in praise ov the marquis de sade

[nabraxas]

taken from:

Thirteen Choruses For the Divine Marquis

Robert Anton Wilson

from Coincidance - A Head Test

FOURTH CHORUS

Marat

these cells of the inner self

are worse than the deepest stone dungeon

and as long as they are locked

all your revolution remains

only a prison mutiny

to be put down

by corrupted fellow prisoners

— Marat/Sade

Eventually we begin to realize that Sade has never been understood. He cried out for liberty, and we accuse him of being a forerunner of Hitler. He dreamed of a world without punishment, and we attribute brutality to him. He spoke for the spirit of love, and we project every viciousness onto him.

We are afraid of being seduced by him, we Hiroshima-makers.

He showed us our own face in a mirror and we have screamed for 150 years that it was his face.

Nothing could be more explicit than his actual words:

Laws should be "flexible," "mild" and "few'' (Sade, p. 310).

We must "get rid forever of the atrocity of capital punishment" (Sade, p. 310).

Women must be equal with men: "Must the diviner half of humankind be laden with irons by the other? Ah, break those irons, Nature wills it" (Sade, p. 322).

Property should cease to be monopolized by a few (Sade, p. 313-314).

The present system of property-and-power rests on"submission of the people . . . due to . . . violence and the frequent use of torture" (Sade, p. 11).

He gave up his post as magistrate rather than administer capital punishment — "They wanted me to commit an inhumane act. I have never wanted to" (Sade, p. 29).

His principles are, as he says, quite correctly, not those that lead to tyranny but "principles to whose expression and realization the infamous despotism of tyrants has been opposed for uncounted centuries" (Sade, p.311).

Even against the clergy, he maintains a solidly libertarian position: "I do not, however, propose either massacres or expulsions. Such dreadful things have no place in the enlightened mind. No, do not assassinate at all, do not expel at all.... Let us reserve the employment of force for the idols; ridicule alone will suffice for those who serve them" (Sade, p. 306).

But these words are ignored. Because he committed one crime — the crime of reporting accurately the secret day-dreams and longings of the psyche of men and women in this civilization, men and women reared in the crucible of authority-and-submission, discipline-and-punishment — he has been portrayed as the endorser of these extremities.

More truly than Flaubert said"Je suis Bovary," Sade could have said (did say, for those who read between the lines), "Je suis Justine." It is his voice that cries out continually in Justine's speeches, "Oh, monsters, is remorse and dead in you?" Just as it is his voice, undeniably, in the"Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man" which says simply, "Reason, sir — yes, our reason alone should warn us that harm done our fellows can never bring happiness to us . . . and you need neither god nor religion to subscribe to [it]" (Sade, p. 174).

I dreamed I called Jesus Christ on the phone and asked him, say, Man, did you really forgive them for they knew not what they did?

"Verily, verily, I say unto you," he replied, "I made my position on authority-and-submission as clear as I could: 'You know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you.' — Matt. 20:25. 'Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation.' — Matt. 12:25. 'If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.' — Matt.15:14. 'For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them upon men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.' — Matt. 23:4. They be blind leaders of the blind, baby, and mechanical laws of punishment-and-conditioning lead them in little grooves of robot-life."

But, but — I protested — is there anything outside conditioned behavior? Is there a real freedom, Man? Is there?

"Find the place where Sade and I agree," he said, "and there you will find the beginning of a definition of liberty."

And the line went dead with a sudden click like the sound of a bedroom door closing as a little boy is pushed outside.

FIFTH CHORUS

"They declaim against the passions without bothering to see that it is from their flame philosophy lights its torch. "

— Sade

The Castle, somebody pointed out, is a Sadean novel: Kafka's scene is a typical lair of Sadean monsters lying in wait for the innocent traveler. The Trial is even more Sadean I would argue, because the two thugs who haul Joseph K. off to an empty lot to slit his throat "like a dog" are, like Sade's images, revelations of the reality of our civilization. Capital punishment presented as a more nudely naked lunch than even Burroughs has fed us.

What happens to Joseph K., what happens to Justine, are very slight distortions2 of what happens to each man, each woman, in a society based on authority-and-submission.

What Sade saw — what Marat did not see — the hidden meaning of Peter Weiss's noisy and Sophoclean circus of a play — is that Man as we know him, Man in historical time, is entirely the product of punishment. That punishment defines his character, contours and structures his character, is his character. That sado-masochism is not a perversion, or a "way of life," but the meaning of our civilization.

Sade's drive for liberty — i.e., his attempt to understand himself — led him to the scene in the brothel in which he buggered and was buggered, whipped and was whipped. That scene, and the seven years imprisonment it cost him, has given his name to perversion, and yet one feels there has been a mistake somewhere, Sadeanism isn't Sadism, the two forces met head-on, but Sade was going in one direction and the true Sadist is going in the other.

Open any schlock newspaper and read the personal ads in which S-M people grope for each other: "Docile young man seeks woman experienced in discipline . . . " "Male, interested in leather and uniforms, seeks male of dominant disposition ... " "Interested in leather on women.... "

But this is not Sade's direction, my God, it is the direction of General Hershey and LBJ; it is the direction of our civilization; it is the essence of our civilization, dragged out into hideous visibility. Uniforms and discipline. "Kill for freedom, kill for peace, kill Vietnamese, kill, kill, kill!" The hallucinatory parental voice that says "You are homosexual" and "You must kill him." Uniforms and discipline. The blind leading the blind.

Albert Ellis is more general than Dr. Berne. According to Dr. Ellis, in a lecture at the N.Y. General Semantics Society, most neurotics — i.e., most civilized people — go around with a little internal voice saying "You are a no-good shit." ("You are homosexual," "You are a coward," and "You are a helpless neurotic" are only three variations on the main theme. The main theme is always "You are a no-good shit.")

Eric Frank Russell, the science-fiction writer, propounded a riddle once: "If everybody hates war, why do wars keep on happening?" Remember the S-M ads: "seeks discipline," "seeks uniforms," "seeks leather and rubber."

Authority-and-submission is the chief structural fact about feudal, capitalist and socialist society. Punishment-and-obedience is the defining gesture, as Stanislavsky would call it, of such societies. To illustrate it in one flash: Orwell's "boot stamping on the human face forever." And that is de Sade's theme, always.

I dreamed I called Fulton Sheen on the phone and asked him, I read in your column that "A child needs a pat on the back to encourage him — provided it is applied hard enough, low enough and often enough." You believe that crap, man?

"Without discipline," he intoned, "our whole civilization would fall into anarchy. 'I will chastize him with my rod,' says the Good Book."

But, but, man — I protested — you're supposed to be anti-sex. Don't you know some cats get their rocks off that way? Ain't you read about spanking orgies and people coming in their pants during it? Ain't you against anybody coming, ever, anywhere, anytime, in any way?

"Argggh!" he said, like the dying villain of a comic book, and I couldn't tell if he was having an orgasm or a heart attack.

The line went dead with a weird like a bomb-bay door opening to drop Rita Hayworth's picture. Gilda, the whore, beckoning from her golden bed . . . on little bronze heathens who didn't believe in Jesus.

SIXTH CHORUS

Marat

forget the rest

there's nothing else

beyond the body

— Marat/Sade

So: after 150 years, we are ready to look de Sade in the face, eyeball to eyeball. He comes on, always, like a Zen Master, shouting right into our ears: "Tyranny or Anarchy — you must choose. Answer now!"

He was the first one mad enough and sane enough to accept the given, the immutable, to start from man-in-history rather than from man-in-theory. Well, he says, I don't believe in the "noble savage," I even doubt that he is "inherently good," but taking him as he is I still say: Freedom. He deserves liberty because nobody else is good enough to take it away from him.

He looked into anarchy, he looked past the voluntarily organized anarchy of Proudhon and Tolstoy, he looked into chaos itself, and he said, yes, even that, I will accept even that, before I will bend the knee to any Authority that claims to own me.

I dreamed I called LBJ on the phone and I said, look, man, you're not taking my son for one of your damnfool wars.

"You are mistaken," he said smoothly. "That boy is not your son. He belongs to society and the State, and I am society and the State. I will take him anywhere I want, I will order him to do anything I care to have done, and I will shoot him if he disobeys."

But, but, man—I said—like, wow, man—do you think you own us?

"Read your law books, son," he chuckled. "Ownership is the right 'to use or abuse.'"

And the line went dead with a cold little click like an IBM machine punching a hole in a card somewhere in the vast and infinite halls of bureaucracy.

SEVENTH CHORUS

"Although the prodigious spectacle of folly we are facing here may be horrible, it is always interesting."

— Sade

I called the world up on the telephone and I implored them:

How much of you belongs to the Combine? If they can take your money in taxes and your sons in wars, how do you differ from the cow who is milked or the pig who is eaten? Do you breed for them like a stallion in a pasture? Is the get of your loins theirs to dispose of? Even a no-good shit afraid that Daddy will come and slice it off has some rights, doesn't he? Or does he? Is there any sacrifice you will not make? Is there any discipline you will not accept? Is there any order you will not obey? Is there any shit you will not eat?

Who got the Indian Sign on you? How did it start? At age 12, worrying that J. Edgar Hoover was watching you jack off through his Washington telescope? Was it the bogey-man they scared you with? "Don't make dirty-dirty in your pants or ogres will come and eat you"? Circumcision the most cruel and inhuman attack on the genital accepted by your doctors; why? Schedule feeding that fucked up the minds of a generation; why? Is that how they get the soldiers for their wars? The whip-and-belt boys, the uniform-and-discipline boys, the Pentagon boys, all one big happy spanking-orgy?

And the operator said,'I'm sorry, sir. The world is not answering the phone anymore. It's watching television."

And the line went dead with a loud and unearthly click like the sound of a boy pulling his zipper up when he hears Father's footstep in the hall.

EIGHTH CHORUS

A mad animal

Man's a mad animal

I'm a thousand years old and in my time

I've helped commit a million murders

— Marat/Sade

Rita Hayworth's picture on the Bomb.

What do we really want from them? What drove Garbo into hiding, Monroe into suicide, Lamaar into shoplifting, what struck Harlow down and sent Garland into the booze bottle?

And what happens in a Playboy Club? Have you stood there, like me, vodka-and-tonic in hand, looking down a bunny's cleavage and thinking suddenly of Lon Chaney as the Wolf-Man: "Even a man who is pure of heart / And says his prayers by night / Can turn to a wolf when the wolfbane blooms ? and the moon is full and bright.... " If you turned the fantasies of each person in the room onto the wall in LSD stereo what would it look like — a friendly little orgy, the Rape of the Sabine Women, or Mass Murder?

I dreamed I called a bunny on the phone and asked her, dig de Sade?

"But the most, darling," she cooed.

But, but — I asked — what do you really think of men?

"But, hon," she said innocently, "what do cattle think of butchers?"

And the line went dead with an abrupt click like a diaphragm falling from a purse onto a cold metal floor.

NINTH CHORUS

"My neighbors' passions frighten me infinitely less than do the law's injustices, for my neighbors' passions are contained by mine, whilst nothing checks the injustices of the law."

— Sade

A civilization based on authority-and-submission is a civilization without the means of self-correction. Effective communication flows only one way: from master-group to servile-group. Any cyberneticist knows that such a one-way communication channel lacks feedback and cannot behave "intelligently."

The epitome of authority-and-submission is the Army, and the control-and-communication network of the Army has every defect a cyberneticist's nightmare could conjure. Its typical patterns of behavior are immortalized in folklore as SNAFU (situation normal—all fucked-up), FUBAR (fucked-up beyond all redemption) and TARFU (Things are really fucked-up). In less extreme, but equally nosologic, form these are the typical conditions of any authoritarian group, be it a corporation, a nation, a family, or a whole civilization.

Proudhon was a great communication analyst, born 100 years too soon to be understood. His system of voluntary association (anarchy) is based on the simple communication principles that an authoritarian system means one-way communication, or stupidity, and a libertarian system means two-way communication, or rationality.

The essence of authority, as he saw, was Law — that is, fiat — that is, effective communication running one way only. The essence of a libertarian system, as he also saw, was Contract — that is, mutual agreement — that is, effective communication running both ways. ("Redundance of control" is the technical cybernetic phrase.)

Sade saw this, before Proudhon. "The rule of law is inferior to that of anarchy; the most obvious proof of what I assert is the fact that any government is obliged to plunge itself into anarchy whenever it aspires to remake its constitution. In order to abrogate its former laws, it is compelled to establish a revolutionary regime in which there is no law; this regime finally gives birth to new laws, but this second state is necessarily less pure than the first, since it derives from it" (Sade, p. 46).

The conflict, Marat/Sade (which should really be Marx/Sade, except that the ingenious Mr. Weiss was not quite ingenious enough to devise a historical conjunction between uncle Karl and the Marquis), is the conflict between anarchy and tyranny. Sade, not Marat or Marx, is the true revolutionary, for he aims at a world outside the crucible of punishment-and-submission, while they aim at a new world still within that crucible.

I dreamed I called Ignatz Mouse on the phone and asked, why do you always throw bricks at Krazy Kat?

But Krazy answered instead and said, "Little Dahlink . . . he's always faithful."

And the line went dead with a dreadful click like Captain Queeg rolling his little marbles together.

TENTH CHORUS

The guillotine saves them from endless boredom

Gaily they offer their heads as if for coronation

Is not that the pinnacle of perversion?

— Marat/Sade

Ralph Nader writes incredulously, in his study of automobile safety, Unsafe at Any Speed, "If one were to attempt to produce a pedestrian-injuring mechanism, the most theoretically efficient design would closely approach that of the front end of some present-day automobiles." Mr. Nader has never read Sade. He takes this as an oversight on Detroit's part.

I dreamed I called Batman on the phone and asked, any truth in those rumors about you and Robin?

"Our relationship is 100% platonic," he replied stiffly. "We sublimate. Why do you think we're always out looking for 'bad guys' that we can punish?"

And the line went dead with a quick click like handcuffs closing on a thin wrist forever.

ELEVENTH CHORUS

"If you are timid enough to stop with what is natural,

Nature will elude your grasp forever.'

— Sade

There is much sadism in popular culture these days, but little Sadeanism. One rare example of Sadeanism is the old movie, The Most Dangerous Game, and another is Ken Kesey's novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

The heroes of both of these works are trapped in situations where superior power seeks remorselessly to destroy them. Both heroes, pure Sadeanists, accept the situation at once — without complaining about its "immortality" or "injustice" — and set out systematically and cold-bloodedly to turn the tables.

This is the doctrine of the bandits in Justine — "Nature has caused us to be equals born, Therese; if fate is pleased to upset the primary scheme of things, it is for us to correct its caprices" (Sade, p. 481) — and the doctrine of Stirnerite anarchism. DeSade's proletarian heroes, like the glorious anarchist bandit, Ravechel, believe instinctively that "crime alone opens to us the door to life" (Sade, p. 482).

To anyone who doesn't like this doctrine, Sade's answer is blunt: "The callousness of the Rich legitimates the bad conduct of the Poor; let them open their purses to our needs.... We will be fools indeed to abstain from [crimes] when they can lessen the yoke wherewith their cruelty bears us down" (Sade, p. 481). This sounds horrible, it seems, only to those whose conscious or unconscious wish is to be oppressors. Sadean man merely refuses to be oppressed; he can only be killed, but never subjugated.

I dreamed I called Adolf Hitler on the phone and asked him, What was your gimmick?

"They believed it was wiser to obey anyone, even me, than to risk anarchy," he said with a ghoulish laugh.

And the line went dead with a sharp click like boot-heels snapped together.

TWELFTH CHORUS

I'm a mad animal

Prisons don't help

Chains don't help

I escape through all the walls

— Marat/Sade

B.F. Skinner envisions a world without punishment. Nobody is interested.

Guns are now available — they are used in Africa by game wardens — that will stun without killing. Armed with these, an army could capture a town without shedding one drop of blood. Have you heard of any government plotting to wage its future wars with these guns?

Punishment, discipline, obedience—these are the keys to such mysteries, and to the mystery of war itself, and to all oddities of behavior in Man and the other domestic animals. Sade saw it, and was banned for 150 years. He saw the genital fever, the need for embrace, dammed up at the center of man. Another reason he was banned.

The actors are going nuts playing in Marat/Sade. "There is not a single member of the cast who does not hate with a deep loathing every single performance he is required to do of this play," says lan Carmichael, who plays Marat. "It gets harder and harder," says Patrick Magee, who plays Sade. So far, the company has had one case of acute depression, one fit of "raving screaming" after the show, one actor who almost lost control on stage (Dick Schaap, N.Y. Herald Tribune, March 4, "Inmates of the Asylum").

I dreamed I called D.A.F. de Sade on the phone and asked him, "Jesus told me that he and you agree on at least one thing and it explains freedom. What is that one thing?"

"Quite simple," he replied, "don't be afraid of the Cross. The fear of death is the beginning of slavery."

And the line went dead with a triumphant click like a barred door falling open.

1 Quotations identified as Sade are from Marquis de Sade, Grove Press, 1965. Those identified as Marat/Sade are from The Persecution and Assassination of Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum at Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, by Peter Weiss, Athenium. 1965.

2 "Two of the commonest types of hallucinations are the obscene epithet and the deadly injunction. Both the accusation 'You are homosexual!' and the command 'You must kill them!' may be safely regarded as revived and not very much distorted memories of parental utterances." Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy, by Eric Berne, Grove, 1961 (italics added).

Thirteen Choruses for the Divine Marquis was originally published in The Realist.

Copyright: Robert Anton Wilson

Edited May 6, 2008 by nabraxas

[devance]

'The guillotine saves them from endless boredom

Gaily they offer their heads as if for coronation

Is not that the pinnacle of perversion?'

Should offered his head that way we wouldn't have hear this.

[nabraxas]

pearls & swine, eh devance? or something...

[ThunderIdeal]

i didnt read it all, but made a (failed) post saying he sounds pretty cool. then i looked him up on wiki and he doesn't sound so cool.

[nabraxas]

then i looked him up on wiki and he doesn't sound so cool.

the divine marquis is much maligned, don't believe everything you read about him.

the fictional film Quills starring Geoffrey Rush & Kate Winslet was based on him. good review here.

[ThunderIdeal]

but i mean

sadism was named after him

[nabraxas]

Authority-and-submission is the chief structural fact about feudal, capitalist and socialist society. Punishment-and-obedience is the defining gesture, as Stanislavsky would call it, of such societies. To illustrate it in one flash: Orwell's "boot stamping on the human face forever." And that is de Sade's theme, always.

[ThunderIdeal]

was he not imprisoned for kidnapping and abusing somebody?

[nabraxas]

was he not imprisoned for kidnapping and abusing somebody?

no.

he was accused ov it, but he was not imprisoned, & his mother in law had probably tried to fit him up.

[baphomet]

"Authority-and-submission is the chief structural fact about feudal, capitalist and socialist society"

Thats because the same people who created capitalism also created socialism!

"Orwell's "boot stamping on the human face forever." And that is de Sade's theme, always."

Uh, I didn't quite understand that and I don't have time to look this guy up so please just tell me... is he pro-orwell or pro-big brother?

[nabraxas]

is he pro-orwell or pro-big brother?

pro-orwell & against the authoritarian big brother.

[baphomet]

I'm starting to like this guy

Edited May 10, 2008 by baphomet

[chilli]

Thats because the same people who created capitalism also created socialism!

Yeah.. people.

[baphomet]

Yea.. THE SAME people, the people that George Orwell referred to as 'Big Brother'! What.. did you think it was supposed to benefit the poor?... LOL!

Edited May 10, 2008 by baphomet

[chilli]

Yea.. THE SAME people, the people that George Orwell referred to as 'Big Brother'! What.. did you think it was supposed to benefit the poor?... LOL!

You completely missed my point... LOL!

[baphomet]

Sorry man, I get it now, human nature eh?

[chilli]

Sorry man, I get it now, human nature eh?

Yeah, well that's how I see it anyway... but maybe I'm just projecting my own evilness onto the rest of the human race.

[FancyPants]

i didnt read it all, but made a (failed) post saying he sounds pretty cool. then i looked him up on wiki and he doesn't sound so cool.

You're doing it wrong. You're supposed to know of de Sade and think he's a pervert, then you watch Quills (a Hollywood version) and think he's an awesomely bitchy horndog, then you read this article and wonder why it says in there something about de Sade writing about using a telephone.

Hi, first post

Edit: Oh shi- I didn't realise how old this thread was! Sorry again

Edited August 2, 2008 by FancyPants

[ThunderIdeal]

welcome fancy. cool post, i presume, i mean it sounds like you know what you're talking about.

the creativity forum and the spirituality forum are usually slow, i don't think dredging will upset anyone.

[The Dude]

Well this upsetted me.

"Uh, I didn't quite understand that and I don't have time to look this guy up so please just tell me... is he pro-orwell or pro-big brother?" - Baphomet,

you lazy shmuck. And what the fuck does that mean? pro-orwell, as in he appreciates his literature? Or missing the point, he likes it as a manifesto for politics and life? The bloodied boot stomping on the face is actually a glorification of brutality instead of some kind of message against it.

re: The marquis de sade i think it's funny how .. in the movie at least, he was evicted from high society due to his at the time, explicit writings about sex. To this day his name carries on this kind of pervert connotation which suggests we still haven't escaped our prudishness from the victorian era.

Only read the first half of your post nab. I really like his ideas about liberation, that laws should be as flexible as possible and that there be as few as possible. He had some nice ideas. I think the problem may lay with the obsession on negatives of the human character, and for that he is remembered. The whole mirror thing, he, by writing about for instance sadism (with criticism or not) means he is remembered closely associated with that concept. He has created an output which resonates too strongly with peoples own hidden brutality. We know subconsciously that we all have this carnal brutal nature in us, we MUST manifest the reality, the sade chose writing, most people choose a more direct route. As a humanist I find that fictitious or artistic projections of the shadow are safer to our collective than 'real life' violence, but then maybe as a natural cycle, death and destruction to each other by our very own hands, is part of the balance.

The sade definitely did not start a timeless concept, merely articulated it too well for us to swallow the bitter pill.

Baphomet, to be so opinionated you gotta research what you're opinion is on. SO by having anybody else tell you a 3rd, 4th or 5th hand perspective of anothers life.. it gives us little idea about YOUR opinion anyway, but yeah the Marquis was pro Orwellian Fascist Dictatorship because he presciently read his books... and thought this is a nice motto for life innit.

And the EXACT SAME PEOPLE.. if not their bloodlines or secret society fraternity members, actually Created (read; divine miracle) the concept of personal capital for individuals.. or in other words, the ego, and it's counterpart, connection to the larger society, Socialism. For 'them people' are architects of our psyche, and are THE timeless beings that create both polarities as some kind of ruse to play on us sheeple, for some kind of NWO political end. It's so obvious!

Edited August 6, 2008 by The Dude