Putting the point about self-contradiction in the form of a "Socratic" question: How, given that "actors and agents" are "constrained by their own ideological limits and those of their moment of history", is it possible for the actor and agent Jameson to know that "it would be better to think of Lenin or Brecht ... as failures"?
Ted ---------
Putting the answer in the form of a question, a la Jeopardy, What is metanarrative?
So then, it is the compositional armatures of the metanarrative and their figuration that is most responsive to configurational changes in a basal and materially grounded socio-economic system. These basal changes are mirrored and representated, in fact become cultural systems that are played out as iconic actors and agents, as if these were tangible entities. This relationship creates the possibility for the exchangibility between a crude concept of economy and a crude concept of culture. However, at this point in time, our economy is our culture and our culture is our economy in an endlessly reciprocating process, so they are indistinguishable, which is the postmodern turn. In this state of affairs, then the potential to form a metanarrative is created by the impossibility of an object (this reciprocating engine of history) being identical with its concept (the metanarrative of it).
I am sure that makes it a whole lot clearer for everyone. (For Charles B, no I don't think he said art was bad, as long as it was animated super action video games.)
Chuck Grimes