Friday 23 May 2008

On Eagleton, obscurity and adult education

Reading The Plump's two posts on Terry Eagleton's characteristically odd article in the Guardian reminded me that I had meant to write something about it myself. Now I don't need to, as I think the Fat Man has said it all, and Norm has added something on the oddly oblique nature of Eagleton's discourse. What is it about these roccoco leftists (copyright Bob) that they won't say clearly what they mean?  

I'll just add a couple of things. One is that I found it a bit rich to read Eagleton's belated invocation of the name of Raymond Williams, his erstwhile teacher and mentor, whose work he callowly trashed in his early writings on literary theory. Give me Williams' socialist humanism over Eagleton's abstract theory-driven version of Marxism any day. And lastly, I recommend what The Plump has to say in his second post about adult education, and particularly about offender education.

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