I am currently involved in trying to explain to a person who was educated as a sociologist that aggression is not caused by income levels. This will require much work, and is the measure of his worth to me, that he is acting as a muse and pushing me—without knowing—to clarify my position on aggression. As far as the liberal ideology of postmodern academia that I am speaking against, I do not expect to change any minds there, anymore than I could expect to talk a bunch of 16th Century Inquisitors out of burning midwives.

For an example of an act of gratuitous aggression that cannot be attributed to income level or income disparity, but to shear primate nastiness, let’s take a childhood situation among middleclass white kids from the 1970s—the Brady Bunch for God’s sake!

#58-23: day, seconds, eye-witness

During a teen-age game of show-and-tell in a neighborhood basement, Ed exposed himself and approached Gina, arms outspread, saying, “I love you.” Gina grabbed a yellow waffle-ball bat and struck the erect organ with an audible smack. Ed lay incapacitated for many long lonely minutes as his friends howled with laughter.

When Eric told me this thirty years later he was still roaring with laughter, and added, “What a dick! He deserved to get his cock rocked. You could hear it upstairs and outside!”

Gina simply followed the three rules of aggression, by answering the three necessary aggressor questions:

1. Can I do this?

2. Can I get away with doing this?

3. Am I close enough to do this?

Ed unfortunately answered the last question as he waddled forward with arms spread wide for an embrace and lips puckered for a kiss.