A Word that Frazzles Me

The concept of "sacrifice" has been coming up every now and again. It's been popping out of nowhere. It's been attacking me, this word, and catching me unawares, and it's been doing the jig even when I'm not looking, and it's been snorting in my ear when I'm doing other things. So I may as well write a bit about what I think of the word/concept. I must say that the word used to bother me a lot more when I was growing up than it does now. It niggles me every now and again in a different way but let's get on with it.
It's certainly one of those words that everyone uses and everyone understands in his own way (just like countless other words). And since I recently made a big brouhaha about people using words when they don't know the meaning, I'll go into this word a bit because I claim to know the meaning. I'll see what I know of it given that it's a very common word, and not something like "epistemology" or "semantics" or "semiotics" - all of which get me into such a tizzy.

I'm going to be using many facetious examples because this is a serious topic.

Giving up something would be considered to be a sacrifice in some instances...

So if I give an entire box of papayas (which is the one fruit that disgusts me completely) away to Joe (who loves them), and then angelically sing, "I have made a sacrifice by giving up the entire box of papayas," I doubt whether anybody (right minds or not) would agree. Most people would snigger and whisper, "Jeez. She has no idea what 'sacrifice' means, has she..."

The word “sacrifice” means giving up something, for sure.
So what if I gave up an unassuming rock I picked up from the road, would that be a sacrifice?
Most people would say "of course not."
"'Sacrifice' means giving up something of value." Someone may add patiently.
"Do you think diamonds (which are rocks!) are valuable?" I may ask.
"Yes, of course they are." They would say.
"Okay, I give up diamonds then."
"Do you have any diamonds?" one of them may ask me shrewdly.
"No." I would cheerfully reply.
"Well then you can't give up something you don't have, can you?!" Would come the rather disgusted reply.

So sacrifice means giving up something that I definitely have. Something that I possess, which is of value, is it?
"Yes." They holler back.
So far so good then. I have to give up something that is of value and something that is undeniably mine.

"What if someone runs off with my bag (which is of value, and which is undeniably mine) or if someone never returns a book, which I lend out? I do end up “'giving up' something, don’t I? Is that a sacrifice?"
“Don't be idiotic. You didn't have any choice in the matter.”

So a sacrifice involves consciously giving up something that is of value. But what if indeed I do have a diamond necklace and give it away to some odd but very dear friend who loves diamond necklaces? It's the same as giving the box of papayas to Joe actually. The problem is that I don't value either the necklace (course I'd try to sell the thing if I did have it and then do something useful with the money - but let me not digress) or the papayas.

So the key thing for me to say that I made a "sacrifice" implies that I give up -
something voluntarily (a point to which I shall return);
something which is "mine" (in some sense);
and a something which is of value to me.

But how much value must that “thing” have? How valuable must the something be for an act to be considered a sacrifice?
It must be exceptionally valuable.
I give up writing.
I give it up voluntarily.
It's “mine” to do and of value to me.
Have I sacrificed anything?
“No. Course not. Not if you just give up writing. For it to be a sacrifice you have to give up writing for something else. And for something else which is also of value.” The only person who's left from the crowd bellows back at me.

And now we've inched slowly towards the centre. For indeed a “sacrifice” does mean giving up A for B.
The two things must be “comparable” in value. One cannot “give up” a trinket to save a life and then say that one has sacrificed a “trinket”.
But which one must have greater value?
The thing being “given up” or the thing for which something is being given up? Or doesn't it matter?
And it is right at this point that the word takes on different meanings for different people.

How do we ever decide when someone has engaged in sacrifice if it's all very personal. This is because we have some “common” ideas of what is of value (we may not all agree. Indeed we may actually be shocked to find out about some of the things that some others do value).

We agree to some extent that human life has value.
Therefore the most common talk of sacrifice comes up when someone (physically) “sacrifices” one's own life for some cause. Thus the soldier on the battlefield, a slave who rises against his/her cruel masters and dies, a woman who dies while fighting for political freedom....We often hear that they “sacrificed” their lives.
The concept of “sacrifice” comes up too in the Harry Potter books, when Harry's mother “sacrifices” her life so that Harry can live.

But according to whom have these people engaged in some sort of a sacrifice?
External others.
But who decides what's of “value” to the person?
I've already answered that earlier. It's according to the person who gave up his/her life. Just “giving up” is not enough, of course.
Giving up because one is too tired to live is just called “suicide”.
But giving up one's life for a particular and let's say a personally valuable cause is not a sacrifice either.
I guess some people will gasp.

The reason that I say this is because it's all about “value” and what one values. If I value freedom more than a life in physical or mental chains, then I am willing to give up my life for that freedom. This is not a sacrifice.
The only way it could be interpreted as one is if I valued that life in chains more than the state of freedom (which I may or may not be fortunate enough to enjoy but am willing to fight for).

When Lily died to save Harry, and someone says that she sacrificed her life for him –that would, according to my understanding of the word “sacrifice”, mean: Harry's life meant less to Lily than her own....and that certainly wasn't the case.

If a soldier dies on the field – one of the ways it could be called a sacrifice is if he didn't believe in the war that he was fighting for but was fighting anyway because he didn't know what else to do.

So to take one example, which doesn't involve "death": if an individual gives up his comfortable life and goes off to help orphans in some Godforsaken part of the world – the person does so because a) the second action is more valuable to him (brings him greater meaning, joy, peace and what-not) or else b) he sees orphans as being of greater value to him than his comfortable lifestyle. Or c) maybe both...

I've even read somewhere someone saying that Madame Curie sacrificed herself for science. She did not. She loved doing science and that's what she did.

The above examples do indeed have differences of course in terms of volition and choice. Lily, if she had a choice would not have chosen to die at all (she certainly would not have wanted Harry living it out in Privet Drive). Madame Curie probably and in all likelihood would have chosen to be a scientist, no matter what.

To actually talk about “sacrifice” in any of the above cases is not just wrong but it's blasphemous to say the least. At least by my book. To say that the people who give up their lives for something that they believe in (I'm leaving sociopaths and psychopaths out of here); people who stand up against intense and abnormal levels of cruelty, brutality, injustice and terror and still do not lose their grip, do not cower, do not remain timid on-lookers but face their ends – are exceptionally courageous, virtuous, honest, and morally upright people – and they do not deserve the label of some sort of a “sacrificial lamb” (which is something else that confuses me. The lamb never does have a choice one way or the other...).

People who serve humanity because that is their deepest desire are certainly not sacrificing their lives. They are undeniably morally and ethically upright people who are doing what their hearts and minds and souls – in unison – are telling them to do. They have a “calling” to which they are responding, and what they are doing is living up to their highest vision of value; their highest vision of what is “right”. Why on earth then would I want to demean them by saying that they “sacrificed” their lives?

That's how I understand the meaning of “sacrifice”. And so for a quick recap: sacrifice involves voluntarily giving up something (which is “mine”) of higher personal value for something (which is also “mine”) of a lower personal value.
And since this is the way I interpret a “sacrifice”, I wonder, who in their right minds would ever think of making a sacrifice? And wouldn't it be rather perverse and evil for someone to really make a sacrifice?
If I were to give up something, which is of greater value to me for something that I don't value half as much – then I would be giving up something that I love, care for, and cherish - for something that I don't love half as much. If indeed I believe that what I value - I also love.

I fully well realise that there may be choices that may not be all black or white. There may be terrible situations well beyond one's control when one cannot choose. Of course I do realise that. I may value and love more than one thing/being, and there is no way to choose which one I love “more” or “value more”. I may have to give up things of enormous value to me because I have no “real” choice. To give a brutal example, I might have to watch on while some madman is killing the people I love. Maybe I’m tied up. Maybe my limbs have been chopped off. But then we come back to the issue of choice again. To do something one must have to have the choice to engage in some action unless one is severely physically or mentally incapacitated.

To give another example: Normally of course I’d say that I “value” human life. But I have two cats (about them some other day). Yet if someone were to ask me whether I’d give up either of my cats – see them dead or mangled or maybe just hand them over to somebody else so that some stranger or even a causal acquaintance could live – I’d say I’d much rather have my cats alive, healthy, and as happy as they can be….
To take it further – if someone were to say that I'd have to give up one of my cats so that the other one could live - I wouldn’t be able to choose now, would I? But if I were forced to - why on earth would I call it an act of sacrifice? There is no sacrifice being made. One makes a horrid choice and then lives with it.

Finally (at least for now), and moving away from matters of life and death:
I've heard people say (and very often) that they sacrificed their lives to fulfill their parents' wishes, and only because they “loved” their parents so much.
I've heard it said that parents sacrificed their lives and their happiness for their children, and only because they loved their children so much.
I'm quite sure wives feel that they have sacrificed for their husbands and husbands feel that they made sacrifices for their wives - and all in the name of love...
This is rubbish to put it in plainly. Not the first part. Don't get me wrong. These people are the only sort of people who according to me do indeed make “sacrifices”. They spend years and years being terrified of their parents or simply being attached to their parents in some kind of a dependent or habitual way. The parents spend years feeling guilty that they don't really care about their children and never really have but still feel that they need to do things for them.

What is outright nonsense is to assume that there was any love involved.

That is why the word and the whole idea of “sacrifice” disgusts me so.

Sacrifices are made not out of love. They are made out of terrible and inarticulate guilt and fear.
I have no idea thus how people understand and interpret the word "sacrifice" to make it sound as though it were something positive and noble and grand.