Editorial

 
There is a view out there that studying the Humanities is necessary to the betterment of human societies at large: something about the values of western civilisation and scholastic traditions deserving more attention. This is true but surely they will get the attention, if not 'deservedly' then 'naturally', when what things mean are more evident to all, not just the academies. People need time if they are to read, never mind, to delve. 'Time' of which not a lot is left after fulfilling the necessary externally generated sets of obligations both at work and at leisure. After all, is this not the fundamental point mostly missed in the confusions about Karl Marx: to uplift humanity, first individually - despite himself - intellectually!

So hurray to Terry Eagleton for being clear, fun and prolific. He would imagine a dialogue in the quadrangle of faith between Marx and Christ and neither would be interested at all in talking about sex. Eagleton is what cricket calls an 'all-rounder'; someone who is in the team because he can hold his own with both bat and ball but because he is not necessarily the 'best' in either, the all-rounder can also be the weak link.

In literature this is not a problem because the discipline now commands over a whole host of 'issue' driven, topical, sub-disciplines sprouting, like vegetables O/D'ing on artificial fertilisers, under a problematic banner called 'Culture'. This has given rise to another sub-grouping who opposes this tendency called 'materialists' whose main task has become inverting the critiques from literary works to a general attack against Culture, ironically, in defense of those very works about which they themselves no longer talk about. In short, neither side has time for poetry anymore. Eagleton operates in that intellectual comfort zone better than anyone, writing, speaking and generally enjoying himself as his fame grows. Believing in the longevity of traditions as he does, his ideas, such as those of Roger Scruton also, are instructive nonetheless.

It is for the mind - to fill it with something - as one proceeds, if only to measure its needs, work out a place where its two sides, the pragmatic and the mystical, might meet. Aesthetics doesn't have to be such a high brow thing. The word essentially means feeling. Now, just what exactly is 'feeling'? If instrumental reasoning is all it does, humanity advances just by going along to a Boz Scaggs concert at a beautiful venue. Look out for the fourth number, 'It all went down the drain'. As the reader may know, its video was featured in the last issue but it is featured again: just three 'clicks' on the top or bottom right hand arrow.