Just listened to a great podcast on the negative influence of Cultural Theory as taught in Universities today. Philip Bell argues that Cultural Theory sort of skims the surface of topics it touches like Science, Psychology and Philosophy and is therefore unable to see that many of it’s arguments are unfounded and even out of date. Like a student dozing off mid-lecture.
It’s not an original point of view, Eagleton has been damning the relativists for over thirty years which make me wonder why Bell is publishing a book on this only now. But it’s an age-old question: Is the jack of all trades truly master of none?
But Bell does have a point. Some of the Cultural Theorists are so bloody hard to read and understand, it’s almost as if they’ve lost touch with reality. I’ve spent hours trying to get my head around people like Derrida and Barthes and my conclusion is thus: If you can’t explain your point of view clearly, then it is, quite simply, a load of tosh.
Interesting stuff.
