This article argues that the analytic of pharmacotic war can render visible a logic of ritual sacrifice in the US military’s use of games to attract, produce, and recycle war-fighters. Identifying the ancient framing of the pharmakon – a substance or process that functions as at once drug, poison, and cure – it shows how games function paradoxically to draw in, produce, and rehabilitate military life. The article makes this case by tracing the roots of Kenneth MacLeish’s ‘churn of mobilization and demobilization’ beyond the military’s instrumental calculations of institutional self-perpetuation, showing that this churn functions according to a logic of pharmacotic sacrifice that is not incidental to, but rather built into, their routine operation. It argues that (ex-)war-fighters function as a contemporary equivalent of the ancient pharmakoi, scapegoated and sacrificed figures into whom a polis poured its guilt and dysfunction in an act of ritual purification. Though rejecting any linear genealogy or transhistorical Western way of war, it identifies powerful resonances between the ancient pharmakoi and (ex-)war-fighters today. Drawing on extensive interviews with US military gamers and veterans, the article sheds light on the growing influence of games on the attraction, production, and recycling of (ex-)war-fighters in the 21st century. At the same time, by tracing the purificatory expulsion of war-fighters, it contributes a novel theorization of the pharmacotic logic of the US military’s war-making apparatus.

中文翻译：

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药物兵棋：作为祭祀仪式的军事游戏

本文认为，通过对药物战争的分析，可以揭示美军利用游戏来吸引、生产和回收战士的祭祀逻辑。确定了药物的古老框架——一种同时具有药物、毒药和治疗作用的物质或过程——它展示了游戏如何矛盾地发挥作用来吸引、产生和恢复军事生活。文章通过追溯肯尼思·麦克利什（Kenneth MacLeish）的“动员和复员搅动”的根源，超越了军方对制度自我延续的工具性计算，表明这种搅动是根据药物牺牲的逻辑发挥作用的，这种逻辑不是偶然的，而是融入他们的日常运作。它认为，（前）战争战士的功能相当于古代药师的当代等同物，是城邦在净化仪式中将罪恶感和功能障碍倾注在他们身上的替罪羊和牺牲品。尽管拒绝任何线性谱系或跨历史的西方战争方式，但它确定了古代药师和当今（前）战士之间的强大共鸣。本文通过对美国军事游戏玩家和退伍军人的广泛采访，揭示了游戏在 21 世纪对（前）战争战士的吸引、生产和回收方面日益增长的影响。同时，通过追踪对作战人员的净化驱逐，它为美军战争机器的药理逻辑提供了一种新颖的理论。