Laws of Perversion and Hospitalityin Pierre Klossowski

Aldo Marroni1

1Translation from the Italian by Eleonora Sasso

Contents

Who is Klossowski? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Klossowski: an Enigmatic Monomaniac . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Nietzsche and the aimless circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sade’s perverse apathy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hospitality and Perversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Summary

This essay stresses the intense relationship between the concept of perversionexpressed by Pierre Klossowski and the notion of hospitality which theFrench thinker unfolds in an extraordinary narrative trilogy. This is shown inthe impulsive nature of Klossowski’s approach where he investigates Sade’swork and Nietzsche’s posthumous writings. Sade’s apathic relationshipwith his victim and Nietzsche’s aimless philosophy typical of the viciouscircle are the main sources of the perverse monogamy rendered by thephilosopher-writer in his "Laws of hospitality".

Who is Klossowski?

Pierre Klossowski, artist, writer, philosopher, son of Erich Klossowski deRola and Baladine Klossowska, was born on 9th august 1905 in Paris and was96 years old when he died on 12th august 2001. His father was an art criticand painter like his mother, who was also a student of Bonnard and Rilke’slover. His brother Balthasar was born in 1908 and became a famous painterunder the name of Balthus (who died in 2001). In 1934 he met such figures asGeorges Bataille (editor of the important journal Critique), André Masson,Roger Caillois, and Maurice Heine and took part in the foundation of theCollège de Sociologie. He also published articles in the journal Acéphale andbegan reading Nietzsche till the end of 1969. After a journey to Lyon, hebecame imbued with religious questionings and decided in favour of amonastic life. After spending several years as a seminarian in order to find asolution to his religious troubles, he returned to Paris in 1943, thanks to histutor André Gide’s advice. Here he met Bataille again and gave lectureson Nietzsche. This period was important for his translation of Biblicalmeditations by Johann Georg Hamann. The following year, his first editionof Sade mon prochain (1947) was published and met with both enthusiasmand scandal. As a result, from a theological-religious point of view, he feltemotionally troubled and published the novel La vocation suspendue (1950).During this period, he also devoted himself to drawing, using only blacklead. At the same time, he became an accomplished translator of Nietzsche,Suetonius, Klee, Wittgenstein, Rilke and Heidegger, who were his maininterests. His second novel Roberte ce soir (1954) was to characterise all ofhis subsequent activity; two years later Le bain de Diane was published.Klossowski continued drawing and exhibited his works in a small privateexhibition. In 1959 he published another novel, La Révocation de l’Edit deNantes, and the following year Le souffleur which, together with Roberte cesoir, would form the erotic trilogy Les lois de l’hospitalité (1965). Later, hewrote Le Baphomet and translated Aeneid into French. In 1963 he remainedin Rome, perhaps because of the fact that Balthus was appointed manager ofVilla Medici, and published philosophical and literary essays such as Un sifuneste désir. Nietzsche et le cercle vicieux (1969). At the same time hejoined the group comprised of Deleuze, Lyotard and Foucault, whom heconsidered his best critics. Alongside this, he completed La monnaie vivante(1970), a volume made in collaboration with the producer Pierre Zucca, whowas responsible for the photographic section. Klossowski played the roleof the main character in the film Roberte interdite by Zucca, which was

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inspired by the novel Roberte ce soir. In the 1970s he was mainly engaged inartistic activity. He was labelled a "non modernist" painter because of theacademic (denatured) peculiarity of his works, and his life-size tableauxvivants have been exhibited all over the world. Thanks to his approach, Sadeand Nietzsche reveal their impulsive and philosophical depths. Also, thanksto Klossowski, the notion of simulacrum has been placed at the heart ofthe aesthetical debate, and its obviously false character has been exposed.He defined himself as a "monomaniac", a "maker of images", precisely forthe reiterative nature of his works, which fell under the influence of theNietzschean vicious circle, that peculiar inexpressible feeling, the impulsivecore that he had characterized as the "unique sign" of his thought.

Klossowski: an Enigmatic Monomaniac

Sexuality and philosophy seem to be more mutually imbricate inKlossowski than in any other writer, philosopher and artist, and theirinteraction leads to unexpected results. Nothing morbid or incongruous inthis attraction may be ascribed to the hidden desire of urging emotionsto their climax, or stunning erotic utopia. Such polarization is nevermeant to arouse any sense of derision because of the eccentric idea ofproviding a contact between an organic experience, in which a subjectreaches his mental peak as high as it is satisfying, and a way of thinkingwhich stands for detachment, peace of mind and common sense-in otherwords, a philosophical life in terms of a reconciliation of opposites (Marroni1999). Clearly, such a tendency, in line with French philosophical thought,goes beyond any spiritualistic assumption or peculiar organic aims. Bothphilosophy and sexuality stem from a sort of excess, so that the former longsto be something more than a mere Apollonian thought, while the latterpursues a deeper condition than that of a meeting between instrumentalorgans. On the one hand, from a philosophical perspective, this excessis exemplified in a desire to become material; on the other hand, on asexual level, it strives to attain an extreme cognitive goal. In other words,philosophy and sexuality trace a connection in an enigmatic dimension,almost a kind of suspension of their very essence and expression, a sort ofindistinct trait which combines them but at the same time distinguishes them.Alain Arnaud (1990) claims that enigma pervades Klossowski’s philosophy,but it is still an enigma intertwined with mystery and secrecy. No matterhow ambiguously Klossowski conceals a manifest secret, he cannot beregarded as an enigmatic thinker. In this sense, Arnaud highlights thestunning feature of this apparent mysteriousness, which is not based on anydichotomy opposing secrecy to clear manifestation. Characteristically, thereis no obscurity or the slightest quest for origins and, above all, no ambiguousthought affects his reflections, but rather a sense of indecision characterizesall his works, which continually offer different (enigmatic) versions ofhospitality. From this follows another general conclusion: Klossowskianenigma cannot be seen as the enigmatic trait which pervades Heidegger’slater philosophy, since the German philosopher applies the principle of one’sown inward being, in contrast with Klossowski’s vision (Perniola 1983,p. 59). In order to sense how emotional nuances become the sources ofphilosophical meaning, it is essential to understand Klossowski’s intellectualand religious experiences-even though they are enigmatic and imply a

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simultaneity of perspectives-as well as the way he defined himself when heclaimed to be neither a writer, nor a philosopher, nor an artist, but, firstand foremost, a monomaniac. Such an affirmation unfolds his ambiguity,inasmuch as his three ways of being (writer, philosopher, artist) are in opencontrast with his monomaniac nature. In other words, a dynamic sense isintroduced into the image of the artist and his activities, and consequentlyin relation to only one fact, that is, monomania, which acquires differentmeanings under various conditions. This monomania is nothing but that"unique sign" whose forms he experiences and to which he refers in a verydense philosophic article, annexed as an Afterward to the volume Lois del’hospitalité (1965). In this context, his work seems to be enigmatic becausehe makes wide and substantial use of the same theme, i.e. laws of hospitality.Not only the thought and works of this philosopher but the man himselfare enigmatic, because he is essentially indistinct and uncertain. But onemust bear in mind the fact that partaking in enigma, or indistinctiveness,does not entail a static condition of immobility due to the incapability ofnaming things or re-emerging from a useless train of thoughts. On thecontrary, Klossowskian enigma is highly strategic and operative since itaims at setting thoughts free and provides the possibility of attributing asingle concrete fact, notion or phenomenon with contrasting and conflictinginterpretations within a floating and rapidly changing world. In such a case,enigma remains largely the cause of principium individuationis’ rejection aswell as of incommunicability, since indistinct difference becomes an openingeasy to refer to and define. There are two highly relevant articles on thistopic which paved the way for studies on Klossowski’s works in the sixties.Michel Foucault’s book La prose d’Actéon (1964) and Maurice Blanchot’swork Le rire des dieux (1965) stand as two reflections of special value onthe enigmatic aspects which characterize the writings of the philosopherof hospitality. The demon, Foucault says, is not the Other, the oppositepole to God, but rather an estrangement which actually reveals itself asthe Same, the exactly Similar. Klossowski seeks to enlighten us with anexperience which is achieved only at the cost of the most extreme abstraction:"imperceptible difference in the Same, is the source of an infinite movement".In order to express this concept, Klossowski uses the word simulacrum,meaning to come together, because it evokes the Same and the Other at thesame time (Foucault suggests a series of words referring to simulacrum,such as simile, simultaneity, simulation and dissimulation). In essence,simulacrum says everything simultaneously and even simulates the oppositeof what it endlessly defines. What is most remarkable is that Blanchot echoesFoucault in affirming that the identity principle in Klossowski is abolished

Klossowski: an Enigmatic Monomaniac

without making room for the dialectic of contraries. Furthermore, followingBlanchot, the negative pole is not what contrasts with the same anymore,"but the pure simile, the infinite distance and insensitive exclusion".

Nietzsche and the aimless circle

Both laws of hospitality and laws of perversion intersect in two philoso-phers central to Klossowski’s thought, namely, Nietzsche and Sade. Theparticular orientation of thought is linked with the perversion of the body.This fact is all the more true when Nietzsche’s approach to experience istraced back to Sade’s practice and vice- versa. Klossowski’s writings, Sademon prochain (1967 b) and Nietzsche et le cercle vicieux (1969), must be readin a circular way, as if Nietzsche could not be fully understood withoutbeginning with his celebration of crime, and as if Sade could only see theaccomplishment of his theory in the Nietzschean vicious circle. Perversionand the vicious circle seem to be fused together because they are accomplicesto the same brutal crime of eliminating every sign of stability in a subject.Only thanks to God’s death, Klossowski says, and the abolition of the "I"that is identical with itself, can we grasp the tragic and humoristic senseof the vicious circle. As a general principle, along with the enumerationof impulses connected to Nietzsche’s sick body, which suffered from asort of obscurity, owing to the process of de-rationalization deriving fromthe vicious circle, and the analysis of folly, we are confronted with "thethought of thoughts". Any attempt to understand thought by neglectingthe philosopher’s personal experience or his pilgrimages as a result of hissickness, is bound to fail. Thus, it is equally vain to investigate Nietzsche’sbodily vibrations through the analytical tools of Western rationalism. Thedistinctive way in which Klossowski philosophically interprets this crucialaspect will become obvious if we accept that impulsional semiotics mustreplace the semiotics of consciousness. In other words, we should emphasizethe extraordinary concision and compactness between the motif of compre-hension, mental discourse and the throbs of bodily pleasure. As a result, thesickly condition broadens the boundaries of the consciousness, or, rather,totally overcomes them, emerging in its aspect of delirium, as the clearestof thoughts. "From the experience of Eternal Return, seen as the definiteend of the irreversible–Klossowski (1969, p. 55) writes–a new version ofcasualty emerges, that is, the Vicious Circle, which suppresses sense andpurpose". The unchangeable and stable phenomena decay, "the body isnot considered as belonging to the "I" yet, but rather a place of connectionwith impulses" (Ivi, p.56), as Klossowski remarks. The "I" lacks all form ofhegemony and appears discontinuous: I am no longer myself and assume allthe historical names, in order to be myself again and discover renewal,in a moment of revelation, which is always different and continuously

Nietzsche and the aimless circle

shifting. "I’m no longer myself in the moment in which I have the suddenrevelation of the Eternal Return [...] nothing here is like the Vicious Circleonce and for all"(Ivi, p. 94). What is the link among consciousness, the "I"and the doctrine of simulacrum that Nietzsche wants to convey? Is thevicious circle appropriate to analyze the consciousness? We may assumea connection between thought and bodily suffering, and a relationshipbetween Eternal Return and cephalea, which Nietzsche discusses in hisletters to Gast, Overbeck and his mother between 1879 and 1881. But at thesame time, as Klossowski himself seems to admit, Nietzsche disregardsthis equation to the extent that any analysis of the most obscure, hiddenbodily parts, reveals an undecipherable language that the consciousnessmisinterprets: "the body wants to be understood-Klossowski writes-througha language that the consciousness deciphers wrongly: It is a code of signswhich inverts, falsifies and filters all that it expresses through the body" (Ivi,p.52). Precisely such an approach is needed by the consciousness whichseeks to detach the body from its impulses, because the self is unable topreserve its stable condition within the limits of this unity. On the basis ofthis impending threat, a new struggle emerges between codes of everydaysigns, which require uniformity and correspondence between statementsand the rules of the game, and the casual meeting of impulses, which revealsthe absence of a shared code of signification. In Klossowski’s work LaRessemblance (1984), incompatibility among codes is expounded accordingto the folly behind any choice which does not see them both paradoxicallyimplied in the same event: on the one hand, a code of everyday signs subjectto an ineluctable logic is not in contrast with resemblance, and on the other,a unique sign is seen as a form of monomania, precisely the same motifreiterated in different places, as exemplified by Roberte, the main enigmaticcharacter of the trilogy Les lois de l’hospitalité. If the fact that the uniquesign cannot be communicated be folly, it is equally folly to give up thisfeature in order to abandon oneself to the world, since this sign affects ourfreedom of action. Thus, we have an experimental method of applying anotion aimed at rescuing one from madness while achieving a unique statusof strong impulses in a perspective of mutual respect for the world’s customs.This notion is called valant pour, an equivalent of basic in-communicabilityin its simultaneous showing and concealing. Therefore, Nietzsche’s dilemmais: "Either you become a fool or you create an equivalent of your folly"(1967a). He opted for the second solution rather than falsifying or disguisingthe Eternal Return. The vision remains non-communicated because of thediscontinuous effects of his folly, which alternates the delirious state ofthinking himself all the names in history with Nietzsche’s body, that is a

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biographical individuality subjected to a unique and fatal event. In thisrespect, illness is present in his most lucid thoughts which experienced thevision of the vicious circle and witnessed the affirmation of fatum, in thesense of amor fati, especially since the world has turned into a fairy-tale.

Sade’s perverse apathy

According to Klossowski, Sade’s interpretation is not determined bya nullifying will or the concept of disincarnation expressed by GeorgesBataille. The latter illustrates the Sadian character who reaches a climaxand gains his sovereignty by "denying other people’s reality". From thepoint of view of the philosopher of hospitality, a more complex notion andpractice of eroticism prevails, which is always oriented towards incarnation.Far from identifying with the first edition of Sade mon prochain (1947)and, indeed, underlining the value of the 1967 edition which featuredthe remarkable conference Le philosophe scélérat, Klossowski makes aninteresting reflection regarding Sade’s thoughts, which are, in a manner ofspeaking, mirror-like, or rather contrary to the Wagnerian Hegelianismconveyed in his 1947 version. Paradoxically, Sade is seen as the supporter ofthose institutions permeated with repressive structures that the Marquishimself wished to subvert. In essence, here we see the mode of interpretationof Sade’s so-called nihilism that Klossowski aims to subvert: if a perverseperson has to present his abnormalities, he must abolish any boundaries of amoral, religious and social nature. His monstrosity should be given freereign-otherwise he will not be able to realise his destiny, which is to commitevery kind of wicked action which derives from God Himself, since he wasthe first who did violence. Therefore, the Sadian subject’s consciousness ischaracterized by a strong sense of destruction. The more his violent deedshave a destructive effect, the more he opens up a desert of which he is thesupreme ruler. Such a pattern of rational negation, Klossowski says, isemployed by the atheistic critics of theology: God must be denied at allcosts with the use of reason and deprived of any support which justifiesHis existence. Besides, if society is rooted in wickedness, this means thatGod does not exist or, if He does, is the one responsible for wicked deeds.On the basis of this celebration of destructive perversion, Klossowski’svision is more and more problematic, and acquires the sense of a radicalquestioning that appears in the Avertissement: "Once released from God,which atheism declares to be nothing, is this thought supposed to be freefrom nothingness? Would its freedom be even for ...nothing?" (Ivi, p.11).What is most remarkable is the fact that by showing the monstrosity ofSade’s characters in relation to his Stimmung, Klossowski stresses the needto convey abnormalities, in the sense that the unique sign of perversionis provided with the "code of everyday signs". At first, Sade’s thinkingseems to be a dialectic movement where, denying negation, the perverse

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person moves freely in the purity of crime. From here Klossowski overturnsthis first belief with the publication of Le philosophe scélérat, in whichhe elaborates new theoretical points: 1) rational atheism derives frommonotheist rules; 2) Sade’s aim is not to reach a condition of sovereignty, butrather to destroy it; 3) Sade makes atheism a religion of total monstrosity; 4)such a religion requires an asceticism, that is, an apathic reiteration of acts; 5)from here Sade illustrates again the divine feature of monstrosity-divine inthe sense that his "real presence" appears through rites, and repeated acts;6) in Sade monstrosity is not released by atheism but vice-versa. Thesepoints reveal a totally new evaluation of Sade’s thought and practice, inwhich atheism emerges as a simple overturning of monotheism, since itis total monstrosity that must be realised, and not the sovereignty of thesubject, as a real presence in everyday life as well as in social customs. Asthe perverse person cannot exist without the victim, in the same way hecannot help disobeying moral laws, since monstrosity would have no effectsotherwise. This new typology of discourse tends to privilege the subtlestrategy that Sade applies to focus on the monster’s idiosyncrasies. Essentialto these figures is a distinctive feature that is not the destruction of anyobstacle, but the habit of thought focused on the positive evaluation of theinstitutional reality structured by an oppressive system of information, seenas a mediator between the strange code of perversion and everyday signs, inother words of the community. The problem in Sade lies in not isolatingcharacters because of their romantic and ineffectual folly, but conferringa rational pattern reason to abnormalities. How can such a penetrationbe organised on a social scale? Can the perverse person be accepted ifhe conveys his monstrosity with the same abnormal images depicted inhis consciousness? It seems impossible. As a matter of fact, we are againreminded of Klossowski’s motif, in the overcoming of the dialectic andromantic stage, related to an affirmative consideration of fellow-men andinstitutions, whether they may seem moral, religious or even literary. Thewhole problematic is not concentrated within the limits of the victim interms of the object of the perverse person’s furious desire, whose wickedgame is devoted to destruction, because in place of it we have the chanceto apply a wide range to abnormalities in order to keep monstrosity as itactually is. It is characteristic that these monstrous phenomena are completeonly by relying on their reiteration in an apathetic way, in the sense ofbeing an "unparticipating participation". Thus, the conventional object’senjoyment preserves the abnormal status of the subject since it is his ultimatechance of manifestation. The apathic reiteration of the act of perversiondoes not annihilate reality, but uses it to elevate the idea of monstrosity to a

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ritual that is void of an ultimate purpose, where, though the conventionalaspects are deprived of their effective value, they are nevertheless retainedsince this deprivation would be incommunicable without the object itselfwhose values are considered eternally stable. The ritual that the sadistperforms on the victim’s body needs the world of conventions in order todestroy its rational norms. In other words, the reality of falsity must berecognised by asserting a counter-generality within the generality itself.Institutional norms may be positively conserved, but at the same time theyare seen as objects of derision. May sodomy, which Klossowski sees as thekey sign of perversion, be considered a ridiculous preservation of sexualintercourse because it is absolutely unproductive from a social point ofview? Is it not the same prohibition which supervises such a prohibitiveact, or, more precisely, the moral convention which forbids its practice?Klossowski also adds that "it is the necessary reason for it", since Sade seesthe monster’s life as intimately linked with censorship. In other words,how could Sade have conveyed his obsessions, his character’s events, if hehad not exploited the logically structured language of literary tradition?"Sade-Klossowski declares-sees counter-universality as already present inthe existing universality, not in order to criticize institutions, but ratherto show they guarantee the success of acts of perversion" (Ivi, p.34). Tojustify this hypothesis, he argues that if the victim did not belong to himselffirst of all, or rather, if he was not that "self" renamed as belonging and byconsequence easy to expropriate, the appropriation of the victim by theexecutioner would not be conceivable. Furthermore, an apathic ritual of theperverse person would be equally unlikely if the self and the body couldnot be split. As Klossowski underlines, in the majority of cases, the mostwicked crime is not intended to inflict bodily insult continually, but to detachthe body from its self until the perverse person can act out his process ofdepersonalisation, that is, feel another’s body as if it were his and givehis body to the other. The self must not be annihilated but led to extrememockery and deprived of a stable metaphysics. For this reason, a questfor self-instability and the possessive shift from a subject of transgression(however abnormal) to a conventional object (in this sense a normativeone) seem to be at the basis of the positive exploitation of institutionallaws, which are kept alive in order to be mocked. It could be said thatthere are two notions the French philosopher takes into consideration in hisresearch: perversion and wickedness. Here we have two methods strictlyconnected by the same internal drive, from an erotic and sexual dimensionand from a criminal and deadly one, towards a thinking that inherits theirexcessive and exasperated characteristics. But perversion and wickedness

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must be considered as two philosophical activities if they are not to be seenas shameful and negatively branded by society. As a general principle anyun-natural sexual satisfaction is seen as a perversion (Krafft-Ebing 1886).Actually, perversus is the one who "distorts", and perversitas is the activityof distortion, to upset common ideas. Krafft-Ebing conceives perversion asan act against nature whose effect is the criminal elimination of our organicconstitution, while those, on the other hand, who interpret the same notionsin an amoral way give it a new sense of transparency, validity and innocence.In this view, on the one hand, ambiguous darkness becomes a clear concept;on the other, the furious raving moves as the active part of reason, and itsdeadly connotations become the light of philosophical research. In order tounderstand more fully the extent to which philosophical learning is upset bythe notions of perversion, we need to consider Deleuze’s three ideas ofthe philosopher’s identity in Logique du sens (1969). This seminal book,which draws its inspiration from stoicism, makes a distinction between avertical image of the philosopher, intent on his solitary meditations, and animage in which he is placed in the depths of a cave. However, Deleuzealso proposes a third type of thinker, whose power is oriented neitherhigh above nor down below, but is the same as the Stoics’, whose notionof surface offers new philosophical insights. Relying on mythologicalicons such as Apollo–who stands for the philosopher of the heights andDionysus connected with the caves-Deleuze sees Hercules as the symbol forthe philosopher whose life lies on the surface. Deleuze defines this thirdkind of thinker as provocative and thus perverted, since he is intent ondistorting conventional doctrine that is happily accepted by the scientificcommunity to develop the "superficial" philosophy of the parasite, flea,or louse. And here we see, in the figure of the philosopher focused on amental experience within the limits of an empty space between depthsand heights, a reflection of such a goal of dignifying "surfacing effects"called "images". This project aimed at subverting Platonism-a programKlossowski and Deleuze share-denies any pure and simple overturningrelated to Plato’s philosophy in opposite terms. Perversion moves awayfrom its purely sexual-erotic meaning to a philosophical evaluation in themoment it transcends Platonism, debasing its copies-icons and improvingthe value of the ghostly simulacra Plato himself refers to in the Sophist (236b, 264 c). Both sexual perversion (an act against nature) and philosophicalperversion (an anti-Platonic act) are a dissolute and immoderate effectof dissolution, in the double and fleeting connotation of licentiousness,as well as of decadence, decay, and dissolution. The wicked philosopherproposed by Klossowski is the most occult philosophical figure and therefore

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characterized by the highest thoughts and the most criminal deeds. If, on theone hand, he is affected by wickedness, on the other, he shows a high senseof philosophy. In a sense, his wickedness is nothing but philosophic, andhis thinking completely dissolute. The power of his thoughts lies in therecognition that his wickedness has its limits, for otherwise it would be lostin nothingness. This limit is marked by a Stoic teaching, as exemplified bythe perverse person who follows a clear philosophical law typical of Stoicparenetics, i.e. the discipline of apathy. In practice, apathy and its illicitdeeds means uninvolved involvement, an unattractive and non-exhaustivepassion which pivots on Stoic asceticism. For Klossowski the absence of anypathos, the apathic reiteration of the perverse deed in Sadian terms, contrastswith orgasm, its analogous function. What matters here is that if orgasmrepresents a mechanical phenomenon with a determined aim, characterizedby a vertical plane as a reaction to boredom, non-participation stands foraimlessness, the loss of any purpose or, rather, the end of any impulsiveprojections on a pre-ordered goal, however satisfying and decisive they maybe. Thus, apathy remains conflicting and is like a process in fieri, whereextremes repeatedly meet and depart; on the contrary, orgasm is conciliating,and seals forever an experience and a kind of knowledge. If the perverseperson were unaware, hopelessly carried by the wave of his passions, hewould become a despicable and condemnable destroyer of any object relatedto his passion. Paradoxically, bodily asceticism, together with spiritualathleticism, transform him into a real philosopher capable of conceivingideas. Such a powerful philosophy manifests against normative reasonfrom which it seeks to be liberated, in order to give free play to the drives.All this occurs only if the person has the strength to move from rationalatheism to total atheism, that is, from a pure and simple negation of God,who vouches for the responsible self, to the destruction of the concept ofhumanity through the application of a sign against counter-universality.How can the laws of reason, God and the conscious self, be destroyed if notthrough a sexual practice that makes the propagation of the species voidof significance? In Sade this violation is caused exclusively by sodomy,the peculiar trait of bodily asceticism which is a mockery of any kind offinality. At any rate, it is a mockery that functions merely as an element ofthe institutional field, since otherwise the whole philosophical project wouldlose its meaning and end up floating in a void. As Klossowski observes,when Sade refers to his otherwise respectable and high-society charactersas "gangrenous villains", it is for the very fact that he wants to reveal thesocially relevant factor that such wicked deeds, which go beyond the extremelimits of excess, are committed by people in public institutions (nobles,

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financiers, bishops, ministers) as well as in their own dwelling-places (house,country house, palace) and not in secluded places specially chosen for sexualcrimes (Klossowski 1974). Thus, the norms of reason can be broken onlywithin reason itself. Similarly, sodomy can only be affirmed by conservingthe general principles of the procreative act, so that wickedness finds a fertileterrain in people who are a part of the institution. The sexual asceticismexperienced by Sade’s characters belongs to a perverse philosophic field,since it is characterized by hesitation, permanent movement, aimless practice."[...] Sade wanted to disobey the injurious deed itself in favour of a constantperpetual motion"-Klossowski says-"the motion that Nietzsche named:the innocence of becoming" (1967 b, p.44). Essential to this experience is adistinctive feature of impurity that, according to the laws of reason, seemsto be unusual and uncanny (Freud 1919) and stimulated by that excesswhich makes it incomprehensible to those philosophers who exclusivelyexploit the concepts elaborated by the Western philosophical tradition. Here,thought as function or as a faculty of something more primordial, is nolonger relevant. Rather it must become a phenomenon, a fact, a flagrantthought, because it is not a question of understanding, but rather of beingaccomplices (Decottignies 1997).

Hospitality and Perversion

How does Klossowski introduce his laws on hospitality? The householder-he writes-asks the stranger to go beyond the casual welcome, in order topreserve the essence of his presence. He attempts to establish a sort ofunderstanding with him by taking on the role of guest, so that the complicityset up between them becomes nothing more than a relationship with himself.Is it possible "to embrace and not to embrace, to be and not to be, to enterwhen you are already within?"(1965, p.107). This is the question Antoine,Octave and Roberte’s nephew, asks when thinking of the strategy hisuncle would like to exploit in order to reveal all the aspects of his aunt’spersonality. From this derive "the laws of hospitality" which Octave writesand has framed and hung on the wall of the guest room. Initially, thehouseholder is worried about conveying his happy state of mind to the guest,though this intention contrasts with the monogamous practice of the sexualcustoms of the Western world. He would like to establish a vital relationshipwith the guest through the transformation of the female householder asthe female guest (hôtesse). What is at stake here is the possibility of thefemale householder’s pertaining to a mere existential dimension, that is, adimension of causality, which may lead to a double non-actuality: if she isfaithful she will not betray her husband, even if she practices the laws ofhospitality, in this way making Octave’s plan fail. On the contrary, if shebehaves unfaithfully, she will betray him through an unfaithful deed, so thatthe laws of hospitality will lose their immediate meaning and effect. Thefemale householder has to establish an enigmatic relationship with the guest,either to be unfaithful, or to be faithful to her husband’s demands. If shemoves from a mere existential condition to the essential and enigmatic roleof the guest, not only does she make the stranger a guest (hôte), but she alsoplaces her husband in the stranger’s role. Only in these conditions will theguest’s faithfulness towards the wife make the faithful accomplishment ofhospitality possible. In other words, the wife’s unfaithfulness will be thedeed of someone who faithfully carries out a commission. Octave clearlyruns a high risk, since the success of the laws of hospitality depend on a tinyintermediate space in which the game is played, considering the fact that theguest could interpret the laws as a trivial invitation to adultery by an oldvoyeur. Nevertheless, "the guest wants to take the risk of losing and thinksthat by losing instead of winning, he will be able to grasp, at all costs, thefemale guest’s very essence through the female host’s unfaithfulness. Hewants to have her unfaithful, as a female host (hôtesse) who faithfully does

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her duties" (Ivi, p.111). This "wedding theatre" directed by Octave, doesnot always succeed in achieving the old theologian’s aims: "As concernsourselves, it is not possible to appreciate the laws of hospitality in any waywe like" (Ivi, p.27) he comments after an unsuccessful experience. What isnot practicable in life-he reflects-is present in the paintings of his favouriteartist, Tonnere, who created works connected with the laws of hospitality,which enhance its dramatic aspects as well as its ambiguous suspension, andwhich Octave, using an archaic term by Quintilian, calls solecistic. In thissense, it is interesting to stress the fact that the "laws", in the manuscriptversion, look like a tableau: they are framed and hung on the wall like apicture, as a means of portraying a figurative dramatization of tableauxvivants. The laws of hospitality represent a peculiar erotic shrewdness, basedon mutual exchanges and pretence in which characters are deprived of theirstable and unchangeable individuality. Octave establishes a philosophicaltriangular relationship centred on a Nietzschean vicious circle (Klossowski1969). Moreover, the vicious circle of hospitality, where pre-individualsingularities are of more value than individualities, is characterized by atransition: the female host (hôtesse), according to the laws of hospitality (thatis, by showing a faithful unfaithfulness), becomes actual for the stranger whois transformed into the host (hôte). At the same time, the female householderbecomes obsolete for the host (hôte) who, in turn, is transformed into theguest. Such a vicious and enigmatic circularity is inherent- as can be seen- inthe rejection between the moment in which the meeting takes place and themoment it vanishes, in other words as an act of continuous revivifying, thatis, when it is discovered that this form of singularity retains two equallyacceptable functions, the obsolete female householder who is also the actualfemale guest, while the stranger, in whom the female guest identifies, is theguest in "relation with himself within himself" (Klossowski 1965, p.110). Asfar as the female householder is exorcized in the female guest (hôtesse),the male host (hôte) will possess her in her highest form and acquire thestatus of male guest. Strictly speaking, Roberte’s multiple personality wouldappear indiscernible if a derived or unrelated element were not interposedbetween her and Octave. The stranger, who is called upon to take part in thegreat tableau vivant of the laws of hospitality, takes on the figure of the guestwho tries to seduce his wife, but his act is suspended, and his presence isevident only in the intermediate space. In essence, the guest can only beseen as the intermediary demon who fuses with the master and mistressof the house. The notion of hostis is of the utmost importance for Octavebecause through it he is able to experience a kind of life on the same level asRoberte’s. If the female guest gives up incommunicability, if a demon takes

Hospitality and Perversion

possession of her and by consequence reveals her principium individuationisand if her appearance is like "a name for two interchangeable women" (Ivi,p.273), Octave, the other link in the laws of hospitality of this perverse triadicstructure, can only be functional in this philosophical game characterized bythe demon’s acts. He splits into two and experiences discontinuousness withthe same intensity as Roberte, since he is the hostis. He experiments thiscondition when he realises the existence of an intermediate power, which, ashe confides to his nephew Antoine, wavers "between you and me, me andaunt Roberte, aunt Roberte and you" (Ivi, p.116). In this context, the laws ofhospitality are determined only when every soul is ruled by a demon whoconnects it with other souls in a mutual relationship. Therefore, is it possibleto be two different people in one, and have two souls? Is it possible to placea third party in a human being traditionally conceived of as one and only?"Is it possible to imagine a process that is able to split the soul from the bodyand the spirit from the soul, in order to suspend the actual person withinthe same person?" (Ivi, p.128). Thus, the greatest defender of the laws onhospitality does not experience these laws metaphysically or observe themcoldly from the outside like a sort of creator but is completely and criticallyinvolved in them. He deals with the same tension and discontinuity asRoberte, in that he embodies two ghosts, the host and the stranger. Octave’sname disappears behind Théodore Lacase’s or Mr K’s, and it is recognizableonly in the names together, which, far from creating an unchangeableidentity, stand for the end of the most individual and stable name. Thus,also, the continuous shifting of the soul, the infinite artifice of splitting intotwo, and looking which becomes ambiguous when looking at oneself again.These laws have been criticised for being marked by a strong narcissistictone (Montrelay 1970, p. 63), since Octave seems to want his guest to remainin the role of stranger throughout his stay, even though he exploits himas his exclusive instrument. However, Klossowski does not aim to exalthis character Octave but rather to destabilize him and leave him to thefluctuations of his drives. This explains the double soul’s explicit confession:"I’ve been trying hard to get behind our life for years, in order to look at it. Iwanted to catch life by keeping myself out of it, from where it has a differentaspect. If you stare at it from there, you can feel an unbearable happiness [...]"(Ivi, p.187). Octave, therefore, seeks to verify through the figure of the wifeevery possible transformation together with the multiple personalities whichemerge from a kind of perverse eroticism which only the laws of hospitalitycan guarantee. Such an erotic motif of hospitality reveals that only by beingalienated can Roberte (the wife, the peculiar trait of Klossowski’s thinking)become inalienable (Klossowski 1984, p. 20). Sexuality, vice and thinking

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are interlinked in this process, and traditional notions are of no use inunderstanding such subtle transitions; rather a superior form of complicity,in which dialectical resolutions have no place. This latter formula introducesus to another aspect of the philosophy of hospitality, namely perversion,since Klossowski’s vicious circle is completely characterised by hesitationand intermediateness. As Deleuze (1969) says, it is important to give dignityagain to the surface level of thinking, in other words, the principle based onhesitation, and the disjointed aspect of things, whose value seems to beperverse. Perversion is an extreme experience which introduces one into aterritory that is situated beyond any division (Perniola 1998). Klossowski’sway of feeling is characterized by perversion to the significant extent thatthe law of hospitality seems to be suspended solecistically. It is becauseof this enigmatic practice that the untranslatable expression "perversionhospitalière" attributed by Hollier (1999) to Klossowski’s works makes sense.

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