The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice

5. Ordinary and Extraordinary Sacrifices: Religion, Everyday Life, and Environmental Practice

5 Ordinary and Extraordinary Sacrifices: Religion, Everyday Life, and Environmental Practice Anna Peterson The Varieties and the Logic of Sacrifice Especially in relation to environmental problems, many people view sacrifice as an extreme demand that bears little connection to everyday experience. In some significant aspects of our lives, however, sacrifice is frequent, mundane, and even taken for granted. The disjuncture stems from the fact that sacrifices take many forms, which vary by context, content, and intention. However, a similar logic undergirds both ordinary and extraordinary sacrifices, insofar as in both cases, people relinquish something valuable for other things considered to be more valuable still. In extraordinary sacrifices, the value of what is being given and what is being gained is made explicit. People reflect on their options and decide consciously to make a particular sacrifice. In everyday sacrifices , however, the sacrificial logic very often lies buried. We give up things (not just objects, but also experiences and relationships) of value without reflecting clearly on the motivations, reasons, and consequences of our actions. I argue that one of the reasons sacrifice is so problematic for environmental politics is that we have largely failed to understand both the differences between ordinary and extraordinary sacrifices and the common logic that undergirds them both. Making these distinctions and commonalities clearer can help illuminate both the sacrifices we are already making, with largely dismal ecological results, and the ones we might need to make to achieve a more sustainable society. Perhaps the best place to begin is with religion, where sacrifice is often expected and accepted. In fact, a faith that does not demand some disciplined forswearing of private satisfactions for larger goods strikes many believers as shallow and unappealing. An important part of what 92 Anna Peterson renders religion meaningful is precisely the “making sacred” that constitutes sacrifice. The logic of sacrifice, which demands that we give up something valued to receive something even more precious, lies at the heart of religious ethics and ritual life. Religious sacrifices take many forms, from the minor to the dramatic. A fuller picture of the different meanings and functions of different kinds of religious sacrifice can help us make better sense of the politics of environmental sacrifice. While religion is probably the most obvious place to look for both everyday and extraordinary sacrifices, there are plenty of examples in secular experience, as well, and especially in domestic life. People readily and repeatedly give up personal comfort, convenience, time, and other benefits for the good of loved ones, especially children. These sacrifices are so ordinary as to go largely unnoticed, by the practitioners, their beneficiaries, and the larger society. It is part of the definition of parenting , and perhaps of family life more broadly, to give up or postpone individual desires for the sake of others. Thus it is part of the identity of parents, as it is of religious believers, to make certain sacrifices on behalf of the larger good that helps make their lives meaningful. A parent (or a true believer) who gives up nothing is probably not a real parent (or believer) at all. Thus in two important dimensions of human life, familiar even to those without religious affiliation or family commitments, sacrifice is accepted, taken for granted, and often highly valued as part of what makes such experiences meaningful. The kinds of sacrifice expected, and their meaning and impact, vary widely across cultures. Historical and cultural changes, for example, shape the ways that people think about the sacrifices associated with parenting or faith. What some people might reasonably be required to give up, and what is expected in exchange, varies over time. When we think about environmentally motivated sacrifice , it is important to keep in mind the fact that not only are people always giving up some goods for other goods, but that these exchanges vary over time, and it is indeed possible for groups, even entire societies, to accept new forms of sacrifice that seem necessary and worthwhile. This is obviously true in times of crisis, such as a depression or war, but it is also evident in relation to more subtle historical changes, for example, in women’s access to education and professional work or in religion’s role in cultural identity and cohesion. Ordinary and Extraordinary Sacrifices 93 The normalcy of sacrifice in some aspects of our lives is not paralleled by acceptance of sacrifice in environmental discourse and...