The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Theory and History of Literature)
£29.94
A frustrating blend of sophistry and sharp prose - For anyone interested in postmodern theory this book offers a frustrating blend of obscurified sophistry, succinct prose and conceptual deadends.Lyotard follows the freeform-association school of stylism where ideas roll on for a bit only to fork off, unexpectedly intersect, come to an abrupt halt, then just as suddenly shoot off in another direction.Of course any method such of this will, if the writer is sufficiently intelligent (certainly no problems there) almost by accident rather than design generate a fairly decent number of provocative lucid ideas. In this sense Lyotard is no exception. The underlying problem with this method however is that for ideas to make sense and achieve coherency generally requires them be followed through to their logical conclusion and ultimate end.And it s this lack of coherency that, despite the snatches of intermittent brilliance here and there, lets the postmodern condition down. This is frustrating because postmodernism is really not atall a difficult theory to understand and there s certainly no reason why it should be obscured beneath layers of densely packed inscrutable prose.For those uninitiated: Post modernism is simply the sub-division and specialisation of knowledge. As society progresses the knowledge it generates and acquires increasingly becomes context bound to exclusive disciplines, fragmenting off into what E.O.Wilson would call borderland sciences . The end result is that any sort of unified consensus, or grand narrative becomes meaningless and incomprehensible by default. Instead we simply have lots of little narratives with which to arrange and construct our localised/self-referential ideas.There are of course many interesting and mportant questions that arise out of all of this, namely: what role does the politician/religious leader/nationalist have left in the absence of these unifying grand narratives ?What happens to a society which can no longer tell stories to itself that will be meaningful and relevant for the whole? What occurs to a psyche which is increasingly called upon to hold mutually mis-aligned ideas about a single substance or object?These are all basic questions that need to be addressed, all of which however are either clumsily talked around or just side-stepped altogether. Instead society and its inventions are presented as models of efficiency - always seeking to maximise stability and minimise instability.Which there is a very convincing case to be made for, unfortunately its a point which isnt particularly related to postmodernism atall, or if it is, Lyotard never really gets himself round to connecting it to the original premise.Again it s this lack of intellectual transparency and interconnectedness that lets this book down. A more fitting title may have been postmodernism: a collection of ideas in no particular order .Some interesting and inspiring thoughts here and there of course no doubt (hence the 2 stars) but altogether poorly arranged and badly structured.
Essential for any study of postmodernity - This is it. Lyotard does to postmodernity what Karl von Clausewitz did to war. Not only does he propound the now-famous theory of the little narrative following the death of the meta-narratives (faith, truth, progress, etc), but this book offers the first public discourse on technoscience , the massive subordination of the cognitive facility to the greatest possible performance, a concept later expanded on in The Inhuman . The Postmodern Condition is however, a generally optimistic look at the post-metaphysical world, aiming to encourage the following of personal narratives rather than society-specific ones such as salvation or truth and argues convincingly, along similar lines to Kuhn, that scienticfic knowledge is subservient to narrative knowledge. What is Postmodernism , appended at the end of the book, is the definative definition of the condition of the world in 1979. Little has changed since.
A guilty pleasure! - Lyotard, who enriched our world with differends, ups the ante in this high-stakes absurdist erotic thriller. From the opening pages, including elements as disparate as virtual reality seduction, Heisenbergian physics, and a Russian roulette-type game of Scrabble, to the unexpected epilogue (bizarrely entitled What Is Postmodernism?) unravelling a world-wide art scam, Lyotard keeps us guessing. He uses ambiguity to great effect, mixing discussions about science with gruesome descriptions of S&M hell, creating an erotic tension that doesn t let the reader go even after the book is over. The high pace made my head spin, and although the level of violence is relatively low for a French postmodernist book, the excitement never lets up. I cannot wait for the movie version. Always staying on the side of sensuality rather than vulgar lust, Lyotard has given us another guilty pleasure to snuggle up with when the winter nights get too lonely.
A Seminal Tome - Lyotard s characterization of Postmodernism as skepticism toward grand narratives, has become the grand narrative of Postmodernism. However, much Postmodern thought has emerged since L s seminal tome: writers such as Jenks on Postmodern architecture, Deleuze and Guitarri, Derrida, Foucault, Cyberpunk and even Madonna-ologists. A good survey of this movement can be found in Postmodernism for Beginners, by Jim Powell. Also useful: Jenck s What is Postmodernism?
Towards a postmodern sociology of knowledge - Lyotard s The PostModern Condition, is an exciting atttempt at a postmodern Sociology of Knowledge. Using Weberian and Habermasian concepts of legitimation, Lyotard gices a critique of critique, showing how all forms of knowledge are, in the end, dependent on the Narrative, the story which humansociety tells of itself. From this Levi-Straussian concept, Lyotard builds an interesting framework for Modern, PostModern and Futuristic definitions of knowledge. So why did I give the book only 4 stars? Because Lyotard fails inhis attempts at encorparating Anglo-American philosophy into the book. His total misconception of Wittgenstein can be flabbergasting to anyone who s studied this tradition of philosophy. Still, the book is probably the easiest of its type to understand and it is quite enjoyable to read. But it s a good idea to supplement it with some Foucault and some Habermas.