Desacatos

To me, the most haunting, prophetic cry of the nineteenth century is Theophile Gaultier's 'plutôt la barbarie que l'ennui!' If we come to understand the sources of that perverse longing, of that itch for chaos, we will be nearer an understanding of our own state, and of the relations of our condition to the accusing ideal of the past.

George Steiner, In Bluebeard's Castle (1971)