Introduction

Thadde's "Ostian, or the Disaster of Debauchery" is about a bad-hearted count who tries to kill the girl he raped - Anestine - but fails in the end. However, through this story, instead of saying that the debauchery refers to the debauchery and evil of the Count-Ostian, we should say that the "debauchery" refers to the disaster caused by the excessively indulgent power system.

This system of power reflects their influence throughout the story through the different characters who constantly block Aenesteen's thoughts and behaviors of avenging himself. For example, the most common one is that from the beginning, they hoped that Anestine would marry the count who tarnished her virginity in order to restore the so-called "reputation".

Sade once said: "I am a son of the century who was poisoned by the regent." This sentence reflects how debauched and lewd the life of the nobles in the eighteenth century was. At that time, such habits and way of life were even considered to be A "hobby" or "trait" that nobles should cultivate. Just like equestrian. And "morality" is used to domesticate ordinary people, make them obey the upper class, and even dare not launch a revolution against the corrupt regime.

This may be the reason why many of Sade's works often have anti-"moral" ideas. In these works, women or people who keep chastity, oppose violence, and are unwilling to join forces often end up tragically, while those who follow the evil way and pervert the law gain power everywhere. Among them, the most representative works are the notorious "One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom" and "The Doom of the Virgin".

This also made Sade's novels considered immoral novels and forbidden books to corrupt customs in that era. In modern times, those who study Sade may offer a defense for Sade: Sade wrote such a novel out of a compelled revolt against the era, because it was so in that era. As Sade said in another sentence: "A work that best reflects social customs, and perhaps the most fascinating work." What's more, Sade's writing is a revolutionary writing that exposes the hypocrisy of the regime. Expose various injustices under the regime and religion.

However, the script of "Ostian, or the Disaster of Debauchery" makes us have to rethink Sade's ideas of morality and "evil". Because there are so many things in this script that are completely different from Sade's other important works. First of all, there is no erotic and sadistic depiction in this work, which is very different from Sade's image as a pornographic writer. On the contrary, it is full of moral exhortations, because almost all the characters are advising the Count not to continue him. evil deeds, and sing praises of virtue in conduct. Next, it is the description and positioning of the female protagonist in this work. In the past, the women in Sade's works were either humble slaves who surrendered to power and were abused, or female bustards who mingled with evil and became criminals. But Aenesteen in the text not only fails to follow the earl's desire to marry her (which is also the advice given to him by other characters in the play, such as the maid), but also plans to have an upright duel with the earl. In the end, it is the ending of the play: the libertine loses and gets killed, defends his virtue and wins. It is completely unimaginable that this would be written by Sade.

One of the easiest ways to explain it is: this work asks different questions than other departments. If Sade's other works are meant to satirize, criticize, and demonstrate the evils of power and the hypocrisy of the moral education they often spread and publicize, then the question this work asks is: If we already know that so-called morality is often The conspiracy (norm) that power has instilled in us, so how do we face our conscience from the heart? Especially when we see a lot of heinous things happening around us?

Moral Struggle and Power Conspiracy: The Asymmetry of Crime and Punishment

In this script, all the characters struggle with morality. It should be noted, however, that this moral struggle is not the same as moral issues such as the trolley issue that we generally see in ethics. They are not comparing which behavior is correct, or relatively correct. On the contrary, most of them already know which choice is moral, but they are considering whether they have to fight for conscience and power system.

We can see that the moral status described and positioned in "Ostian, or the Disaster of Debauchery" is different from other works of Sade criticizing moral values. Here, moral cognition and ideas lead people to resist authority, while It is not about making people weak and obedient to the oppression of power. This change may have something to do with the French Revolution of 1789, because this revolution allowed Sade to be reborn from the Bastille and return to life. It also brought down the corrupt government of the time. and had him write the play in 1790–1791.

However, it is interesting that the original novel of "Ostian, or Debauchery", "Aniestine", was written by Sade while he was imprisoned in the Bastille. Although the two have similar character structures and plots in the plot, on the whole, the difference between the two is huge. The novel is not only complicated in details, but also involves different time and space backgrounds. Sade's own imagination.

In "Aniesting", the heroine did not succeed in revenge. On the contrary, Ostin's trick succeeded, so that Aniesting's lover Herman was not only successfully designed and sentenced to death, but she was also killed by her colonel's father. manslaughter. It was a complete human tragedy. As for the earl, although the trick was successful, he was still sent to court and sentenced to exile. Although tragic, the development of things like this is in line with our impression of Sade in other works, but what is even more paradoxical is that this novel does not end here. After several years in exile, Anestine's father chose to forgive and forgive the count's sins, helping him obtain a pardon from the king and returning him to freedom. As for why, the colonel said: "A man in prison can make up for the damage he has caused to society? If you want him to make amends, you should give him freedom instead of living in prison forever... You go! You Free... you don't have to be grateful, sir, it's just for myself."

The colonel even said something like this: "'Alas, virtue!' he sometimes exclaimed: 'Perhaps all these things happened just for what Ostin needed to return to your temple! If so, I got it too Consolation, for this man's guilt has only caused me pain, while his good deeds have been given to all men.".

Why did the colonel think that prison time could not make up for the count's sins? There are probably two reasons. First, it was because Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille for a long time, which gave him a thorough insight into the greater darkness and evil under the country. Because in prison, the way the guards treat the prisoners is like the abuse described in many of Sade's works. Plus that place is a very poor place, full of rats and disgusting, long-expired, rotten food. Guards will even threaten prisoners with their food or whether they help with mailing services, ordering them to behave in teasing ways, etc. What is even more terrifying is that the jailers may not tell them when it is their death sentence, leaving them living in huge fear every day, not knowing when they are about to die. That's why Sade once said, "Not only did the prison not make me better, but it made me a thousand times worse." Because once you enter the inside and endure all kinds of huge mental oppression, after you come out, in addition to the occasional emergent Painful memories, you may also severely lose your trust in others and society.

The second reason Sade opposes prisons is that although prisons appear to be where criminals are punished for their crimes and their criminal responsibilities, in fact, the function of prisons is precisely to transform the so-called "crimes" into a kind of transaction, through imprisonment. The punishment to offset past crimes, so that criminals do not have to look at their own behavior, but only need to accept the punishment. That is to say, for Sade, the prison deprives people of the right to contemplate their own evil through the constant imposition of punishment. Even people don't have to really take seriously and bear the evil deeds they have done in the past.

This feeling is similar to the experience of many people who were punished by teachers for writing when they were studying. As long as you finish writing the items that you wrote about as soon as possible, you'll be fine. As for what he did at that time and was punished by the teacher, I am afraid that I have long since cared about it. Anyway, I have been punished for writing.

The idea is reminiscent of another novel written by another person. It was a nineteenth-century Russian writer called Dostoevsky, and the novel he wrote was called Crime and Punishment. The protagonist of this novel is called Raskolnikov, a poor student who dropped out of school. Because he could not pay the rent, he killed the old woman who ran the pawnshop he had always hated and accidentally witnessed her in anger. daughter of the incident. After the incident, the police arrested some suspects, but did not catch Raskolnikov, which made him feel strange, because in that crime, he did not take any precautions in advance, so he Feeling that he should be caught soon, he was very nervous before being interviewed by the police. But what is even more ridiculous is that among the suspects caught by the police, some people actually claimed and confessed that he committed the case. You might think that wouldn't be a good thing for the protagonist? But the fact is quite the opposite. This news not only did not make the protagonist happy and relieved, but even made him face greater fear and anxiety. On the one hand, he felt that he not only killed two women, but also caused an innocent person to replace his own crime, which made his conscience uneasy, and on the other hand, because he had been afraid and worried that the news was actually the police The conspiracy they planned, they had already locked him up and sent people to watch him to see if he behaved with uneasy conscience, such as how many nights did he have trouble sleeping, or how many times did he lose his appetite? And measure how long it takes him to choose to surrender, and then determine how heavy his criminal responsibility is. These "surveillances" imagined by ourselves keep tormenting our protagonist day and night, causing him to keep wandering in the streets without a soul, thinking about whether it is really his own sin to do this by himself? Or was it the oppression of the social environment that forced him to do so? Thinking and thinking about these things will decide whether he is going to turn himself in.

The content of this story may be too exaggerated. But in addition to drawing our attention to a criminal psychology and thinking, he also draws our attention to the real and most terrifying force of morality: the system of self-surveillance. On the other hand, the content of this story reveals a question, or a contradiction, that Dostoyevsky's novels have been exploring throughout his life: why do some people break the law, although they are willing to accept punishment, they do not think Guilty yourself? And some people feel a great sense of guilt even if they did not break the law? In other words, why is the relationship between "sin" and "punishment" so unequal in people's hearts?

Desire and Morality: Power

If we look back at the play "Ostian, or the Disaster of Debauchery", we will be surprised to find that in fact - the key to the emergence and operation of true morality is that "sin" and "punishment" are not right Because each of the characters here deeply feels the contradictory feeling that the "sin" in their hearts and the "punishment" outside cannot be balanced, their moral consciousness can be awakened and stimulated. It can be said that it is only when they experience this contradiction that people think about what morality means to them.

The asymmetry between "sin" and "punishment" actually reflects a problem of unequal power. In this play, even though it is wrong to do evil, no one will be punished for complicity. On the contrary, they may also enjoy many benefits with the count; but if they rebel against the will of the count for the sake of morality in their hearts, in addition to the possibility of getting Bear the risk of being unable to resist success, and may also be oppressed by power units such as the imperial court and social class, and live in a worse situation. That's why Aenes had to plan a duel of reciprocity when he stopped at the end.

This duel of equal power is actually a test of courage. But we have to pay attention that what he tested was not just Ainestine's determination, but also an opportunity for Ostian to face his feelings for Ainestine. Because from one of the monologues, it can be found that even the count who plays the oppressor is actually a person who is oppressed or even imprisoned by power. His scheming reflects not so much an evil mind, but rather a cowardice and lack of courage for love, and he had to rely on the means of power to rape and escape his feelings for Aenesteen, and simply put himself Defined as a so-called villain, so that you don't have to engage in horrific moral struggles and regret your impulsive actions.

For Sade, people have always had an instinct to do evil, which can be said to be a component of human desire. It is the tendency to want to gain power, or to want to depend on it. Such a tendency is still difficult to eradicate even through reason, enlightenment, and science, and is even sometimes exploited by this tendency to bully others and carry out larger massacres and dictatorships. And this tendency is exactly what all the characters in the play are resisting and struggling.

Perhaps, in Sade's mind, true morality is born only in the courage to rebel against power. The reason why he criticizes morality in many novels or treatises is not because he is against morality or goodness, but because he hates the idea of morality as a norm, as an attitude to life in order to obey fate. Because in an era influenced by religion, "morality" often ended up asking people to obey, pretending that evil is rewarded with evil and good is rewarded as the law of the world, or to make people think that all misfortunes are for the afterlife Heavenly practice. But it does not teach people that they should learn to resist for themselves and learn to identify themselves in criticism.

Morality is a courage, not a norm. This is not to say that people should not use morality to regulate themselves. Rather, it is saying that people cannot regard moral norms as rules that are rigidly followed. Because once morality becomes a rule, it may be used by the desire and instinct of power, hindering people's identification with themselves, and even unable to reflect on their own experiences. Make morality the tyranny of evil.

I used to encounter a problem when I went back to the university dormitory room to rest after class. He always had a hard time understanding why his roommates always saw his elevator ride (the room was on the fourth floor) as a sign of laziness. As long as the elevator is not exactly on the first floor, the roommate will choose to take the stairs, and he will wait for the elevator slowly on the first floor (even if the elevator is going down from the tenth floor). He also accepted the joke from his roommate: "You're lazy~ You're too lazy to go this way!" "It's obviously that you're too lazy to wait!!!" After taking the elevator back to the room, the roommate who was already in the room would continue to joke: "What kind of elevator to take! Look at me, I can walk faster than you!", "Well~ taking the elevator saves effort but not time. ~Not in a hurry.”

As time went by, I began to wonder: Why do people judge laziness by how much they walk, how much effort they use, and how fast they reach their goals? Instead of looking at how much time a person is willing to spend waiting or even savoring a thing? This question, until I saw Michelle. Only a book by Foucault gets some explanation.

Michelle. Foucault writes in "The Society of Punishment" (or another more famous book: "Discipline and Punishment") that before the Industrial Revolution, people's concept of laziness was very different from that of today. In the era when agricultural production was the mainstay, people's work and rest were in line with the growth of crops. Therefore, if a person is considered lazy, it is probably because the time he engages in farming is not in line with the work and rest of crops. Such thinking later troubled the capitalists who set up factories, because if people thought about "work" that way at the time, how would they be persuaded to stay and work in factories when they weren't before?

When Foucault studied these historical materials, he found that it was precisely at the time of the Industrial Revolution and the beginning of factories that an educational system and schools that were close to the modern system were born. These schools are not entirely run by the government, and many are even actively sponsored and established by capitalists. At the same time, Foucault also noticed that from this period, schools and people began to teach and spread moral values that are more similar to modern times, including laziness, frugality, and so on. The way to define laziness is to measure how quickly and efficiently a person gets things done.

From this point of view, the relationship between desire and morality is more complicated than we think. Generally speaking, we always think that morality is created to regulate human desires, but in fact, sometimes, morality in turn is Desires are produced and used. And we will find that, in different times, when people have a new view of what is desirable, the moral system will also be turned upside down.

Violence in Morality and Morality in Violence

When the original novel "Ostian, or the Disaster of Debauchery" was first published, it was criticized as immoral. A few days later, Thad responded to such criticism in the newspaper, first saying: "I have never written immoral novels, nor will I ever write...", and then he talked about his thoughts on novels : "To be able to make a novel, a tragedy fascinating, it is not necessary to always try to make virtue triumph... On the contrary, virtue is more attractive and more beautiful only when it is insulted and misfortune.  … The person who criticized Sade's work in the newspapers) is probably an immoral person, so he doesn't understand how people worship virtue."

Only by being willing to recognize the sinful side of human beings and acknowledging that human desires play an important and indelible role in the establishment and survival of the self can it be possible to inspire a genuine desire for morality. Such a statement is relative to a false morality, which is like a kind of arrogant power, requiring people to shape their own identity and their own desires only according to their content, and denying those who exceed "power" think. What he critiques of Welletelke is that Welletelke takes morality as an image of an ideal life to follow, rather than seeing morality as a point of view, a way to come back to know oneself and then criticize society.

The last topic that can be discussed in this play is violence.

If we agree that Aenesteen wants to express her resistance in a duel, or that Herman executes a "just" lynching of Ostian at the end of the play, this will touch on a doubt, that is, the issue of violence. Because to this day we all believe that it is wrong to use violence. So can we say that Ernestine's decision--even if courageous--would still be moral?

Rollo. May has written a book called "Power and Ignorance," which is about power and people's ignorance on the surface, but what he really wants to talk about is the subtitle: why people are violent. That is, what is the source of violence in people?

Rollo. May's idea is that some elements of violence are indispensable to people, because violence is related to the psychology of people's desire to be recognized. That is, when a power system does not identify with certain groups or individuals, and when people's tolerance reaches a limit, violence will occur.

“As long as people are not valued, there will be violent unrest. Everyone will have a need to be valued, and if society cannot make this possible, then people will get it through destruction.”

Another reason for Sade's opposition to morality as a norm may be this. He is not against the ideal of morality, but against the idea of violence as immoral or inhuman. For him, violence is not immoral, on the contrary, violence is a very important manifestation of human nature. Or, even if violence is immoral, it is an indispensable and vital human nature, but many moral thoughts are instilled in people trying to ignore, ignore or even deny their inner violent experience and violent thoughts, but they What you don't know is that you can only know how much freedom and possibility you - as a human being - have, and how much power you have to decide your own life and help others.

Dialectics: True Evil/True Good

We can even say that for Sade, in fact, the most immoral thing in the world is to require all people to be rational and kind in all circumstances in the name of morality. That's why Sade says that God is actually a real demon -- a tyrannical dictator. At the end of the original novel "Aniestine", the colonel said that his forgiveness was for himself, not for the count, because what was really forgiven by the colonel was not the count's sins, but the colonel's belief that people should not have violence and evil thoughts. ideas and perceptions. And the so-called sin, on the contrary, is not forgiven, but is returned to the sinner, which means that only the sinner can make a real punishment on himself, because only in this way can a sinner's repentance bring The constant condemnation of one's own sins in one's own heart is transformed into the punishment of constant good deeds.

True morality sees doing good as a punishment, as a way to live with evil, not a way to stay away from it. This kind of thinking is also seen in Dostoyevsky's novels, they all believe that only man understands, realizes that he has never been a perfect, perfect species, and also knows that no matter how much good deeds are done, he will never get there. Only after a certain period of time will they know what it means to do good, and will be willing to continue what can truly be called "faith" and "human dignity."

Is the so-called evil a natural instinct of man as a living being? Perhaps, at least in Sade's writings, the nature of evil is often closely related to what he calls "nature." For him, too, the evil that civilization and various Enlightenment philosophers believed to be lurking in the wild was a force that had always been misunderstood. This kind of power helps people to survive and even develop their own desires and ambitions in normal times, but when they get into trouble, they can only turn into sinful appearances.

To say that such a thing is sinful, Sade may not have an opinion. But what he can't bear is that people understand this misunderstanding as real moral knowledge, and even through misinterpretation, they try to find a way to make people think that the people who have behaved are demons or not human beings. Because all things called evil have their source in the natural instincts that people share, just whether they are awakened or not. And just like the invention of the guillotine, prison, machine gun, missile, and nuclear bomb, "society is actually just using greater evil to deal with evil", but it is declared as justice by the state, courts and other institutions. Sade therefore believes that this kind of moral cognition that pretends to be not evil or barbaric at all is the real and most terrifying evil, because behind it is often the so-called corrupt power and complete ignorance and pure hypocrisy.

There is a relative who has always had a hard time understanding why people have depression. Because for him, as long as people let go of their obsessions and don’t have so many desires, they won’t have too many troubles. Live a simple life, with a "simple heart", believe in God wholeheartedly, and learn to be optimistic to live a good life. Such "goodness" is exactly what Sade detests. Because such goodness requires people to pretend that evil (that is, all kinds of negative things about life) does not exist at all, as long as they are "simple" and don't care about their own desires, everything will dissipate. I think that the reason why people have all kinds of troubles is because they have too many desires and are not pure enough.

"Life is a mixture of good and evil; there is no such thing as pure good; for if there is no potential for evil, there is no potential for good. That is where the human experience lies. There is evil, but there is still good.”

Here, Rollo. May's thoughts on good and evil may be too positive. But it seems to have some echoes with Sade. Because for Sade, people's pursuit of morality is not to improve themselves, but to come back to face, recognize and understand the parts of themselves that are difficult to control, empathize with, want to give up but cannot give up through moral exploration. Further, the pursuit of morality is to understand the so-called evil, the so-called things that are considered negative by people, rather than pretending to stay away from him. Because in fact if morality is related to a kind of courage and resistance, then he must need a kind of "evil" potential.

(Original post on Blog: Literary Lab)
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