: Re: how can I portray a culture that practices human sacrifice as not being uncivilized? In our world, we consider human life to be precious and valuable. It is meant to be preserved, and a deliberate

@Samaraweera193

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Our own modern-day society, and the majority of the people in it, are complicit in things that could be considered barbaric. For example, a lot of our luxuries, from shrimp to smartphones, are dependent on what amounts to slave labor in other parts of the world. But it's distant, and most people either aren't aware of it, or just choose to turn a blind eye.
For your fictional society, I would largely portray it from the point of view of the person on the street, who isn't directly impacted by it on a daily basis. He or she may not even think about it much.
There might be a minority group of activists out there somewhere, pushing to re-evaluate or eliminate this practice, or at least to question it. As with "lampshading", I think at least acknowledging objections within the text will make it easier for people to swallow. The majority of the rhetoric people are going to hear about it, however, is going to be positive, stressing its importance and its beneficial nature. The fact that it sounds like this is an "honor" people actively strive to be chosen for makes that all the much easier for people to accept. I'd also expect that interviews with proud designated sacrifices would be widely promoted in whatever your society uses for media. Given all that, I'd expect it wouldn't be hard to portray this society as --in general --no more unenlightened than our own.

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