Many politicians on both the right and left of the political spectrum consider liberalism as the winning political model for a post-truth society. Many countries in Europe, Malta included, ended up pushing these concepts of liberty to the extreme. But in the process, very few are realizing that these policies are slowly transforming democracy into a totalitarian system.
If Europe wants to save democracy, it needs to start questioning its liberal policies. Instead of questioning these policies, it is threatening with criminal actions any individual in Europe who dares question these models of extreme liberalism. In this scenario, the extreme right parties are destined to achieve relevance. They are becoming the sole guarantee and safeguard of European democracy.
This may appear as political folly for many of those who are following European politics. Yet, this is not my idea. This is the idea of a person who created the concept of extreme liberty, that is, the Marquis De Sade.
De Sade is not associated with political theory. Many associate his books with pornography. His writings were until recently prohibited in Malta. But unlike what many may think about De Sade, his works are texts of political science. Pornography was not even a literary canon or concept at his time. Through his texts, De Sade explains this concept extremely well. Human nature is in continuous search of extreme liberalism but if this human element is not controlled, men and women become political tyrants. For De Sade, politics can never be clean and pure. Those politicians, who state that they want to clean it, are destined for a sure failure. Human nature can never conquer vice. For him, men and women are by their nature wicked. Vice will only be conquered, according De Sade, in the forthcoming life.
De Sade had an unfortunate life experience. He was hated by all powers of his time. His writings were considered a threat to the established order and authority of his day. Kings, bishops and even Napoleon Bonaparte hated his works because they are veritable literary pieces of anti-establishment. De Sade profaned every element that society of his time considered sacred. His books are an attack on all types of political regimes. They are an attack on power. Any established order seeks to justify its existence on solid moral principles. Politicians seek to project power as some sort of acquired or received virtue. For De Sade, power is equivalent to moral corruption. De Sade holds the correct idea that those who hold power find their true pleasure in corrupting it.
While this was the reading that was given to De Sade’s works at his time, it changed in the following centuries. In the twentieth century, the Surrealists rediscovered these works but changed again the way people read and interpret them. Contemporary society is still reading De Sade’s text according to the way the Surrealists interpreted them. The Surrealists equated liberalism with social progress. The concept of progressivity ended up to be equated with sexual liberty in political science. This is how our politicians today interpret liberalism and progressive politics. It was the Surrealists who turned liberalism into a movement of liberation from the cobwebs of Christianity. They achieved this through the use or misuse of De Sade’s works.
Despite the fact that De Sade died a Catholic and in the difficult years of the early nineteenth century, he assumed the dangerous task in France of becoming an extraordinary minister for the administration of the Holy Eucharist to his fellows inmates at the mental asylum, his books are seen as an ode to pornography and attack on Catholicism.
In my opinion, De Sade used sexual aggressiveness as a political metaphor. As Jacques Foucault has convincingly shown in his book about the history of sexuality, sex is the best political metaphor to explain the corruption of political power. This is what, De Sade did through his writings.
His most important novel, Justine, expresses in aggressive sexual words the fight between good and evil. Despite all the rapes and torture that Justine goes through, from ministers of the Catholic faith and other respectable members of society, she never loses her innocence and virtuosity. In itself, this goes in total opposition to the concept of sexuality held by the society of his time. Like today, De Sade’s contemporaries held the opinion that both men and women would lose their innocence when they become sexually active. At the end, Justine’s virtue wins over evil.
The sexual liberty that De Sade invokes in his books appears without limits. But De Sade did this on purpose. He could have been a masochist himself, but this is beyond the point. What De Sade is stating here is that when liberalism becomes extreme, it leads to totalitarianism. Is it not this what has happened to many of the European political parties in Europe? Don’t they appear totalitarian to many of the European voters? Political arrogance is a sine qua non element of contemporary politics. It is presented in De Sade’s works as a clear manifestation of totalitarianism.
I think that this wave of populism is a direct reaction to this new totalitarianism that swept Europe towards the end of the twentieth century. Many viewed liberalism as the new solution and sexuality became a metaphor in itself for expressing a new sense of political liberty. De Sade’s works came conveniently to the aid of the liberals. They appeared as a source of inspiration. They helped liberating Europe and the Western World from its history of moral values. Morality ceased to be the medium by which human actions continued to be judged. This new form of morality, led by principles of liberalism, was seen as the winning political model. The liberals started to advocate a policy of accepting nature as it is. But is this not what De Sade insisted upon in his sadomasochistic novels?
According to De Sade, nature does not allow crimes to be committed if they are in conflict with nature’s needs. Crimes can only be successful if they serve nature. This may appear controversial for those who associate De Sade with libertine principles. What De Sade is implying is that the only sexual crimes that nature justifies are those that lead to procreation. Nature would not tolerate the other sexual crimes. One day, nature will come back with vengeance on those who commit them. The story of Sodom was retold by De Sade in very explicit and modern way. Pasolini is the one who understood this concept extremely well and transformed it into a daring film, which one needs an iron stomach to watch it till the end.
European politicians still are so confident about their progressive model that they started to push liberalism to the extreme. But they did not take heed of De Sade’s words, also expressed in his novels. Perhaps, they were more interested in satisfying their sexual fantasies than reading between the lines for the political messages behind these sexual stories. When liberalism is pushed to the extreme, it becomes sadism. Those suffering from it are the modern masochists.
This is why, on a political level, I cannot blame those people who are revolting against the system. They are revolting against the new totalitarian regime that is forming in the name of extreme liberty. Many are reacting to this new political imposition. They can only do this through the popular vote. For those who are being sadistically whipped by the European system, their salvation from oppression from extreme liberalism is populist politics.
De Sade is convinced that there is no place for the weak in society because the strong see the weak as the individuals hindering progress. Is not this way the liberals and progressives depict all those who oppose their agenda? Are not the weak the modern ‘ħamalli’ of Europe’s political system? What the liberals forgot is that De Sade believed in the weak. According to De Sade, the weak can still stop the progressives and the arrogance of the strong. Despite all the absurd situations that Justine finds herself in, she still survives and succeeds to escape while her wicked persecutors meet a deserving end. The advice of De Sade to the poor is to act like Juliette, Justine’s sister. Juliette succeeds in getting out from her state of poverty by ceasing being virtuous. Can this politically explain why extreme political movements, whether of the right or the left, have been successful in politics? The present day extreme right parties are supported by the poor. The poor are learning not to remain virtuous. They are realizing that they need to become wicked, like the big politicians of the big parties, if they want to emancipate themselves. De Sade has a very strong opinion on this point. The liberals and progressives seek to marginalize the poor out of history. But no one has a monopoly on history. Is it not this that the people in Europe are telling their politicians today? The arrogant liberals will have to listen to history. Else history or nature will defeat them.