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Sacrifice

Writer's picture: Stephen ClingmanStephen Clingman



Tyrants everywhere need sacrifice.


In the usual scheme of things, it proceeds in two directions. In one direction it is towards those identified as the enemy, whether the enemy without or the enemy within. The enemy without are those beyond the country’s borders who must be defeated. The enemy within are those inside the country identified as foreign, alien, treacherous. Both enemies need to be targeted and eliminated; they are sacrificed to the grandeur of the tyrant, often quite brutally and cynically.


But there is another kind of sacrifice, presented as exalted and holy. This is the sacrifice of the tyrant’s own people, his followers, usually the young, and usually male. They are sacrificed in war against the enemies without and sometimes within. They must pay the price to bring the country together and keep it safe. They are the glorious young, giving their lives for the survival of their country. They are mythologized in image, caption, and song. Their deaths are accepted by their survivors as poignant but necessary. They bring holiness and cohesion to all. Imperial sacrifice, we might call it.


This is the model followed by the most notorious of modern tyrants, among them Hitler and Mussolini. There are of course variations. Under Stalin, the sacrifice of the Red Army against Hitler conveyed no particular aura of holiness except in retrospect, when the glory of the nation was evoked in parades and commemorations. In Britain in the First World War, internal treachery was a sub-theme, while the sacrifice of a generation in France was sanctified. In North Korea, where troops are being sent to die for Russia in Ukraine, there is a regimented form, where meaning is invested by fear as much as loyalty and longing. This is a kind of robotic sacrifice, emptied of meaning but functional nonetheless.


There is too the idea of self-sacrifice, sometimes in the service of country, sometimes in other, more personal contexts. That is very different from the kind of sacrifice where others are the targets. In self-sacrifice, people give up something of themselves for the sake of others; when others are sacrificed, people give up something for the tyrant’s sense of self. Self and other, other and self: these are inverse patterns. Tyrants will often engineer the sacrifice of others through blunt cruelty and diktat; sometimes they will call on the self-sacrifice of their own people. In either case, both serve the purposes of the tyrant’s power. Abuse and exploitation go hand in hand.


Everyone supporting the tyrant feels holy, even as they suffer. Look what a great man he is! Look what he’s done for our belief and self-esteem! We become pure, the collective where we are all one. We can go forward into the great beyond with no hesitation whatsoever.

Delirium Tremens is a variation on this theme. So far he has not demanded self-sacrifice from his followers. That may come. For now the targets are the enemy—the enemy without and the enemy within. They may not exist, these enemies, but they must be eradicated anyhow. He is identical with the state, so all enemies are his enemies, his enemies are ours. In this crusade he becomes holy, his followers become holy, an air of exaltation is infused with the libidinal overflow of rage. Love and fear become one, obscenity is licensed, norms are trashed. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord—and Delirium. No conservatism here, let alone conservation. This is it, root and branch, either you are in our camp or you will be sacrificed. Enjoy!

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