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Of all the couples in the [[history ]] of modern [[thought ]] ([[Freud ]] and [[Lacan]], [[Marx ]] and [[Lenin]]...), [[Kant ]] and [[Sade ]] is perhaps the most problematic: the [[statement ]] "Kant is Sade" is the "infinite judgement" of modern [[ethics]], positing the [[sign ]] of equation between the two radical opposites, i.e. asserting that the [[sublime ]] disinterested [[ethical ]] attitude is somehow identical to, or overlaps with, the unrestrained indulgence in pleasurable [[violence]]. A lot-everything, perhaps-is at stake here: is there a line from Kantian formalist ethics to the cold-blooded Auschwitz killing [[machine]]? Are concentration camps and killing as a neutral business the inherent outcome of the enlightened [[insistence ]] on the [[autonomy ]] of [[Reason]]? Is there at least a legitimate lineage from Sade to Fascist torturing, as is implied by Pasolini's [[film ]] version of Saló, which transposes it into the dark days of Mussolini's Salo republic? Lacan developed this link first in his [[Seminar ]] on The Ethics of [[Psychoanalysis ]] (1958-59)1, and then in the [[Écrits ]] "[[Kant with Sade]]" of 19632.

For Lacan, Sade consequently deployed the inherent potential of the Kantian [[philosophical ]] [[revolution]], in the precise [[sense ]] that he honestly externalized the [[Voice ]] of [[Conscience]]. The first [[association ]] here is, of course: what's all the fuss [[about]]? Today, in our postidealist [[Freudian ]] era, doesn't everybody [[know ]] what the point of the "with" is-the [[truth ]] of Kant's ethical rigorism is the [[sadism ]] of the Law, i.e. the Kantian Law is a [[superego ]] [[agency ]] that sadistically [[enjoys ]] the [[subject]]'s deadlock, his inability to meet its inexorable [[demands]], like the proverbial teacher who tortures pupils with [[impossible ]] tasks and secretly savors their failings?

1. [[Lacan, Jacques]], Le seminaire, Livre VII: L'éthique de la [[psychanalyse]], [[Paris]]: Seuil, 1986, chap. VI. back up2. Lacan, J., "[[Kant avec Sade]]," in Écrits, Paris: Seuil, 1966, p. 765-790. back up