Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: This article aims to demonstrate that the dimension of the sacred is constitutive of politics. First, abandoning any substantive view of the sacred that confines it to the exclusive jurisdiction of religions is necessary, reaching a broad and non-essentialist conception based on developments from Durkheim to Bataille. In this way, the sacred can be considered the center and common foundation of all society, present both in its glorious manifestations and its excremental ones, which will be referred to as pure and impure heterogeneous elements, respectively. Furthermore, contrary to those who speak of the "sacralization of politics"-a formula that implies an external relationship between politics and sacredness and a rejection of their contamination-this article proposes to understand politics as the practice of sacralization-of people and processes, of events, objects, and places-which aims to construct objectivity, that is, to stabilize the principal meanings within a social set.
Author: Aaron Attias Basso
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4402354270