The barren sacrifice : an essay on political violence / Paul Dumouchel ; translated by Mary Baker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dumouchel, Paul.

Contributor:

Baker, Mary, translator.

Series:

Studies in violence, mimesis, and culture.

Studies in violence, mimesis, and culture

Standardized Title:

Sacrifice inutile. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political violence.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (242 p.)

Place of Publication:

East Lansing : Michigan State University Press, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

According to political theory, the primary function of the modern state is to protect its citizens--both from each other and from external enemies. Yet it is the states that essentially commit major forms of violence, such as genocides, ethnic cleansings, and large-scale massacres, against their own citizens. In this book Paul Dumouchel argues that this paradoxical reversal of the state’s primary function into violence against its own members is not a mere accident but an ever-present possibility that is inscribed in the structure of the modern state. Modern states need enemies to exist and to persist, not because they are essentially evil but because modern politics constitutes a violent means of protecting us against our own violence. If they cannot--if we cannot--find enemies outside the state, they will find them inside. However, this institution is today coming to an end, not in the sense that states are disappearing, but in the sense that they are increasingly failing to protect us from our own violence. That is why the violent sacrifices that they ask from us, in wars and even in times of peace, have now become barren.

Contents:

Introduction

1. Solidarity and enmity

2. The state, violence, and groups

3. Territory and war

4. The traitor and reason

5. Indifference and charity

6. Social justice and territory

Epilogue.

Notes:

Translation of Le sacrifice inutile : essai sur violence politque.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-203) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed September 3, 2015).

ISBN:

1-62895-242-3

1-60917-470-4

OCLC:

919104761