Against Postmodernism: A Marxist Critique

It has become an intellectual commonplace to claim that we have entered the era of postmodernity. Three themes are embraced in this claim the poststructuralist critique by Foucault, Derrida and others of the philosophical heritage of the Enlightenment, the supposed impasse of the High Modern art and its replacement by new artistic forms, and the alleged emergence of postindustrial societies whose structures are beyond the ken of Marx and other theorists of industrial capitalism. Against Postmodernism takes issue with all these themes. It challenges the idealist irrationalism of poststructuralism. It questions the existence of any radical break separating Postmodern from Modern art. And it denies that recent socioeconomic developments represent any fundamental shift from classical patterns of capital accumulation. Drawing on philosophy and cultural history, Against Postmodernism takes issue with some of the most forthright critics of postmodernism Jurgen Habermas and Frederic Jameson, for example. But it is most distinctive in that it offers a historical reading of these theories. Postmodernism, Alex Callinicos argues, reflects the disappointed revolutionary generation of 68, and the incorporation of many of its members into the professional and managerial new middle class. It is best read as a symptom of political frustration and social mobility rather than as a significant intellectual or cultural phenomenon in its own right.