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In a land like ours, where edifying discourses on the Art of Loving inexorably climb to the best-seller lists, it may be well to be reminded of the case for “normal sadism and immoralism.” Mr. Hodges' argument has had barely a handful of partisans in this country during the past decades of sentimentalism and romantic utopianism—archaistic and futuristic alike. The situation is altogether different on the Continent, especially in France, which underwent the anguish and glory of defeat and resistance. There, de Sade was hailed as “friend and neighbor” by almost all the leaders of thought, notably the late Albert Camus and the relentless Mandarins of existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
Mr. Hodges tells us that his principal interest is the correction of moralistic and political biases masquerading as scientific psychiatry and psychoanalysis. For his central inspiration he goes to such celebrated high priests of transcendental egoism as de Sade, Bakunin, Max Stirner, Nietzsche and Huysmans. It does not seem far-fetched to think that Mr. Hodges' actual concerns lie far outside the technical questions of psychology and psychotherapy.
The present writer is little inclined at this time to argue the fine points of psychology or politics or ethics which Mr. Hodges' spirited essay involves. One may, however, be permitted to wonder whether the Marquis de Sade was the political libertarian he has been made out to be by Geoffrey Gorer and several of his leading French and