politics

The heterosexual matrix

/ Michael Michael / Leave a comment

Dear Oscar,

You were caught within the heterosexual matrix so prevalent in your age, with your marriage to Constance, your fathering of two children, your position in the world as a man about town earning a good living and succeeding in your chosen career. We all now know that this was a sham, or only a part-truth, and that the impositions of such a matrix were not at all appropriate for your actual proclivities. So of course this does raise a question about your being heterosexual, and I think quite equally it also raises a question about your being exclusively homosexual. Maybe you were just greedy, a gourmand out to sate your pleasure principle no matter what the cost, with no thought to the social proprieties by which you appeared to live. I find the collapse of the dichotomous relationship between heterosexuality, with its overarching dominance, and homosexuality, endlessly subsumed and denied, quite fascinating; it seems to prove that neither polarity is near to the truth.

I have friends now, Oscar dear, who play within the heterosexual matrix and give in entirely to the proscriptions that surround them. It is for the women who are around me that I have a certain sympathy, because so many of them, despite the cause of feminism, seem to seek out the heterosexual ideal of the good, solid man, wage earning, dependable, on whom to rely. As a consequence they spend all of their time fulfilling versions of the feminine ideal, to whatever degree, and always to some extent allowing male dominance and decision making to hold sway. I listen to their voices, raised in alarm against many of the men who surround them, and see their lives unfolding within the strictures of the patriarchate, limiting their choices, stunting their growth, and catch myself noting that in very many cases they are playing along with the status quo – saying one thing and doing another. Not that I blame them – it is the power of the matrix to which they accede rather than any consciously personal perspective.

Very frustrating though. From the homosexual point of view, where so many of the structures imposed within the heterosexual matrix have already collapsed, and have to be mimicked in order to gain any validity within that separate sphere of being, there seems to be no escape. So long as we all play along ,the caravanserai simply progresses, always in essence the same.

Are there other ways of being, or do we already know the end of the story?

Your friend,

Algernon B. Duffoure.

Great expectations

/ Michael Michael / Leave a comment

Dear Oscar,

I do not know if you were a fan of Charles Dickens, but his books in their serialised form would have been current to your own evolution. My suspicion is that, much as is the case with soap opera in our modern era, the supposedly educated classes would have looked down slightly on works that were popular, and so it would be no surprise to learn that a certain acerbic element of your wit would have been directed at this particular auteur.

In fact as a part of your legacy we have the quotation attributed to yourself that: “You would need a heart of stone not to laugh at the death of Little Nell”. I can imagine that the heightened realms of aestheticism would have had no truck with the melodrama of serialised story-lines, and that the belief that you saw Dickens as ‘overly sentimental’ would fit well with how you are yourself remembered. But you must admit that he was very popular, that his fame and success were undeniable, and that his impact has been far broader in its reach than your own.

All of its time, of course.

Philip ‘Pip’ Pirrip is a young lad of ‘great expectations’ in the novel ‘Great Expectations’ (1860), but all of those expectations are centred around himself. He will rise from a lowly state to a great one; he will become a ‘gentlemen’, and he will inherit a fortune, and he will marry the girl of his dreams, and despite his harsh upbringing and the suffering of his childhood, he will come to have all that he desires. In fact all of the ‘great expectations’ that are achieved by Philip ‘Pip’ Pirrip are entirely centred upon himself. He does little or nothing for the world that surrounds him.

Such a fantasised trope is still in evidence today, where lottery tickets are bought in the hope that a personalised realisation of dreams and aspirations can be reached, and where consumer goods are set in fairly easy reach in order to give the impression that individual lives are getting better. But I do wonder how people of today might word the ‘great expectations’ that might come from our age. I have a feeling that in very many cases they would not be centred upon self at all. In fact I have the impression that many, many subjects would rather see a peaceful and happy world, a calm and productive planet, acceptance and toleration between peoples, the subsuming of political and cultural difference, harmony, love. I think it is what future generations will look back upon and be thankful for in the days and ages to come.

Smiley face. Smiley face.

Best wishes, as always,

Algernon B. Duffoure.

Acceptance

/ Michael Michael / Leave a comment

Dear Oscar,

So I am doing my best to be accepting, and not place myself in opposition to others. There is a popular mantra in this day and age that we should learn to be more tolerant of each other, and more accepting of human foibles and peccadilloes. Of course I have made a very good start with you, because I try my utmost not to be judgemental of you and to accept the fact that you lived the life you lived, however it may have been interpreted at the time, and by history. All I can do in retrospect is simply keep lines of communication as open as possible. The aim is then to allow your preoccupations to remain under consideration, as indeed they undoubtedly are, all this time later. You started something, Oscar. You started trains of thought and investigations that have still not yet reached their conclusion, and unfortunately you were ended before you had a chance to bring any of your lines of enquiry to a well-considered ending themselves.

I am starting to wonder though just how far acceptance can go. If it is true and honest and open acceptance then it will have to also be willing to incorporate views that might be so counterpoised to one’s own sense of moral, social and cultural propriety, as to put it all in question. Do we have to, for instance, accept that there will always be a murderous element to human existence, as there always has been? Would it be possible to launch some sort of cross-societal and multi-cultural investigation into the causes and consequences of such behaviour and therefore to eradicate it? It does not have to be, and I think there is probably never a real justification for it. There is always some way in which such an act can be challenged and avoided. Does our sense of acceptance have to incorporate it because it keeps on happening, or perhaps should we be collectively working towards the point where what we accept is only the best of each other, which in itself would outlaw such negative behaviours? It cannot possibly be argued that a murder is the best that any individual can do. It must be argued that encouraging us away from behaviours that might lead to such an act would be the best that we can do.

There would be countless examples of challenging all that we tolerate, but may not wish to accept. Apart from crimes against each other there would also be the collective unacceptability of corporate agencies. Logging companies in the Amazon, petro-chemical companies pillaging world resources, over-fishing of the oceans, the denying of basic elements for life to swathes of the global population; I cannot help thinking that there is some awareness growing that such challenges need to be underway. That fills me with hope, Oscar dear.

As you do, Oscar. Whatever your failings may have been you have influenced a legacy of hope. Sometimes it is hard to see, but if we keep on expecting the best of ourselves I cannot see that anything other is possible. Working on, and thinking through, levels of acceptance may well be the dilemma with which we all have wrestled through time; I am sure you did.

Your friend,

Algernon B. Duffoure.