The Bataille Reader (Blackwell Readers)

Contents......Page 4
Acknowledgements......Page 6
The Experience of Reading Bataille......Page 8
Bataille's Des-oeuvre......Page 9
Communication and Community......Page 11
Eroticism......Page 18
Negativity......Page 21
Economy......Page 23
Gifts and Sacrifice......Page 27
Consumption, Expenditure, Sovereignty......Page 29
Postscript......Page 35
PART I:
Inner Experience......Page 42
1.
Chance......Page 43
2.
Guilt......Page 61
2 Correlation of Rupture in Laughter with Communication and Knowledge (in Laughter, Sacrificial Anguish, Erotic Pleasure,
Poetry and Ecstasy)......Page 65
I......Page 70
II......Page 74
III......Page 77
IV......Page 81
V......Page 91
5.
Christ......Page 98
6.
Love......Page 100
7.
Life......Page 104
8.
Poetry......Page 111
9.
Autobiographical Note......Page 119
PART II:
Heterology......Page 124
10.
Programme (Relative to Acephale)......Page 125
1 The Homogeneous Part of Society......Page 126
2 The State......Page 127
3 Dissociations, Critiques of Social Homogeneity
and the State......Page 128
4 Heterogeneous Social Existence......Page 129
5 The Fundamental Dualism of the Heterogeneous World......Page 133
6 The Imperative Form of Heterogeneous
Existence: Sovereignty......Page 134
7 Tendential Concentration......Page 138
8 The Army and the Heads of the Army......Page 139
9 Religious Power......Page 141
10 Fascism as the Sovereign Form of Sovereignty......Page 142
1 1 The Fascist State......Page 144
12 The Fundamental Conditions of Fascism......Page 146
12. The Use-Value of D. A. F. de Sade (An Open Letter to My
Current Comrades)......Page 151
Appropriation and Excretion......Page 154
Philosophy, Religion and Poetry in Relation to Heterology......Page 156
The Heterological Theory of Knowledge......Page 157
Principles of Practical Heterology......Page 159
13.
Base Materialism and Gnosticism......Page 164
PART III:
General Economy......Page 169
1 The Insufficiency of the Principle of Classical Utility......Page 170
2 The Principle of Loss......Page 172
3 Production, Exchange and Unproductive Activity......Page 174
4 The Functional Expenditure of the Wealthy Classes......Page 177
5 Class Struggle......Page 179
6 Christianity and Revolution......Page 181
7 The Insubordination of Material Facts......Page 182
The Dependence of the Economy on the Circulation
of Energy on the Earth......Page 185
The Necessity of Losing the Excess Energy that Cannot
be Used for a System's Growth......Page 186
The Poverty of Organisms or Limited Systems and
the Excess Wealth of Living Nature......Page 187
War Considered as a Catastrophic Expenditure
of Excess Energy......Page 188
The Superabundance of Biochemical Energy and Growth......Page 191
The Limits of Growth......Page 192
Pressure......Page 193
The Second Effect of Pressure: Squander or Luxury......Page 194
The Three Luxuries of Nature: Eating, Death and Sexual Reproduction......Page 195
Extension Through Labour and Technology,
and the Luxury of Man......Page 197
The Accursed Share......Page 198
Opposition of the 'General' Viewpoint to the
'Particular' Viewpoint......Page 199
The Solutions of General Economy and 'Self-Consciousness'......Page 200
The General Importance of Ostentatious Gifts
in Mexican Society......Page 202
The Wealthy and Ritual Prodigality......Page 203
The 'Potlatch' of the Indians of the American North-West......Page 204
1 The paradox of the 'gift ' reduced to the 'acquisition ' of a 'power'......Page 205
3 The acquisition of rank......Page 207
5 Ambiguity and contradiction......Page 208
6 Luxury and extreme poverty......Page 209
The Need that Is Met by Sacrifice and Its Principle......Page 213
The Ordinary Association of Death and Sacrifice......Page 214
The Consummation of Sacrifice......Page 215
The Individual, Anguish and Sacrifice......Page 216
The Festival......Page 217
Limitation, the Utilitarian Interpretation of the Festival
and the Positing of the Group......Page 218
War: The Illusions of the Unleashing of Violence
to the Outside......Page 220
Human Sacrifice......Page 221
PART IV:
Eroticism......Page 223
Preface......Page 224
Madame Edwarda......Page 229
I......Page 238
II......Page 239
III......Page 240
IV......Page 241
1 The Corpse and Decay......Page 243
2 Shamefully, We Get Life from Putrefaction, and Death, Which Reduces Us to Putrefaction, Is No Less
Ignoble than Birth......Page 244
3 The Knowledge of Death......Page 245
5 Death Is Finally the Most Luxurious Form of Life......Page 246
2 The Festival Is Not Just a Return to One's Vomit......Page 249
3 The Failure of the Denial of Animality......Page 250
4 What the Festival Liberates Is Not Merely Animality
but also the Divine......Page 251
5 The Negation of the Profane World and the Divine
(or Sacred) World......Page 252
1 The Connection of Horror and Desire......Page 254
2 The Allurement Linked to the Corpse's Putrefaction......Page 255
3 The Secret of Desire......Page 257
1 Joy Demands that We Consume Our Resources of Energy......Page 259
2 Literature and Anguish; Sacrifice and Horror......Page 261
3 Life, 'on the Level of Death', Founded the Riches
of Religion and Art......Page 262
1 The Object of Desire Is the Universe, or the Totality
of Being......Page 265
2 The Analytical Representation of Nature and the Vague
Totality, Which Is Both Horrible and Desirable......Page 269
26.
Epilogue to the History of Eroticism......Page 272
PART V:
Sovereignty......Page 276
27.
To Whom......Page 277
Man's negativity......Page 279
Hegel's philosophy is a philosophy of death - or of atheism......Page 280
The tragi-comic aspect of man's divinity......Page 281
A fundamental text......Page 282
The human negation of nature and of the natural being of man......Page 283
'Impotent beauty hates the understanding'......Page 284
Sacrifice, on the one hand, and on the other, the gaze of Hegel
absorbed in death and sacrifice......Page 285
Whether he lives or dies, man cannot immediately know death......Page 286
Knowledge of death cannot do without a subterfuge: spectacle......Page 287
Agreement and disagreement between naive behaviours and
Hegel's lucid reaction......Page 288
Pleasure and the sadness of death......Page 289
Gay anguish, anguished gaiety......Page 290
Discourse gives useful ends to sacrifice 'afterwards '......Page 291
Impotence of the Sage to attain sovereignty on the basis of discourse......Page 292
29.
Letter to X, Lecturer on Hegel......Page 296
1 The General and Immediate Aspect of Sovereignty......Page 301
2 The Basic Elements: Consumption beyond Utility,
the Divine, the Miraculous, the Sacred......Page 302
3 Considerations on Method......Page 303
4 The Paradox of Happy Tears (Further
Consideration on Method)......Page 306
5 The Equivalence of the Negative Miracle (Death) and the
Positive Miracle (Final Considerations on Method)......Page 308
1 The Sacred, the Profane, the Natural Given and Death......Page 313
2 The Fear of Death, the Prohibition of Murder and the
Sovereign Transgression of that Prohibition......Page 315
3 The Passage from the Negative Miracle of Death
to the Positive Miracle of the Divine......Page 319
32.
Un-knowing and its Consequences......Page 321
33.
Un-knowing and Rebellion......Page 327
I......Page 330
II......Page 331
IV......Page 332
V......Page 334
VI......Page 336
VII......Page 337
VIII......Page 338
IX......Page 339
X......Page 340
Bibliography......Page 343
Index......Page 348