PHILOSOPHY AND THE NIKE AD

SACRIFICE AND ANALOGY

The recent Nike Ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick has been the source of various commentaries and parodies. 

What is sacrifice? 

Those who disagree with both his original protests and now the Nike Ad, have suggested that the greater sacrifice is that of the men and women in the armed forces, while Christians have suggested that the only sacrifice that counts is that of the Lord Jesus on the Cross. 

Putting aside the ideological divide that characterizes the responses to the campaign, I would like to bring into this discussion the philosophical notion of analogy and its siblings, univocation and equivocation. 

Is sacrifice to be used univocally, equivocally or analogically? 

(See an excellent description of these terms by Dr. Taylor Marshall). 

Basically, the question is how do we use the word “sacrifice”? 

1. If we speak of sacrifice univocally, then it would mean exactly the same thing with every application.  Clearly that would not work, since there are varying types of sacrifice, some greater than others, and some of a different species from others. 
2. If we speak of sacrifice equivocally, then it would mean totally different things with every application, in the manner that we use “bat” both to refer to the device we use to hit balls in baseballs and that terribly annoying, rabies-carrying, flying nocturnal mammal. 
3. It seems that the most appropriate way to use the term "sacrifice" is analogically, so that when it is used, it has more or less similar meanings, in the same way we use the term “healthy” to refer to our bodies, food, discussion, friendships etc. 

In analogy, we have the prime analogate and the secondary analogates.  The primary analogate is the thing that gives the word its primary meaning.  For the word “healthy” for example, the prime analogate would be its use with human beings, whose bodily well-being gives primary meaning to the word.  The secondary analogates are the uses of that word in derived meanings, so that food or a discussion or a friendship can only be spoken of as being healthy to the extent that they share, in a derived sense, the primary meaning of fullness of well-being.  Moreover, these analogates have varying degrees of similarity to the prime analogate and to each other. 

The Prime Analogate: the Sacrifice of Christ 

And so, for the Christian, naturally the prime analogate would be the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ in his Life, Passion and Death.  (St. Thomas Aquinas had already dealt with this question of applying the same terms to God and to human beings and reached the same conclusion [ST. I. q.13, aa.5-6]).  All other sacrifices would draw their inspiration and meaning from some relationship to or imitation of that primary sacrifice. 

1. Thus we speak of the sacrifice of martyrs, who similarly give up their lives for Christ.  
2. We also speak of the sacrifice of high-risk pregnancy mothers who take the risk of dying rather than abort their babies. 
3. We also speak of the sacrifice of military men and women, who die in war, defending their country, and the sacrifice of police officers who die in the line of duty, defending law and order. 
4. We can also speak of the sacrifice of parents, especially mothers, who dedicate themselves to the care of their children. 
5. And we can also speak of the sacrifice of those who fight for civil rights, even under pain of arrest and imprisonment and sometimes death, such as Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman and the lesser known James Early Chaney, Jimmie Lee Jackson, George Winston Lee etc. 

Secondary Analogate: the Nike Ad 

I therefore submit that the Nike Ad is correct in speaking of Colin Kaepernick's actions as a form of sacrifice, a secondary analogate.  He took an action, which he probably knew would land him in trouble with a great number of people and with his employers, but was willing to take the consequences of that action – that is a form of sacrifice, whether you agree with his methods or not. 

A pacifist or draft-dodger, for example, does not deny that going to war is a sacrifice; he just does not want to do it.  A woman who does not want to give birth to children cannot deny that being a parent is a sacrifice; she just chooses not to do it, for whatever reason.  Now of course if you don't believe he has a cause to fight for, in the first place, such as those who hold that there is no more racism today, then of course you would rightly conclude that one key element for sacrifice is missing, namely, that for which one is sacrificing. 

Also, reasonable people can disagree on the relative weight of various sacrifices of military men and women, law enforcement officers, parents, civil rights activists etc.  And they can legitimately come up with various hierarchies of sacrifice.  But what they cannot do is deny the sacrifice of others using the fallacy of whataboutism, i.e. "what about this other sacrifice?" 

One could also make the counter-argument asking why Nike did not use the prime analogate, the primary source of sacrifice, Jesus Christ for their campaign?  As a secular company, that would not be appropriate; they might even have been accused of blasphemy and of making money of religion.  And so they chose another symbol, probably calculating that they would come out ahead, despite the controversy surrounding Colin. 

A return to sacramentality and analogy 

As one of my professors used to remind us that Christians used to be ahead of the game when it comes to using symbols to communicate deeper meanings.  Because we have lost the sense of sacramentality and the understanding of analogy, we are the poorer for it.  Because we think only in binary ways, such as either univocal or equivocal, we are the poorer for it.  It seems that one of the few places you will still find an effective use of symbolism and analogy is in advertisements and those who consume them. 

What a loss for the Church of Christ! What a loss for Christians!