Supposing you’ve freed yourself from the untruth of religion, thusly your actions are no longer accountable to God, and you have no parental responsibilities…
should you then indulge in a decadent lifestyle?
Should you abuse and destroy what you like–all the while remaining lawful?
If you have nothing but yourself to live for, what then is to stop you from indulging in any and every perverse fantasy and whim?
Moreover, is it, can it be considered, one’s duty? if not one’s self-truth to act upon impulse and desire? would denying the self all desires and fantasy be like living a lie?
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome…THE MARQUIS DE SADE!!!
Actually, Lolo, this is the Marquis whole philosophy. We should remain loyal only to NATURE and what nature has instilled in us. We should seek only our own pleasure, our own fulfillment and our own success, just like animals and plants do. We should not consider others in anyway.
Sadism: no god, no love, no crime.
If you feel like killing your mother because she won’t give you a cookie, do it, because nature instilled that instinct in your soul.
Anyway, I don’t follow Sadist philosophy, as I think it’s too simplistic for humanity.
Except that you said in your OP that you would live a life of decadence while ‘remaining lawful’
To be a true Sadist you must abandon your belief in crime.
Read Justine or Philosophy in The Bedroom for further influence.
There are bits and pieces of de Sade that make him a strong influence in my life (the most obvious of which is my sexual tastes), but on the whole he seems a little extreme.
Well, it depends upon what you mean by perverse fantasies and whims and what you mean by abuse and destroy.
Regardless of whether one believes in God or not, there is still a Hobbesean moral code which prevents life from being nasty, brutish, and short. We all try to agree not to kill each other, less out of a fear of a divine vengeance than out of trying to keep our own fears of being killed at bay. Not having to worry that the pretty young thing sitting behind you is going to stick a shiv between your ribs so she can steal your Chemistry notes allows a better life with time concentrated on more fulfilling pursuits- that is, rather than constantly keeping watch upon said PYT to avoid being attacked, one can actually concentrate upon the Chemistry lecture. Or indulge in fantasies about you and the PYT hitting it off and making like wild monkies in a closet. Whatever.
In my opinion, one’s duty is towards creating a stable society, one in which people can be free to love and live without fear of abuse or destruction. Without a societal code to protect the weak, all of life turns towards ensuring survival. With a societal code, people can turn their minds towards self-satisfaction or trancendensce. Read Hobbes’ Leviathan to understand what I’m talking about.
Thus, my statement would be that abuse or destruction that harms no unconsenting adult- yeah, sure, whatever floats your boat. You want to buy a TV just to take a sledgehammer to it? Sure. You and the GF want to engage in consenting S&M play or rape fantasies? Fine by me, though please spare me the details. But when your abuse falls into acting against the unconsenting- actually indulging in rape, murder, etc.- then you’re acting against the social compact, and therefore in my mind being immoral and wrong.
Without a societal code to protect the weak, we wouldn’t have the weak. If you can’t ensure your own survival what good is self satisfaction or trancendence?
One of the most striking thing the Marquis ever said in Justine (just because I could picture people saying it today) was
“If you want to see less poor people on the streets, stop giving them alms”
those who can’t support themselves will eventually die out.
If the girl behind you wants to kill you for your chemistry notes, life’s rough. Kill and be killed, just like Nature intended.
I’m assuming this is some sort of joke that just whizzed over my head. If not, I guess I’ll just head on over to my mother’s house and put her out of her misery. Old bat’s just a burden on society anyway.
Ah, but one cannot protect oneself against all fronts. One may be strong in personal combat, but that doesn’t prevent another from throwing a rock at you. One can be able to devise shields to deflect blows, but one has to sleep eventually. No one is strong in all areas of survival.
Yes, and what gifts do they take with them? How many doctors, physicists, authors, and writers- such as M. de Sade himself- may well have been ‘opted’ out because they stepped too slow at just the wrong time?
Except that such a simplistic view of nature- like Voltaire’s “noble savage”- is vastly incorrect. Many animals do work together to create a society much in the same basic outlines of our own; while the wolves have yet to develop capitalism or an appreciation of a Bordeaux '57, they do have a social strata, and fighting for dominance is not a mortal combat.
