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Thoughts on the Marquis de Sade.
I've read a bit of Sade's work...mostly his novels like Justine and the fragments that make up The 120 Days of Sodom. Accounts of the man seem to either be a misunderstood genius, or a vicious sociopath. Politically he was of the Far-Left of the National Convention and could accurately be described as a proto-Communist of some sort, at least superficially. He's also supposedly the guy who helped to instigate the Storming of the Bastille (although he had been transferred to an Asylum some two weeks before the actual Storming).
So, any thoughts?
"I've never read Marx's Capital, but I've got the marks of capital all over my body." -Big Bill Haywood
"...Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor."- Thomas Jefferson
-=UTOPIA IS THE MORAL RIGHT OF HUMANITY=-
It's been ages since I've actually read Sade, and some of it is pretty tedious, but he's definitely interesting. I find it pretty easy to dismiss those who rail against him.
A nice tribute by Paul Eluard: https://www.marxists.org/history/int...27/de-sade.htm
Angela Carter claims him to be a simple pornographer, which is a more than a bit off base.
He was no proto-communist, he was utterly bourgeois to the core, even though he was an aristocrat. The ultimate bourgeois libertarian, who opposed the Terror that was cutting of the heads of his fellow aristocrats.
The best way for a revolutionary to understand De Sade is through the greatest play of the twentieth century,
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat As Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJc4I6pivqg
Also, I do believe he was a sadist.
If you like Marat/Sade, which is great, and most find it ultra annoying, there was a very wild film by Althea Thauberger called THE PERSECUTION AND ASSASSINATION OF JEAN-PAUL MARAT AS PERFORMED BY THE INMATES OF THE ASYLUM OF CHARENTON UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE MARQUIS DE SADE AS PERFORMED BY THE PRAGUE-BASED EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE COMPANY AKANDA FOR THE PATIENTS AND STAFF OF THE BOHNICE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL, aka Marat Sade Bohnice. I was lucky enough to see it once. Not sure how one would see it now.
Here's an article on it. http://canadianart.ca/reviews/althea...-sade-bohnice/
I'm sure liberals find it annoying, with the portrait of the Marquis as the ultimate cynical bourgeois liberal, but why would any revolutionary not love it? Unless he/she has a thing for the Marquis.
Sounds from the review like the Prague piece is mostly about the mistreatment of mental patients, one of the subthemes of Peter Weiss's play, but far, far from the most important. What the play is really about is revolution, and it gives the flavor of actual revolutions better than any other theater piece I can think of.
And it's incredibly fun to watch, for me at least.
The final scene, with the mental patients breaking their confines, charging into the audience on stage (the playacted 19th century audience, not the real one, that would be a bit too much dedication to art) and beating up the smug Napoleonic bourgeois in attendance, is incredible.
You might like Marquis.
"If we take in our hand any volume — of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance — let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning about quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experiential reasoning about matters of fact and existence? No. Then throw it in the fire, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." ― D. Hume
28/03/2016: Not motivated to post anymore after the umpteenth purge since my registration.
Glorified rape, misogyny, and pedophilia. Was a piece of shit.
