Sanctuary traditions of exclusion converted into protection for the vulnerable

Evidence

But here is a situation where those traditions of sequestration and seclusion, so often the trappings of power, came to serve the needs of the most vulnerable. It’s a classic instance of the crack-back complexity of dialectic: The very ideologies that constituted the sanctuary as a space “apart” produced a powerful universalizing countercurrent. And that took the following form: Certain things absolutely could not be done in the sanctuary. For instance, the secular hand of law and vengeance could not reach into the sacred precincts. This meant that score-settling, revenge, worldly retribution—all of this was categorically forbidden. Therefore, the sanctuary served, in times of strain, distress, and emergency, as a place of respite. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 338

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the dialectical mechanism by which an exclusionary sacred space becomes a refuge — core to the book’s sanctuary concept.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing article on sacrifice and sanctuary spaces, and to the home/temple topology threads across the library. — connects to: Sanctuary is an ancient antidote to totalizing power, not merely a religious custom — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1527; Communities can claim sanctuary rights against instrumentarian power — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1699