Sacrifice’s dual function—self-surrender and self-preservation—turns magic into cunning rationality.

Evidence

6. The relationship of sacrifice and exchange was explained in a wholly magical context by Klages (as against Nietzsche’s materialistic interpretation): “The necessity of sacrifice pure and simple concerns everyone, because everyone, as we have seen, receives his share—the original suum cuique—of life and of all the goods of life, only by continually giving and giving in return. This is not, however, an exchange of goods in the usual sense (which admittedly also owes its primordial origin to the notion of sacrifice), but an exchange of fluids or essences by surrendering one’s own soul to the supporting and nurturing life of the world” (Ludwig Klages, Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele, Leipzig, 1932, Vol. III, Pt. 2, p. 1409). The dual character of sacrifice, however, the magic self-surrender of the individual to the collective … and self-preservation by the technique of this magic, implies an objective contradiction which tends to the development of the rational element in sacrifice. Under the continuing jurisdiction of magic, rationality—as the behavior of the sacrificer—becomes cunning. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 299

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly supplements the ‘On Sacrifice’ article: Klages frames sacrifice as metaphysical exchange of essences, and the note extracts the core tension — sacrifice as both surrender to the collective and self-preserving technique — which drives the rationalization/cunning mechanism discussed there.
• DEFINE: Defines the dialectical core of sacrifice: the objective contradiction between self-surrender and self-preservation that generates rationality-as-cunning.
• XREF: connects to: Sacrifice is the magical prototype of rational exchange for mastering gods — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 59; Sacrifice itself can generate the value of its goal — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 242; Magic achieves domination through mimetic imitation, not through claiming absolute truth — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 37 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Magic achieves domination through mimetic imitation, not through claiming absolute truth #expands (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 37
• Bataille reads sacrifice as staged self-awareness of dying, a deliberate trick. #corroborates (0.85) — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 164
• Rationality itself can be weaponized against the rational agent #expands (0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 366
• Sacrifice itself can generate the value of its goal #expands (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 242
• The ego is built on the same self-deception as ritual sacrifice #corroborates (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 60
• Rationality of the actor and of the action can diverge, making reason self-destructive. #expands (0.80) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 423
• Repeated ideological formulas work like magic rituals to enclose the mind. #corroborates (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 384
• Evil can be resisted because self-preservation remains a choice. #expands (0.75) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 594