The central argument of Paul W. Kahn’s Sacred Violence: Torture, Terror, and Sovereignty is that modern legal and political theory fails to provide an adequate account of political violence because it ignores the foundational role of sacrifice in creating and sustaining political meaning. Kahn contends that torture and terror are not merely legal violations or individual pathologies, but are reciprocal “rituals of pain” deeply embedded in a social imaginary of sovereignty that exists beyond the rule of law.Kahn’s argument is built upon several key pillars:
- Sovereignty vs. Law: Kahn argues that the state is constitutive of two conflicting imaginations: a legal order based on reason and well-being, and a sovereign space based on faith and sacrifice. While law promises security, sovereignty asserts the right to demand a citizen’s life.
- The Primacy of Sacrifice: He posits that Western politics is based on sacrifice, not contract. The popular sovereign reveals itself through acts of “killing and being killed,” a dynamic that transforms the finite individual into an expression of the infinite value of the state.
- Reciprocity of Terror and Torture: Kahn argues that terror and torture are linked forms of communication that speak to each other in the register of political degradation. Terror moves the state beyond law into the realm of sovereignty, where it invariably responds with torture to undermine the faith of the enemy.
- Torture as Degradation: The ultimate goal of both torture and terror is degradation—the attempt to destroy the enemy’s faith in their own transcendent source of meaning and prove their “god” is an idol.
- Acoustic Separation: Successful liberal nation-states manage these contradictory commitments through “acoustic separation,” keeping the language of law and the rhetoric of sacrificial violence apart. Crises like the “war on terror” occur when these two domains are forced into contact.
- The Inevitability of Violence: Kahn concludes that we will only control torture when we control the impulse toward sacred violence itself. He challenges the “progressive narrative” that law is gradually eliminating torture, suggesting that as long as we remain committed to a politics of sovereignty, we remain committed to the sacrificial violence that makes torture possible.
Paul W. Kahn relates the historical function of torture to modern sovereignty and citizenship by arguing that while the spectacle of torture has vanished, its underlying sacrificial logic remains a foundational, if often hidden, element of political identity.
The Shift from Subject to Citizen
Kahn describes a fundamental transformation in how sovereignty is manifested:
- Premodern Sovereignty and the Spectacle: Historically, torture was a ritual of mediation between a sacral monarch and their subjects. The tortured body on the scaffold served as a spectacle to produce awe and confession, signaling the subject’s total surrender to the sovereign’s divine-like power.
- Modern Popular Sovereignty: In modernity, sovereignty migrated from the monarch to “the people.” Because the sovereign now “dwells within” every citizen, the ritual of the scaffold is no longer needed to make it present.
- Generalization of Sacrifice: Rather than disappearing, sacrificial violence became generalized. In the modern state, every citizen exists “under the sign of the oath,” meaning they are always potentially on call for the “ultimate sacrifice” of killing and being killed for the state.
The New Locus of Sacrifice: The Battlefield
Kahn argues that the battlefield has replaced the scaffold as the primary site for showing forth sovereign power.
- The Unknown Soldier vs. The Scaffold: The tomb of the unknown soldier has displaced the scaffold as the monument to sovereignty, representing “everyman” as a participant in democratic sacrifice.
- Reciprocity in Combat: While premodern torture was a vertical relationship of power, modern combat is (ideally) a horizontal “symmetry of risk” between combatants who recognize each other’s capacity for sacrifice.
Depoliticization of the Modern Criminal
Under the regime of popular sovereignty, the criminal’s status has shifted significantly:
- From Enemy to “Fallen Citizen”: In premodern times, a criminal was a traitor to the monarch’s sacred presence. Today, the criminal is “radically depoliticized” and viewed as a pathological individual who has failed to live up to their own nature as a member of the sovereign body.
- The Loss of Sacrificial Meaning: Modern penal practices, while often violent and dehumanizing, are not torture because they do not aim to make the sovereign present in the victim’s body. The modern prisoner is often a “homo sacer”—someone who can be killed by the state but cannot be “sacrificed” because their death carries no political meaning.
Torture as an Anachronism and a Modern Recurrence
Kahn concludes that torture appears “anachronistic” in modern liberal states because it fails to correspond to the egalitarian locus of popular sovereignty. However, it recurs when the state perceives an existential threat (like terror) that pushes it beyond the rule of law and back into the raw “sacrificial space” of sovereignty.
The following is a chapter-by-chapter summary of Paul W. Kahn’s Sacred Violence: Torture, Terror, and Sovereignty:
Part I: Genealogical Inquiries
- Introduction: The Puzzle of Torture: Kahn questions why, despite being willing to kill in war, liberal societies find torture so uniquely problematic. He argues that modern liberalism cannot adequately explain torture because it views it only as a legal violation or individual pathology, whereas it is actually a foundational political practice that creates meaning through sacrifice.
- Chapter 1: Torture and Sovereignty: This chapter traces the shift from premodern to modern sovereignty. Historically, torture was a ritual of mediation between a sacral monarch and subjects, using the “spectacle of the scaffold” to produce confession and acknowledge power. In modern popular sovereignty, the sovereign “dwells within” the citizen, causing sacrificial violence to migrate from the scaffold to the battlefield.
- Chapter 2: Torture and International Law: Kahn analyzes how 20th-century international law attempted to eliminate both war and torture. He argues that international human rights law acts as a “counter-religion” to sovereignty, attempting to replace the logic of sacrifice with a global order of reason and rights.
- Chapter 3: The Current Debate: Torture in the War on Terror: Kahn examines the “ticking time bomb” hypothetical. He argues this debate is not really about utility versus morality, but about an “elemental” conflict between universal moral rules and the particularized “ethos of love” for one’s own political community.
Part II: Violence and the Architecture of the Political Imagination
- Chapter 4: A Primer on Political Violence: Kahn explores the production of meaning through violence, using the “hand grenade” hypothetical (self-sacrifice) to contrast the “ticking time bomb” (sacrificing others). He argues politics begins with a “pledge” of willingness to sacrifice, not a social contract based on self-interest.
- Chapter 5: Crossing the Border between Law and Sovereignty: This chapter examines how the state manages the contradiction between a legal order of reason and a sovereign space of sacrifice. The state uses “acoustic separation” to keep these domains apart, managing contact through rituals like memorialization (for heroes) or scapegoating (for those like the guards at Abu Ghraib).
- Conclusion: Torture, Terror, and Sacrifice: Kahn concludes that terror and torture are reciprocal “rituals of pain” that speaking in the same voice. He argues that as long as we remain committed to a politics of sovereignty, we remain committed to a world of sacrificial violence where the goal of combat and torture alike is to prove the “god” of the enemy is merely an idol.
Paul W. Kahn’s Sacred Violence: Torture, Terror, and Sovereignty provides a political-theological analysis of why modern liberal states, despite their legal prohibitions, continue to engage in torture and terror.
Central Thesis
Kahn argues that modern legal theory fails to explain political violence because it ignores the foundational role of sacrifice in political meaning. He contends that torture and terror are reciprocal “rituals of pain” deeply embedded in a social imaginary of sovereignty that exists beyond the rule of law.
Key Pillars of the Argument
- The Conflict Between Law and Sovereignty: The state is built on two conflicting imaginations: a legal order based on reason and well-being, and a sovereign space based on faith and sacrifice. While law promises security, sovereignty asserts the state’s right to demand a citizen’s life.
- The Primacy of Sacrifice: Western politics is based on sacrifice, not contract. The popular sovereign reveals itself through acts of “killing and being killed,” transforming the individual into an expression of the state’s infinite value.
- Reciprocity of Terror and Torture: Terror moves the state beyond law into the realm of sovereignty, where it responds with torture to undermine the enemy’s faith. Both aim for degradation—destroying the victim’s faith in their transcendent source of meaning.
- Acoustic Separation: Successful liberal nation-states manage these contradictory commitments through “acoustic separation,” keeping the language of law and the rhetoric of sacrificial violence apart. Crises like the “war on terror” occur when these domains are forced into contact.
Historical and Conceptual Frameworks
- Transformation of Sovereignty: Sovereignty migrated from the “spectacle of the scaffold” (mediation between monarch and subject) to the battlefield (direct presence of sovereignty within every citizen). Modern combat generalizes sacrificial violence as an ordinary condition of life.
- International Law as “Counter-Religion”: International human rights law acts as a counter-religion to sovereignty, attempting to replace the logic of sacrifice with a global order of reason.
- The Ticking Time Bomb: Kahn views this hypothetical not as a utilitarian calculation but as an elemental conflict between universal moral rules and the “ethos of love” for one’s particular political community.
Conclusion
Kahn concludes that torture will only be controlled when the impulse toward sacred violence itself is controlled. He challenges the narrative that law is gradually eliminating torture, suggesting that as long as states remain committed to a politics of sovereignty, they remain committed to the sacrificial violence that makes torture possible.