Theory of ReligionTheory of Religion brings to philosophy what Georges Bataille's earlier book The Accursed Share brought to anthropology and history, namely, an analysis based on notions of excess and expenditure. No other work of Bataille's, and perhaps no other work anywhere since Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, has managed to draw so incisively the links between man's religious and economic activities. "Religion," according to Bataille, "is the search for a lost intimacy." In a brilliant and tightly reasoned argument, he proceeds to develop a "general economy" of man's relation to this intimacy: from the seamless immanence of animality to the shattered world of objects and the partial, ritual recovery of the intimate order through the violence of the sacrifice. Bataille then reflects on the archaic festival, in which he sees not only the glorious affirmation of life through destructive consumption but also the seeds of another, more ominous order -- war. Bataille then traces the rise of the modern military order, in which production ceases to be oriented toward the destruction of a surplus and violence is no longer deployed inwardly but is turned to the outside. In these twin developments one can see the origins of modern capitalism. |
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Human Sacrifice The sacrifices of slaves illustrate the principle according to
which what is useful is destined for sacrifice . Sacrifice surrenders the slave ,
whose servitude accentuates the degradation of 59 SACRIFICE , THE FESTIVAL
, THE ...
surrenders the slave , whose servitude accentuates the degradation of the
human order , to the baleful intimacy of unfettered violence . In general , human
sacrifice is the acute stage of a dispute setting the movement of a measureless
violence ...
CHAPTER I The Military Order ce From a Balance of Resources and ·
Expenditures to the Accumulation of Forces with a View to Their Growth Human
sacrifice testifies at the same time to an excess of wealth and to a very painful
way of ...