Notes on Session Three

There is something in Terry Eagleton's tone, something of the hectoring parent, that is likely to put us off. Nobody likes being told off, especially when we don't know what we've done wrong. Hence, what can easily be found amusing in Eagleton (because he is quite funny) can easily become annoying. So perhaps it's best to think of this text as a hump we have to get over, so that we can get to the meat of what he's actually referring to (see post below). Perhaps what Eagleton has to say is encapsulated not in the first fifty pages, but in the first fifty words.
So what are we missing out on in general, what is this theory we have come after? Perhaps in essence it is our fascination with identities rather than issues and truths. It is hard not to enjoy Grayson Perry, but he represents precisely that fascination with individual identity compatible with the western democracies as they stand today. Bismarck once said that laws are like sausages, sometimes it's better not to know how they are made. We stand, by comparison, amazingly compliant, transfixed by sausages.
We might be circumspect about all this; that a conspiracy is dissuading us on purpose (this is the argument against neoliberalism) however consider these two events:
In the session I told the story of my niece, studying Event Management in Bournemouth; this weekend, at a family party in the Holiday Inn Stevenage to be exact; that she enjoyed going out three times a week and had never seen a book list (perhaps they don't need one). When pressed, she ran off and hid in the toilet. The next day we rang up to see if she was OK, and her mum said she was fine and 'didn't give a shit'. It's funny, such synchronicity with our subject.
And another, yesterday I was discussing architecture and fashion with a dissertation student, a contemporary subject in trendy architectural circles. I showed her a picture of Chartres cathedral; 'that's not fashion' I said; so as to contextualise our discussion. She could only think of architecture as fashion given the digital revolution, whilst it was pertinent to remember the first industrial revolution was predicated on the cotton industry. her job was to understand how we got to consider architecture as fashion.