On Evil & The Event of Literature

Last Books Read:  

On Evil - Terry Eagleton
The Event of Literature - Terry Eagleton

I:
In On Evil Eagleton examines the nature of evil  in an attempt to give it a precise definition.  He explores the area where literature, philosophy, religion, and political history meet.  This work attempts to undo the circular reasoning that leads to the popular notion that people do evil things because they are evil.  What then does the person have to do with their own actions?  Evil is either of full description of which nothing more can be said, or it is unexplainable.  Eagleton tries to navigate between these extremes.  He attempts to define it in terms of the drive to annihilate.  The desire for pure, infinite freedom requires that nothing exists, that is the lack of anything which can get in the way of the conscious drive.  Here, in his typical fashion, Eagleton links this drive with the middle class desire for freedom and the unquenchable thirst of capitalism.  The technological progression of human history has evolved to the point where more is always desirable and attainable.  This blind drive can have negative and destructive consequences left unchecked.  In its overly ambitious process evil destroys meaning. For the nihilist, annhilation is the only way to get out of the limitations of creation - to transcend, to escape.  Following Kierkegaard, Eagleton notes the "dreadful emptiness and contentlessness of evil." It is purity, and in its totality is empty and begins to come full circle with chaos.  He presents evil as all form with no substance, although this does not apply to evil alone.  It shares these qualities with music and mathematics among other things.  It is this contentlessness that I find in my least favorite things - sports and idle chat - things which present a useless form of existence.  What differentiates formal structures from evil is indeed their usefulness, which mathematics and music possess.  They provide the foundation for content which provides meaning.  It is meaning, Eagleton argues, that solidifies into something.  In the absence of meaning, evil has "no practical purpose.  Evil is supremely pointless...[it] rejects the logic of causality" (84).  Here he compares it to a game, it is purposeful action without an ultimate purpose.  This characterization as well requires careful consideration.  Life itself for the existentialists and the extra-existential absurdists could fit into this definition.  It is absurd because of the disparity between the serious weight given to actions and the ultimate arbitrariness of those actions.  Similarly, as Eagleton argues in The Event of Literature (see below), literature contains an internal logic that makes sense within the internal structure, but is baseless in an external frame of reference.  Once again, these examples rely on the construction of meaning.  Despite the unlikely possibility of a lasting necessity, life and literature make an attempt to sustain meaning.  And meaning is something. Even in the worst case in which it is all that remains, its existence defies nihilism and evil in its project. The lack of "inner depth" is what keeps the nihilist from finding true annihilation, they must remain to counter creation, but they can find no place within it.  "Evil, like religious fundamentalism is . . . a nostalgia for an older, simpler civilization, in which there were certitudes like damnation and salvation, and you knew where you stood" (119).  It is the attempt to synthesize pure order without all the messiness of life, and the ambiguities and fuzzy logic of the world which make things complicated. Eagleton concludes by applying this to modern day ideological conflict and the disillusionment of  "[t]hose who expect too much of human nature, socialists, libertarians and the like" (148).  Conservatives by contrast have much lower expectations and prioritize the sin and not redemption, while liberals over-prioritize the redemption.  Here Eagleton has thrown the generally accepted contrast between socialists and libertarians into question.  In his view, socialism "proved least possible where it is most urgent.  And this is certainly one of the major tragedies of that epoch" (150). In the current era, where terrorism becomes the defining form of blind, mindless evil,  Eagleton points out that the recognition of evil as purposeless in opposition to the reality of "wickedness" (those harmful actions that are performed for a determined goal) is an important factor in ultimately overcoming evil.

II:
In his most recent work, The Event of Literature, Eagleton argues for a complex view of literary theory . In contrast to the emptiness of evil, literature is an immensely deep creation of meaning- of worlds in themselves. This is a dense work, of which much could be said.  However, in an effort to be brief, Eagleton defines literature as a "work" that exhibits these properties: It exists in a moral perspective, that is examines  morality,.  It is non-pragmatic - it contains features that elevate it beyond any pragmatic function it might have (such as poetic language). It is mobile and dislocated -not linked precisely to its point of origin. It invites interpretation, provides connotations, and exists with a double nature - it works on multiple levels.  It contains its own internal logic which does not necessarily correspond to external reality, but is coherent.  It is a language game, it contains only what its language allows.  It involves attempts at questions and answers.  Finally, it can be viewed as an event more than a work.  It is an attempt at "strategy," a problem-solving device,  "[t]he literary work is a a solution to to the question which is itself . . . it establishes a relation to reality by establishing a relation to itself (223). Furthermore, "[t]he literary work can be seen as objectifying unconscious fantasies, converting this shapeless, sublimely terrifying stuff into tangible images" (220). Eagleton ties together the aesthetic, political, philosophical/moral and psychological threads to sum up that "[t]he work of art is an example of human praxis, and therefore how to live well" (224).  Literature is our attempt to record the infinite amount of possible experiences and attempt to make sense of existence and its myriad of perceived meanings.

The World's Gone Mad: 7/29/13

I: Melting Ice

I don't normally want to spend time discussing the weather, but reactions lately are beginning to drive me nuts.  Even though global warming is having an effect on things like, oh, the North Pole melting, it apparently won't be a problem for most people as everyone has seemed to have already adjusted judging by all the complaining.  Since when did 60 degrees become cold?  Particularly in Minnesota.  Minnesotans have now become some kind of Californian wimps (although the temperatures are milder there).  Even Paul Douglas, who is usually quite level headed about the weather has joined in.  Although he predicted a cooler summer and has noted the extended one last year, he quips about Minnesota's two-week summer and claims that he can't recall when St Cloud last saw a low of 43 in July.  Well, I can tell you Mr Weather Expert - it was July 19th, 2009.  In fact, 2007, 2008, and 2009 all saw lows in the 40s during July and August 2009 saw a low of 40 degrees.  Apparently the hot summers of the last three years have melted everyone's short memories.  A two-week Summer?  We saw 98 degrees on May 14th, and although the end of May and the beginning of June were nice (cool), we have had five weeks of summer weather after that, with much more to come. Given that 2012 saw 78 degrees on March 17th through 96 degrees in September, I don't think we are in danger of short summers.  With all of the floods, droughts, heat waves and cool downs going on, I am now officially proclaiming my rejection of the term "global warming."  From now on I will use the more accurate term "climate amplification."

II: Melting Brains

Speaking of confused and damaged thinking, my hope for a conservative reaction against NSA domestic spying has been brought back to reality.  First there was last week's vote in which Republicans brought down the amendment to end the domestic program.  Although Obama is the one bringing about a "socialist dictatorship", when the Republicans are quite clearly shown to be the ones backing such activities there is silence from the right.   Now, the local Village Idiot, as leading conservative speaker for the area claimed that since Michele Bachmann supports the NSA program and is a "credible source," then it must be fine.  The brainwashing, idol-worshiping basis of conservativism is apparent.  Anything, no matter what it is, is a godless, communist, socialist, anti-christian, death-camp inducing, society-is-going-to-end plot if a liberal does it.  But when done by a conservative, it is simply great.  Perhaps the greatest thing since the coming of the all-American hero and savior George Zimmerman.  So much for the libertarian-talking right wing actually supporting individual rights.

Lie (Autonomy vs Authenticity)

In the recent Supreme Court ruling on US v Xavier Alvarez  Judge Kozinski discusses the reasons for lying and makes some interesting claims relating lying to society and its freedoms:

An important aspect of personal autonomy is the right to shape one’s public and private persona by choosing when to tell the truth about oneself, when to conceal and when to deceive.

Political and self expression lie at the very heart of the First Amendment. If the First Amendment is to mean anything at all, it must mean that people are free to speak about themselves and their country as they see fit without the heavy hand of government to keep them on the straight and narrow.

The courts promotion of personal freedom and restriction of government interference is certainly to be applauded, but the ruling does raise questions regarding ethics and identity.  Moral thought throughout history would probably have disagreed with the court.  Kant would have upheld that lying was wrong even when it was for a social good or for an avoidance of evil.  In the twentieth-century, the Existentialists were concerned about lying as the basis of bad faith.  Authenticity in life was a moral requirement.  But now, through the periods of late modernism/post-modernism, personal autonomy has been elevated to a chief moral concern.  I wonder if the pantheon of Existentialists would revise there positions now, as personal autonomy was a prime concern of theirs and we now live in a world that they helped create.  It would seem that the evolution of moral thought might now regard personal autonomy as inextricably linked to authenticity.  If we must make ourselves, then an element of that creation is determining how that existence is viewed and regarded (many of the courts examples can be reduced down to an avoidance of judgement).  But, "Hell is other people" as Sartre claimed.  Perhaps he would now say that the self-created individual must be judged on a fundamental basis of who they are, not how they can be perceived.  The highest level of autonomy, he might claim, comes from the individual one becomes in its undistorted reality, not the one that is carefully advertised to affect a pre-determined response.  In the post-modern world customization and personalization have become elevated because of their availability, everything from a personal music playlist to extensive body modification.  It is also the world of the spectacle where everything resides on the surface and is therefore subjected to spin.  The court-affirmed position of deception as a valid method of self-creation becomes a another tool in self-creation.