A Follow Up on Human Sacrifice
Between COVID and Gun Violence, a Society that Runs on Blood
Not long ago I looked at the rising death toll from COVID and the economic calculus used to justify inaction. From those observations, I argued that we, as a society, practice a kind of human sacrifice. While I would love for you to go back and read that piece, I can summarize a little of my thought process here:
Ancient societies sacrificed human beings whom they had “othered” societally (making their deaths acceptable) in order to secure some kind of reward from heaven, the spirit world, or some other spiritual realm. For the Mexica, the bloody sacrifice of captured prisoners ensured that the sun would rise the next day. Old Kingdom Pharaohs interred servants alive alongside themselves so that someone would care for them in the afterlife. In Neolithic and Bronze Age China, yet more captured prisoners were buried in the foundations of important buildings. Celts buried people in bogs to ensure a good harvest, and so on.
In all of these cases, needless death was tolerated or even perpetuated on the basis that the lives extinguished were worth the benefits they brought. I…