ABSTRACT
J ürgen Habermas argues in The PostnationalConstellation that asymmetrical acts of sacrifice rooted in religious practice have lost
their relevance for the moral-political domain:
in secular modernity, community is to be built
on equal rights, symmetry and reciprocity.4
The Habermasian view echoes a narrative of
Enlightenment opposing religious prejudice to
secular reason, and prophesying the gradual
disappearance of religion with its oft-violent
offerings to the divine. Yet this theory of mod-
ernization has become questionable: even in
Europe, the most secularized continent, religion
has maintained its relevance in novel, often indi-
vidualized forms, including in filmmaking, lit-
erature and philosophy.5 Why, then, would
sacrificial violence, which is so rooted in
ancient religious practices, maintain its central
relevance even for self-declared atheists such
as Michael Haneke, and under which guises?
Revisiting Haneke’s Cache ́ (Hidden, 2005) as a filmic transformation of the traditional bond
between sacrificial violence, morality and com-
munity provides a powerful reflection on these
questions. A late echo of myths of sacrificial
