Page - 98 - in Siting Futurity - The “Feel Good” Tactical Radicalism of Contemporary Culture in and around Vienna

98 siting futurity blaming the victim as a co-creator of her own unconsciously desired misfortune, Holland encourages us to question the con- sensuality of Elly’s situation, something the Viennese produc- tion takes to a logical, emancipated conclusion. In separating sadism from masochism, the production also encourages an appreciation of how Deleuze’s characterization of the sadist as “an apathetic, classical, rationalist lecturer who would negate reality” (ibid., 20) grows more relevant with every passing day that our reality is negated by rationalists uninter- ested in anything but their own sadistic satisfactions.12 Similarly his parallel description of the masochist as “a romantic, mytho- poetic educator who would suspend reality (suspense is as cen- tral to masochistic eroticism as pain — just as reiteration is vital to sadism)” (ibid., 20) offers a diagnosis of those on the Left who have proven helpless in the face of sadism and who need to recognize that they do not, in fact, control the fantasy.13 It is only by refusing to suspend reality, which is to say by consciously ac- knowledging and rejecting their desire for the optimism Lauren Berlant has so masterfully explicated as cruel, that they stand a chance of preventing the mechanical reiteration of violence es- sential for the sadists’ satisfaction. Vienna’s resolute staging of Lazarus reveals a sophisticat- ed comprehension of both sides of the problematic to which Deleuze drew theoretical attention. In comparing the urtexts by Sade and Sacher-Masoch, he noted a key conceptual differ- ence between the two psychic phenomena: in masochism, “the contractual nature of the relationship also means that ultimately the ‘victim’ (the passive masochist) controls the fantasy” and the fantasy ends when Wanda ceases to play along, whereas “it 12 At the time of writing, an op-ed made this point using exactly this lan- guage: “I and many Americans are in a state of stunned disbelief that this is who we have become. A culture’s values trickle from the top down, and what’s trickling down from Trump and his oligarch friends is the idea that cold-blooded cruelty to the weak and defenseless is not only justified but energizing and exciting. A turn-on” (Prose 2019). 13 It is (perhaps appropriately?) painful for me to realize the implications of this division for work done in my part of the academy.