42b
IHAB HASSAN
2
Alphabetic
C
ounterstatement:
all, and, change, evolution, imagination, in, is, is, organ, teleological,
the, the
3
To address the New Cultural Conservatism is to ask: do we have
some adequate theory of change? None since Marx, I think , and his no
longer serves. Freud and. some inspired Freudian symbolists, discovering
new relations between the visible and invisible, did try. The Existen–
tialists, recovering the metaphysics of spontaneity, also tried. Still, no
adequate theory.
Structuralism, Phenomeno,logy, the New Linguistics, develop theories
of deep forms, and tend to attract ascetic thinkers, disdainful of change.
In
their work, we move .3,mong crystals, mirrors and crystals. Yet a theory
of dee? forms may also make the idea of change itself obsolete - Plato's
dream. The way out may be down through language and out again.
There is a pJ,int, perhaps, where physics, biology and semiotics may some
day meet. A gamma or galaxy, breath or death, signs dancing in the
mind or symbo!s spinning light, may possess some common ordinance.
Or is there some new theory of change in the. dreams of our ma–
chines, the myths of our media, the images of our -science fantasies? Is
there some hint or hope
of
a theory in the assertion of Buckminster Ful–
ler that man has a special role in the universe? A "revolution of inad–
vertencies," Fuller argues, has compelled human ity to realize its anti–
entropic function. "This means things are going to move fast"; so ends
Utopia or Oblivion.
If
Fuller does not satisfy our intuitions about all that a theory
shollld comprehend, the cri(cs and curators, the politicians of our cul–
ture satisfy us far less.
N.B.
A theory of change may begin as prophecy but can never suf–
fice merely as apocalypse. Change is surprise; and Daniel Bell is right:
"the function of prediction is not, as often stated, to aid social control,
but to widen the spheres of moral choice." Make it also: of imaginative
choice.
4
In
times such as ours, the vantage point of Criticism cannot be
Syllogism or System: Marxism, Freudianism, Existentialism, Structur–
alism. .. •
The vantage po.int must be:
INVENTION.
The culture of criticism can be, at the same time, lumpish and nasty.
How can this be changed? Not simply, not formally, by persuading
critics to write poetic fiction rather than prose essays, to choose between
"letters." The choice is between the presence of the "spirit" and its
absence. But the culture of criticism rewards habit, repetition. We all
spend part of our day in a dead letter office.
Where, then, shall we learn invention or generosity?
