Narratives of political defeat can map global space better than triumphs

Evidence

The example may also serve to illustrate the proposition that successful spatial representation need not be some uplifting socialist-realist drama of revolutionary triumph but may be equally inscribed in a narrative of defeat, which sometimes, even more effectively, causes the whole architectonic of postmodern global space to rise up in ghostly profile behind itself, as some ultimate dialectical barrier or invisible limit. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 889

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in the falsifiability of the cultural-dominant thesis — this is a testable claim about which narratives best achieve cognitive mapping. — connects to: History’s losers and leftovers transcend society more than its victors do — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 170