Terry Eagleton’s After Theory examines the academic generation after the ‘golden age’ of cultural theory in the mid 20th century. By referring to the golden age, Eagleton is implying that the height of cultural theory has been and gone, and he mourns the missed opportunity for any exciting or significant contributions to the theoretical world since. But After Theory is not about being nostalgic, but rather it is futuristic in its outlook – provoking the reader to focus on the unsustainable present world and its failings, which still has potential, so long as we react now.
Like the Enlightenment, the golden age has transformed the way we see the world, ‘there is no going back’.[1] Yet the current generation are ignorant to what cultural theory really is, content to accept society as it is, complaining passively rather than taking the time to actively question and change. We are more interested in reading about Kate Middleton’s wedding dress, or the latest football scores than understanding EU policy changes or political Marxist theories. How many of us, dipoloma architecture students, were actually familiar with the theorists that EagIeton refers to in his opening paragraph before reading the text?
Eagleton questions education as a product impossible to define quantitively, and increasingly lacking rigorous judgement of the critique. There is an inherent short-sighted selfishness in the greed that Capitalism survives on, whereby we don’t look further than our immediate surroundings, and “it is suited to those in power that we should be able to imagine no alternative present.”[2] Life and theory have become intertwined in a distorted way - ‘The fashionable topic is the erotic body, not the famished one”.[3] Dubai survives on ex-pats coming to work and “forgetting” (or ignoring) the slavery, which is constructing the buildings they design, live, and work in. For it is Capitalist Corporate firms that have designed the most prominent buildings in Dubai’s skyline.
But this is the platinum credit card age. Capitalism runs to the core of the education system. By charging money for education, many of the most respected educational institutions, including The AA, The Ivy Leagues, and now the state-funded British Universities, run according to Capitalism. Capitalism creates it’s own kind of elitism, eliminating the human right for education - is it really a surprise that the dramatic increase in fees saw a 17% drop in Architecture (a 5 year degree without secure job prospects) applicants.[4] Higher Education is not just about buying knowledge, anyone can sit in on lectures, or have a library membership, but it is also in part about buying an affiliation with a university.[5]
The title of the opening chapter The Politics of Amnesia alludes to the fact that we have forgotten the bigger picture, a similar idea to the Badiou movie scenario. As discussed in the Badiou entry, often those in power use jargon as it is in their interest that we, as the civilians, don’t question. It is clear that many politicians hate dealing with the very constituents that put them in power, making politics an advertising game of charisma, gimmicks, graphics, and slogans, with the televised election debates, under the pretence of being there to make politics more popular, in fact made a further mockery of this marketing game. The press were more interested on the race between two brothers than the political ideologies of the Milibands. The reality is that constituents are more addicted to X Factor than Prime-Ministers Question Time. It is astonishing that people will pay to have a say on who lives in the Big Brother House, yet not bother to vote in the political elections which directly affect them, once again relating back to Badiou’s movie scenario.[6]
Politicians are so disillusioned with reality that they wonder why students would rather protest than vote, and were shocked by the summer riots.[7] Needless to say what did the protest actually achieve, other than the arrest of some of societies most educated? The government, and non-students, ignore the protests in their very own country, yet are quick to support The Arab Spring or the freeing of Ai Weiwei. “Other people’s revolutions are always more eye-catching than one’s own”[8]
In fact Eagleton only misses the “old fashioned bourgeouis values” as they were transparent. Capitalism is conceited and pretends to be open to everyone, when in fact that is not really the case. Ignorance is bliss, until it hits you back in the face, and short-sightedness has convinced us that capitalism has rid society of the class system. In fact we are still obsessed with status, only now it is money that determines class, the difference is that the class system now extends globally. Capitalism is the International Class System, thriving on the sweatshops of the poor. “Marxism did not assume that ‘Third World’ meant good and ‘First World’ bad”, but we do.[9] Governments give aid packages to poorer countries as a disguise to buy allegiance, and Western gap-year programs make a living from middle-class children paying to lay a few bricks in an ex-colonial country for the good of their CV. Ex-pats create communities abroad bringing Starbucks and McDonalds with them. Nor are exploitation and slavery dead. Dubai uses slave labour to build the Pyramids of tomorrow, suppressing the majority so that the privileged few can boast their power and wealth. Similarly, as Badiou suggested, bankers use technical jargon so that only the educated economists can understand how they are gambling with our money. Capitalism thrives on the fact that there are always losers, but cause and effect teaches us that this is not sustainable. Previously, like the ex-pats we mock in Dubai, we chose to ignore the losers. But ‘capitalism is an impeccably inclusive creed: it really doesn’t care who it exploits’, and now we are now the losers.[10]
Over referencing leads to stale, mediocre, and repetitive ideas, and the monotonous skyscrapers and pastiche architecture in the global cities of the 21st century show this in physical form. One begins to understand that Vegas, by staking the odds, and allowing anyone to play, is actually a rebellion of Capitalism. It is taking the piss with its endless money-losing games, and society content with working its way up from food to drinks. Hickey, in his comparison of criting art to the slot machines, was alluding to the same conclusion – that the majority just copy one another and do not really think. The lack of good architecture and theory is already haunting us. Eagleton is warning us to be more ambitious in our thoughts in order to make sense of what is going on around us, to develop rather than go back.
The problem of not thinking in fact goes back to the core of our education system, which has become a memory test - a student can gain a decent GCSE grades just by regurgitating information. Theory can only take us somewhere if we are passionate about thinking, using and understanding the fundamental theories of the golden age rather than preoccupying ourselves with the race for the largest bibliography.
The digital age could be the saviour of cultural theory, but only if we realise how and react on it. It has already paid part in the Arab Spring after all. The blog promotes freedom of speech, and is an addictive expression of ideas. The instant nature of blogging and commenting can potentially allow for a new kind of development and collaboration of minds. Blogging is like Vegas – you as the blogger make the rules.
[5] Noone will forget the film Good Will Hunting where Matt Damon’s character claims to learn more for free from the library than the Harvard students spending $40,000 a year.
[6] There is also irony in the fact that viewers enjoy playing Big Brother through their t.v. screens, forgetting about the CCTV society we live in.
[7] Students were largely disgrunteled that they voted for the Liberal Democrats due to a policy about not raising tuition fees, yet once in power they compromised on the policy. Equally, it is a failing of society that the summer riots occurred.
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