Sade's despotism of passions or evil in nature

In this paper the author gives a detailed critical discussion of the condit ions of possibility of the politics and/or ethics of enjoyment such as that conceived by Sade. She begins by discussing the hypothesis advanced by a s et of eminent interprets of Sade's work according to which there is an irre ducible antagonism between the disruptive passions and the social bond. She then goes on to discuss the central theme of this essay, namely, society r ooted in the imperative of enjoyment, and then makes a number of remarks ab out the viability of such a project. As a consequence of this discussion, t he author turns to the question of the evil inherent to enjoyment. She conc ludes that the entire project of the politics and ethics of enjoyment is ce ntered around the deculpabilisation of passions and enjoyment since, in Sad e, the evilness of enjoyment is imputed to Nature. It could thus be said, a rgues the author, that Nature is Sade's "symptom," denouncing in this way t hat Sade, the theorist of enjoyment, is unable and/or unwilling to assume t he evilness of enjoyment.