Lyotard’s anti-totality stance stems from a French post-Marxist reaction

Evidence

Still, these traditions are not altogether so continuous or symmetrical as I have just suggested. Lyotard is, after all, writing in the wake of a certain French “post-Marxism,” that is, an enormous reaction on all levels against various Marxist and Communist traditions in France, whose prime target on the philosophical level is the Hegel/Lukacs concept of “totality” (often overhastily assimilated to Stalinism or even to the Leninist party on the political level). — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 36

Categorization

• XREF: Explains the genealogy of the anti-totality posture that Jameson diagnoses as symptomatic of late capitalism. — connects to: Lyotard abandoned revolutionary socialism before writing The Postmodern Condition — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 67; The triumph of market liberalism refuted Lyotard’s claim that grand narratives died — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 76; Lyotard defines postmodernism as a modernism that celebrates the loss of ordered totality (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Lyotard defines postmodernism as a modernism that celebrates the loss of ordered totality #expands (0.82)
• Lyotard rejects Habermas’s consensus ideal as totalizing and terrorist #exemplifies (0.78) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 38