Abstract
The figure of Eros is permeated with a logic of lack and fulfillment. As a figure of desire that seeks to be filled, that craves the ineffable, Eros is appropriately described by Plato as the child of poverty and abundance. It is a form of desire that seeks to take what lies outside, to possess the unpossessed and to devour what is desirable. Is it possible, however, to conceive of Eros—and eroticism—as something that is not working according to the traditional logic of desire? Such seems to be the task of Georges Bataille’s philosophy. Refusing the vision of Eros as a quest for pleasure, he developed a thought of eroticism as sovereignty through evil. This article aims at exploring what this evil entails; what a transgression of moral norms, seriousness, and selfhood means. Bataille is famously considered to be a thinker fascinated by evil, and it seems that such a consideration is too easily a reason to avoid him. I would like to show that his thoughts concern freedom, sovereignty and community. Through erotic transgressions, Bataille saw the possibility for true human freedom and communication. Evil as liberation and not Eros as pleasure. I take on a new approach regarding Eros through an exploration of Bataille’s notions of continuity, morality, transgression, death and holiness. The first part of the article will set down the basis of Bataille’s thought. The second will deal in detail with transgression and death, and finally I will deal with holiness, thus making the final step on the path to sovereignty.
Highlights
This vision leads to the possibility of eroticism, which is the sexual way to embody Eros
If Bataille claims that philosophy ultimate question corresponds with eroticism, we need to see how eroticism is mere selfish desire, but something deeper; we need to see how the exuberance of erotic desire is part of what it means to be human
Eros is a phenomenon that happens in the realm of continuous existence, but depends on the fact that beings experiencing erotic love live within the discontinuous existence
Summary
In the dichotomy between continuous and discontinuous existence, what is at play is the stability of self-consciousness, and of selfhood. There is no purpose in the erotic pleasure, because what is sought is not satisfaction nor reproduction, but loss and abandonment It is, as we said earlier, giving oneself to the violence of life, and embracing the chaotic movements of energies that are around the globe. It is as simple as in Bataille’s Histoire de l’oeil, in which one of the first erotic moment is when a young girl sits in a plate, because she says that plates exist so we can sit in them.2 In this ridiculous breaking of seriousness and stability, the young boy experiences an orgasm that happens only because the plate is no more a plate, but suddenly an gate to the excessive energies of the world. The final step we need to take on Bataille’s philosophy of eroticism is the analysis of what it means to be a saint in Bataillean terms—of what it means to be sovereign
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