philosophical conversations

The will to power is satisfied by the spirit taking possession of itself, and is the opposite of De Sade - that is, the Immoralist. Gary, again unsure whether you read my email, or the comment in response to your comments on the 17th. If so, please I would be grateful of a little time and your opinion, whatever it may be; if you cannot form an opinion, would you please tell me and I will certainly stop posting on your site - but, one last try, if the parabolic 'science' is not to your taste, please read the smaller aphoristic responses and comments that are not 'the evil whisper' - 'An experiment' first, there are but a few and they are short; then preferably the rest, there is much in them that doesn't need a dusty library of scientific 'fact' to be heard:, whatever the outcome I would be most grateful if you could give me a direct response regarding whether you hear anything in them or not, - ? Why am I so persistent? it is possible that you are capable of something few are, to establish this I need you to have made an effort trying hear things I've said, so as I can see if my suspicion is not just my old heart getting the better of me.

Gary, what do you mean by 'utility'? I guess the habituation to the knock on affects of frenzied very base lusting, in the instances of protracted periods of deep cultural change does not directly facilitate the cultivation of capability: for instance in John Stuart-Mill's conception's practical out growths (his book for instance). Or where this 'utility' and its other conceptions were once and in different forms still are a popular part of British and no doubt Australian political life and work.

Try having over regular wanks about brutal sadistic perverse sex with men and women whilst posing in front of a very large mirror, at the same time as dicoursing on the 'welfare state', tone it all down and juggle a bit and you could perhaps get an inkling of what I guess are the difficulties (adding in a thought of the deeper intensity and after-affects from doing it daily to rent boys and whores, better, people not of that transaction). Look at how a young female porn star goes from lustly attractive to opaque eyed and kind of unreal looking, one-dimensional (Sadism is worse, though different, and could be more profound (most certainly in de Sade's case) and perhaps with a dirtier more repulsive - despite the curious firtive, seedy attractiveness of such notions - feel to the man boiled alive by such lust) and ask yourself would they be at the PM's dinner parties on the arm of the foreign minister. Would the foreign minister, look like, but much baser than the man in the suit in the street with that naked girl on the previous post, and be considered 'cricket' when he was drawing on this 'indomitable' source of power, which is in bondage... and though capable of brutal action and perhaps other incisive things even leadership of sorts, is no match for even a gaggle of reasonably organised and mobilised scholars. Such a man could not take even the hardship of war, as scholars did in the S.W.W., whilst drawing continuously on such lust for drive in action, and it does not stimulate cultivation of strength either, wank twice a day and lust continually in this vain and see how well you work in your job: that is its sphere of influence and power is limited to the objects that allow sadistic frenzy to give strength, but it needs ever more to get it going, it would be similar to drugs in this way, indeed take some cocaine come down from the high and wank before you have slept and you will experience an effect perhaps similar: your fantasies can become very lurid, when you've lost the initial lust and its begun to chase orgasm. Sadism, like coke, would make the man weary and energyless without it if over-indulged.).

Zarathustra,

the ethos of utility here is a simple classical one:---it the old greatest happiness of the greatest number, with happiness defined as pleasure. So the goal of life is seeking pleasure and reason is an instrument is gaining thatgoal. Goal as an end is reduced to human drive----it is the spring that propels human action.

Gary, the initial question regarding 'utility', was, excuse me, rhetorical flippancy. Pleasure is an intellectual after-affect, not a physiological cause, in the the de Sade example, the sexual passion is coloured by a kind of narcisitic sadistical pleasure in consequence of another's abject pain, which physiologically speaking occurs in consequence of the sexual activity, a similie for want of something better, whilst your having sex, though you can feel the sexual energy as erotic, as a kind of pleasure, it is not the same pleasure that comes in consequence of a tenderness or sight of the other having an orgasm. The utilitarians would not argue that the pleasure that comes as a consequence of their pursuits is in any way like that of a de Sade, they would be offended if you asserted they were no different from such a man. In conclusion, pleasure is not a motivating force of actions at all, but a consequence, thus not the well spring of life, more well dressing: the pursuit of more pleasure is not even caused by its cessation, like the wells are not dressed annually (in Britain at least)as a consequence of the decorative petals turning brown. Thus the comment that follows the question was an attempt, admittedly unsuccessful, at getting you to query the decidely suspect nature of Bataille's statement, by pointing out aspects of difference between the sexual activity that drove a de Sade and consequently his perverse pleasures, as being fundamentally, in a certain sense opposite, to the energies and activities that result in the very modest and herd pleasures, a la Utilitarian.