February 19, 2004
In chapter 5 of the second part of of On Nietzsche Bataille says that he presents:
'....evil as a means to use to "communicate." I've stated:"without evil, human existence would be enclosed in itself" or evil appears...as a life force.'(p.27)
Bataille then ties this to morality, which is what this part of the book is about. He says:
".... longing for the summit ---that our impulse towards evil--constitute all morality within us. Morality in itself has no value except as it leads to going beyond being and rejecting concerns for a time to come. Morality has value only when advising us to risk ourselves. Other wise its only a rule of interest."
This is very individualist conception of morality. It ignores the communal ethical life we lead and are a part of. Well, not exactly ignores. Bataille is hostile to ethical utility Hegel's idea of ethical life in the Philosophy of Right. (More here). This self-realization ethics directed towards the good life stands for conformity and represses freedom of the body:
"Sexual licence considered in relation to these ends [some comprehensible good] is almost entirely excess----a savage eruption towards an inaccessible summit--exuberance as essential opposition to concerns for the time to come."
Hence we have the heterogenous opposed to the repressive moral code of society.
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