Ripley’s violence mirrors ruling-class predation, not individual deviance

Evidence

The use of homicidal violence to achieve and protect a position of privilege is very far from being aberrant, and Tom is no more likely to face justice than are the brigands of our real life ruling elites. (Highsmith’s refusal to impose a justice in the novels that is conspicuously lacking in the world is one of the most subversive aspects of her depictions of the character.) If Tom is pathological, his pathologies are the pathologies of a class; it is only the freshness of the blood of his victims (and his willingness to spill it himself) that separates Ripley’s exploits from those of his new peers. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 253

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to James Bernard Frost and the systemic hypocrisy reasoning, and to Veblen’s leisure class ideas Fisher invokes.