| Ideologies of War, Genocide & Terror |
| Part IV: Kantorowicz - Lim |
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This Newsletter—the fourth presenting entries from the Ideologies of War website—includes links to:
- An entire book by Mark Levene, Genocide in the Age of the Nation-State
- Excerpts from Ernst Kantorowicz' classic book—on how the Body of Christ became a body politic
- Akio Kimura on Yukio Mishima
- Richard Koenigsberg on the reification of the nation-state, warfare as slaughter, and the logic of mass-murder
- Lieutenant Colonel Richard Lacquement on "Casualty Aversion"
Please take your time reviewing the list of items below.
Then click through to read any document. |
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| Kantorowicz, Ernst H. |
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The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Book Excerpts) |
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“At a certain moment in history the state appeared as a corpus mysticum comparable to the Church. Hence, pro patria mori, death for the sake of that mystico-political body made sense; it became meaningful, as it was considered equal in value to the death for the Christian faith, for the Church, or for the Holy Land.” |
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| Kimura, Akio |
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Mishima’s Negative Political Theology: Dying for the Absent Emperor (Essay) |
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With his spectacular suicide, Yukio Mishima reminded the postwar Japanese of what they had believed in during the war; it was not just the emperor as a god but the emperor as God, the absolute and transcendental being. While his behavior should be criticized for its anachronism, Mishima’s theology gives us a clue to understanding the idea that drove many Japanese to sacrificial death. |
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| Koenigsberg, Richard
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As the Soldier Dies, so the Nation Comes Alive (Essay) - PDF/eBook |
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The phrase, “The individual must die so that the nation might live” reifies the nation-state, treating nations as if objects that substantially exist, suggesting that countries are entities in their own right, separate from individuals.” |
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Dying for the Country (Essay) - PDF/eBook |
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The Holocaust depicts the ugliness, futility and meaninglessness of submission to the nation-state: sacrificial death stripped of words like honor, heroism and glory. |
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The First World War as Sacrificial Ritual (Essay) - PDF/eBook |
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During the First World War, soldiers’ bodies were fed into the jaws of battle under the assumption that the “life” of the nation was more significant than the lives of human beings. Individual bodies were sacrificed in the name of the greater glory of the body politic. |
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The Logic of Mass Murder (Essay) - PDF/eBook |
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SS-men have been viewed as the epitome of masculine aggression and virility. In reality, the state-of-being of the SS-man was precisely the opposite: These men were compelled to submit absolutely—to become slaves for Hitler and Himmler; to die when the Nazi leadership asked them to do so. |
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The Logic of the Holocaust (Essay) - PDF/eBook |
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Nazi ideology was based on profound attachment and devotion to Germany, Jews symbolized the opposite of attachment and devotion to Germany. The metaphor that appeared with greatest frequency in Hitler’s speeches to describe Jews was Zerzetzung, “force of disintegration.” |
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The Sacrificial Meaning of the Holocaust (Essay) - PDF/eBook |
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A sign at the entrance to Auschwitz read, “I bid you welcome. This is not a holiday resort but a labor camp. Just as our soldiers risk their lives at the front, you will have to work for the welfare of a new Europe.” Just as German soldiers were suffering and dying at the front, so Jews would be required to undergo an even more horrible ordeal. |
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“Understanding War” (Keynote Address, United World College, Feb. 2, 2007) |
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Virility and Slaughter (Essay) - PDF/eBook |
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The destruction of the male body in the First World War occurred in the name of entities or objects given names such as France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, etc. These objects required or justified abject submission. |
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