Conservatives probably shouldn’t have a favorite Marxist literary critic, but Terry Eagleton is mine. (True, he’s also the only Marxist literary critic I’ve ever read but I suspect that even if I read others he’d retain the title.) Reading his Literary Theory convinced me that “theory” may not just be trendy pseudo-academic nonsense—at least not completely.
Anyway, I’m a fan of Eagleton quotes and Peter Leithart found one worth passing along in the Terry Lectures (Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (The Terry Lectures Series)): “[Existentialism] was for the most part an ontologically imposing way of saying that one was nineteen, far from home, feeling rather blue, and like a toddler in a play school hadn’t much of a clue as to what was going on. A few decades later this condition persisted among late adolescents, but it was now known as post-structuralism.”
March 2nd, 2010 | 1:14 pm
Joe,
If you like Eagelton’s sense of humor, then you must check out “After Theory” (Basic Books, 2003). It’s not nearly as significant a piece of writing as “Literary Theory,” but it’s a great deal more hilarious. For example:
“Structuralism, Marxism, post-structuralism and the like are no longer the sexy topics they once were. What is sexy instead is sex. On the wilder shores of academia, an interest in French philosophy has given way to a fascination with French kissing. In some cultural circles, the politics of masturbation exert far more fascination than the politics of the Middle East. Socialism has lost out to sado-masichism. Among students of culture, the body is an immensely fashionable topic, but it is usually the erotic body, not the famished one. There is a keen interest in coupling bodies, but not in labouring ones. Quietly-spoken middle-class students huddle diligently in libraries, at work on sensationalist subjects like vampirism and eye-gouging, cyborgs and porno movies.
“Nothing could be more understandable. To work on the literature of latex or the political implications of navel-piercing is to take literally the wise old adage that study should be fun. It is rather like writing your Master’s thesis on the comparative flavour of malt whiskies, or on the phenomenology of lying in bed all day.” (2-3)
And on and on it goes. But “After Theory” also reflects Eagleton’s own “return to religion,” and in a way that obviously connects with his Marxist commitments:
“For the so-called Old Testament, the non-god Yahweh and the ‘non-being’ of the poor are closely connected. Indeed, it is the first historical document to forge such a relationship. In a revolutionary reversal, true power springs from powerlessness. . . . The wretched of the earth are known to the Old Testament as the anawim, those whose desperate plight embodies the failure of the political order. . . . The dispossessed are a living sign of the truth that the only enduring power is one anchored in an acknowledgement of failure. . . . The exercise of power is child’s play compared to the confession of weakness. Power can destroy whole cities, but there is nothing very remarkable in that. Destroying whole cities is a relatively simple business.
“The authors of the New Testament see Jesus as a type of the anawim. He is dangerous because he has no stake in the present set-up. Those who speak up for justice will be done away with by the state. Society will wreak its terrible vengeance on the vulnerable. The only good God is a dead one–a failed political criminal in an obscure corner of the earth.” (175-76)
March 3rd, 2010 | 8:13 pm
Post-structuralism is Existentialism? Wow, I don’t know what to say, except that ignorance is definitely bliss.
March 4th, 2010 | 8:02 am
No, Joe, post-structuralism is not existentialism. He is saying that the CONDITION of being a toddler with no clue as to whats going on persists, and becomes post-structuralism (I’ve been reading Eagleton for 20 years, and I know I am right on this. Plus just look at the structure of the sentence: this condition, not this philosophy, persists.
March 10th, 2010 | 8:49 pm
[...] in the other direction, Eagleton takes down–hard–two central strands of post-modernism: “[Existentialism] was for the most part an [...]
April 12th, 2010 | 10:36 am
After much study, I came to the conclusion that Derrida and all the poststructuralists are dissociated, due to massive emotional trauma. This is what makes their work so unconventional. The bottom line is Peter Levine’s point: “Part of the dynamic of trauma is that it cuts us off from our internal experience as a way of protecting our organism from from sensations and emotions that could be overwhelming.” (p. 73)
I have a long essay about this on my web site.
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