from the Civil War to Iraq, 1861–2014. American Journal of Cultural Sociology 4: 323–58. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Leakey, Richard E. 1982. Origins. What New Discoveries Reveal About the Emergence of Our Species and Its Possible Future. New York: Dutton. [Google Scholar]
- Leakey, Richard E. 1994. The Origins of Humankind. New York: Basic Books. [Google Scholar]
- Levi-Straus, Claude. 1964. El Pensamiento Salvaje. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. [Google Scholar]
- Marvin, Caroline, and David W. Ingle. 1999. Blood Sacrifice and Nation. Totem Rituals and the American Flags. Cambridge: Cambridge University press. [Google Scholar]
- Mauss, Marcel. 1971. Ensayo sobre los dones: Motivo y forma del cambio en las sociedades primitivas. In Sociología y Antropología. Madrid: Tecnos, pp. 155–267. First published 1924. [Google Scholar]
- Mauss, Marcel. 1971. Mana. In Sociología y Antropología. Madrid: Tecnos, pp. 122–33. [Google Scholar]
- Mosse, George Lachmann. 1975. The Nationalization of the Masses. New York: Howard Fertig. [Google Scholar]
- Mosse, George Lachmann. 1990. Fallen Soldiers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Parsons, Talcott. 1978. The ‘Gift of Life’ and its Reciprocation. In Action Theory and the Human Condition. Nueva York: Free Press, pp. 264–99. [Google Scholar]
- Pitt-Rivers, Julian. 1993. El lugar de la gracia en la antropología. In Honor y Gracia. Edited by Julian Pitt-Rivers and J. G. Peristiany. Madrid: Alianza, pp. 280–321. [Google Scholar]
- Reckwitz, Andreas. 2012. Die Erfindung der Kreativität. ZumProzessgesellschaftlicherÄsthetisierung. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. [Google Scholar]
- Robertson-Smith, William. 1972. The Religion of the Semites. The Fundamental Institutions. Nueva York: Schocken. First published 1889. [Google Scholar]
- Robertson-Smith, William. 1886. Sacrifice. In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., vol. 21, pp. 132–40. [Google Scholar]
- Schwartz, Benjamin. 1975. The Age of Transcendence. In Wisdom, Revelation and Doubt: Perspectives on the First Millennium B.C. Cambridge: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. 2, pp. 3–4. [Google Scholar]
- Smith, Anthony D. 2003. Chosen Peoples. Sacred Sources of National Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Smith, Phillipe. 2005. Why War? The Cultural Logic of Iraq, The Gulf War and Suez. Chicago: Chicago University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Stroumsa, Guy. 2009. The End of Sacrifice. Chicago: Chicago University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Thucydides. 1959. The History of the Peloponnesian War. Hardmonsworth: Penguin. [Google Scholar]
- van Baal, Jan. 1976. Offering, Sacrifice and Gift. Numen 23: 161–78. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- van Gennep, Arnold. 1986. Los Ritos de paso. Madrid: Taurus. First published 1909. [Google Scholar]
- Weber, Marianne. 1995. Max Weber. Una biografía. Valencia: Alphons el Magnánim. [Google Scholar]
- Weber, Max. 1978. Economía y Sociedad. México City: FCE. [Google Scholar]
- Weber, Max. 1987. Ensayos sobre Sociología de la Religion. Madrid: Taurus, vol. 3. [Google Scholar]
- Wundt, Wilhelm. 1990. Elementos de Psicología de los Pueblos. Barcelona: Alta Fulla. First published 1912. [Google Scholar]
- Zelizer, Viviana. 1985. Pricing the Priceless Child. The Changing Social Values of Children. Nueva York: Basic Books. [Google Scholar]
- Zelizer, Viviana. 2015. Vidas Económicas. Cómo la Cultura da Forma a la Economía. Madrid: CIS. [Google Scholar]
- Zerubavel, Eviatar. 2018. Taken for Granted. The Remarkable Power of the Unremarkable. Princeton: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Zulaika, Joseba, and William Douglass. 1996. Terror and Tabu. The Folies, Fables and Faces of Terrorism. Londres: Routledge and Keegan Paul. [Google Scholar]
- Zulaika, Joseba. 2020. Hell Fire from Paradise Ranch. On the Front Lines of Drone Warfare. Oakland: University of California Press. [Google Scholar]
1 | Merlin Donald (1990) established the main outlines of an evolutionary process that began with Homo Erectus and the mimetic culture two million years ago, continued with the mimetic/symbiotic culture described here as from around 250,000 years ago and led to the theoretical culture that peaked in the Axial Age. |
2 | Claude Levi-Strauss defines sacrifice in similar terms as “an irreversible operation (the destruction of the victim) in order to release, on another level, an equally irreversible operation (the granting of divine grace), which is required by the fact that two “recipients” situated at different levels, have previously been brought into communication” (Levi-Strauss 1964, p. 327). For more about the social origins of the guiding distinction between the sacred and the profane and its historical metamorphoses, see the paper by Josetxo Beriain (2015, vol. 151, pp. 3–22). |
3 | However, in the Exchange of gifts studied by Mauss ([1924] 1971, pp. 155–267, 213–15), under the heading of receiving-giving-offering back, individuals must always offer more than they receive (in fact they must offer themselves in the exchange) in the sacrifice in which there is an exchange between humans and gods. Durkheim asserts that in reality a person “gives to sacred beings a little of what he receives from them and he receives from them all that he gives them” (Durkheim [1912] 1982, p. 317). In other words, humans always receive more than they give to the gods. |
4 | Viviana Zelizer has studied the social processes that have led to the sacralisation of the child (Zelizer 1985). By the same author (Zelizer 2015), Part One: Valuation of Human Lives, pp. 35–123. |
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. |
© 2020 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Share and Cite
Beriain, J. The Endless Metamorphoses of Sacrifice and Its Clashing Narratives. Religions 2020, 11, 684. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11120684
Beriain J. The Endless Metamorphoses of Sacrifice and Its Clashing Narratives. Religions. 2020; 11(12):684. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11120684
Chicago/Turabian StyleBeriain, Josetxo. 2020. "The Endless Metamorphoses of Sacrifice and Its Clashing Narratives" Religions 11, no. 12: 684. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11120684
APA StyleBeriain, J. (2020). The Endless Metamorphoses of Sacrifice and Its Clashing Narratives. Religions, 11(12), 684. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11120684