It was said of the puritans that their objection to bear-baiting was not
that it caused suffering, bearable or otherwise, to the bear, but that it
brought pleasure to the spectators. I assume that the gist of the anecdote
is that the puritan's moral priorities were skewed, from the perspective of
a modern animal-loving hedonist at least. I find my own perspective to be
somewhat closer to that of the putative "puritans", however, perhaps because
I am neither an animal-lover nor a hedonist: it seems absurd to me to treat
pleasure as an end in itself, or to claim that enjoyment is the basis of
organic life - and this de Sade does constantly, usually in order to make
some wanky point about how the systems of morality and law that frustrate
the urge to seek pleasure are far more radically perverse than any of the
roundabout ways human beings have found of getting their jollies. However:
the act of raping a child is fun for the child-rapist, which is a) why he
does it, and b) why he seems to think it's OK to do it. One either accepts
the child-rapist's rationale, or one does not. De Sade would have us
sympathise with the rapist if he were caught and punished, and would make us
indignant with those responsible for his punishment for committing brutal
acts for some other purpose than pleasure (or for disguising, to themselves
and others, the pleasure they actually receive from the commission of brutal
acts). At least, he would say, the rapist is a) honest with himself, and b)
following natural rather than unnatural (i.e. moralising) impulses. To which
I would say: fuck "nature" (this is perhaps why I am also not an
animal-lover). Or: you believe in *that* crock of Romantic shit?
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