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Kant withSade
JACQUES LACAN
TRANSLATED BY JAMES B. SWENSON, JR.
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Kant withSade
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Kant withSade
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his taste." The constrainthe would undergo would not be so much one of
for whoever makes it a judgment,
violence as one of principle,the difficulty
being not so much to make him consent to it, as to pronounce it in his place.
It is thusindeed the Other as free,it is the freedomof the Other, whichthe
discourseof the righttojouissanceposes as the subjectof itsenunciation,and not
in a manner which differsfrom the You are [Tu es] which is evoked in the
murderouscapital [fondstuant]of any imperative.
But thisdiscourseis no less determiningforthe subjectof the statement,in
thateach address suscitateshimthroughitsequivocal content:sincejouissance,by
shamelesslyconfessingitselfeven as it speaks,makes itselfone pole of a couple of
which the other is in the hollow which it is already drillingin the place of the
Other in order to erect the cross of Sadian experience there.
Let us suspend saying what makes it work, in order to recall that pain,
whichhere projectsitspromiseof ignominy,only confirmsthe express mention
that Kant makes of it among the connotationsof moral experience. What it is
worthforSadian experience willbe betterseen by approachingit throughwhat,
in the artificeof the Stoics, would dismantlethis experience: contempt.
Imagine a revivalof Epictetusin Sadian experience: "See, you broke it," he
says,pointingto his leg. Loweringjouissance to the destitutionof such an effect
where its pursuitstumbles,isn't this to turn it into disgust?
In which it appears that it is jouissance by which Sadian experience is
modified. For it forms the project of monopolizing a will only after having
alreadytraversedthiswillin order to installitselfin the mostintimatepartof the
subject which it provokes beyond, by touchingits modesty.
For modestyis amboceptiveof the conjuncturesof being: betweentwo,the
immodestyof the one being by itselfthe rape of the modestyof the other. A
channel which would justify,were it necessary,what we firstproduced by the
assertion,in the place of the Other, of the subject.
Let us interrogatethisjouissance,precariousin thatit hangs,in the Other,
on an echo whichit only suscitatesas it abolishes it, byjoining the intolerableto
it. Doesn't it at lastappear to us to exalt only in itself,in the mannerof another,
horriblefreedom?
We will even see the uncoveringof this third term which,according to
Kant, would be in defaultin moral experience. It is namelythe object, which,in
order to assure it to the will in the fulfillment
of the Law, he is constrainedto
send offinto the unthinkability
of the Thing-in-itself.
This object, isn'tit therein
Sadian experience, descended fromits inaccessibility,
and unveiled as Dasein of
the agent of torment?
Not withoutretainingthe opacity of the transcendent.For this object is
strangelyseparatedfromthe subject. Let us observethatthe herald of the maxim
does not need to be anythingmore thana point of emission.It can be a voice on
3.
Cf. the edition of Sade under review,vol. III, pp. 501- 502.
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of his form. Neverthelessthis wing here has the task of raising itselfto the
functionof figuringthe link of sex to death. Let us leave it to rest behind its
Eleusinian veil.
Thus pleasure, down there the stimulatingrival of will, is here no more
than a falteringaccomplice. In jouissance's own time,it would be simplyout of
play, if fantasydid not interveneto sustain it by the very discord to which it
succumbs.
To put it another way, fantasyconstitutesthe pleasure proper to desire.
And let us come back to the fact that desire is not subject, in that it cannot be
indicated anywhere in a signifierof any demand whatsoever,since it is not
articulatablethere even though it is articulatedin it.
The takingof pleasure in fantasyis here easy to grasp.
Physiologicalexperience demonstratesthat the cycle of pain is longer in
every respectthan that of pleasure, since a stimulationprovokes it at the point
where pleasure ends. However prolonged one supposes it to be, it nevertheless
has, like pleasure, its term: the faintingof the subject.
Such is the vitalgiven fromwhichfantasywillprofitin order to fix,in the
sensible of Sadian experience, the desire whichappears in its agent.
Fantasy is defined by the most general form which it receives from an
algebra which we have constructedto this end, that is the formula(dOa), in
which the stamp is read "desire of," to be read identicallyin the retrograde
direction,introducingan identitywhich is founded upon an absolute nonreciprocity.(A relation which is coextensive withthe formationsof the subject.)
Be that as it may,thisformturnsout to be particularlyeasy to animate in
the presentcase. It articulates,in fact,the pleasure forwhichan instrument(objet
a of the formula)has been substituted,withthe sort of sustaineddivisionof the
subject that the experience ordains.
Which is only obtained inasmuch as its apparent agent congeals in the
rigidityof the object, in the aim thathis subjectivedivisionbe entirelysent back
to him fromthe Other.
A quadripartitestructure,giventhe unconscious,is alwaysto be required in
the constructionof a subjective ordinance. Our didactic schemas satisfythis
requirement.
Let us modulate the Sadian fantasywitha new one of these schemas:
d aV- S,
SCHEMA 1:
Kant withSade
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Antigone,verse 781.
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Kant withSade
Nor gathered one of those dreams afterwhich the dreamer remainsoverwhelmed,fromhaving,in a conditionwhich is feltas an inexhaustiblerebirth,
been in the depths of the pain of existing?
Or to put back in theirplace these tormentsof hell, whichhave never been
imagined beyond those of which the traditionalmaintenanceis assured in this
world by men, would we beseech them to thinkof our daily life as something
which ought to be eternal?
There is nothingto be hoped for,even fromdespair, against a stupidity,
finallysociological, and which we only mention in order that no one on the
outside expect much, concerningSade, fromthe circles where there is a more
assured experience of the formsof sadism.
Notablyabout the equivocalityof whatcirculatesconcerningthe relationof
reversionwhichwould unitesadismto an idea of masochismof whichit is hard to
imaginefromthe outside the pell-mellit supports.It would be betterto findin it
the worthof a littlestory,a famousone, about the exploitationof man by man:
the definitionof capitalismas one knows. And socialism?It's the opposite.
Involuntaryhumor, this is the tone from which a certain diffusionof
psychoanalysistakes effect.It fascinatesby being also unperceived.
There are stillsome scribblerswho strivefora more fashionablelook. They
in
customtailoring,or more soberly,personalistready-made.
go forexistentialist
This leads to the statementthat the sadist "denies the existenceof the Other."
This is precisely,it will be admitted,what has just appeared in our analysis.
To followit, isn't it ratherthat sadism rejects the pain of existinginto the
Other, but withoutseeing that by thisslant he himselfchanges into an "eternal
object," if Mr. Whitehead is willingto give us back thisterm?
But why couldn't we hold it as a common good? Isn't that, redemption,
immortalsoul, the statusof the Christian?Not so fast,so as not to go too far.
Let us ratherperceive that Sade is not duped by his fantasy,to the extent
that the rigor of his thoughtpasses into the logic of his life.
For here we propose a duty to our readers.
The delegation which Sade makes to all, in his Republic, of the rightto
jouissance,is not translatedon our graph by a symmetricalreversionupon any
axis or center,but merelyby a rotationof a quarter of a circle, thatis:
V
a>
,S
SCHEMA 2:
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Kant withSade
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he says, "that someone says his lust is irresistiblewhen the desired object and
opportunityare present.Ask him whetherhe would not controlhis passion if,in
frontof the house where he has this opportunity,a gallows were erected on
whichhe would be hanged immediatelyaftergratifying
his lust. We do not have
to guess verylong what his answer would be. But ask him whetherhe thinksit
would be possibleforhim to overcome his love of life,howevergreatit maybe, if
his sovereign threatenedhim with the same sudden deathl2 unless he made a
false deposition against an honorable man whom the ruler wished to destroy
under a plausible pretext.Whetherhe would or not he perhaps willnot venture
to say; but that it should be possible for him he would certainlyadmit without
hesitation.He judges, therefore,thathe can do somethingbecause he knowshe
ought, and he recognizes that he is free- a factwhich,withoutthe moral law,
would have remained unknownto him."
The firstresponse here supposed of a subject about whom we are first
warned that for him much happens in words, makes us thinkthat we have not
been given it to the letter,even thoughthat'sthe whole point. It's that,in order
to compose it,one would ratherrelyon a personage whose scrupleswe would be
bound [en toutcas] to offend,for he would never [en aucun] stoop to eating that
kind of bread. He is namelythatideal bourgeois beforewhomelsewhere,doubtless in order to check Fontenelle,the overlygallant centenarian,Kant declares
that he tips his hat.13
We will thus exempt the naughtyboy fromtestifying
under oath. But it
a
that
of
and
who
one
would
be blindenough to
supporter passion,
mighthappen
mix a point of honor in with it, could give Kant problems, forcinghim to
recognizethatno occasion willmore certainlyprecipitatesome men towardtheir
end, than to see it offeredas a challenge to, or even in contemptof, the gallows.
For the gallows is not the Law, it can't even be drivenaround by it. The
bus
is the paddy wagon, and the police mightwell be the state,as is said
only
among the followersof Hegel. But the Law is somethingelse, as has been known
since Antigone.
Kant's apologue doesn't even contradictthis:the gallowsonlycomes into it
in order for him to tie up on it, along with the subject, his love of life.
And it is this to which desire in the maxim Et non proptervitamvivendi
perderecausas can pass in a moral being, and, preciselybecause he is moral,pass
to the rank of a categoricalimperative,however littlehe may be up against the
wall. Which is preciselywhere he is now being pushed.
Desire, what is called desire sufficesto make lifehave no sense in playinga
coward. And when the law is trulythere,desire doesn't hold, but that'sbecause
the law and repressed desire are one and the same thing;this is even Freud's
discovery.We score a point at halftime,professor.
12.
13.
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69
Let us place the creditforour success in the ranksof the pawns, queen of
the game as we know. For we have broughtinto play neitherour Knight,with
whichwe could have easilywon the game, forit would have been Sade, whomwe
believe to be well-qualifiedin thismatter-nor our Bishop [Fou], nor our Rook
[Tour],the rightsof man, freedomof thought,your body is your own, nor even
our Queen [Dame], an appropriate figureto designatethe prowessesof courtly
love.
This would have meant movingtoo many people, for a less certainresult.
For ifI argue thatSade, fora fewjokes, ran the risk,in fullknowledge(see
what he makes of his "escapades," legal or not), of being imprisonedduring a
thirdof his life,jokes whichdoubtlesswere a littletoo much in earnest,but all the
more demonstrativewithrespectto theirrecompense,I draw upon myselfPinel
and his pinellrywhich comes up again. Moral insanity,it opines. A lovelybusiness, in any case. I am here recalled to reverenceforPinel, to whomwe owe one
of the mostnoble stepsof humanity.- Thirteenyearsof CharentonforSade, in
fact,come fromthis step. -But it wasn't his place. -That's just it. It is this
very step which leads him there. For as to his place, everythingwhich thinks
agrees about this,it was elsewhere. But see: those who thinkwell, thinkit was
since Royer-Collard,who demanded itat the time,
outside,and the well-thinkers,
saw it injail, even on the scaffold.It is preciselyin thisthat Pinel is a momentof
thought. Willinglyor unwillingly,he is the guarantee for the prostrationto
which, to the left and to the right,thought submits the libertieswhich the
Revolution had promulgatedin its name.
For in consideringthe rightsof man fromthe point of view of philosophy,
we see the appearance of what in any case everyone now knows of their truth.
They are reducible to the freedomto desire in vain.
A finetriumphindeed, but an opportunityto recognize in it our reckless
freedomof a momentago, and to confirmthat it is indeed the freedomto die.
But also to draw upon ourselvesthe frownsof those who don't findit very
nourishing.They are numerous these days. A renewal of the conflictbetween
needs and desires,where as if by chance it is the Law which empties the shell.
For the move whichwould check the Kantian apologue, courtlylove offers
no less temptinga path, but one whichrequires being erudite. Being erudite by
position,one draws the erudite upon oneself,and as forthe erudite in thisfield,
bring on the clowns.
Already Kant would for next to nothingmake us lose our seriousness,for
lack of the least sense of the comic (the proof is what he says of it in its place).
But someone who lacks it, himself,totallyand absolutely,if you've remarked,is Sade. This thresholdwould perhaps be fatal to him and a preface is
not made for disservices.'4
Thus let us pass to the second momentof Kant's apologue. It is no more
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conclusive to his ends. For supposingthat his helot has the least idea of what's
happening,he will ask him [i.e., Kant] if by chance it would be his dutyto bear
true witness,in case this were the means by which the tyrantcould satisfyhis
wishes.
Should he say thatthe innocentis a Jew forexample, ifhe trulyis, beforea
tribunal,such as has been seen, whichwould findin thissomethingto condemn
-or yetthathe is an atheist,just when it is possiblethathe himselfis a man who
would betterunderstandthe weightof the accusation than a consistory,which
only wants a dossier-and the deviation from the "line," will he plead it not
- and then
guiltyin a place and time when the rule of the game is self-criticism
what?afterall, is an innocentever spotless,will he say what he knows?
One can erect as a dutythe maximof counteringthe desire of the tyrant,if
the tyrantis the one who arrogatesto himselfthe power to enslave the desire of
the Other.
Thus upon the two lengths(and the precarious mediation), from which
Kant makes himselfa lever in order to show that the Law puts into balance not
just pleasure,but also pain, happiness,or even the pressureof poverty,even love
of life,everythingpathological, it turnsout that desire can not only have the
same success, but can obtain it withgreater legitimacy.
But if the advantage which we have allowed the Critiqueto take fromthe
alacrityof its argumentationowed somethingto our desire to know what it
wanted to get at, could not the ambiguityof thissuccess turnback itsmovement
toward a revisionof the extortedconcessions?
Such as, for example, the disgrace which,somewhathastily,was brought
upon all objects thatpropose themselvesas goods, as being incapable of causing
the harmonyof wills:simplyby introducingcompetition.Thus Milan, in which
Charles V and FranCoisI knew what it cost them both to see the same good.
This is indeed to misrecognizethe nature of the object of desire.
Which we can only introducehere by recallingwhatwe teach about desire,
to be formulatedas desire of the Other, since it is originallydesire of its desire.
Which makes the harmonyof desires conceivable,but not withoutdanger. For
the reason thatin linkingup in a chain whichresemblesBreughel'sprocessionof
the blind, theymay indeed all be holding hands, but none knows where all are
going.
In reversingdirectiontheywill all gain the experience of a universalrule,
but will know no more about it.
Would the solutionconsonantwithpracticalReason thenbe thattheyall go
round in circles?
Even lacking,the gaze is thereindeed an object whichpresentseach desire
with its universalrule by materializingits cause, by binding it to the division
"between center and absence" of the subject.
Let us thenceforthlimitourselvesto sayingthata practicesuch as psycho-
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consent to the intentionof her tormentor,or would even enroll herselfon his
side by the verve of her consent.
This demonstratesfromanother point of view that desire is the other side
of the law. In the Sadian fantasy,one sees how theysustaineach other. For Sade,
one is alwayson the same side, eitherthe good or the bad; no affrontcan change
anything.It is thusthe triumphof virtue:thisparadox onlyrecoversthe derision
proper to the edifyingbook, whichJustineaims at too much not to espouse it.
Apart fromthe lengtheningnose whichgivesaway the lie, foundat the end
of the posthumousDialogue Betweena Priestand a DyingMan (admit thathere is
an unpropitioussubject forother graces than divine grace), one sometimesfeels
the lack in the workof a motd'esprit,and more largelyof the witwhose necessity
Pope had spoken of almost a centurybefore.
Evidently,all this is forgottenby the invasion of pedantrywhich weighs
upon French literaturesince WWII.
But if you need a strongstomachto followSade when he extols calumny,
the firstarticleof moralityto be institutedin his Republic,one mightpreferthat
he put somethingof the spiciness of a Renan into it. "Let us congratulate
ourselves in like manner," the latter writes,"that Jesus encountered no law
which punished the invectivesutteredagainst one class of citizens.Had such a
law existed,the Phariseeswould have been inviolate."17And he continues:"His
exquisite irony, his arch and provoking remarks, always struck home. The
of ridiculewhichtheJew,son of the Pharisees,has dragged in tatters
Nessus-shirt
after him during eighteen centuries,was woven by Jesus with a divine skill.
Masterpiecesof fineraillery,theirfeaturesare writtenin lines of fireupon the
fleshof the hypocriteand the falsedevotee. Incomparable traits,worthyof a son
of God. A god alone knows how to kill afterthisfashion.Socrates and Moliere
only touched the skin. He carried fireand rage to the marrow."18
For theseremarkstake theirvalue fromthe well-knownresult,we mean the
vocation of the Apostle to the rank of the Phariseesand the triumph,universal,
of Pharisaicvirtues.Which,one will agree, leads to a more pertinentargument
than the rather paltry excuse with which Sade is content in his apology for
calumny:that the honest man will always triumphover it.
This platitudedoes not preventa somber beautyfromemanatingfromthis
monumentof defiance. This beauty bears witnessfor us to the experience for
whichwe search behind the fabulationof the fantasy.A tragicexperience,forit
projects its conditionin a lightingbeyond all fear and pity.
Bewildermentand shadows,such is, contraryto thejoke [motd'esprit],'9the
conjunctionwhose carbon brillance fascinatesus in these scenes.
This tragicis of the typewhichwillsharpenitsimage laterin the centuryin
17.
18.
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