"dissolute, decadent, and depraved. An atheist, materialist, and hedonist, de Sade was above all an aristocrat, which is to say that his understanding was of "Wolves which batten upon lambs, lambs consumed by wolves, the strong who immolate the weak, the weak victims of the strong," as he describes it in his 1791 novel Justine, Or, the Misfortunes of Virtue."
"Whether monarchism or republicanism, de Sade's own politics were far simpler, for whatever served him was his ideology. Were de Sade alive today, it could be imagined that he'd charm and ingratiate himself among representatives of divergent factions, perhaps equally at home with a fascist like Stephen Bannon and an anarchist such as Noam Chomsky - identically to his modern acolyte, the millionaire rapist Jeffrey Epstein."
Jeffrey Epstein is framed as a modern embodiment of aristocratic predation exemplified by the Marquis de Sade. De Sade's aristocratic hedonism and view of the strong preying on the weak are used to trace a lineage of entitlement. Epstein cultivated influence across political and ideological divides, using wealth and networks to enable sexual exploitation. Legal and institutional responses have been slow and obfuscatory, including delayed releases of extensive case files implicating powerful figures. The pattern links historical aristocratic privilege to contemporary capitalist facilitation and the ways such power can align with or bolster authoritarian tendencies.
Read at Hyperallergic
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