Sacrifice

International audienceSacrifice is an ancient and powerful idea, rich with contradictions. These days it can seem ubiquitous: from the rhetorical mobilizations of one war after the other, to the ideological pressures of austerity, to the "necessary" disruptions of life in neoliberal democracies, to the urgent adjustments demanded (and ignored) for a changing climate. Everywhere you turn, it seems, some form of sacrifice is rearing its head, demanding tribute. The history of the concept runs deep, open to many readings. Here I will parse it as violence, because I think that today this is how sacrifice presents itself most forcefully as a problem