What is true now vs what was true in the past? He seems to be holding an argument about truth and the idea that something cannot be truth and can be at the same time. That is one of the ideas I got from Eagletons writing. His ideas jump all over the place so it is difficult to grasp one topic and follow it through.
Eagleton seems to have two main aims in After Theory to 1) sketch a history of cultural theory and its evolution from the 1960s to the 1990s where he tries to highlight what he thinks were its achievements and defects and 2) uses the Bible and Das Kapital to construct an alternative kind of theory which addresses the important issues that he believes are ignored by recent cultural theorists. These are things like truth, objectivity, morality, revolution, and fundamentalism.
It was a difficult article to read because he seems all over the place and so I barely made it through the first 50 pages. I’ve got lots of thoughts or topics flying round my head but no main theme for his writing really.
I can grasp his breakdown of the history of cultural theory in the 20th century and his ideas of what worked and what failed. Then in some way I can see he is trying to explain his idea for cultural theory coming into the new century.
I can understand his take on Marxism and how he explains the breakdown of class, ideology, and power but these ideas are difficult to pick out in the multitude of other ideas which are competing for attention. Post-modernism, Marxism, Post-structualism and lots of other concepts used by Eagleton and in some cases he has made his point clear so the book has a unique viewpoint and an introduction to lots of ideas, personally I’d prefer less ideas and more explanation as rather than introduce me to many topics he has confused me on many topics!
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