Disillusionment and re-enchantment : ethics, criticism and critical literacy teaching after post-structuralism

Simplified forms of post-structuralism have recently been applied to the teaching of English in secondary schools in order to sanction multiple interpretations of a wider variety of texts, free students from slavishly adopting the evaluations of authorities, and encourage them to enjoy the interplay of contradictory and complementary readings. When linked to the purposes of political forms of criticism, this model of English is known as critical social literacy. However, in my view difficulties in the epistemological and ethical underpinnings of this post-structuralist literacy are often overlooked, rendering its political agenda less effective. To the extent that post-structuralism questions the referentiality of language and the agency of discursively determined subjects, it undermines the construction of morally autonomous persons. Furthermore, the vulgar relativism entailed by a naive promotion of cultural pluralism hinders the resolution of destructive conflicts of interest. A deeper problem arises if post-structuralism is seen as a nihilistic philosophy, denying the possibility of moral principles and valorising only the will-to-power. When this notion is combined with the world-view of popular scientific materialism - that of a hostile universe formed by random processes - students may suffer a crisis of hope. In response to this I outline a pedagogy which supports an ethical approach to ethical and political education through reading and discussing literature. Although post-structuralist ideas are vulnerable to particular criticisms, they offer insights into the limitations of discourse, textuality and agency which must be considered when devising an ethics to support the egalitarian aims of critical social literacy. However, more positive approaches to ethics, based on evolution, pragmatism and quantum mechanics, might also be incorporated in a new synthesis. Darwin's theory that organisms evolve through random variation and natural selection has been expanded and made more plausible by developments in mathematics and science, such as quantum mechanics, complexity theory, neuro-science and sociobiology. Popper's evolutionary epistemology supports the modest truth claims of the scientific method employed in these discourses, supplanting the more radical scepticism of poststructuralist epistemologies. Borrowing Zygmunt Bauman's terms, I call this synthesis 'the ethics of disillusionment and re-enchantment', since it combines procedural scepticism with renewed confidence in agency, referentiality and the flourishing of life. I explore how these ideas make sense of the world as it is modelled in three novels suitable for senior secondary study - Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Chambers' Breaktime, and Byatt's 'Morpho Eugenia'. I do not claim to articulate fully a new theory - rather, in sketching its salient features, I offer tentative foundations for ethics as a viable concern in literary studies and critical literacy teaching.