The birthday of one of the world's greatest philosophers just passed recently, so I thought I'd celebrate it by writing an article in his honor. The wonderful Marquis Donatien-Alphonse-Francois de Sade, better known as The Marquis de Sade, would be 256 years of age today (at the time I wrote this. -ed).
The Marquis remains to this day one of the most notoriously known, yet rarely understood philosophers. As James Brown is the godfather of soul, de Sade is the godfather of S&M (the name Sade is where we get the word "sadist"), and this usually provides the reason why most people know him, but haven't read an inkling of his works. The real de Sade is a philosopher of the highest kind, one with passion for life and a passion to destroy. Many could find this out easily, but are either put off or become too involved in the melodrama of his sadomasochistic storyline.
The Marquis wrote stories, dialogues, letters and plays were he discusses the stupidity of religion, the lows of capitalism, were women fit into this world and practically invents a type of fascism before the word even existed. Everything de Sade wrote is not necessarily known. There are some lost texts due to the French Revolution, a dozen or so stories, his thirteen year prison diary, a few novels...lost forever, seized by the police, destroyed by his unsympathetic family members and only half of his writings have been translated into English. Yet, he was lucky to even escape the Revolution, let alone his writings.
Sade's books and stories each contain a devilish mixture of satire with straightforward social commentary. Most who do wind up reading anything by him, wind up asking, "Is this guy serious?" For instance, is he really recommending torture as an aphrodisiac and theft as a way of promoting economic equality? If they are past this, then they usually wonder, "If he is serious, where is he serious?" Is de Sade truthful in his moral stories and dialogues 0+ in his anonymous novels of torturous eroticism? One must keep in mind that de Sade is always a serious writer at play. He writes to enlighten. He writes to entertain. He writes to horrify. He writes to show you a pessimistic insight into human relationships and the conflicts between unconstrained desires and constrained social order.
The very heart of de Sade's philosophy is natural egoism. Since nature is a name for existence and everything therein, anything that can exist is natural...including any human desire, despite what a "moralist" might say otherwise. According to de Sade, humans are like any other animal, each one born with a particular taste, impulse, craving, need and so forth. Our actions and our thoughts follow nature's prompting and any internalized restraint such as morality, virtue, remorse and religion is an anti-natural interference. Morality is a quite cunning ploy made entirely up by priests for their own benefits and to line their pockets, which is proper for them, due to the fact that they are egoists in their own right. Since morality is nothing more that an old wives' tale, any and all judgments of right and wrong are illusory. Life is truly neither unjust nor fair. He is being quite Nietzscheian about the whole thing, going beyond good and evil. Not necessarily saying all you do is fine and dandy. He is just saying that what you do, is... what you do! No act, whether it is saving a life or taking a life is moral or immoral, it's just human nature. Now de Sade is no nihilist, he doesn't want to destroy all values. He is merely stating that there is no altruism. If you go out of your way to do something good, it is simply a way to make YOURSELF feel better. Example: when one gives money to a panhandler, they gain a feeling of generosity and feel good about themselves or avoiding a feeling of guilt by shooing them away. The Marquis says each person is an egoist, and he or she thinks and acts in there own best interest and looks out for themselves. Now, one might say, but I love my wife/husband/lover and would protect them even if I were in any danger. The truth is that this is no different, you are still looking out for #1...yourself! If your wife/husband were to say die because you didn't save them, that would cause you great pain and you would be miserable, in turn, you are doing it in your own best interest so as not to be miserable. And if you let them die, then you really didn't love them, so it wouldn't hurt you either, now would it? It's all quite simple really. If any of this sounds objectionable, that objection is simply out of self-interest. You don't want to face reality, so you transpose your personal concerns into universal principles and you try to get everyone else to respond in the same manner as yourself so you may feel just a bit more secure in your relationships to other people. Likewise, if you told yourself that it is immoral to abuse your spouse or lover, that is your self-interest underneath those grand ethics. If you were to hurt your partner they might leave you or hurt you back and you will either feel pain or guilt. To avoid this outcome you stand guard over yourself and call it maturity and/or sensitivity. Covering up the fact that your actually looking out for yourself by labeling things as ethical or unethical, moral or immoral, trying to make it a worldly view other than what it really is... your own view! After all, don't we make everything up as we go along? As a product of your culture, you draw these lines of conception between right and wrong. What's the difference between a love bite and a brutal hurting? The difference between abortion and infanticide? Pornography and eroticism? There are differences, just ask a thousand people and you'll get a thousand answers. We make up what is right and what is wrong and each person sees it differently. All assumptions, beliefs, ethics and philosophies are, by there very nature, made-up explanations.
The Marquis never engages in any fundamental investigations like other philosophers do. Never asking, "What is reality? What is Nature? Man? Individual?" The Marquis knows and he believes! He extols the goal of philosophy as, "...to teach truth and destroy prejudices," and does so by staying in a strict ideology of mechanical materialism and natural determinism. To him, only matter and physical force exist, governed by natural principles… and he's pretty much on the money!
What did the Marquis de Sade want? Was he trying to convince us of unsettling implications of his investigations into libido, nature and reality? Was he trying to pass along certain ideas? What he wasn't out to do, for sure, for his readers or even humanity, were favors. His misanthropic creations were his one weapon of revenge against a world that frustrated him so, forcing him to marry a woman he did not care for, locking him up for 13 years for his violent sexuality, and then almost executing him for not being a cruel enough judge during revolutionary times. Sade went beyond merely writing lewd and nightmarish scenes, he set out to subvert people's usual way of evaluating moral judgments. He maintains that only our nature, through physical sensations and basic drives, is authentic; all abstractions such as ideals, ethics and religions are "prejudices" humanity has invented to shield itself from the truth of existence. His pen was his sword and he shoved it straight up mankind's asshole into their hearts!

From Issue 6 and also appeared in Inside Front Magazine. Help support independent publishers.