I've been following this exchange with some interest, in part because
apologists for de Sade make my skin crawl (and not with pleasure). I'd like
to join with Dom Fox in saying fuck Nature (in this context, I think the
word attracts a capital letter) and adding fuck sincerity, emotionalism and
all other glosses that try to persuade us that the suffering of one is
transformed by the intentions/sensibilities of the one who inflicts it. The
egotism and the importance ascribed to an individual consciousness are
equally dubious.
In this context, I can't help recalling what I think was a general criticism
of the film "Life is beautiful" on this list, because of its transformation
of life in a concentration camp - a transformation with less selfish motives
than de Sade and yet attracting fewer supporters (if any) than de Sade. If
play and/or imagination are 'good' in themselves (which I don't believe,
although I get the impression there are many who do) then "Life is
beautiful" is unobjectionable and de Sade is - well, It's years since I've
read anything other than the recently posted quotations and they were pretty
unconvincing samples of pseudo-wit and a dated iconoclasm of the "I'm such a
naughty boy" variety.
I'll finish with a quotation from someone whose sensibilities I'd trust over
de Sade anyday -
Lilies that fester smell
far worse than weeds -
Geraldine
>From: "domfox" <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Il Divino Marchese - Files
>Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2000 21:55:16 +0100
>
>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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