If the Marquis de Sade had possessed a high-speed connection and a premium delivery account, he likely would never have missed human contact; the omnipotence of his own will, filtered through a screen, would have sufficed. The modern libertine has achieved what Sade could only dream of during his most feverish nights in the Bastille: the total disappearance of the “other” as a subject, transforming them into an on-demand commodity. However, in this victory of absolute autonomy, we have stumbled upon a logistical surprise. Radical individualism is not the garden of limitless pleasure we were promised, but a cell of mirrors where the only voice that resonates is our own. We have destroyed the walls of traditional morality only to build a bunker of self-referentiality where the air is starting to run thin.
We observe how the sovereignty of the self has become so heavy that it requires constant management of emotional assets. We register this trend in the proliferation of “hyper-independent” lifestyles where any commitment is viewed as an invasion of private property. We notice that tremor running through the marrow upon realizing that when you are the sole legislator of your universe, there is no one else to blame for the boredom. Sade understood that isolation is the necessary condition for the exercise of absolute power; the 21st-century citizen has turned that isolation into a luxury product—a mechanic of icy precision where solitude is the price paid for not having to ask permission to exist.
The Bureaucracy of the Self: Managing Freedom as an Inventory
It is almost touching to watch social media sell us “connection” while optimizing algorithms so we only see reflections of our own biases. We notice that metallic aroma of awakened curiosity every time someone boasts of their “emotional self-sufficiency” as if it were a hunting trophy. It is not a liberation; it is the materialization of a market of isolation where every interaction is evaluated by its return on investment. The technique consists of eliminating the friction of real human contact—that annoying unpredictability of the other—to replace it with an interface where control is total.
Who cares about community when the rigor of your own routine offers a security that no other person can guarantee? We register a mutation where the libertine no longer seeks accomplices for his excess, but spectators for his impeccable solitude. The mechanic is of an icy precision: the individual acts as both the warden and the prisoner of their own biography. We notice the tremor in the contact with the truth of autonomy; being the master of your time also means being the only one responsible for its emptiness. It is Sade’s paradox brought to the modern bedroom: you have all the power, but no one to share the weight of the crown.
Sovereignty of Isolation: Desire in a Vacuum Chamber
There is no turning back when you discover that absolute freedom looks far too much like a life sentence with yourself. We note that existential maturity in the 21st century consists of accepting that radical individualism is the most sophisticated form of censorship: the one that prevents us from seeing beyond our own retina. Sade proposed that the libertine must be an island; we have built an archipelago of solitudes connected by undersea cables, where the exchange of fluids has been replaced by the exchange of data. Unfettered vision burns when there is no one on the other side to hold the gaze.
Critics celebrate “personal empowerment,” failing to notice that we are turning existence into a series of crossing monologues. We notice how the tremor of a pulse seeking another body and finding only the coldness of glass returns an image of our own surrender to the system of self-sufficiency. Sade turned his cells into theaters of the imagination because he had no other choice; we have turned our choices into a cell because we are terrified of the vulnerability of the encounter. We do not need intermediaries to understand our own solitude when we have a lifestyle that has turned it into the ultimate aesthetic aspiration.
The Inventory of Emotional Autarky
We explore a map where the “other” is an obstacle to the development of one’s own potential. Sade taught us that the secret of strength is the lack of mercy toward one’s own weakness. Radical individualism has handed us the complete catalog of tools to armor our intimacy until nothing remains inside. In the end, we are subjects seeking confirmation of our own divinity in independence, only to discover that gods are usually very lonely.
We wait for the next gadget promising “companionship without commitment,” while the system holds the tension of a flesh that continues to scream despite being surrounded by cutting-edge technology. The mind processes the paradox of an autonomy that imprisons us, the will claims its space, and the glow of the designer lamp continues to illuminate a room where there is only one pair of shoes. The show goes on, and the walls of Charenton now have Wi-Fi and views of the void.
