I agree totally with Alison here and want to throw in Claude
Lefort's very savvy take on _La Philosophie dans le boudoir_
as a vehicle for the fictional "pamphlet" read aloud during the
orgiastic foursome, "Francais, encore un effort si vous voulez
etre republicains." As Lefort wittily observes, corruption is
the main theme of most political philosophy--and what does Sade
do but _embed_ a pamphlet on political corruption in a work on
political philosophy that is itself embedded in _le boudoir_?
"Jouissance, cruelty, knowledge of nature through jouissance and
cruelty, all these themes are interlaced with that of corruption
in _La Philosophie dans le boudoir_.
This novel--but is it a novel?--stands out in Sade's work in
a paradoxical way, that is, both for its lightness and for its
theoretical and political ambition. Here Sade tells us what the
Republic should be.... "Francais, encore un effort" proceeds from
an extraordinary will to subvert all established order. I know of
no scandalous _libelle_ that testifies to such an upheaval of
thought, to such a smashing down of the barriers of the thinkable,
to such a groundswell that carries off everything in its path: all
positions of authority, the foundations of religious despotism,
political despotism, the despotism of opinion, and the despotism
that society itself exercises over its members."
(Claude Lefort, "Sade: Le Boudoir et la cite," in _Ecrire: A
l'epreuve du politique_, 1992)
It seems to me that the last clause quoted above covers Andrea
Dworkin et al. quite admirably--
Candice
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