Quotes on Sacrifice

Thornton Wilder's character Manuel questioned whether "we ever sacrifice anything save what we know we can never attain, or what some secret wisdom tells us it would be uncomfortable or saddening to possess."

Arjun Appadurai said:

"But what is the special status of such scapegoats in the era of globalization? After all, strangers, sick people, nomads, religious dissidents, and similar minor social groups have always been targets of prejudice and xenophobia. Here I suggest a single and simple hypothesis. Given the systemic compromise of national economic sovereignty that is built into the logic of globalization, and given the increasing strain this puts on states to behave as trustees of the interests of a territorially defined and confined 'people,' minorities are the major site for displacing the anxieties of many states about their own minority or marginality (real or imagined) in a world of a few megastates, of unruly economic flows and compromised sovereignties."

And, Chris Walsh:

"The wish to avoid the imputation of cowardice has led many to do their duty to the larger group, even the most awful duty of killing and being killed. In his study of the motivation of American Civil War soldiers, James M. McPherson notes that in their letters home men ‘wrote much about cowardice because they worried they might be guilty of it, and they desperately wanted to avoid the shame of being known as a coward—and that is what gave them courage.

In a similar vein Horace follows his famous testament to patriotic courage—‘dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ (it is sweet and proper to die for one’s country)—with far less famous but no less important lines:

mors et fugacem persequitur virum
nec parcit imbellis iuventae
poplitibus timidove tergo
[death hunts down also the man who runs away
and has no mercy on the hamstrings of the unwarlike youth
and his cowardly back]

The ancient Roman poet operates on the same principle as the Union and Confederate soldiers do: the shame of cowardice reinforces the call for sacrifice.

Exactly, says the other side in this debate: that is the problem. Shaming people into sacrifice has caused uncountable horrors."

Sources

Thornton Wilder. The Bridge of San Luis Rey. (1927) New York: Washington Square Press, Inc., 1960. p. 53.

Arjun Appadurai. Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2006. p. 43.

Chris Walsh. Cowardice: A Brief History. Princeton University Press, 2014. p. 10.