His Master's Voice Read Online Free Page A

In some of them I would no doubt have languished; but in others, who knows, I might have found greater personal fulfillment, as one visited, as one creating new rites, new magic, thanks to the talent I brought into the world, that of combining elements. Perhaps, in the absence of a restraining curb, which in our culture is the relativism of every conceptual entity, I could have consecrated, with no trouble, orgies of havoc and debauchery, because in those ancient societies they practiced the custom of a temporary, periodic suspension of daily law, by dissolving their culture (it was the bedrock, the Constant, the Absolute of their lives, and yet, remarkably, they knew that even the Absolute required holes!) in order to give vent to the festering mass of excesses that could not be fitted into any codified system, and of which only a portion found expression in war masks and family masquerades, under the bit and bridle of morality.
    They were sensible, rational, those severings of societal bonds and rules, the group madness, the pandemonium liberated, heightened by the narcotics of rhythm and poison. It was the opening of a safety valve, out of which poured the factor of destruction; through this particular invention barbarity was adapted to man. But the principle of a crime from which one could retire, of a reversible madness, of gaps rhythmically repeated in the social fabric, has been done away with, and now all those forces must go in harness, work treadmills, play roles that are too tight for them and always ill-suited. So they corrode everything quotidian; they hide in every place; for nowhere is it permitted them to emerge from anonymity. Each of us is, from childhood, fastened to some publicly allowed piece of himself, the part that was selected and schooled, and that has gained the consensus omnium ; and now he cultivates that fragment, polishes it, perfects it, breathes on it alone, that it may develop as well as possible; and each of us, being a part, pretends to be a whole—like a stump that claims it is a limb.
    As far back as I can remember, no ethics ever took root in my sensitivity. Cold-bloodedly I built myself an artificial ethics. But I needed to find a reason to do this, because setting up rules in a desert is like taking Communion without faith. I am not saying that I planned out my life in as theoretical a manner as I present it here. Nor did I attach axioms to my behavior—retroactively. I proceeded always in the same way, at first unawares; the motivations I later guessed.
    Had I considered myself a person who was basically good, I would have been quite unable to understand evil. I would have believed that people perpetrated it always with premeditation—that is, that they did what they had resolved to do—because I would have found no other source of vileness within my personal experience. But I had better knowledge; I was aware of my own inclinations, as well as of my blamelessness for them—blamelessness because I was, after all, the way I was to begin with, and no one had ever consulted me in the matter.
    Now, for one slave to strangle another slave to satisfy the forces implanted in both; for one blamelessness to torture another if there existed any chance whatever to resist such a compulsion—to me this was an offense against reason. We are given to ourselves and it is fruitless for us to question what is given, but if there should open up the minutest chance to oppose the Way Things Are—how can one not seize it? Only such decisions and such actions are our exclusive human property, as is the possibility, also, of suicide. This is the sector of freedom where our unasked-for inheritance meets with contempt.
    Please do not tell me I contradict myself—the self who saw in the Stone Age a time of dreams come true. Knowledge is irreversible; one cannot go back into the darkness of sweet ignorance. In that time I would have had no knowledge and would have been unable to obtain it. One must make