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Extended Play Version of an Answer to a Critic of The Eternal Boy

So much in the consideration of gender politics is a matter of perspective, of where you are positioned in the argument. If you are a conservative male, such as you identify yourself to be, then you might differentiate between males of the upper and ruling class and males of the non-ruling class. Some of us can see it too, though your motive other than a willful misunderstanding of my point isn’t clear. The condensation necessary for a piece of this length precludes the complete statement of all points. I rely on the intellegence of the reader to fill in, perhaps too much.

The example I gave you in my response on Echidne’s blog is, I think, as good an illustration as possible that one can be the victim of violence at the hands of a more powerful group containing both ruling class and lower class individuals which constitute one effective oppressor group. Nothing prevents the ruling class from lording it over their lower status confreres while using them to oppress even lower class people for their own ends. Black people were the recipients of murder and terror at the hands of both aristocratic whites and poor whites. I am quite certain that they were fully aware of the difference between white people who were dangerous to them and those who chose not to be.

If you need a simpler example, think of an axe. If you are looking from above you can make out two sides of an axe. If it’s coming straight for your skull you might or might not see the two sides or not. But it’s really all the same axe to you. I guess you’d have to be looking at the blade pointed at you to appreciate what it really means, or to think hard about what it might mean to other people. Conservatives don’t tend to be good at that, which is what I suspect makes them conservative.