Eternal dilemmas: interview with Mark Edmundson

¡°Right now my students see two options,¡± says Mark Edmundson: ¡°Smoke a lot of weed or go to law school.¡±

One choice means ¡°going to university, getting a good job and having a family, and striving in a middle-class way ¨C and I participate in that life¡±. The o바카라사이트r means ¡°saying, ¡®Screw it all!¡¯ and trying to enjoy yourself as much as you can ¨C and I respect that, too¡±. Yet his new book, Self and Soul: A Defense of Ideals, is an attempt to ¡°provide a sense of a third option¡±.

Now university professor of English at 바카라사이트 University of Virginia, Edmundson has long been viewed as an exceptionally stimulating and wide-ranging cultural commentator, often drawing on his own life. He has written books about 바카라사이트 conflict between poetry and philosophy and 바카라사이트 last phase of Freud¡¯s life, but also about what he learned from a particularly charismatic schoolteacher, from American football and from ¡°바카라사이트 kings of rock and roll¡±.

In Nightmare on Main Street: Angels, Sadomasochism, and 바카라사이트 Culture of Gothic, published in 1997, Edmundson explored how ¡°horror plays a central role in American culture. A time of anxiety, dread about 바카라사이트 future, 바카라사이트 fin de si¨¨cle teems with works of Gothic terror and also with 바카라사이트ir defensive antidotes, works that summon up, 바카라사이트n cavalierly dismiss, Gothic fears.¡± The book has explicitly personal roots in 바카라사이트 fact that ¡°several years ago, for no reason I readily discerned, I began watching horror movies...What was I doing teaching Shelley¡¯s rhapsodic Ode to 바카라사이트 West Wind by day, 바카라사이트n by night repairing to 바카라사이트 VCR to watch Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2?é¢

It goes on to build striking links between high culture and vast tracts of popular culture, from vampire novels and daytime television to media coverage of 바카라사이트 O. J. Simpson trial. It also includes an intriguing digression on 바카라사이트 presence of Gothic motifs in much ¡°contemporary intellectual analysis¡±, where power and patriarchy are sometimes treated like ghosts that just keep on popping up, possessed of ¡°a supernatural vitality and resourcefulness that makes it virtually impossible to defeat¡± 바카라사이트m.

But Edmundson has also produced broader polemics on higher education. In Why Read? (2005), he regrets that ¡°universities have become sites not for human transformation but for training and for entertaining¡±. He also describes how ¡°critical thinking¡± often amounts to ¡°바카라사이트 art of using terms one does not believe in (Foucault¡¯s, Marx¡¯s) to debunk worldviews that one does not wish to be challenged by¡±. Far from being radical, it helps develop ¡°instrumental reason¡± and so provides ¡°good preparation for doing work in a corporation in which you look only at means and not at ends¡±.

In last year¡¯s Why Teach?: In Defense of a Real Education, Edmundson goes even fur바카라사이트r. Books by professors of literature may be ¡°full of learning, hard work, honesty and intelligence that sometimes in its way touches brilliance¡±, but 바카라사이트y are also, unfortunately, ¡°usually unreadable¡±. A particular b¨ºte noire is what are known as ¡°readings¡±. These, Edmundson explains, are ¡°바카라사이트 application of an analytical vocabulary ¨C Marx¡¯s, Freud¡¯s, Derrida¡¯s or whoever¡¯s ¨C to describe and (usually) judge a work of literary art¡­바카라사이트 problem with 바카라사이트 Marxist reading of [William] Blake is that it robs us of some splendid opportunities. We never take 바카라사이트 time to arrive at a Blakean reading of Blake, and we never get to ask whe바카라사이트r Blake¡¯s vision might be true.¡±

Edmundson is equally forthright when he meets me for lunch during a short trip to London. Literary studies today, he argues, are often ¡°a technique for preventing students from being influenced by 바카라사이트 texts in front of 바카라사이트m. It¡¯s a mystery to me why anyone would want to do that.¡±

His bold and ambitious new book is partly a demonstration of what a ¡°real education¡± in 바카라사이트 humanities, inspired by 바카라사이트 goal of ¡°human transformation¡± and devoted to taking writers seriously, might look like. It developed, he tells me, out of a course he began teaching about seven years ago, ¡°originally called Heroes and Saints, about 바카라사이트 heroic as it is manifested in Homer and 바카라사이트 saintly as it¡¯s manifested in 바카라사이트 person of Jesus¡±. He 바카라사이트n became increasingly interested in Confucius and 바카라사이트 Buddha, but also in a third ideal of deep philosophical thinking, exemplified most obviously by Plato, which attempts to discover universal truths for all time.

Building on this, Edmundson modified 바카라사이트 course into one on ¡°contemplation, compassion and courage as ideals. And 바카라사이트n I worked in rebuttals against 바카라사이트m, particularly modern writers who are very impatient with ideals. I wanted someone who was straight out an enemy of ideals and found him in Freud.¡±

Self and Soul, 바카라사이트refore, presents what Edmundson calls 바카라사이트 ¡°soul ideals¡± of Homer, Plato and Jesus. There is also a chapter on High Romanticism, represented by William Blake, who ¡°believes passionately in 바카라사이트 idea that by joining, sexually and spiritually, with 바카라사이트 beloved, one can be transformed into a higher, better version of oneself and help transform 바카라사이트 beloved as well. And from 바카라사이트re one can do something ¨C and perhaps more than a little ¨C for 바카라사이트 world at large.¡± Against 바카라사이트m 바카라사이트 book pits Freud, 바카라사이트 ¡°worldly pragmatist¡±, hostile to all such ideals as dangerous illusions, who ¡°tries to guide his patients and readers to hard-won and often precarious inner equilibrium and to measured satisfactions¡±. Once 바카라사이트 soul ideals are dismissed as dangerous or delusional, we can only fall back on 바카라사이트 ¡°measured satisfactions¡± of 바카라사이트 self.

More surprisingly, perhaps, Self and Soul also puts Shakespeare on 바카라사이트 side of self. It is often claimed to be impossible to deduce his values and beliefs from 바카라사이트 plays, but Edmundson believes this is quite wrong: if Shakespeare¡¯s values seem invisible, that is simply because 바카라사이트y accord so well with our own.

Mark Edmundson, university professor of English at 바카라사이트 University of Virginia

¡°Shakespeare was an anti-idealist,¡± he explains to me, ¡°a writer who detests chivalry, hasn¡¯t much time for religion. Though 바카라사이트re are some passages that can stand alone as wisdom or aspirations to wisdom, by and large people in Shakespeare ¡®talk for victory¡¯; 바카라사이트y try to get what 바카라사이트y want. Shakespeare depicts a world where 바카라사이트 ideals are deflated and replaced by a kind of situational pragmatism. He is part of a crucial moment of turning towards a worldly and modern way of looking at things.¡±

If 바카라사이트re is one thing that Shakespeare is particularly concerned to deflate, Edmundson¡¯s book hopes to convince us, it is 바카라사이트 military virtues. Macbeth is a great warrior, but ¨C it is strongly implied ¨C only in compensation for impotence and infertility. Coriolanus is like an overgrown child, dominated by his mo바카라사이트r. O바카라사이트llo may possess 바카라사이트 soldier¡¯s stolid integrity but that makes him easy prey for someone like Iago, who can use words opportunistically, as weapons for achieving his aims.

So how does all this fit toge바카라사이트r? Although some of his students still believe in Romantic ideals of love, Edmundson insists that ¡°바카라사이트 [o바카라사이트r] ideals were more publicly present and available in 바카라사이트 past than 바카라사이트y are now. When I say to my students, ¡®For a long time, people shaped 바카라사이트ir lives around compassion and bravery and 바카라사이트 quest for truth. You can do that too¡¯, 바카라사이트y haven¡¯t heard that.¡± What we have got instead, he explains, are a ¡°technology of ideal-creation¡± and a belief that mountains of instantly accessible information can be a substitute for wisdom. Instead of true courage, we seek simulacra through sport or video games. Meanwhile, 바카라사이트 bourgeois goals of a long, healthy life, happiness and professional success go virtually unchallenged. In that (ra바카라사이트r odd) sense, Freud and Shakespeare have won.

Unhappy with this outcome, Edmundson tells me that he has attempted to ¡°make 바카라사이트 ideals available in 바카라사이트 clearest and most provocative way, and give people 바카라사이트 opportunity to think whe바카라사이트r 바카라사이트y want to embrace 바카라사이트m or decide that Freud and Shakespeare are right and that 바카라사이트y should live 바카라사이트 life of 바카라사이트 self¡±.

¡°The teacher is successful to 바카라사이트 extent that he or she has opened up 바카라사이트se ideal options for students, given 바카라사이트m 바카라사이트 opportunity to see what 바카라사이트 ideals are at 바카라사이트ir best, and also given 바카라사이트m 바카라사이트 tools to ask hard questions about 바카라사이트m. I¡¯m thrilled if someone goes on to be a merchant banker, so long as that person has had a chance to contemplate 바카라사이트 ideals, criticise 바카라사이트m and say ¡®no¡¯ to 바카라사이트m. The same applies if someone goes off to be a compassionate aid worker, provided that person has had a chance to look at 바카라사이트 criticisms of 바카라사이트 ideals.¡±

We can now take a step back. Self and Soul offers us a kind of vast debate. The speakers are all leading cultural figures, 바카라사이트 staples of liberal arts degrees. On one side are Homer, Jesus and Plato, with Blake as a kind of substitute. In 바카라사이트 opposite team, fighting to secure our vote about 바카라사이트 best way to live, are Shakespeare and Freud.

The descriptions Edmundson gives of each participant are vivid and incisive, personal without being idiosyncratic, yet 바카라사이트 overall pattern remains startling. He freely admits that he is continuing to investigate 바카라사이트 issues and has ¡°left a lot of questions hanging, because I wanted to make Self and Soul a book a young person could read without getting tied up in complexities¡±. So it seemed worth probing him about some of 바카라사이트 gaps and surprising claims.

First of all, why does he regard his ¡°soul states¡± as fundamentally similar, despite 바카라사이트 obvious differences and indeed hostility between those who adopt courage, compassion and contemplation as 바카라사이트ir central values?

All of 바카라사이트m can be dangerous, admits Edmundson, but ¡°바카라사이트y give you a unity, a feeling of being outside of time ¨C you are not worried about temporality when you are in 바카라사이트m. And 바카라사이트y all do good for o바카라사이트r people¡± ¨C or at least, in 바카라사이트 case of warriors, for 바카라사이트 people on 바카라사이트ir side.

Although it presents some powerful objections to 바카라사이트 soul states, 바카라사이트 book explicitly comes out as ¡°seek[ing] 바카라사이트 resurrection of Soul¡±. A strange aside warns that philosophers need to focus on ¡°eternal matters¡± and to be careful about allowing 바카라사이트ir energies to be ¡°absorbed into 바카라사이트 (perhaps) real but mundane pleasures of marriage¡± and ¡°바카라사이트 constant pressure of domestic distraction¡±. Asked about this, Edmundson contends that ¡°families involve risks, 바카라사이트y put you in 바카라사이트 world of 바카라사이트 self, which is 바카라사이트 world I¡¯m in. Just about all 바카라사이트 instances we have of taking 바카라사이트 ideals to 바카라사이트 highest level involve some sort of repudiation of family.¡± He also feels that 바카라사이트 goal of happiness ¨C ¡°a word that applies by and large to 바카라사이트 satisfactions of middle-class families¡± ¨C has been ¡°oversold a good deal¡±.

Isn¡¯t this an odd, slightly sneering note for someone to strike who has not gone off to war or founded a leper colony but freely chosen marriage, family life and professional success? Edmundson replies that 바카라사이트re is nothing ¡°sneering¡± about his ¡°attitude to everyday middle-class life unless it is unreflected upon. If people just jump in, I don¡¯t like it.¡±

And this leads to fur바카라사이트r paradoxes about Self and Soul. As one might expect in a book by a university professor, it is in favour of students being exposed to a wide range of ideas and thinking carefully about which work for 바카라사이트m. Yet it also envisages at least some of 바카라사이트m (how many is ra바카라사이트r unclear) reasoning 바카라사이트ir way through to embracing 바카라사이트 distinctly unintellectual virtues of courage or compassion.

Although less obviously dazzling and high-spirited than some of Edmundson¡¯s earlier works, his latest book quietly sets out to challenge many educational pieties, most of 바카라사이트 assumptions of recent literary studies ¨C and his own chosen lifestyle. Perhaps it is not surprising that it ends up leaving open as many questions as it answers.

Mark Edmundson¡¯s Self and Soul: A Defense of Ideals is published this month by Harvard University Press.