The culture of sacrifice in conscript and volunteer militaries: The U.S. Medal of Honor from the Civil War to Iraq, 1861–2014

The Persistence of Sacrifice as Self-Sacrifice and Its Contemporary Embodiment in the 9/11 Rescuers and COVID-19 Healthcare Professionals

“…The ultimate expression of this new discourse comes when soldiers lay down their lives to save others, i.e., when they sacrifice their lives for a sacralised greater good. Soldiers still kill people in the course of their duty, but this shift from "offensive heroism" to "defensive heroism" (Lachmann and Stivers 2016) is a clear sign of the impact and capacity for the influence of the sacralization of the person in contemporary societies. This case study shows a clear example of the transition from ritual sacrifice to self-sacrifice, where the tragic-heroic narrative shift into one focused on the exchange relationship between something that is given like a gift and something that is relinquished in the process of getting a greater good.…”

“…Throughout history soldiers have sacrificed their lives, be it for their lord, their nation (these are clear examples of a tragic-heroic narrative) or, as in the case of the UN's "Blue Helmets", to protect civilian populations in conflict zones (this would be an example of the self-sacrificial narrative, focused on exchange relationship). Both narratives live together in contemporary societies, but we think the second is actually more important for understanding not only the transition from "offensive heroism" to "defensive heroism" (Lachmann and Stivers 2016) in the militaries, but the cases (analyzed here) of fire-fighters, police officers and volunteers in the aftermath of 9/11 and healthcare professionals in COVID-19 pandemic too, because the specific underlying reasons for risking their lives in each of these scenarios reveal another dimension of the phenomenon which is much more closely linked to what society holds sacred (Roszak 2020). If military honour is nowadays earned by protecting people's lives, that is because those lives have become a treasured good.…”

Performative State-Formation in the Early American Republic

“…15. Once the federal government was established, and particularly beginning with the use of conscription by the North in the Civil War, the long and more recent arc of this story (i.e., 1861 to the present) in the United States may indeed be a question of nationalism and its relationship to war-particularly when it comes to the population's tolerance of military casualties and conscription (Lachmann 2013;Lachmann and Stivers 2016). 16.…”

To the Study of the Phenomenon of Self-Sacrifice in the Context of Ensuring the Security of Russia

“…Люди готовы защищать морально важные или священные ценности путем дорогостоящих жертв и экстремальных действий, включая готовность к убийствам и самопожертвованию. Условием такой готовности является слияние самоидентификации с коллективной идентичностью и слияние этой идентичности со священными ценностями 1 . Убийства и самопожертвование часто совершаются ради идеи, включая такие абстрактные, как Бог или национальная судьба [11].…”

“…Убийства и самопожертвование часто совершаются ради идеи, включая такие абстрактные, как Бог или национальная судьба [11]. По оценкам западных военных, опора на национальные и религиозные символы способствует сплочению боевых подразделений 2 (об этом, а также об истоках спло- 1 Близкую идею сформулировал еще в 2002 г. отечественный историк В. А. Артамонов: «Соединяясь с Высшим Идеалом, воины становятся подвижниками и считают за счастье умереть за великие идеи» [10, с. 132].…”