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Three Studies of Ritual Sacrifice in Late-Capitalism

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Three Studies of Ritual Sacrifice in Late-Capitalism The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts ATLAS OF SACRIFICE: THREE STUDIES OF RITUAL SACRIFICE IN LATE-CAPITALISM A Dissertation in Communication Arts and Sciences by Keren Wang © 2018 Keren Wang Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2018 The dissertation of Keren Wang was reviewed and approved* by the following: Stephen H. Browne Liberal Arts Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences Dissertation Adviser Chair of Committee Jeremy Engels Associate Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences Kirt H. Wilson Associate Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences and African American Studies CAS Graduate Program Chair Larry Catá Backer Professor of Law and International Affairs *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School ii ABSTRACT This dissertation focuses on one understudied rhetorical dynamic of late-capitalist governmentality – its deployment of ritual and sacrificial discourses. Ritual takings of things of human value, including ritual human sacrifice, has been continuously practiced for as long as human civilization itself has existed. It is important to note that ritual sacrifices were far more than simply acts of religious devotion. Ample historical records suggest ritual sacrifices were performed as crisis management devices. Large scale human sacrifices in Shang dynasty China were organized as responses to severe food shortages. Ancient Greece devised the specialized sacrificial forms of Holokaustos (total oblation) and Pharmakos (human scapegoat) as apotropaic responses to ward off catastrophes. The Aztec Empire introduced a highly institutionalized form of ritual warfare, known as the “Flower War” (Nahuatl: xōchiyāōyōtl), for the purpose of calendrical population control during periods of famine. Sacrificial rituals of the past should not be considered fundamentally divorced from the governmentality of twenty-first-century. Even destructive rituals, such as warfare and capital punishment, are formally conducted under the justification of preserving collective political ideals. The source distribution structure of late-capitalism, too, reproduce itself via the ritual inculcation of its core values and normative practices. Specifically, this project seeks to examine the subtle ways in which rhetorics of sacrifice are re-appropriated into the workings marketization politics, and are deployed in rendering dehumanizing measures of the prevailing political-economic system that make them appear palpable and inescapable. This presents an in-depth study of the ritual inculcation of materially exploitative public policies in a diverse set of political and legal contexts. To this end, this dissertation aims to explore new ways of critically interrogating the broader implications of the governing techniques of late- capitalism, by engaging its “mythical” and ritual practices. The critical analysis in this work is tasked with giving due consideration to the modern rituals of sacrifice within neoliberal discourse: from those exploitative yet inescapable employment contractual obligations, to those calendrical multi-billion dollar “offerings” to the insatiable appetite of “too-big-to-fail” corporations. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………………………………v Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………….…………1 Why sacrifice? …………………………………………….…………………….………..1 Why neoliberalism? ………………………………………………………....….…….…..6 Why rhetoric?……………………………….…………………………………............…12 Why atlas?………………………………………………………...……….......................17 Chapter preview………………………………………………………………….……....28 Chapter 2. INTERSECTIONAL OVERVIEW …………………………………………………34 Raising the issue ………………………………………………………………………...34 Historical thickness of ritual sacrifice ………………………………………..…………36 Preliminary thesis on the rhetoric of ritual sacrifice…………………………….……….61 Chapter 3. RHETORICAL INVENTION OF LAWS OF SACRIFICE …….….………….……69 Background ………………………………………………………………………….…..70 Judicial rhetoric and its underlying belief structures……………………………….……76 Ritual analysis …………………………………………………………………….……..88 Chapter conclusion ……………………………………………………………….…..….97 Chapter 4. DAVID AND GOLIATH …………………………………………………………..100 Background of the Vedanta controversy ……………………………………………….100 Ritual analysis ………………………………………………………………………….120 Conclusion – a myth at last …………………………………………………………….143 Chapter 5. MESSIANIC RHETORIC OF APARTHEID ……………………………………..147 Conceptual overview …………………………………………………………………..150 From theologian to social psychologist ………………………………………………..155 Architect of apartheid ………………………………………………………………….160 Messianic rhetoric of total segregation………………………………………………...164 A brief conclusion ……………………………………………………………………..190 Chapter 6. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH ………….………………….……193 Total abomination against economic growth …………………………………….……194 Unconditional election of modified offerings…………………………………….……196 Limited realization of predestined growth………………………………………….….204 Irresistible takings by institutions of public authority…………………………….……211 Perseverance of the ritual………………………………………………………………214 Advantages, limitations and future directions…………………………………….……216 BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………….…………………………………………………………….221 APPENDIX ……………………………………………………………………………………234 GDP and NNI gap in the U.S.: 1970 – 2015 GDP and NNI in China: 1970 - 2015 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1.1 Three waves of global marketization……………………………………….….....…..8 2.1 Symbol of the sovereign power of the king over the bare life ………….….……… 37 2.2 Human sacrifice and agricultural production……………………………….……….43 2.3 Management of large-scale violence………………………………………….……..44 2.4 “Shall human blood be offered on the day of xinyou?” …………………….…..…..44 2.5 Spoils of war and conquest………………………………………………….………46 2.6 Ritual blood-letting and land transfer……………………………………….………47 2.7 Human sacrifice and wealth transfer……………………………………….……….50 2.8 Myth of sacrifice as precondition for growth……………………………….……....52 2.9 Sacrificing the poor and powerless during economic crisis……………….………..60 3.2 City of New London unemployment rate……………………………………….…..97 5.1 Art of persuasion in the age of mechanical emotional reproduction………………158 6.1 Will the survivors envy the dead?............................................................................199 6.2 City of New London unemployment rate: 2005 – 2015……………………..….…205 6.3 GDP/median household income gap in the U.S……………………………..….…207 6.4 Wall Street vs. Main Street……………………………………………………..….208 6.5 Share of the top 1% in total income …………………………………………..…...209 v CHAPTER 1 Introduction This dissertation project focuses on one understudied rhetorical dynamic of late-capitalist global system – its rhetorical inventions of ritual sacrifice. Rituals not only have the capacity to discipline the human body to perform prescribed social transactions, but can also render violent social transactions to appear irresistible, or even palatable. Through three distinct case studies of public takings, this project seeks to examine the subtle ways in which rhetorics of sacrifice are reappropriated into the governance structures of neoliberalism. These case studies also highlight the role ritual plays in the management and normalization of dehumanizing conditions of the prevailing political-economic order. This chapter introduces the research subject, core objectives and mode of inquiry for this dissertation project. This section also provides a preview of the chapters in this dissertation. There are three preliminary research questions for this study: why study sacrifice? Why focus on neoliberalism? Why use a rhetorical approach? Why “atlas?” Why sacrifice? Sacrifice, more specifically ritual sacrifice, refers to the prescribed sequence of activities involving the intentional destruction or surrendering of things to a divine patron or other higher purpose. Sacrificial offerings are typically material objects of real or symbolic value, such as food items, libations (liquid beverages) and religious artifacts, but may also involve the killing of livestock or even human beings. To borrow the words of British historian Eric Hobsbawm, the ritual component of ritual sacrifice can be understood as a set of symbolic practices, formally 1 organized by explicitly stated or tacitly assumed rules and procedures, and functions in a communal setting to “inculcate certain values and norms of behavior by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.”1 Sacrifices in the form of state-organized rituals have been observed in many societies throughout history.2 For instance, large-scale, systematic human sacrifice functioned as important political and religious spectacles in Shang dynasty China and in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican societies.3 Existing scholarship also observed an interdependent relationship 1 Eric Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 1-2. 2 Richard E. DeMaris, “Sacrifice, an Ancient Mediterranean Ritual,” Biblical Theology Bulletin vol. 43 no.2 (2013), 60-73. See also, Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo: Resemblances between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics, trans. A. A. Brill (New York: Random House, 1961), chapters II and VI: “The yearly sacrifice (self-sacrifice is a variant) of a god seems to have been an important feature of Semitic religions. The ceremony of human sacrifice in various parts of the inhabited world makes it certain that these human beings ended their lives as representatives of the deity. This sacrificial custom can still be traced in later
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