Don't Believe Everything You Read: The Inverted Rhetoric of the Marquis de Sade

Inverted:

I. 1. a. Turned upside down.

Rhetoric:

1. a. The art of using language so as to persuade or influence others; the body of rules to be observed by a speaker or writer in order that he may express himself with eloquence.

Inverted Rhetoric:

The rule Sade observes to create a language of uncertainty, where some things are real and some aren't, but those speaking the language aren't at liberty to know which are and which aren't, so they must constantly convince themselves that what they're saying is "true." In Sade's rhetoric, all things can be explained through reason and in relation to human desire, but if the integral desire is, as Klossowski suggests, God, and Sade's rubric is atheistic, reason and desire are in the Sadian rationale interconnected with nothing.

In this construct, the act of constantly convincing oneself -- thinking -- becomes performative and strikes acting -- doing -- against/from passion. Thinking becomes a way of hiding the passion or even of sublimating by disguising active or impotent passions and desires as thoughts (so as not to have to perform them). The interdiction set against desire and passion constitutes a modus operandi: use thinking to disavow passions and desires. Use mind to subaltern passions and desires. (And yes, I used subaltern as a verb.)