SOURCE: Itzkowitz, Kenneth. “To Witness Spectacles of Pain: The Hypermorality of Georges Bataille.” College Literature 26, no. 1 (winter 1999): 19-33.

In the following essay, Itzkowitz discusses Bataille's thoughts on the possibility that excessive energy necessarily results in social violence and legal transgression.

The two opposing values “good and bad,” “good and evil” have been engaged in a fearful struggle on earth for thousands of years; and though the latter value has certainly been on top for a long time, there are still places where the struggle is as yet undecided. … [T]here is perhaps no more decisive mark of a “higher nature” … than that of being a … battleground of these opposed values.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals

The more ideal ethics is the better. It must not permit itself to be distracted by the babble that it is useless to require the impossible. For even to listen to...