"I wish your revolt well, my friend," said Bakhtin, "but beware that you don't end up merely repeating the same old story. The state abhors only one thing in the end, and that's the sound of laughter. Violence it can understand."
Terry Eagleton, Saints and Scholars, Chapter 4
Eagleton,currently John Edward Taylor Professor of Cultural Theory at Manchester - has always looked to 'rough up the edges of the mainstream', as he calls it. Having been fashionably Marxist for much of his career, he is now unfashionably so. Approaching 65, he has spent four decades squaring up to establishments, whether religious, academic, literary or metropolitan. The Amis feud is good gossip-column fodder because both protagonists are long used to believing themselves the smartest men in the room, but it also gets somewhere near the heart of the current schism in the liberal left over the response to Islamist terrorism.
ReplyDeletePunch, your assessment is spot on. However I feel that Eagleton is more on the plus side of reason in the "gossip-column" feud because Amis goes a bit too far in his solution, even though he denies having made the suggestions...a very 21st century thing to do...denial after the fact, I mean.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, we both know that the smartest men in the room either, write this blog, or read it.
Great quote. Reminds me of an old Star Trek episode where the Klingons and Trek crew had to pretend to be laughing together to drive away some entity that fed on their hatred.
ReplyDeleteI remember that Star Trek episode. No comments on your insight because I'm more interested in your vacation.
ReplyDeleteI might say something about not being among the smartest "men" in the room, but I know J was merely using an expression and don't get my knickers in a knot about that stuff - especially since you know how I feel about uptight, militant Yankee feminists ;)
PS: The word verification is press - must be a sign that you're, like, totally legit, dude.
PE, thanks. You are right...person would have been a better choice of words. Glad you realized it was a reference to a previous comment...smart having nothing to do with gender. Word choices are sometimes a product of habit, which are hard to break with old guys such as I. I would never make such a statement...and, you are of course a reader person of this blog. :)
ReplyDelete