[One] anti-theoretical stratagem is to claim that in order to launch some fundamental critique of our culture, we would need to be standing at some impossible Archimedean point beyond it. What this fails to see is that reflecting critically on our situation is part of our situation. It is a feature of the peculiar way we belong to the world.…Without such self-monitoring, we would not have survived as a species. Eagleton, After Theory (60)
Speaking of the two cultures, I’ve often wondered if this perspective is the result of a misreading of the Heisenberg principal. Something like we can’t take the measure of ourselves without altering our own position. It’s a compelling, if stupid, analogy:
You do not have to be standing in metaphysical outer space to recognize the injustice of racial discrimination. This is exactly where you would not recognize it. Ibid. (61)
