Eagleton is sassy!

I seem to recall, either in the reading or in class, something being said about how Bordieu did not ever really subscribe to any particular theory, but that he seemed to have pieces of all of them weaved into his writing. The same, I think, could be true for Eagleton, except Eagleton heralds, and rags on, post-modernism and Marxism with equal fervor. Both theories encompass the dispossessed, and yet they do not do enough. They promote change in a world where change is happening so quickly that, by the time theorists and reactionaries get their foot in the door, the door has decomposed and there are vines growing around the edges.

Eagleton's biting wit and commentary on the world at large, especially where powers are seen to take themselves too seriously, tears down the very illusion of stability and order, which is a distinctly post-modern tactic, especially when he talks about the fact that the center is constantly migrating (20). However, Eagleton refers to the idea where all things "normative" are undesirable as a "crass Romantic delusion" (13, 15). No one and nothing is sacred or safe with Eagleton, and yet his bleak (starkly realistic?) outlook is forgiven because of very Izzard-like ability to castigate eloquently.

[An addendum. There has been a misunderstanding, for which I take full responsibility. I confused the terms post-modern and post-structuralist. I meant the latter and not the former, which caused confusion. For me and others].

Did they deserve to die?

In literature, especially in times of great sexual repression, it was quite popular to end the lives of characters who were considered to be sexual deviants. Also, to express homosexual love, to be one of the Other, requires, even now, a generous amount of indirection. After reading Goldberg's depiction of the death of Christopher Marlowe, it struck me that, while I had heard how he died, several times, the fault always seemed to reside with Marlowe, his temper or something like it. Now it seems that he was killed for believing and being something other than what the popular society had dictated was appropriate. And I am sure that there were a great many people (including those who were relieved to get away with similar activity) who believed Marlowe deserved to die.

Sedgwick also mentions societal mores condemning homosexuals to being as denigrated as women, if not moreso: "the suppression of the homosexual component of human sexuality, is a product of the same system whose rules and relations oppress women...Our own society is brutally homophobic" (1686). It was this latter sentence that really caught my attention. It made me think of Matthew Shepard and Tina Brandon.

I was surprised (sort of) to read about homosexuality during World War I in the Barry. I actually read a book called Regeneration that was about Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. It was the primary read for the last theory class I took, in fact. I dropped the class before we got to Queer Theory, but I read some of their poems, and they were beautiful, and they were also about the brutality of government and war (two things that always seem to want to squelch beauty). Something in us is bred to fear and hate things that we are told are different. Sad. Keeps us from evolving. And it'll kill us in the end.

Championing the "Other"

A lot of the theories that we have read about this semester have indicated a gap in how texts are regarded, and this week is no exception. In fact, New Historicism and Postcolonial criticism seem to fill in the gaps where no other theories have been able to. I do find it interesting that the New Historicists feel the need to invent a theory that allows them to go back to the beginning and back to the basics in order to rediscover literature through historical documents as read/discovered by "non-historians" (Berry 171). Giving fresh eyes and a new perspective (with goals different from how history had previously been applied to theory), however, can allow for texts to be useful. Nevertheless, I fundamentally disagree with critics cherry-picking data from historical texts in order to prove their points. To disregard the whole of history and the potential for how literature has been created negates the whole purpose of reinventing historical theory.

In any case, I find myself more interested in Postcolonial theory. Between reading Bourdieu and my chosen book for review, Folk Women and Indirection, I have become fascinated with the idea of giving the powerless a voice. Whether that voice is opposed, beleaguered or cloaked in "sly civility" (Fulmer 28), it is important to recognize that the voice of the dominated or the "Other" is still a legitimate voice (especially since we have all been reared with a Western Mentality). For instance, Bhabha, like Yoda, asks us to "unlearn what we think we have learned" about "colonial discourse" (294). It is our job as teachers, critics and, indeed, truth seekers to transcend this Western idea that the dominated or the "Other" must be either idealized, sensualized or demonized. Both of these lenses encourage misrepresentation and, while the former is seen as positive, stereotyping: "the site of dreams, images, fantasies, myths, obsessions and requirements" (Bhabha 295).

The only true way to experience literature, without these prejudices, is to go back to texts with fresh eyes, and with a new way of discovering literature through it's non-fiction sister texts in order to fairly critique certain pieces, keeping in mind the possibility (probability?) that a lot of the available historical texts are biased.

The Snake that Eats Itself

This week's reading left me feeling raw.

The system perpetuates itself, makes itself stronger through its continuation. It reinvents itself, it's domination. Bourdieu hits on all of the major social systems and the whole time I was reading I kept thinking...uroboros: "More precisely, the struggle tends constantly to produce and reproduce the game and its stakes by reproducing the practical commitment to the value of the game and its stakes which defines the recognition of legitimacy" (58).

According to Bourdieu (and also myself), all people have the capacity for truth and freedom, and yet they do not all have the opportunity. The "philosophical salvation" is only open to those who can free themselves from the popular social language, the popular social ideas and the popular method of domination and submission, though Bourdieu admits that some predetermined social milieus are "partly beyond the grasp of consciousness and will" (89), which makes it extraordinarily difficult for the average person (or Dasein) to grab hold of the spark and run with it (especially when it is the primary goal of those who dominate to rule "by disburdening [the Dasein] of its being" (147). Once the common man believes that he cannot be the means of his own salvation, and once his trust is in those who are counting on his submission, he is lost.

Also, I'm not convinced that the people in power deserve my sympathy. Yes, they have the responsibility of behaving in a certain way (a greater amount of censorship is required, etc.), and of fulfilling certain promises, but they would not have these burdens if they weren't so stoked on stealing the souls of men and women.

There is a lot of lore surrounding the power of naming. Once something is named, its power is taken away. So, the lofty sit on their thrones, pointing crook'd fingers down into the crowd, saying, "I name thee, common man. I name thee, hysterical and embarrassing woman," and once the named own their titles, the power has shifted.

So, what is the job, then, of literary theoreticians? To unveil the lies or to help others tell them better?

Fun with Marxism: Hegemony

Something that Williams said got me thinking... The word "normal" (1277). While I know that he meant the normal way of interpreting "rule," but it made me start thinking about power being a normal thing, a natural thing. It is given and taken and, if it is truly interconnected with everything else in society, and if it is also indissoluble from the "specific activities and products of real men" (1275), then is it, then, natural?

If power and the power struggle is, indeed, natural, then what is it about humans that has us hardwired to either crave or bow to power? Is it our need to be part of a structure (and not to be banished from the polis)? It also seems that if this is true then maybe (though I hate to admit it) Jameson was right. From this standpoint, too, the other theories are more abstract than Marxism. Marxism has a firm grounding in what is knowable and calculable, even if the realm of changing idealogies takes us more into the abstract (especially when the extremes of various class systems ebb and flow).

The other question is how can we allow our class values to "override" our personal values? Yet this takes me back to last week and feminism. We allow a lot of things to override our personal values in order to belong.

Why Do You Always Write These Strong Women Characters?

Robot Chicken

When reading Barry's rendition of the feminist movement I flashed back to Tony's post all those weeks ago about everything being chicken. I think, however, that a lot of these activistic theories are more like the meat grinder. They are looking for ways to expose the current structure as a fraud, to point out that the center we have depended on since our infancy is an illusion to keep us in our place, whether that center is capitalism, patriarchal promulgations, or simply religion (and I seem to be, along with many of my classmates, a vulgar Marxist, and I don't seem to have a problem with it).

I also see in feminism a similar paradox to those of the post-structuralists: if language is male constructed, yet it must be used in order to communicate, then the domination succeeds. It has put the female sex into a bind that we cannot escape from...If language is male constructed. However, I think that this argument over language is trivial. We can only be dominated by language if we choose to be. Those male writers with their strangle hold on language can sit back in their chairs and laugh as the "fairer sex" uses their own clubs to beat them with (phallic symbolism notwithstanding).

I think that the real argument here, though, is how women are perceived by men and women, both in how they are written as characters and how they are seen by other characters (the male gaze?). It might also be wise to take an androcentric approach. How do men see themselves? And how does that sense of manliness, or lack thereof, make them react toward women?

Side note: I was in Chili's the other day having dinner with my sister. We sat at the bar because it would, otherwise, have been a twenty minute wait. This bartender (who looked like he had just cut his first tooth) came up and said, "So, what would you girls like to drink?" My first impulse was to slug him. I have no idea what his intent was in calling us girls. He may have meant it very innocently, but--to me--it was tantamount to a white man calling a black man "boy." It shows a complete and utter lack of respect, and it shows a sort of "natural" chauvinism that tends to be bred into men. When I worked for the airlines, we were always called "girls." Even the flight attendants who were older than fifty (or older than the pilots) were "girls." So, yes, semantics, but this is language that can be identified and, hopefully, avoided.

According to Barry, men and women are both slaves to sexism. So, wouldn't it benefit everyone if we just cut it out? I think that feminist theory, even as more of the kinks are worked out, is a valuable instrument to do so.