Postmodernism’s acceptance stems from 1968ers’ class position and disillusionment

Evidence

The political odyssey of the 1968 generation is, in my view, crucial to the widespread acceptance of the idea of a postmodern epoch in the 1980s. This was the decade when those radicalized in the 1960s and early 1970s began to enter middle age. Usually they did so with all hope of socialist revolution gone - indeed, often having ceased to be believe in the desirability of any such revolution. Most of them had by then come to occupy some sort of professional, managerial or administrative position, to have become members of the new middle class, at a time when the overconsumptionist dynamic of Western capitalism offered this class rising living standards (a benefit often denied the rest of the workforce: hourly real wages in the US fell by 8.7 per cent between 1973 and 1986). This conjuncture - the prosperity of the Western new middle class combined with the political disillusionment of many of its most articulate members - provides the context to the proliferating talk of postmodernism. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 617

Categorization

• XREF: Direct counter-thesis to Jameson’s claim that postmodernism expresses late-capitalist cultural logic — this locates its cause in class trajectory and political defeat instead. — connects to: Poststructuralism’s piecemeal politics arose from dashed 1968 revolutionary hopes. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 347; May 1968 paradoxically advanced the narcissistic individualism its actors opposed — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 534; Postmodernism emerged as a response to the revolutionary failure of 1968-76. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 627 (+4 more)
• SEED: Article angle: ‘The sociology of postmodern belief’ — how intellectual fashions track the class careers and disenchantment of the generation that adopts them, not just the economic base.
• DEEPTHINKING: The single most important passage in the chapter: a materialist sociology of who believes in postmodernism and why, with a striking concrete data point (US real wages fell 8.7% 1973-1986) that reframes the whole debate.
• QUESTION: Is the 8.7% US real-wage fall figure verifiable and how does it compare across other advanced economies of the period?

Broader Connections

• Postmodernism emerged as a response to the revolutionary failure of 1968-76. #expands (0.85) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 627
• Postmodernism as lifestyle expresses the consciousness of a new class fraction, the yuppies #corroborates (0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 869
• The 1968 generation’s disillusionment followed the events’ modernizing logic #qualifies (0.80) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 610