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March 19, 2004
In Chapter V111 of Part two of On Nietzsche Bataille says that what is needed to reject sensuality, temptation and being an easy prey to desire in order to take the path of spirituality is consideration of time to come. He says:
"...we escape a giddying sensuality only by representing for ourselves some good situated in a future time, a future that sensuality would destroy and that we have to keep from it. So we can reach the summit beyond the fever of the senses only provided we set a subsequent goal."
Bataille says that another way of saying is this is that resistance to temptation of sexual desire implies abandoning the summit morality. This resistance belongs to the morality of decline.
What does this mean?
If we return to chapter one of part two of On Nietzsche we find Bataille saying that the moral summit is different from the good. Decline determines the modalities of the good. Bataille says:
"The summit coressponds to the excess, to the exuberance of forces. It brrings about a maximium of tragic intensity. It relates to measureless expenditures of energy and is a violation of the integrity of the human being. It is thus closer to evil than to good."
In contrast the decline corresponds to the moments of exhaustion and fatigue. So the pathway to spirituality through the resistance to temptation belongs to exhaustion and fatigue.
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