Sacrifice is the beginning of the process of meaning creation because it reveals to us what we value. In order for that to work, the sacrifice must be real. You must give up something that is of great value. You do that in service of something that is potentially of greater value. But the catch is that you can’t know in advance whether you will ever receive that value. That’s why a consumer transaction is never a sacrifice. It gives a fixed value for a fixed price. A sacrifice is more like an investment in a start-up company. You have to risk losing everything. You do it because you believe, not because you know.
Once upon a time, marriage required a genuine sacrifice because you could effectively never get divorced. The risk was that you would spend the rest of your life with someone you hated or you would marry somebody who would die young and leave you a widow(er). Of course, ultimately you can never know what is going to happen. That’s why life is sacred.
I agree! People have long equated status with entitlement, but the problem with this is it’s not creative at all. Heroic cultures generated a future through leading with sacrifice. It was considered something to honor, whereas in trader society leadership sacrifices others below them. The problem is conflating in group sacrifice for blanket sacrifice for all or for dysfunction even within the group.
Entitlement is the mentality of the nouveau riche who have not sacrificed anything and therefore didn’t earn their social position. It’s become dominant in the post-war years because almost the entire boomer generation was nouveau riche, especially in the US. The seeming paradox is that those who are given everything for free end up resenting their benefactors.
I agree but think it’s predates boomers, they more epitomize the end result. At a foundational level there has long been something amiss that folds into the next stage of the metazietgiest or age. The wording I chose could have been better… when I say entitlement I mean it not in a financial sense at all but the direction of sacrifice and efforts. Even before the boomers we had the concept of the fusion of the direction of sacrifice and status. Post Lycurgian Sparta (or even Lycurgus himself) would epitomize that status are those sacrificing the most, not the direction that sacrifice flows towards. Lycurgus would actually be a perfect example of extreme status because of his sacrifice, no entitlement. He would epitomize Progenic Hierarchy without actually having fathered any children. In their case, the entire ethnos functioned as a family unit. Like Fredrick the Great, Lycurgus would be a kind of father to the entire people.
Oh, absolutely. But the whole modern world is a rebellion against the Father!
The kings of Europe usually took the title of Pater Patriae (father of the fatherland). Meanwhile, the Pope is literally “papa”. Thus, there was a general rebellion against the Father beginning with the Reformation. The Dutch war against the Spanish, the British Civil War, the American, French and Russian revolutions were all wars against the archetypal Father by a society of archetypal Brothers (fraternité). But in a society of implied equals, any elevated status is invalid almost by definition.
Not all cases are similar. What happened before the revolutions were very different circumstances than the end of the Julian-Claudian line for example. Their line had so much internal competition because of material mimetics that the line was ended by their own hands. Nero killing his pregnant wife and his mother, many supposed assassinations within the family prior to that for power etc… way further back and not close to as progressed as before the revolution or now, but still an example of a very different form of Heirarchy and internal fighting thank Sparta or likely heroic age cultures before this age.
Yes, it’s very difficult to determine the exact meaning of history. Nevertheless, there’s a strange symmetry at play. Just as Rome transitioned from republic to dictatorship, the title Pater Patriae arrived on the scene. It was bestowed on Julius Caesar and then almost all Caesars that followed. Fast forward to medieval times, and the kings of Europe were eager to be associated with the legend of Rome. That’s part of the reason many of them also adopted the title Pater Patriae. Plus, you’ve got the Pope as a transnational father figure. Then, it all gets overturned with the Reformation and following political events, which look an awful lot like the assassination of Caesar and which lead back to republican-style government. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything, but it’s a remarkable set of coincidences.
Yes that makes sense but the word father and being a father in the sense of being self sacrificing are not always synonymous. As much as the revolutions were repulsive, there was something that spurned the contempt for it to land on. Helots revolted against the Spartans but the father of the Spartans was not the father the Helots. Their scorn for decadence (though it did not last) was part of the ethnos of leading through self sacrifice. Once decadence enters the equation, it creates distance from the life and death cycle and material mimetics. This does not mean people who hold lots of decadence deserve to be harmed or are inherently at fault, the Marxist reaction was also a fold along the same metazietgiest. The problem itself lies in material mimetics that create a zero sum understanding of position, no distinction between people, and weakens the rulers themselves.
This is hard to explain but I do some more in the Lost Heroic Age series though I am still trying to figure out how to express it better.
Bellissimo articolo! Il sacrificio serve per dare una dimensione sacrale o per meglio dire divina all'esistenza degli esseri viventi. Senza sacrificio tutto si appiattisce, la vita diventa sterile.
Sacrifice is the beginning of the process of meaning creation because it reveals to us what we value. In order for that to work, the sacrifice must be real. You must give up something that is of great value. You do that in service of something that is potentially of greater value. But the catch is that you can’t know in advance whether you will ever receive that value. That’s why a consumer transaction is never a sacrifice. It gives a fixed value for a fixed price. A sacrifice is more like an investment in a start-up company. You have to risk losing everything. You do it because you believe, not because you know.
Once upon a time, marriage required a genuine sacrifice because you could effectively never get divorced. The risk was that you would spend the rest of your life with someone you hated or you would marry somebody who would die young and leave you a widow(er). Of course, ultimately you can never know what is going to happen. That’s why life is sacred.
I agree! People have long equated status with entitlement, but the problem with this is it’s not creative at all. Heroic cultures generated a future through leading with sacrifice. It was considered something to honor, whereas in trader society leadership sacrifices others below them. The problem is conflating in group sacrifice for blanket sacrifice for all or for dysfunction even within the group.
Entitlement is the mentality of the nouveau riche who have not sacrificed anything and therefore didn’t earn their social position. It’s become dominant in the post-war years because almost the entire boomer generation was nouveau riche, especially in the US. The seeming paradox is that those who are given everything for free end up resenting their benefactors.
I agree but think it’s predates boomers, they more epitomize the end result. At a foundational level there has long been something amiss that folds into the next stage of the metazietgiest or age. The wording I chose could have been better… when I say entitlement I mean it not in a financial sense at all but the direction of sacrifice and efforts. Even before the boomers we had the concept of the fusion of the direction of sacrifice and status. Post Lycurgian Sparta (or even Lycurgus himself) would epitomize that status are those sacrificing the most, not the direction that sacrifice flows towards. Lycurgus would actually be a perfect example of extreme status because of his sacrifice, no entitlement. He would epitomize Progenic Hierarchy without actually having fathered any children. In their case, the entire ethnos functioned as a family unit. Like Fredrick the Great, Lycurgus would be a kind of father to the entire people.
Oh, absolutely. But the whole modern world is a rebellion against the Father!
The kings of Europe usually took the title of Pater Patriae (father of the fatherland). Meanwhile, the Pope is literally “papa”. Thus, there was a general rebellion against the Father beginning with the Reformation. The Dutch war against the Spanish, the British Civil War, the American, French and Russian revolutions were all wars against the archetypal Father by a society of archetypal Brothers (fraternité). But in a society of implied equals, any elevated status is invalid almost by definition.
Not all cases are similar. What happened before the revolutions were very different circumstances than the end of the Julian-Claudian line for example. Their line had so much internal competition because of material mimetics that the line was ended by their own hands. Nero killing his pregnant wife and his mother, many supposed assassinations within the family prior to that for power etc… way further back and not close to as progressed as before the revolution or now, but still an example of a very different form of Heirarchy and internal fighting thank Sparta or likely heroic age cultures before this age.
Yes, it’s very difficult to determine the exact meaning of history. Nevertheless, there’s a strange symmetry at play. Just as Rome transitioned from republic to dictatorship, the title Pater Patriae arrived on the scene. It was bestowed on Julius Caesar and then almost all Caesars that followed. Fast forward to medieval times, and the kings of Europe were eager to be associated with the legend of Rome. That’s part of the reason many of them also adopted the title Pater Patriae. Plus, you’ve got the Pope as a transnational father figure. Then, it all gets overturned with the Reformation and following political events, which look an awful lot like the assassination of Caesar and which lead back to republican-style government. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything, but it’s a remarkable set of coincidences.
Yes that makes sense but the word father and being a father in the sense of being self sacrificing are not always synonymous. As much as the revolutions were repulsive, there was something that spurned the contempt for it to land on. Helots revolted against the Spartans but the father of the Spartans was not the father the Helots. Their scorn for decadence (though it did not last) was part of the ethnos of leading through self sacrifice. Once decadence enters the equation, it creates distance from the life and death cycle and material mimetics. This does not mean people who hold lots of decadence deserve to be harmed or are inherently at fault, the Marxist reaction was also a fold along the same metazietgiest. The problem itself lies in material mimetics that create a zero sum understanding of position, no distinction between people, and weakens the rulers themselves.
This is hard to explain but I do some more in the Lost Heroic Age series though I am still trying to figure out how to express it better.
👏👏👏PHENOMENAL
Thank you! I appreciate feedback!
Bellissimo articolo! Il sacrificio serve per dare una dimensione sacrale o per meglio dire divina all'esistenza degli esseri viventi. Senza sacrificio tutto si appiattisce, la vita diventa sterile.
Grazie. L'esistenza si basa sul sacrificio.