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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Georges Bataille. Theory of Religion Translated by Robert Hurley Theory of
Religion f Georges Bataille.
In theory , what is started in the operation of sacrifice is like the action of lightning
: in theory there is no limit to the conflagration . It favors human life and not
animality ; the resistance to immanence is what regulates its resurgence , so
poignant ...
I do this in the form of references to writings whose authors in some way moved
toward the precise conceptions of this “ theory , ” or whose contents offer
reference points that guided my steps . I will give them in random sequence ,
following ...