Thanks to Sam for this link to this Terry Eagleton interview by Laurie Taylor in the New Humanist. Pretty sure I have this original link to Eagleton’s review of The God Delusion, but just in case.
Great interview anyway. Several points to pick-up on …
the inevitability of progress
Eagleton referring to Dawkins beliefs. The idea that evolution inevitably moves toward greater good – almost a definition of evolution for the Dawkins-style Darwinist. Given that Dawkins coined the selfish-gene / meme idea, that is brutally ignorant of humans. Meme’s can be very bad for our own good. OK so humans are not the be-all and end-all of progress, by any measure, but can we already simply be redundant hosts ? I think not.
his own contradictions are worn with pride as symbols of ineffable profundity
PZ Myers quote about Eagleton. If we could just unpick that pejorative “worn with pride” phrasing, I would have to identify with that myself. Contradiction is a matter of perspective, the profundity is only ineffable if you are static in your viewpoint.
(Also some good stuff on being dismissive of PoMo’s and PoPoMo’s – Foucault, Derrida, Lacan … wonder where he joins up with Zizek and Sloterdijk ? Also some good stuff on a certain – non-blind-faith – kind of certainty. Fits my reading of Harris.)
[Post Note – interesting blog from William Crawley – which also inlcudes a link to this Salon review by Andrew O’Hehir.]
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