So-called postmodern trends merely continue capitalist processes begun under modernism
Evidence
These developments - the recuperation of the avant garde for art, the incorporation and commodification of Modernism, the false sublation of art and life - seem much more important than any of the changes associated with the supposed emergence of a distinctively Postmodern art. Bürger lists the following trends, all of which have been claimed as exemplars of the Postmodern: ‘a positive stance towards the architecture of the fin-de-siècle and hence an essentially more critical judgement of modern architecture; the softening of the rigid dichotomy between higher and lower art, which Adorno still considered to be irreconcilably opposed; a revaluation of the figura tive paintings of the 1920s… ; a return to the traditional novel even by representatives of the experimental novel.’ — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 574
Categorization
- XREF: The core methodological move of the whole book — reframing each alleged ‘postmodern’ trait as continuous with modernism and capital. Direct counterargument to Jameson. — connects to: Postmodernism is a tendency within late modernism, not its successor — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 236; Postmodernism cannot be understood apart from late capitalism’s economic structure — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 374; Certain modernist precursors already contained what became postmodern (+8 more)
Broader Connections
- So-called postmodern changes merely accentuate long-standing modern Western tendencies
#corroborates(0.88) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 716 - Postmodernism is a reflex of capitalism’s modification, not a new social order.
#expands(0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 13 - Postmodernism is a tendency within late modernism, not its successor
#corroborates(0.82) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 236 - Two further positions reject the modern-postmodern break, dissolving postmodernism into modernism
#corroborates(0.80) - Certain modernist precursors already contained what became postmodern
#corroborates(0.78) - Postmodernism cannot be understood apart from late capitalism’s economic structure
#expands(0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 374 - Poststructuralism is essentially a discourse of modernism, not postmodernism
#corroborates(0.75) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 285 - Capitalist modernity cannot be understood from its internal dynamics alone
#expands(0.72) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 487