“How can he describe such abominations ? And how come he doesn't collapse under the weight of the abominations he describes?'
Well it takes exceptional fortitude - or, alternatively, a special form of cowardice. At all events, you have to be abominable to come to terms with abomination.
A kind of moral law, of terroristic superstition, denies you the right to speak of anything whatsoever if you are not involved in it. [...]. Either 'You are in cahoots with the object you speak of' or 'You don't know what you are talking about.
In fact, speaking of something and being part of it are two quite different things. The finest example is death: you have to be alive to talk about it. But this is true of anything - of politics, economics, art. You have to be a stranger to something to speak about it in a strange – that is to say, original – way.[...]
In fact, you have absolutely to collude in what you are speaking about and at the same time to be somewhere else altogether. You have to love it and hate it. You have to be the thing you speak of and to be violently against it. This is the law of hospitality, and it is the law of hostility.”