Lyotard’s postmodern condition structurally resembles conservative ideology

Evidence

The ‘postmodern condition’ - as Lyotard interprets it - thus seems to share the essential characteristics of all conservative ideology, from Burke to the current New Right. It rests, that is to say, on the idea that prejudice is so deeply built into our traditions of thought that no amount of rational criticism can hope to dislodge it. Any serious thinking about culture and society will have to acknowledge the fact that such enquiries have meaning only within the context of a certain informing tradition. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 373

Categorization

• XREF: This is the core counterargument to Jameson’s postmodernism thesis — that postmodernism’s skepticism of metanarratives functions politically as conservatism, an inversion worth comparing to Jameson’s reading of the cultural logic of late capitalism. — connects to: The triumph of market liberalism refuted Lyotard’s claim that grand narratives died — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 76
• DEFINE: Clarifies how collapsing the theory/narrative distinction flattens critique into conservative deference to tradition.