Terry Eagleton is interviewed by the Culture Editor of the New Statesman. Asked about his very public spat with Martin Amis two years ago, Eagleton replies:
I’m interested in the way a whole stratum of the liberal literati (Rushdie, to some extent Ian McEwan, A C Grayling, obviously Amis and Hitchens) – the very people you’d have expected to be guardians of the liberal flame of tolerance and understanding – have, at the very first assault, rushed into these caricatured postures driven by panic. I’m very struck by how those who are making ugly, illiberal, supremacist noises about the superiority of the west are precisely the sort of literary and liberal characters from whom you’d expect more imagination, openness and sensitivity.
Norm defeathers and skins that turkey most elegantly:
Coming from a longtime Marxist this is, if I may so put it, somewhat lacking in dialectical subtlety. What these figures are ‘making noises’ about is not the superiority of the West, but the superiority of liberal values and institutions. That being the case, there is nothing whatsoever illiberal about their not being tolerant or sensitive towards the assault on liberal values currently carried in, amongst other things, the fanaticism of belief, the violence against persons and the oppression of (including violence against) women that Eagleton would appear to want them to be more ‘open’ about.
4 Comments
No one’s saying the west is superior, and if they are …how superior is that ?
Abu Ferris if you really don’t want me in the debate i’ll do exactly what you asked. Having spent time cleaning the pool, I don’t want to do it again. And there was me, thinking we might almost be friends. You sound like you need some water fast. Can this be a friendly ‘debate’ or what ?
Sorry about so many questions, what we need are cool clear solutions, and answers. psst…used to be an angry young man meself once; a very long time ago.
J
I’m not sure why you are writing to me, about what and on what thread; but it seems odd to post it here.
Incidentally, I am neither young nor angry; rather middle-aged and deeply depressed by a lot of people’s views.
Eagleton also makes this observation of Christopher Hitchens:
Hitchens is no more “Islamophobic” than he is phobic of any other world religion. He has a few choice things to say about Hindu and Buddhist extremist tendencies as well in his book ‘God is Not Great’. Shouldn’t Eagleton be calling him Hinduphobic and Buddhophobic as well?
It shows the kind of selective reactionary Eagleton is by his choice of highlighting Hitchens’ criticism of Islam only. Eagleton knows his kind of type “liberal” demagoguery would win no support had he chosen to complain about Hitchens’ criticism of the 7th Day Adventists or the Evangelical far-right of the US.
” Should it be right to call him Hinduphobic or Buddhophobic as well?”
That’s the kind of thing C Hitchens would probably find embarrassingly easy to lance off Eagleton’s argument in a debate. Mr E is has chosen not to debate Mr H because it would be “bloodsport”. He has chosen wisely.