DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: BLOOD RITES


"Does the fact that humans can and often do sacralize the act of killing mean that we are more vicious than any other creature?  Or is it the other way around, with our need to sacralize the act of killing proving that we are, deep down, ultimately moral creatures?  Which are we: beasts because we make war, or angels because we so often seek to make it into something holy?"     --Barbara Ehrenreich

 

1. Does Ehrenreich's book have a central argument?  If so, what is it?

2. Why does Ehrenreich call her book Blood Rites?  How does she seem to see the relationship between the passions and the causes of war?  How does she connect and how does she differentiate these?  What role should the study of the passions of war play in constructing an overall theory of war?

3.  How successfully does Ehrenreich use the theme of sacrifice as a unifying theme in the book?  How does her exploration of the predator-prey relationship fit into her analysis of war and of the feelings we bring to it?

4. To what extent does Ehrenreich contribute to the long-standing debate about whether war is fundamentally a rational or an irrational activity?  Where does she position herself here?

5.  Respond to Ehrenreich's suggestion that in seeking to understand war we might reorient ourselves away from the familiar question of why humans continue to destroy and to act immorally (ie. Why war?)  and instead ask a new question -- "What is war?"

6. What is the internal logic for the two-part structure of the book?  Explain the apparent relationship between Part I (Predation) and Part II (War).  How well do these two sections fit together?

7. What is Ehrenreich attempting to accomplish in Part I of Blood Rites and how successful is she here?  How does she distinguish between the "hunting hypothesis" and the "defense hypothesis?"  Where does she situate herself in this debate?  What does this debate have to do with any explanation of human violence and of the passions of war?  How does Ehrenreich fit an analysis of human sacrifice into her discussion of the respective hypotheses?

8. What, according to Ehrenreich, were the purposes of early ritual sacrifices?  How do these compare and contrast with the sacrifices of war?

9. To what extent does Ehrenreich seem to be arguing that both religion and war represent a recurrent return to "that primordial encounter with the devouring beast?"

10. Does it make sense to decode war as a religious ritual of sorts?

11. Compare and contrast the warrior and the priest.  How does Ehrenreich link these two figures?

12.  How does Ehrenreich chart the development of war and its passions "from an elite religion observed by a privileged warrior caste to the mass religion [of today]?" (p. 22)

13.  What role does nationalism play in Ehrenreich's history?  How, according to her, did the invention of the nation change the rituals of war?  Why does she call her chapter on nationalism "An Imagined Bestiary?"  What use does she make of the predator-prey theme in this chapter and how would you respond to her arguments?

14.  To what extent can nationalism be compared and contrasted with religion?  How effectively does Ehrenreich use Nazism, State Shinto and post-World War II American patriotism as case studies here?

15.  Ehrenreich: "Ultimately, twentieth-century socialism lost out to nationalism for the same reason the universalistic, post-axial religions did: It has no blood rite at its core, no thrilling spectacle of human sacrifice." (p. 224)  Comment.

16.  What does Ehrenreich have to say about gender and war?  How does she account for the fact that war has historically been primarily a male enterprise?  How do you respond to her claim that the modern trajectory of the passions of war will likely lead to more women feeling its appeal?  How would you compare and contrast her beliefs on women and war with those of Tim O'Brien?

17.  Assess the bibliography Ehrenreich used in writing her book.  How does her choice of readings seem to have influenced her thesis and vice versa?

18.  To what extent is Ehrenreich qualified to speak of war?

 

 


 

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