>The extent of the diverse and contradictory explantions of the postmodern is
>something that could be charcaterised as...er..positively postmodern. (and
>it is understandable that this looks like it might decompose under its own
>dynamic) But whilst this ambiguity seems to be the essential import of the
>postmodern, it is first and foremost a reaction to the equally ambiguous,
>contadictory (and ideological)designation of our societies and knowledge of
>them as 'modernity' or 'modernism' salient in the academy. Postmodern
>rubbish might disappear when the self-satisfied crap of 'modernity' does.
>Because any attempt to affect an ideological closure on the here and now
>(even when concieved as a development) easily lends itself to the argument
>that it has allready past.
We are all moderns, whether we like it or not. Marx wrote in _Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts_: "The resolution of _theoretical_ contradictions is possible only through _practical_ means....Their resolution is by no means, therefore, the task only of the understanding, but is a _real_ task of life, a task which _philosophy_ was unable to accomplish precisely because it saw there a _purely_ theoretical problem." What troubles the minds of "postmodernists" -- who are basically just unhappy modernists in the world of "Freedom, Equality, Property, & Bentham" -- cannot be solved theoretically. Either it will find a practical solution in the course of (or as a result of) political struggles or it won't find any.
Yoshie