After Theory... Then what?

This book was quite an enjoyable read. Eagleton reminded me of Graff in several obvious ways: first of all, his critique of the elitist view of academia and intellectualism; second, the fact that he was able to articulate fairly complicated ideas in an accessible and amusing way. I found Eagleton much more amusing than Graff, of course. Most of Eagleton’s humor, I noticed (again, not a very deep observation, but something I noticed), comes from his use of strange or unexpected metaphors to explain his ideas. He does this well, and most of them succeed at being comical as well as holding up logically. He perhaps resorted to metaphors a little too much – sometimes it seemed like he was doing it in every other sentence – but for the most part, it was consistently engaging and very intelligent.

I found, thinking about the book after reading it, that the whole thing seemed to sort of morph into a kind of blob in my mind. Eagleton’s chapter titles were slightly deceiving, as often I felt he just went off on tangents or rambled through whatever subject happened to be relevant at the time (for instance, thinking back on the chapter “Gains and Losses,” I really couldn’t tell you what the titular gains and losses for cultural theory were; I guess towards the end of the chapter it became more clear, but for the most part it seemed like a general overview of cultural theory’s problems and critics…). I was surprised by how philosophical the book was, particularly towards the end in the discussions of morality, evil, “non-being,” etc. Those ending chapters were the most difficult, and also the most interesting to me. I’m going to have to go back and read through those again more carefully, I think.

It seems Eagleton is calling for a new era of criticism, or at least a new wave of fresh ideas. Maybe this is oversimplifying it a bit – in fact, no, not maybe. I know I’m oversimplifying. But that was the general impression I got: he’s criticizing postmodernism quite a lot, and also criticizing those critics out there who are resorting to shallow sensationalist kinds of topics to write about – or seem to be stuck in old ideas that aren’t really as relevant or useful any more (whatever “useful” means). Although I found I agreed with a lot of his points, and I was appreciative of the fact that he rarely resorted to a black-and-white kind of mindset, I guess I felt a little cheated or skeptical by the end. It’s easy to point out problems and say, “This needs to be fixed. Somebody fix it.” But actually fixing it is not necessarily a simple matter of noticing the problem and talking about it. Especially in a field like literary criticism, I’m not even sure that coming up with “something new” is something that critics should be really even trying to do consciously. At least, not just for the sake of coming up with something new. It seems to me that new ideas arise out of certain circumstances; and if the circumstances aren’t right, trying to force it will just lead to failure. Not that I believe that the great thinkers of the past weren’t aware that they were doing something new, or even doing it purposefully; but doing something “new” wasn’t necessarily the point, or they had the material to make that new thing good in its own right (not good just because it was new).

I guess I’m skeptical of the proposal to come up with new ideas, not only because coming up with “new” ideas is a lot easier said than done, of course (in fact, I doubt there is even such thing as “new” ideas), but because it seems like that valuing of newness is a symptom of capitalism, which is ironic considering what a Marxist Eagleton is. Thinking of our own culture, there’s such a pressure to find the next new thing, to always be pumping out more and more new stuff. I think that mindset has carried over even into the humanities, which like to think of themselves as separate from all that. But thinking about my experience in the art world as an undergrad, and as a writer as well, so often it seems that it doesn’t matter whether a work of art is really “good” – whatever that means, moving, meaningful, I don’t know – but people will declare it good merely for the fact that it’s something new. I think this obsession with newness is something that’s obviously not new at all. But I do think that it’s been intensified by our consumer-centered, entertainment-driven society.

So, I suppose I’m not totally on board with the proposition that we all go out and try to come up with a new theory – not unless there is a real need for it, besides the need to have something new. That’s all I’ve got to say.