In After Theory he expanded: "There is a potentially tragic conflict here between the means and the end. If we have to act instrumentally in order to create a less means-ends-obsessed form of life, then we have to live in a way which by our own admission is less than desirable. At the worst, it may mean that some people tragically, may feel the need to sacrifice their own happiness for others. To call this tragic means that such sacrifice is not the most desirable way to live. Morality is about fulfilling the self, not abnegating it. It is just that for some people, abnegating it may be historically necessary for bringing that desirable form of life about. There are, tragically, situations in which the self can be fulfilled only by being relinquished. If history were not as dire as it has been, this would not be necessary. In a just world, our condition would not need to be broken in order to be re-made".
Columnist with The Independant, Paul Vallely, summed up Eagleton's life and works non-sycophantically in a piece in 2007, which included these excerpts:
Eagleton's central concern was that scarcely one British poet or novelist was willing to look beyond their fear of Islam to scrutinise the pressures which generate the hatred, anxiety, insecurity and sense of humiliation that breed religious fundamentalism. Global capitalism, he insists, requires a moral critique...
...At the heart of his philosophy is an attack on postmodernism, which he has described as "a sick joke". The cynicism and irony of postmodern thinking, he says, do not reveal the truth. Its lack of absolute values, and relativist notion that all ideas are of equal value, is a moral abdication. More than that, it is reactionary, because while it purports to embrace a nihilist neutrality, it endorses a capitalist status quo that oppresses the poor...
...But it is also because, he insists, Marxism offers the blueprint for a moral society. The failure of the Soviet Union discredits Marxism only to the extent that the Inquisition invalidates Christianity, he says. He is adamant, with the young Marx, that "philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it". The overthrow of capitalism has its counterpart in the religious concept of redemption: the world is so deeply flawed that only a complete transformation can cure it.
For Eagleton politics, religion and literature teach the same lesson. He quotes one of Paul's letters to the Corinthians, "God chose what is weakest in the world to shame the strong", to show that morality begins with a recognition of one's weakness and mortality.
One of his most recent books, The Meaning of Life, argues rigorously for a sense of purpose grounded in happiness and fulfilment, both individually and collectively. Happiness, he writes, "springs from the free flourishing of one's powers and capacities". And love, he concludes, is "the state in which the flourishing of one individual comes about through the flourishing of all".
It is not where you might have expected this great exponent of Marxism to have ended up, aged 64. It is some distance from the Dave Spart caricature offered by Amis's friends. At least, says Eagleton with a twinkle, he has avoided the usual fate of the militant leftist who has matured with age into a sceptical liberal or jaded conservative. "Sheer horror of cliché, if nothing else", he says, has preserved him from that.
The full article is at:
Terry Eagleton: Class warrior - Profiles, People - The Independent
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