Strip it of its fawney-wisdom, and this is very banal stuff indeed. Doesn’t this man have anything worthwhile to say? I suppose that once a man’s mind is addled with Marxism and Literary Theory, things begin to seem the more profound and exciting and real the further they are from profundity and excitement and reality.The future is already potentially present in the shape of the blind spots and contradictions of the present--in its silences and exclusions, its conflicts and fragmentations.
.....We must strike a balance between saying too much and saying too little, between the future as a mere projection of the present and as a cryptic silence. If there is simply an abyss between the present and the future, then we cannot logically speak of how the future takes shape in the present.
.....In response to another of Prof. Eagleton’s scribbled messes (The Guardian, 25th May 2005) last week, I coined a word and posted it on the comments board at The Daily Ablution:
Eagleton-eyed, adj. Pertaining to the inability to see or observe except with exceptional obtuseness; pertaining to the ability to perceive at a great distance from reality anything that might appear clever or be expedient to one's cause; pertaining to a perversity of and pretension to insight.
