Lyotard abandoned revolutionary socialism before writing The Postmodern Condition

Evidence

What the ostensibly scientific framework of Lyotard’s ‘report on knowledge’ left out of view was either the arts or politics. The curiosity of the book lay in the fact these were his two principal passions as a philosopher. A militant in the far-left group Socialisme ou Barbarie for a decade (1954-64) during which he was an outstandingly lucid commentator on the Algerian War, Lyotard remained active in its split-off Pouvoir Ouvrier for another two years. Breaking with this group when he became convinced the proletariat was no longer a revolutionary subject capable of challenging capitalism, he was active in the university ferment at Nanterre in 1968 and still reinterpreting Marx for contemporary rebels as late as 1969. — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 67

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Jameson’s counter-position that the sixties generated postmodernism — here Anderson shows Lyotard’s own disillusionment as the subjective seed. — connects to: Lyotard’s anti-totality stance stems from a French post-Marxist reaction — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on…, 36; Lyotard’s trajectory from communism to metaphysics explains his postmodern fable. — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 82; The account of postmodernism originally lacked any social agency — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 24

Broader Connections

• Lyotard’s anti-totality stance stems from a French post-Marxist reaction #corroborates (0.80) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 36
• Lyotard’s trajectory from communism to metaphysics explains his postmodern fable. #expands (0.80) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 82
• The account of postmodernism originally lacked any social agency #complicates (0.70) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 24