Because subjects like literature and art history have no obvious material pay-off, they tend to attract those who look askance at capitalist notions of utility. The idea of doing something purely for the delight of it has always rattled the grey-bearded guardians of the state. Sheer pointlessness has always been a deeply subversive affair.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the value of literature and art for their own sake, challenging materialistic views.
Terry Eagleton highlights how literature and art, often seen as lacking practical utility, attract individuals who reject capitalist values. He suggests that engaging in artistic endeavors solely for pleasure is seen as a threat to conventional authority, where the emphasis on productivity and utility reigns. The pursuit of art for its intrinsic joy represents a rebellious stance against societal norms that equate worth with material gain.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the value of arts education.
Nations sometimes flourish by denying the crimes that brought them into being. Only when the original invasion, occupation, extermination or usurpation has been safely thrust into the political unconscious can sovereignty feel secure.
One side-effect of the so-called war on terror has been a crisis of liberalism. This is not only a question of alarmingly illiberal legislation, but a more general problem of how the liberal state deals with its anti-liberal enemies.
All communication involves faith; indeed, some linguisticians hold that the potential obstacles to acts of verbal understanding are so many and diverse that it is a minor miracle that they take place at all.
The New Testament is a brutal destroyer of human illusions. If you follow Jesus and don't end up dead, it appears you have some explaining to do. The stark signifier of the human condition is one who spoke up for love and justice and was done to death for his pains. The traumatic truth of human history is a mutilated body.
Capitalism will behave antisocially if it is profitable for it to do so, and that can now mean human devastation on an unimaginable scale. What used to be apocalyptic fantasy is today no more than sober realism.
Poetry is the most subtle of the literary arts, and students grow more ingenious by the year at avoiding it. If they can nip around Milton, duck under Blake and collapse gratefully into the arms of Jane Austen, a lot of them will.
When you have a few cake formulas and filling ideas in your repertoire, you will find that it's pretty much an assembly job - you can mix and match a different way every time.
I am always trying to 'preserve' things by getting other people to read what I have written, and feel what I felt.
Between parts I was too old for and roles that were too overwhelming, out of reach then for my voice. I carved out a niche with the Wagnerian repertoire since I am attracted by its theatrical intensity.
Art is the daughter of freedom.
Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.
The best music, you can seek some shelter in it momentarily, but it's essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.
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