WI: 'Sadism' instead of Marxism

Skallagrim

Banned
In addition to what @Burton K Wheeler writes, allow me to note that the people who think that de Sade's writings is satirical are very much mistaken. His writings seem so absurd and over the top that one cannot help but imagine that they must be some kind of satire-- alas, no. The man himself, to a not inconsiderable degree, acted out the perversions he writes about. This is a man who was sentenced to death in absentia for raping prostitutes after poisoning them with a paralysing substance. He repeatedly preyed on very much underage girls. This guy was not some satirical, enlightened intellectual. He was very much the depraved, criminally inclined pervert he describes in his works.

No successful movement is going to flourish based on the muddled writings of this lunatic. That fact that he's so well-known in OTL is nothing but a monument to man's eternal inclination towards morbid curiosity.
 
You would almost have to eliminate all but the mildest of anything vaguely erotic to make de Sade credible as a political writer. Otherwise the resistance to him unites most of the rest of society.
 
This is alternate history, so to make it work, we can easily assume that most of his writings were kept secret.
To make the outcome possible we could even make turning point by making Sade asexual paperpusher with no interest of sex, violence or powerfantasy.
Also, people are quite capable of closing their eyes from "quirks" of those they follow or respect.

So, how would history change if the only surviving or published writings of Sade were political ones and communism was inspired by those?
 
This is alternate history, so to make it work, we can easily assume that most of his writings were kept secret.
To make the outcome possible we could even make turning point by making Sade asexual paperpusher with no interest of sex, violence or powerfantasy.
Also, people are quite capable of closing their eyes from "quirks" of those they follow or respect.

So, how would history change if the only surviving or published writings of Sade were political ones and communism was inspired by those?

Most of Sade's works are porn and political philosophy mashed together, as in people stopping their intercourse and asking the one with the biggest endowment (true citation) to read a political discourse, so it is difficult to set the two apart. Furthermore, as many have said, Sade political texts are not so original, especially for his times. Sade's works may be the only "ordinary-grade" french Revolutionnary texts widely known, but that's because these are the boring stuff between 40 pages of very hardcore porn. If you look at the Revolutionnary press, you would find hundreds of such texts, only untranslated, never re-published and with their authors forgotten.
 
Most of Sade's works are porn and political philosophy mashed together, as in people stopping their intercourse and asking the one with the biggest endowment (true citation) to read a political discourse, so it is difficult to set the two apart. Furthermore, as many have said, Sade political texts are not so original, especially for his times. Sade's works may be the only "ordinary-grade" french Revolutionnary texts widely known, but that's because these are the boring stuff between 40 pages of very hardcore porn. If you look at the Revolutionnary press, you would find hundreds of such texts, only untranslated, never re-published and with their authors forgotten.
What if we go the other way and have Sade's style and method of putting polemics inside of pornography become more widespread amongst radicals?
 
Top