Dear Oscar,

You undoubtedly could not see beyond your own sense of entitlement, your own pursuit of pleasure, and that is why you were unable to see how your lifestyle would impact upon the world around you. It is rather surprising, given that you were actually very astute at reading the mores of your day, as reflected in your writings; you could see very clearly that the world you inhabited was full of contradiction, was a place of secrets kept and secrets held and secrets sometimes made public in order to bring down others. I am sure that to some no small degree you actually participated in such activities, and that your ribald wit was ever ready to lampoon those whom you held in disrespect, or whom you saw as threatening your position of preeminence. I wonder if you have any regrets, Oscar, and suspect that your response would be that you have none. A strange blind spot, not seeing how things would unfold, when it was very obvious that the world was turning against you – and even you must have recognised that! I suppose this is why history has accorded to you the moniker of ‘victim’, of ‘martyr’, no less, as if the nomination of cultural sainthood somehow atones for the sins of your age – not your sins, but the sins of your age.

It is, as I have said before, much the same now. Now it is possible to get completely lost in the trivialities of the everyday, the pursuit of recognition, the need to make oneself important, the pursuit of endless diversion and the promise of unending pleasure, to satisfy the most basic of lusts and wants and perceived needs, and to miss entirely what is actually going on. In fact it is quite evident that such tactics can be used to hoodwink entire populations into regimes of control, where diktats are the order of the day, where the room for freedom of thought and freedom of expression are slowly eroded – because – we believe we can say what we want, but in actuality we are only saying what we are allowed to say! We live in an age of endless choice, but I have often thought to myself is there really any choice? Just because we can have a red car or a blue car does that mean that we can operate without a car at all? Is there really a choice, or are we all just slaves to whatever system is the order of the day? And if we are presented with real choices are we able to see them clearly, without our own stubbornness, our willfulness, standing in the way; or, more pointedly as is today’s experience, without the endless proliferation of ‘choices’, of ‘alternatives’, diverting us subtly, or not so subtly, away from any notion that real choice actually exists at all?

One would think, Oscar dear, with examples like your own to look back upon, that there would have been some sort of advance in thinking, but alas there is not. Oh, and I know that there is an argument that without your own ‘noble sacrifice’ there would have been no recognition of the plight of the homosexual, that the start of ‘gay liberation’ would not have occurred, and that there would still be persecution of sexual minorities, but really, is that valid? Is it the case that there have to be real levels of suffering before the world at large works out that persecution of anyone is not such a good idea? I am thinking of issues of race and religion, of caste systems, of slavery, of skin pigmentation, of difference however it may manifest itself. Does it really have to be that only after decades, centuries, lifetimes, millennia – that we as a human collective will realise that beating up on the other simply perpetuates the very suffering that in another breath we are all so adamantly against?

I leave you with that little poser, Oscar – from one poseur to another!

Best wishes,

Algernon B. Duffoure.