Sacrifice in the Modern World: On the Particularity and Generality of Nazi Myth

Pan, David

ISBN 10: 0810128160 / ISBN 13: 9780810128163

Editore: Northwestern University Press, 2012

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Good - Bumped and creased book with tears to the extremities, but not affecting the text block, may have remainder mark or previous owner's name - GOOD Standard-sized.

Codice articolo M0810128160Z3

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Sacrifice in the Modern World: On the Particularity and Generality of Nazi Myth
• Editore: Northwestern University Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2012
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0810128160
• ISBN 13: 9780810128163
• Rilegatura: Hardcover
• Condizione: Good

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

A landmark book, David Pan’s Sacrifice in the Modern World seeks to explain the continuing emphasis, in modern times, on sacrifice. Pan specifically turns to the culture of sacrifice—ritualized and sanctified death—in Nazi Germany, showing how that regime co-opted an existing discussion of sacrifice and infused it with its own mythology. Pan suggests that sacrifice is a key value in every society but that there is a preponderance of association of sacrifice with Nazi culture and therefore a largely pejorative treatment of sacrifice.

Surveying the arguments of philosopher Alfred Baeumler and other symptomatic Nazi texts, Pan shows how the Nazis’ reactionary intellec­tual culture unraveled much of the Enlightenment project. In so doing, he is able to offer a compelling new perspective on basic theoretical concepts in the work of Kant, Nietzsche, Adorno, Bataille, Girard, and others. He posits that it is only by clearing our way through the Nazis’ misuse of sacrifice that we can understand the durability of sacrifi­cial structures that—following several of the theorists he discusses— establish the fundamental values by which we live our lives.

Rather than condemning the Nazi appeal to sacrifice itself, this book looks at the particular ways in which sacrifice was distributed and structured within that society. All cultures must grapple with the existential violence of the human condition, and they frequently do so through aesthetic treatments of sacrifice, rooted in myths and tradi­tions. Pan argues that our task is not to eradicate these traditions but to engage them by carefully evaluating the commitments and values that they imply.

Informazioni sull'autore

David Pan is Associate Professor of German, University of California, Irvine.