Sacrifice, Sublimation and the Sublime

“牺牲”一词的词根有其仪式实践的基础。它通常意味着奉献，放弃或拒绝，这个词我们将理解它意味着替代，或更深刻的升华，一个项目或兴趣为更高的价值或原则。我探索了强大的、继承的牺牲想象之间的张力，这种张力仍然渗透在许多政治修辞、艺术表达和流行文化中。然而，在图像和它们的情感货运之间，以及我们如何使用适当的概念工具来表达它们之间，存在着一条深深的鸿沟。一种可能的解释是，牺牲的术语是野蛮的，古老的，过时的，这似乎是许多当代知识分子的观点。然而，我认为有充分的理由认为，全球冲突、国家内部的恐怖主义问题以及生态危机等问题突出了牺牲这一主题对当代文化的持续相关性。我考虑两种对立但影响深远的关于牺牲在现代思想中的作用的观点。这两种对立的观点都对传统的伦理理论的理解构成了有力的攻击。克尔凯郭尔和尼采都对犹太教和基督教对神性善良和赎罪祭的综合观点提出了非常激进的批评。在我对这两位作家的讨论中，我提出了对神圣善良理论与牺牲概念的兼容性的检索。我想反驳克尔凯郭尔和尼采，我提出，真正宗教的崇高性，可以最好地理解为，人类存在不可剥夺的牺牲维度的升华。约瑟夫·德·梅斯特（Joseph de Maistre）观察到，牺牲是人类社会中普遍而棘手的因素，我们将深入考虑当代自然主义的宗教观点，这些观点必须以更容易接受科学解释的方式来解释牺牲。事实上，随着新达尔文主义在最近人类学中的复兴，牺牲的问题变得更加紧迫，新达尔文主义借鉴了认知科学和进化心理学。在本书的这一部分，我捍卫雷诺·吉拉德的立场，反对这种简化主义的说法。吉拉德认为，试图用理性主义的术语来解释牺牲是不充分的。吉拉德关于替罪羊机制的微妙理论是对清除宗教神圣和原始力量的企图的挑战。我认为牺牲在19世纪美学理论中的升华。这些理论认为艺术是建立在对苦难的净化能力之上的，在这些理论中，艺术取代了宗教，成为对世界苦难的一种安慰。尽管19世纪的美学理论未能为宗教提供令人满意的替代品，但它们仍然可以用来显示任何纯粹自然主义的人类存在描述的不足之处。此外，从奥维德到弥尔顿的诗人生动地呈现了自我转化的必要性，这是实现人类身份的先决条件。因此，牺牲成为人类存在的矛盾构成的表达：我们的生命正是通过致力于我们认为比满足短期偏好更有意义的事情而具有意义，而且很可能比我们个人的生存更重要。在最后一部分，我想谈谈对基督教的巨大挑战，从威廉·Empson和理查德·道金斯等形形色色的批评家那里可以看出，基督教不仅是虚假的，而且是邪恶的。为了反对这些批评，我认为十字架不仅仅是一种冒犯，而且是神圣的正义和仁慈的交汇点。在这里，我考察了从安塞姆到巴斯赎罪的传统理论与当代神学的相关性。

The root meaning of 'sacrifice' has a basis in ritual practice. It usually means an offering, a giving up or rejection, the word as we are going to understand it signifies the substitution, or more profoundly sublimation, of an item or interest for a higher value or principle. I explore the tension between the potent, inherited imaginary of sacrifice, which still pervades much political rhetoric, artistic expression, and popular culture. There is, however, a deep gulf between the images and their emotional freight and how we employ an adequate conceptual apparatus for their articulation. One possible explanation is that the terminology of sacrifice is simply barbaric, archaic, and obsolete, and this would seem to be the view of many contemporary intellectuals. I propose, however, good reasons to think that issues of global conflict, problems of terrorism within states, and the ecological crisis highlight the continuing relevance of the topic of sacrifice for contemporary culture. I consider two opposing but deeply influential views of the role of sacrifice in modern thought. Both these opposing views form powerful attacks upon an inherited understanding of ethical theory. Both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche provide very radical critiques of the Judaeo-Christian synthesis of the idea of divine goodness and propitiatory sacrifice. In my discussion of both these writers I present a retrieval of the compatibility of the theory of divine goodness with the notion of sacrifice. I wish to counter both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche by proposing that the sublimity of true religion can be best understood in terms of the sublimation of an inalienable sacrificial dimension to human existence. Picking up on the observation of Joseph de Maistre that sacrifice is a universal and intractable element in human societies, we shall consider in some depth contemporary naturalistic views of religion, which have to interpret sacrifice in ways more readily amenable to scientific explanation. Indeed, the problem of sacrifice has become much more urgent through a resurgence of neo-Darwinism in recent anthropology, which is drawing on cognitive science and evolutionary psychology. In this section of the book I defend the position of René Girard against such reductionistic accounts. Girard holds that attempts to explain sacrifice in rationalistic terms prove inadequate. Girard's subtle theory of the scapegoat mechanism is a gauntlet thrown at attempts to purge religion of its sacred and primordial power. I consider the sublimation of sacrifice in aesthetic theories of the nineteenth century. Viewing art as grounded in the purifying power of suffering, these are theories in which art comes comes to replace religion as a form of consolation for the suffering of the world.Although the aesthetic theories of the nineteenth century fail to provide a satisfying replacement for religion, they can still serve to show up the inadequacies of any purely naturalistic account of human existence. Furthermore, the poets from Ovid to Milton present vividly the necessity for the transformation of self as a precondition for the realization of human identity. Sacrifice thus becomes the expression of the paradoxical constitution of human existence: our lives possess meaning precisely through the commitment to that which we consider more significant than the satisfaction of short-term preferences and, quite possibly, as even more important than our personal survival. In the final section I wish to address the formidable challenge to Christianity evident in critics as diverse as William Empson and Richard Dawkins that Christianity is not merely false, but wicked. In opposition to such critics, I argue that the cross is not merely an offence, but is the point where divine justice and mercy meet. Here I examine the relevance of traditional theories of the atonement from Anselm to barth for contemporary theology.