Postmodern oppositional identifications are weaker than modernist class antagonisms

Evidence

Evidently enough, this divarication did not correspond to any particular pattern of aesthetic merit. But, equally plainly, it did indicate two opposite sets of political sympathies, that delimited the range of styles adopted on either side. There were, of course, significant exceptions here, like Mallarmé or Céline, where the hermetic and demotic exchanged ideological signs. But the general rule holds good that the field of modernism was traversed by two social lines of attraction, with formal consequences. How far can anything comparable be said of postmodernism? The departure of aristocracy, the evanescence of the bourgeoisie, the erosion of working-class confidence and identity, have altered the supports and targets of artistic practice in fundamental ways. It is not that alternative addressees have simply disappeared. New poles of oppositional identification have emerged in the postmodern period: gender, race, ecology, sexual orientation, regional or continental diversity. But these have to date constituted a weaker set of antagonisms. — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 257

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the citra/ultra-modern split as a surrogate for modernism’s two social lines of attraction.
• XREF: connects to: Debates over postmodernism structurally require an opposing modernist position; Postmodernism abolishes the inside-outside distinction that modernism still presupposed — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 259; Working-class racism resists analysis under homogeneous conceptions of ideology — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 142 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Postmodernism abolishes the inside-outside distinction that modernism still presupposed #complicates (0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 259
• Debates over postmodernism structurally require an opposing modernist position #complicates (0.80)
• Working-class racism resists analysis under homogeneous conceptions of ideology #expands (0.75) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 142
• Postmodernism theory cannot produce a stable inside-outside position for its own observers #qualifies (0.72)