Sadean Politics or a Tyranny of Jouissance ; Sadovska politika ali tiranija užitka

Abstract

One of the lessons to be drawn from Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents is undoubtedly that jouissance – because it implies pain and suffering – is something harmful to the subject. However, this inherent cruelty of jouissance becomes a problem for modern moral and political philosophy with Sade, for whom the right to jouissance is a fundamental human rights and as such universal. While Sade's universal right to jouissance is inconceivable outside the horizon of human rights discourse, the only space in which universal rights can arise, it represents the ultimate limit of this discourse precisely to the extent that the despotism of the passions, which Sade advocates, promotes the rights, not of man, but of jouissance. But can there be something like an ethics of jouissance and, consequently, a politics of jouissance at all if ethics and politics are founded on a relationship with the Other, whereas jouissance, being solipsistic, autistic in nature, problematises the very status of the Other? And conversely, if Sade's project of emancipation aims at the realisation of the tyranny of jouissance precisely at the level of the socius, then one might ask: What is the social bond that is founded on something which appears to be incompatible with it? To answer these questions, this article examines the radical nature of Sade's despotism of passions as a reinvention of the social bond that consists in bringing together two incompatible instances: freedom and jouissance. ; Eden od naukov Freudovega Nelagodja v kulturi je, da je užitek, ker prinaša bolečino in trpljenje, nekaj škodljivega za subjekta. Toda ta inherentna krutost užitka postane problem za moderno moralno in politično filozofijo s Sadom, za katerega je pravica do užitka ena temeljnih človekovih pravic in kot taka univerzalna. Če je Sadova univerzalna pravica do užitka nepojmljiva zunaj okvira diskurza o človekovih pravicah, znotraj katerega je univerzalna pravica sploh mogoča, pa sadovska pravica do užitka pomeni mejo tega diskurza v tisti meri, v kateri Sadov despotizem strasti ne zagovarja pravic človeka, marveč pravice užitka. Toda ali sploh lahko obstaja nekaj takega kot etika in, posledično, politika užitka, če sta etika in politika utemeljeni na razmerju do Drugega, užitek, ki je po definiciji solipsističen, avtističen, pa status Drugega ravno problematizira? In narobe, če Sadov emancipatorni projekt meri na uresničenje tiranije užitka prav na ravni družbe, potem bi se lahko vprašali, kakšna je družbena vez, ki je utemeljena na užitku, ki se zdi nezdružljiv z njo? Zato da bi odgovoril na ti vprašanji, pričujoči članek analizira radikalno naravo Sadovega despotizma strasti kot reinvencijo družbene vezi, ki med seboj poveže dve nekompatibilni instanci: svobodo in užitek.