Taussig-Rubbo

Rather than examine sacrifice as a category that pertains only to the barbaric other - such as the suicide bomber - I assume that it has been central to the critical moments of founding, maintenance, and transformation of the U.S. political and legal order. I do not undertake a deconstruction of social contract theory, in which the preservation of the individual's life is the purpose of the covenant, or liberal political thought, for which death is nothing but negation...Paul Kahn, in his book Putting Liberalism in Its Place, has already done this in a profound way; he has urged that sacrifice and sovereignty must be considered together and that sacrifice and not contract is the most accurate way of framing the political relationship as it has been experienced. I take as a point of departure that the U.S. government pursues not only a monopoly of violence but also a monopoly of sacrifice - that is, control over sacralized, transcendent loss.

Mateo Taussig-Rubbo