Across the Pond by Terry Eagleton Read Free Book Online

suspect. It was a form of manipulative speech typical of the ruling powers of the Old World, and thus out of place in a genuine democracy. Even so, a nineteenth-­century American writer praised “the chaste and classical beauty” of the nation’s finest legal scholarship. The lawyer, wrote another commentator of the time, will exhibit “that combination of intellectual power, brilliant but chaste images, pure language, calm self-possession, graceful and modest bearing, indicative of a spirit chastened, enriched, and adorned” by a study of classical civilisation. It is a far cry from Judge Judy.
    Henry James thought that America lacked mystery and secrecy, that its landscapes were all foreground, but found just such an air of enigma in Europe. This was not, he considered, by any means wholly to its credit. Civilisations which prize the mannered, devious, playful and oblique generally have aristocratic roots, since it is hard to be mannered, devious and playful while you are drilling a coal seam or dry-cleaning a jacket. And aristocratic social orders, as James was to discover, can be full of suavely concealed brutality. A dash of American directness would do them no harm at all. A culture of irony requires a certain degree of leisure. You need to be privileged enough not to have any pressing need for the plain truth. Facts can be left to factory owners.
    Even so, there are times when irony is the only weapon one has at hand. Take, for example, those freakish right-wing Christians in the States who brandish banners reading “God Hates Fags” and gather to rejoice at the funerals of servicemen and women killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Such people relish nothing more than for some passing liberal to engage them in indignant debate, denouncing their bigotry and homophobia. To do so is surely a grave mistake. Instead, one should ask them why they are such a bunch of liberal wimps. Why are they waving their banners when they could be acting as the Lord’s avenging arm by wiping his enemies from the face of the earth? Why don’t they actually do something for a change, have the courage of their convictions, rather than standing spinelessly around? Why are they such a gutless bunch of whingers?
    One of the classic forms of American humour is the gag, which marks its distance from the seriousness of everyday life rather as wearing a baseball cap marks the fact that the American male is on vacation. Wearing a baseball cap signals “I Am Enjoying Myself” even when you are not, rather as a bishop’s mitre signals “I Am Holy” even when he is indulging in indecent fantasies beneath it. Humour in this view represents a holiday from reality, rather than a consistent stance towards it. Nobody is likely to mistake it for the real world. Most gags do not force you to reassess your relationship to reality.
    For a certain kind of English patrician, by contrast, irony is less a figure of speech than a way of life. As a highly Europeanised American observes in Henry James’s The Europeans, “I don’t think it’s what one does or doesn’t do that promotes enjoyment. . . . It is the general way of looking at life.” The gentleman’s amused, ironic outlook on human existence is a way of engaging with the world while also keeping it languidly at arm’s length. It suggests an awareness of different possibilities, one beyond the reach of those who must immerse themselves in the actual in order to survive. The aristocrat can savour a variety of viewpoints because none of them is likely to undermine his own. This is because he has no viewpoint of his own. Opinions are for the plebs. It is not done to be passionate about things. To have a point of view is to be as uncouth and one-sided as a militant trade unionist. It would be a threat to one’s sang froid , and thus to one’s sovereignty. To find the cosmos mildly entertaining has always been a sign of power in Britain. It is the political reality behind Oxford and Cambridge