The gift of the political

What produces the ability within us to face the possibility of dying
for a cause to which we adhere? Such political commitment backs
onto the issue of sacrifice, which, in turn, inhabits the world of a
gift economy. The gift of the political opens onto a series of
questions tied to different traditions of the sacred and of the clan.
From biblical parables through to Confucian rites, the paper traces
the various pathways enabling the emergence of the gift of the
political.