Who’s Afraid of Oscar Wilde? 

Who’s Afraid of Oscar Wilde? 

An essay on dissenting views. By Keith Porteous

Oscar Wilde’s controversial views challenged Victorian morality, conventions on art and economic norms, most notably centring on aestheticism, homosexual love, socialist economics, and individualism. He did not look to the “common sense” of his day, nor to socio-political consensus as evidence of wisdom.

In regard to art and morality, Wilde argued that art doesn’t need moral or ethical purpose. He claimed in the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray that “there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” 

It shocked critics who believed literature should teach moral lessons and reflect the current narratives and orthodoxies. He defended homosexuality in his 1895 gross indecency trial, where he gave a famous speech defending “the love that dare not speak its name,” describing it as a deep, pure spiritual affection. 

All this is to say that it has become common for today’s established liberal centrists to quote Oscar Wilde, and others, for reasons that betray intellectual integrity, by falsely aligning themselves with historically radical commentators in order to support their narrow conventional arguments. The irony is astonishing!

Oscar Wilde passionately rejected social hierarchy and openly flouted conventional class structures and public tastes, through his flamboyant lifestyle and dress, arguing that traditional charity was immoral because it merely prolonged poverty rather than reconstructing society to eliminate it.

Wilde considered himself to be a libertarian, combining socialist economics with radical individualism, claiming that the abolition of property rights would free humans from the crushing weight of manual labor and allow true self-development. Whatever your view of Oscar Wilde, you cannot deny his courage.

The dissenting voices of yesteryear are now often cited as heroes, but they were vilified as pariahs and outcasts, and were the recipients of public smears, incarcerated or worse, for speaking their truths. Today’s dissidents are often treated in similar ways, where cowardly “public consensus” allows it.