On being negative
The importance of facing darkness
When I read the post of
"Why Are You So Negative?" Good Question. Here's the Answer: Real Life,
…it reminded me of my long overdue debt to this question.
When
started his Substack: The Books That Made Us, I signed up immediately, as it is a great concept. One of his criteria was to limit submission to one book. My choice was never a question, you can read it here: When Universes Collide, but I had another, a much darker book in mind as well. I am sitting on that idea ever since, as I am still not sure how people can relate to it. It is a shocking book; it is no accident that it took 176 years to get translated into English.I will be talking about “Philosophy in the bedroom” of the Marquise de Sade.
I am quite ‘negative’ in my writing as well and I did, in fact, had to answer such a question to some of my readers. What makes this interesting is that I am probably the most optimistic person you could ever meet.
There are countless things that can make me happy, politics is just not one of them.
To paraphrase Trotsky, while a may not be interested in politics, politics seems to be interested in me. Hence the tag-line of this Substack – politics is personal.
There is nothing I wish more, than to live in a world where I can forget about it, but I am not willing to live in denial, or live in a lie.
I also cannot afford to cut all ties with civilization. That would make me miss out on most of the things in life that can make me happy. I love to travel and observe different cultures. I couldn’t live without music. I love to read and watch good movies. I love to learn and trying to do the impossible: satisfying my insatiable curiosity. I love to see the evolution of science and technology. I love to be in nature, biking, hiking, paddling, skiing, kiting, you name it. I love good food and I love to entertain friends.
I am a happy and social person, but I CANNOT pretend that everything is fine when the whole world around us is going to hell. I cannot stay silent about it either. Reality is the same for all of us, what is different is our engagement with it. you may want to check out my post in these differences:
The most important element of the differences is that while the left’s reaction is panic and/or denial, the right’s reaction is alarm and preparation.
With that, let’s look at the book:
The book was written a few years after the French revolution, in 1795, but did not get an English translation ‘till 1971. Calling the book disturbing is an understatement.
What makes it horrifying is not the extreme sexual perversions it describes in all of their lurid details, but the frighteningly persuasive and articulate, even eloquent arguments justifying them.
The message is that anything goes. As long as it pleases you, and as long as you can get away with it, you should just do it! You, your needs and the power needed to satisfy them should be your only concerns. No ‘moral’ scruples should ever come between you and the satisfaction of your desires.
The book is an ode to narcissist sociopathy, a rejection of any and all social norms in favor of absolutely unconstrained selfishness.
Libertinism, like the expression itself, is a bastard child of the enlightenment. It was well developed and practiced already years before the French revolution and according to historians, the moral decay it represented was a contributor to the many causes of the revolution.
Libertinism represents the unrestrained and non-reciprocal freedom of power. The elements that are not discussed (enough) are the implications of this unrestrained power.
How it inevitably leads to the horrors like the atrocities of the French revolutions (the Vendée massacre) and the totalitarian mass murders of the 20th Century.
How it inevitably leads to a spiral where power and immorality are feeding on each other.
I read “Philosophy in the bedroom” in the 80s, after having a few opportunities to learn about the nature of evil, sadism and sociopathy in my own life. I could say that I was exposed to more reality than most.
Still, with all my understanding nothing drove home the message to me with the impact of the “Philosophy in the bedroom”. Nothing impressed on me more that:
You have to look into the abyss if you do not want to fall into it.
I was asked recently by two different people, whether I believe in the existence of ‘original’ evil.
I was deflective in my response, as I do not really understand what the question means.
I do not believe in ‘absolutes’ and ‘originals’ as they imply a degree of finality and inevitability, which in turn can be used as some sort of excuse. Both evil and good are relative in the meaning of being related to things outside of themselves. They can only be interpreted in relation to other acts.
That said, I most definitely believe in our capacity to do evil.
I also believe, very strongly, that evil, bad things, negative things must be seen, understood and confronted whenever and wherever possible.
Denial, looking the other way and pretending not to see will just invite more of the evil, more of the bad things that eventually we will always have to face. There are no safe places.
Being negative about bad things is good thing.
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In keeping with the ideas of "one book" and "facing darkness" I can't help but default to the Bible. A second book might be The Keys of the Kingdom, by A. J. Cronin. It's been a long time, but I remember one theme being hope in the face of human weakness. It was definitely an uplifting read for me.
Your article reminded me of something I read year ago on the internet to the effect of: "No matter how ludicrous the cause, there will always be a champion to defend it". Politics doesn't become personal until you are manipulated in to making life or death decisions on other peoples lives. But as fate would have it, it is other people who are choosing the persona gratis's to dispose of the undesirables. The demarcation lines between an absolute good (beauty) and an absolute evil (fill in the blank) has become so blurred through the sophistry of euphemisms and moral relativism, that people no longer understand how to even set their moral compass to guide them back to the creator of all things.