Bataille - Slaughterhouse

SlaughterhouseAuthor(s): Georges Bataille and Annette MichelsonSource: October, Vol. 36, Georges Bataille: Writings on Laughter, Sacrifice, Nietzsche, Un-Knowing (Spring, 1986), pp. 10-13Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778539 .Accessed: 11/02/2015 12:57

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Slaughterhouse

The slaughterhouse is linked to religion insofar as the temples of by-gone eras (not to mention those of the Hindus in our own day) served two purposes: they were used both for prayer and for killing. The result (and this judgment is confirmed by the chaotic aspect of present-day slaughterhouses) was certainly a disturbing convergence of the mysteries of myth and the ominous grandeur typical of those places in which blood flows. In America, curiously enough, W. B. Seabrook has expressed an intense regret; observing that the orgiastic life has survived, but that the sacrificial blood is not part of the cocktail mix, he finds present custom insipid. In our time, nevertheless, the slaughterhouse is cursed and quarantined like a plague-ridden ship. Now, the victims of this curse are neither butchers nor beasts, but those same good folk who countenance, by now, only their own unseemliness, an unseemliness commensurate with an un- healthy need of cleanliness, with irascible meanness, and boredom. The curse (terrifying only to those who utter it) leads them to vegetate as far as possible from the slaughterhouse, to exile themselves, out of propriety, to a flabby world in which nothing fearful remains and in which, subject to the ineradicable ob- session of shame, they are reduced to eating cheese.

1929


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Article Contentsp. [11]p. [10]p. [12]p. [13]

Issue Table of ContentsOctober, Vol. 36, Georges Bataille: Writings on Laughter, Sacrifice, Nietzsche, Un-Knowing (Spring, 1986), pp. 1-155Volume Information [pp. 155-155]Front Matter [pp. 1-2]Extinct America [pp. 3-9]Slaughterhouse [pp. 10-13]Smokestack [pp. 14-16]Human Face [pp. 17-21]Metamorphosis [pp. 22-23]Museum [pp. 24-25]Counterattack: Call to Action [pp. 26-27]The Threat of War [pp. 28]Additional Notes on the War [pp. 29-31]Toward Real Revolution [pp. 32-41]Nietzsche's Madness [pp. 42-45]On Nietzsche: The Will to Chance Preface [pp. 46-57]Van Gogh as Prometheus [pp. 58-60]Sacrifice [pp. 61-74]Celestial Bodies [pp. 75-78]Program (Relative to "Acphale")[pp. 79]Un-Knowing and Its Consequences [pp. 80-85]Un-Knowing and Rebellion [pp. 86-88]Un-Knowing: Laughter and Tears [pp. 89-102]The Ascent of Mount Aetna [pp. 103-105]Autobiographical Note [pp. 106-110]Heterology and the Critique of Instrumental Reason [pp. 111-127]Impossible Sovereignty: Between "The Will to Power" and "The Will to Chance" [pp. 128-146]Antivision [pp. 147-154]Back Matter

Bataille - Slaughterhouse

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