Why read Blood Sacrifice and the Nation?

Book cover of Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag

Book description

This compelling book argues that American patriotism is a civil religion of blood sacrifice, which periodically kills its children to keep the group together. The flag is the sacred object of this religion; its sacrificial imperative is a secret which the group keeps from itself to survive. Expanding Durkheim's theory…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Blood Sacrifice and the Nation as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Barry Spector

Author

This is the scariest book I have ever read. The authors, a communications professor and a psychologist (and veteran), argue that nationalism is the most powerful religion in the United States.

The doctrine that provides the central experience of Christian faith is the sacrifice of an irreplaceable son by an all-powerful father whose will it was that the son should die violently. In the modern world, and especially in America, nationalism has taken on and replicated this mythic function.

What keeps the group together and makes us feel unified is not the sacrifice of the enemy but the sacrifice of…

From Barry's list on American addiction to innocence.