Gilles Deleuze on Sacher-Masoch and Sade: A Bergsonian Criticism of Freudian Psychoanalysis

Abstract

In the long line of French Sade studies, Deleuze's essay Coldness and Cruelty marks out a special place. By discussing Masoch both in addition to and in contrast to Sade, Deleuze reveals the stakes of his book: he wants to unmask the concept of sadomasochism as a clinical nonentity. In their paper, the authors explain the arguments supporting this project and show their relation to Deleuze's reading of Bergson. They then argue that there is a second, similarly Bergsonian criticism of Freudian psychoanalysis operating in the background of Coldness and Cruelty. This more wide-ranging criticism takes Freud to task for conceiving perversion, like neurosis, in Oedipal terms. This conception, Deleuze holds, forgets that perversion and neurosis represent two different worlds that essentially have nothing to do with each other despite crossing in clinical experience.

The eroticization of biopower: Masochistic relationality and resistance in Deleuze and Agamben

“…The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/ or publication of this article. (Markotic, 2016;Geyskens, 2006) or explore both works as an early critique of psychoanalysis (Gaudlitz, 2015;Lauwaert and Britt, 2015) and its patriarchal tendencies with the help of the 'gynocratic' (Lauwaert and Britt, 2015: 169) phantasies of the masochist. 4.…”

“… 3 Deleuze’s Coldness and Cruelty (1991a) and ‘From Sacher-Masoch to masochism’ (2004) have received an uncharacteristic lack of attention in the secondary literature. Most readings focus on Deleuze’s engagement with the literary creativity of the author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (Markotic, 2016; Geyskens, 2006) or explore both works as an early critique of psychoanalysis (Gaudlitz, 2015; Lauwaert and Britt, 2015) and its patriarchal tendencies with the help of the ‘gynocratic’ (Lauwaert and Britt, 2015: 169) phantasies of the masochist. …”

Toying with the law: Deleuze, Lacan and the promise of perversion

“…According to Deleuze, masochistic humour and sadistic irony can ‘overturn’ (Deleuze, 2004: 5–6) or ‘overthrow’ (Deleuze and von Sacher-Masoch, 1991: 87) the law. This has led some commentators to conclude that perversion not only transgresses the bounds of the law but that it produces entirely new, anti-Oedipal, forms of subjectivity (Lauwaert and Britt, 2015; MacCormack, 2004). Or, put differently, that perversion indicates a form of subjectivity that lies beyond the structuring limitations of the law broadly conceived as the ‘symbolic order’ or the ‘network of law and culture that binds all subjects’ (Caudill, 1992).…”