Dear Oscar,

Even holding an opinion and being allowed to express it is a position of privilege. You and I are very lucky to be in positions where we are able to express ourselves, have the ability to write and play with words, can put forward our views from our positions that are entirely privileged. Most of the time we have been little aware of the fact that we are in such positions, just take it for granted and assume that our worldview is the worldview, and that of course everyone is entitled to think whatever they like, to say, and even to no small degree, to do, whatever they like. In being caught up short I suppose you were taught the lesson that you cannot do quite all that you might wish to do, and that with the position of privilege comes also no small measure of responsibility; that particular ‘smacked wrist’ reverberates through the ages, and comes to influence the relationships which the modern entity has with his or her own position of privilege. Maybe it is true to say that the ‘flip-side’ of assumed privilege has to be responsibility, and that the indulgence of the self has to take account for the impositions that this may place upon the other.

I am aware that I take so very much for granted, that I am able to speak my truths and assume that they will be everywhere understood, and agreed with, and that of course is not actually the case at all. It is true to say that the populations of the globe are moving towards levels of uniformity, and that the mass dissemination of information is to no small degree starting to regulate thought processes and even actions, because essentially we are all being told the same things. There are still divisions of ideology, and there are levels of interpretation that might well differ from subsection to subsection, but essentially of course the same needs have to be met across the globe, the most basic needs of sustaining life, far above any imposed, or learned, system of belief, and even in spite of adherence to one hegemonic correlation over another. We may all be being co-opted into increasingly dominant orders of being, but these cannot be at the expense of survival itself.

Or so, from my privileged position, where I believe that what I say must be true, I believe. I have never experienced a state where life itself is subordinated to the needs of a dominant order, but when I scan the imagined and the recorded archives of human experience then I see that I am actually very fortunate, and that such states have certainly existed. Would my life have had any meaning if I had been a worker helping to construct a pyramid in ancient Egypt? Would my ability to think, to question, even to express, have made any impact at all upon a system which saw me as expendable? And that from history; I am sure that through history and into the modern age there would be examples, perhaps more subtle, perhaps less easily classifiable, that would prove the same point.

Be content, Oscar dear. You dallied before your arrest, and you dallied again after it, and have come to represent a triumph for what you advocated within your dalliances. Be content, Oscar; those who came after you, and those of today will fight the battles for you, from all of their positions, of privilege.

With best wishes to you,

Your friend,

Algernon B. Duffoure.