**Setting the Stage: A Look at Origins** This essay sets out to provide a more historical look at where the _idea_ of postmodernity came from. It wants to place the different threads of this concept in their specific locations, political backdrops, and intellectual settings, paying attention to how they developed over time. Beyond just the idea, the essay also gently touches upon some of the conditions that might have actually _released_ the postmodern as a real-world phenomenon. It's also written with Fredric Jameson's significant work in mind, aiming to set his contribution in relief against this historical background. It's quite a twist, right off the bat, to discover that both 'modernism' and 'postmodernism' didn't pop up in the big cultural centers like Europe or the United States! Instead, they were born in the "distant periphery," specifically Hispanic America. Isn't that intriguing? The term 'modernism' for an aesthetic movement is actually credited to a Nicaraguan poet, Rubén Dario, writing in a Guatemalan journal about an experience in Peru back in 1890. He used 'modernismo' as a kind of "declaration of cultural independence" from Spain. So, while in English the term 'modernism' didn't become common until the mid-20th century, it was already "canonical" in Spanish a generation earlier. It's a bit like the term 'liberalism,' which was first coined in Spain during the fight against Napoleon, a rather "exotic expression from Cadiz" that only later found its home in Paris or London drawing-rooms. Following this pattern, the idea of 'postmodernism' first appeared in the Hispanic world too, way back in the 1930s, a full generation before it showed up in England or America. It was Federico de Onis, a friend of famous Spanish thinkers like Unamuno and Ortega, who coined the term 'postmodernismo'. But get this, he used it to describe something quite specific and, perhaps surprisingly, conservative! For de Onis, it was a kind of retreat _within_ modernism itself, a search for refuge in perfect details and ironic humor, notable for giving a voice to women. He saw this as short-lived and contrasted it with 'ultramodernismo,' which he saw as pushing modernism's radical ideas even further into new avant-garde movements creating "rigorously contemporary poetry". So, the term entered Hispanophone criticism, though not always with de Onis's original precision, but it didn't immediately spread wider. **The Anglophone Scene: From History to Hysteria** Fast forward about twenty years, and the term emerges in the Anglophone world, but in a totally different context – not as an aesthetic label, but an "epochal" one, meaning it described a whole age. The historian Arnold Toynbee used it in the eighth volume of his _Study of History_, published in 1954. Picking up on ideas from earlier volumes about Industrialism and Nationalism clashing after the late 19th century, Toynbee dubbed the period starting with the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) the "post-modern age". His definition was tied to the breakdown of the nation-state's self-sufficiency in an era shaped by global industry and spreading nationalism. Later, in 1959, Harry Levin, influenced by Toynbee, gave the idea a much sharper, and unequivocally _negative_, twist. He used 'postmodern forms' to describe a lesser kind of literature that had given up on the demanding intellectual standards of modernism. He saw it as a "relaxed middle-brow synthesis," a sign of a cozy relationship between artists and the bourgeois public, blurring the lines between culture and commerce in a way he clearly didn't approve of. This is where we see the beginnings of postmodernism being viewed pejoratively. The 1960s brought more changes, with the term often used in "adventitious" or chance ways. Leslie Fiedler, quite different in temperament from Levin, used it around the mid-60s to celebrate a new sensibility among younger Americans. He saw them as "drop-outs from history," cultural "mutants" whose values of nonchalance, disconnection, and interest in things like hallucinogens and civil rights were finding expression in a "fresh postmodern literature". Fiedler later explained in _Playboy_ (another interesting detail!) that this literature would mix classes and genres, reject modernist ironies and solemnities, and importantly, dissolve the distinction between high and low culture in a joyful return to the sentimental and the burlesque. By 1969, his view of the postmodern, with its talk of popular emancipation and instinctual freedom, seemed to echo the student protests of the time, perhaps in a "prudently depoliticized" way. Around the same time, sociologist Amitai Etzioni, dedicated a book to his students at Columbia and Berkeley during the campus rebellions, presenting a "post-modern" period starting after World War II where big business and elite power were supposedly declining, allowing society to become a "master of itself". It's fascinating how the term could be used in such different, even inverted, ways by Howe/Mills (sociologists critical of established power) and Fiedler/Etzioni (celebrating shifts potentially enabled by changes in that same power structure). However, the essay points out that these early uses were still pretty much "terminological improvisation or happenstance". Think about it: defining a period _after_ 'the modern' is tricky because 'modern' often feels like a "present-absolute," something definitive of _now_. So, using a simple prefix like 'post-' (meaning 'after') is almost a default move whenever you need a marker for temporal difference. These uses were "circumstantial". The idea of the postmodern didn't really gain wider traction or _theoretical development_ until the 1970s. **Crystallization in the 1970s: Journals, Heidegger, and the Arts** The real turning point came in the fall of 1972 with the launch of the journal _boundary 2_, specifically subtitled _A Journal of Postmodern Literature and Culture_. This journal saw the re-emergence of the legacy of Charles Olson. Olson was an American poet whose 1950 essay _Projective Verse_ was quite influential, advocating for "open-field composition". But his vision was much broader; he was a fierce critic of rationalist humanism and was drawn to ancient cultures, yet also incorporated things like automobiles and cybernetics into his work. Olson linked an aesthetic theory to a "prophetic history," aiming for poetic innovation intertwined with political revolution, echoing the pre-war European avant-gardes. He had an "electric sense of the present as fraught with a momentous future". The first issue of _boundary 2_ featured David Antin's essay arguing that the established canon (Eliot, Tate, Auden, Lowell) was provincially backward compared to genuine international modernism (Apollinaire, Marinetti, Lorca, etc.), and that post-war American poetry's vitality owed everything to Black Mountain poets like Olson. _Boundary 2_ later dedicated a double-issue to Olson, solidifying the idea of the postmodern as a "collective reference". However, the reception subtly shifted the focus; while Olson's call for a projective literature was honored, his political vision for a future beyond capitalism faded from view. Although _boundary 2_ originated from a radical impulse (its founder, William Spanos, was shocked by US complicity with the Greek Junta and saw the journal as a break with aesthetic formalism and conservative politics, aiming to "get literature back into the domain of the world" during the Vietnam War era), the political climate of the Cold War made a fusion of cultural and political vision difficult. The journal became primarily a literary one, increasingly influenced by Heideggerian metaphysics, which, the essay suggests, left the "intra-mundane space of the postmodern... vacant". This "vacant" space was soon filled by Ihab Hassan, an early contributor to _boundary 2_. Hassan, an Egyptian by birth and engineer by training, had initially focused on minimalist modernism. But in 1971, he advanced the idea of postmodernism as a much wider range of tendencies that either pushed or rejected modernism's traits, extending to visual arts, music, technology, and broader sensibility. He listed numerous artists and trends, but a core group emerged, including John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, and Buckminster Fuller, all associated with Black Mountain College. Interestingly, Olson was often absent from this list, his place seemingly taken by Marshall McLuhan. Cage, known for his famous silent composition 4'33", was seen as a key figure, plausibly linked to many of the eclectic indices of postmodernism Hassan compiled – from "Spaceship Earth to the Global Village, faction and happening, aleatory reduction and parodie extravaganza, impermanence and intermedia" – synthesized as "anarchies of the spirit". Hassan later incorporated ideas like Foucault's epistemic break and argued that the underlying unity of the postmodern lay in the "play of indeterminacy and immanence," with Marcel Duchamp as an originating genius. He developed elaborate taxonomies of the differences between modern and postmodern paradigms. However, he struggled with the fundamental question: Is postmodernism "only an artistic tendency or also a social phenomenon?", and if so, how are its various aspects (psychological, philosophical, economic, political) connected? He didn't provide a coherent answer but made a significant observation: postmodernism suggested a "different kind of accommodation between art and society" than the detached modernists or the fractious avant-gardes. Exploring this difference would require engaging with politics, but Hassan "drew back," expressing "distaste for ideological rage". **Architecture and Philosophy: The Term Goes Mainstream** Around 1977-78, architecture really "captured" the term 'postmodern'. Since then, its primary association has been with new forms of built space. This architectural moment was quickly followed by its expansion into philosophy with Jean-François Lyotard's _La Condition Postmoderne_ (The Postmodern Condition) in 1979. Lyotard explicitly got the term from Hassan. The book was commissioned as a report on "contemporary knowledge" for the university council in Quebec. For Lyotard, postmodernity was tied to the emergence of a "post-industrial society" where knowledge is the main economic force, bypassing national states, but also losing its old ways of being justified. He saw society not as a whole or a conflict, but a "web of linguistic communications," composed of many different "language games" with incompatible rules. In this view, science became just another language game, losing its traditional claim to imperial truth over other forms of knowledge. Lyotard argued that the defining feature of the postmodern condition is the loss of belief in "grand narratives" – big, overarching stories like the Enlightenment idea of humanity liberating itself through knowledge, or the German Idealist idea of spirit progressively revealing truth. These myths, he argued, were undermined by science itself, which saw a "pluralization of types of argument" (paradox, paralogism) and a "technification of proof" where "truth" is reduced to "performativity" in the service of power. The real energy of postmodern science, he suggested, was in producing new paradoxes and discontinuities, not pursuing efficiency. Small, competitive "little narratives" replace grand ones, mirroring the trend towards temporary contracts in life – more economical, flexible, and creative, if favored by the "system". _The Postmodern Condition_ was the first book to treat postmodernity as a general change in human circumstances, giving the term philosophical weight and wide recognition. However, the essay notes that, taken alone, it's a "misleading guide" to Lyotard's full position, as he focused mainly on the epistemology of the natural sciences, about which he later confessed his knowledge was limited. The book was written for an official commission. Lyotard was especially interested in the implications for art and politics. He was initially unaware of the architectural use of the term, which he found antithetical to his values. By 1982, aware of Charles Jencks's architectural postmodernism, he reacted sharply, seeing it as a degraded realism and cynical eclecticism that was "everything the avant-gardes had fought against". He felt this aesthetic slackening threatened experimentation and the core drive of modern art, which came from the gap between what can be imagined and what can be shown (the sublime). He struggled to define authentic postmodern art, suggesting it was an internal renewal within modernism itself, accepting the freedom of invention released by the "shattering of the real". He later pointed to Minimalism as the avant-garde art he approved of – "the sublime as privation" – contrasting it with the "kitsch celebrated by Jencks" that flattered "taste". His difficulty in constructing a postmodern politics was similar, stemming from the course of history itself, specifically the eclipse of all grand narratives, especially classical socialism, which he sought to certify as defunct. **Habermas and the "Incomplete Project"** Exactly a year after Lyotard's book, in the autumn of 1980, Jürgen Habermas delivered his address "Modernity — an Incomplete Project". This lecture holds a peculiar place; it doesn't focus extensively on the postmodern, yet it made the term a "standard referent". This was partly due to Habermas's stature but also his critical stance. He provided the "negative pole" needed for the intellectual terrain to develop. Interestingly, his lecture is often seen as a response to Lyotard, but it was likely written without knowledge of Lyotard's book; Habermas was reacting instead to the 1980 Venice Biennale architectural exhibition that showcased Jencks's work – something Lyotard was unaware of! Quite an "ironic chasse-croisé of ideas". Habermas acknowledged the waning of the aesthetic modernity that began with Baudelaire, noting that the avant-gardes had "aged". He conceded that the idea of postmodernity gained power from this change. However, he argued that theorists like Daniel Bell drew a "perverse conclusion" from this, framing it as the exhaustion of modern culture's antinomian logic. Habermas saw the "project" of modernity, following Weber, as the differentiation of value-spheres (science, morality, art) which needed to be reconfigured as interacting resources in the "life-world". He viewed this project as an "incomplete" and possibly "unfeasible" blend of specialization and popularization. His broader social theory involved a dualism between "systems" (governed by money and power, beyond collective control) and the "life-world" (integrated by norms, where communicative action prevails). He argued the life-world needed protection from "colonization" by the systems without encroaching on them. This view, the essay notes, rules out traditional or radical popular sovereignty. The essay points out a "basic disjuncture" in Habermas's argument: he starts by noting the decline of aesthetic modernism but moves to the overspecialization of value-spheres. There's no clear explanation for why this specialization should affect art's vitality. The proposed solution – reanimating the life-world – seems disconnected from the initial problem of waning experimental vitality. The essay also finds his labeling of various thinkers as "postmodern" and "neo-conservative" problematic, as many were critics of the postmodern. Habermas ends with guarded sympathy for vernacular architecture encouraging popular participation, seeing it as a defensive survival of Modern Movement impulses. But he notes these tendencies have an "air of anti-modernism" due to nostalgia for de-differentiated existence, recalling the "dire example" of Nazi architecture. While conceding some "truth" in this opposition, he sees no "hope in it". This expresses the "pathos" of his later theory: "eudaemonism of the intelligence, defeatism of the will". **The Field Takes Shape: Lack of Consensus, Ideological Alignment** By the autumn of 1981, about thirty years after Olson first hinted at it, 'the postmodern' had become a shared reference point and a subject of competing ideas. Space was important from the start, with origins beyond the West and later associations with Egypt, Algeria, and Quebec. Culturally, it pointed beyond modernism, but _where_ was unclear; there was no consensus, just contrasting views. The interventions of Lyotard and Habermas added philosophical authority but were "strangely indecisive". Despite their Marxist backgrounds, they brought little of it to their accounts. They offered "floating or vacant signifiers" – the delegitimation of grand narratives for Lyotard, the colonization of the life-world for Habermas – as marks of its appearance, lacking "periodic weight" or real historical interpretation. Even as an aesthetic category, the term remained hazy. Both thinkers were attached to high modernism, which seemed to obscure their view of postmodernism rather than sharpen it. Lyotard denied it was separate from modernism, while Habermas acknowledged the passage but couldn't explain it well. Neither explored postmodern forms in detail compared to Hassan or Jencks. The result was a "discursive dispersion": philosophical overview without significant aesthetic content, and aesthetic insight without a coherent theoretical horizon. A "thematic crystallization" occurred – the postmodern was "on the agenda" – but without "intellectual integration". However, the field _did_ display ideological unity: the idea of the postmodern, as it took hold, was generally an "appanage of the Right". Hassan lauded play and indeterminacy, disliking the "iron yoke of the Left". Jencks saw the passing of the modern as the liberation of consumer choice, aligning culture with global free trade. Lyotard's very framework rested on the discrediting of socialism as a grand narrative. Even Habermas, resisting from the Left, conceded the idea to the Right, seeing it as linked to neo-conservatism. Common to all was acceptance of "liberal democracy" as the only possible system, suggesting the postmodern was a "sentence on alternative illusions". **Jameson's Intervention: The "Capture" and the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism** This brings us to Fredric Jameson, who gave his first lecture on postmodernism in the fall of 1982. Jameson was already a leading Marxist literary critic, known for his original reconstructions of Western Marxism and analysis of linguistic models. He was deeply engaged with the debates between figures like Lukács, Brecht, Bloch, Benjamin, and Adorno, especially their "aesthetic conflict between realism and modernism". While acknowledging the weaknesses of both realism and modernism in the face of post-war consumer capitalism, he initially wondered if a return to realism might be the "ultimate renewal of modernism". He saw postmodernism first as a "kind of inner deliquescence within modernism". Around the same time, in an essay titled "The Ideology of the Text," he noted the widespread feeling that "modern times are now over" and that a "fundamental divide" separated us from the era of triumphant modernism. He listed postmodernism in literature and art among the phenomena signaling this break. Initially, he struggled to reconcile this sense of a fundamental divide with treating phenomena like textuality (which he associated with postmodernism via Barthes) as merely ideologies of what _preceded_ it. He later revised this, placing postmodernism as a "third term" after realism and modernism, incorporating features he'd analyzed in Barthes. This revision marked the "threshold to be crossed for a turn to the postmodern". So, what enabled Jameson to make this leap? The essay points to several sources. First, his own early sense, articulated even in his first book, of the profound novelty of post-war capitalism – a "society without a visible future," "dazzled by the massive permanence of its own institutions". He saw it as creating a "dream world of artificial stimuli and televised experience," far removed from production, where fundamental metaphysical questions seemed "utterly remote and pointless". These early ideas about consumer society and the cultural impact of capitalism clearly foreshadowed his later themes. Two specific influences helped develop these themes. One was Ernest Mandel's _Late Capitalism_ (published in 1972), which offered a systematic theory of capital's history since the war, providing the framework for understanding the present as a "qualitatively new configuration". Jameson expressed his debt to this work many times. A second stimulus came from Jean Baudrillard's writing on the "simulacrum" (a copy without an original) in contemporary capitalism's cultural imaginary, a line Jameson had partly anticipated. Baudrillard's time in San Diego, where Jameson was teaching, likely had an impact. Another likely catalyst was Jameson's move to Yale at the end of the 1970s. Yale was a center of architectural debate between modernism (represented by the Art and Architecture building) and emerging postmodernism, with figures like Venturi, Scully, and Moore teaching there. Jameson noted that architecture "awakened him from 'dogmatic slumbers'," meaning it released him to focus on visual arts. Until the 1980s, his focus was almost exclusively literature; the turn to postmodernism was a "striking shift to the range of arts... beyond it". Importantly, this didn't mean abandoning his political views. He drew on Henri Lefebvre's ideas on urban and spatial dimensions of capitalism and later the architectural writing of Manfredo Tafuri, both Marxists. Finally, Lyotard's _La Condition Postmoderne_ itself likely served as a direct provocation. When an English translation was prepared in 1982, Jameson was asked to write the introduction. Lyotard's attack on grand narratives could be seen as aimed directly at Jameson, who just a year earlier had published _The Political Unconscious_, arguing forcefully for Marxism as a "single great collective story" – a grand narrative. While Lyotard's book was a challenge, another side of his argument – the premise that narrative is fundamental to the human mind – was uncannily similar to Jameson's view. This likely made Lyotard an "ambivalent foil," quickening Jameson's own reflections. **The Five Decisive Moves** Jameson's lecture at the Whitney Museum in 1982, which became his famous essay "Postmodernism — the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism," is considered the "founding text" that "redrew the whole map of the postmodern at one stroke". Five key moves marked this intervention: 1. **Anchorage in Late Capitalism:** This was the most fundamental move. Jameson firmly linked postmodernism to "objective alterations of the economic order of capital itself". It was no longer just an aesthetic style or philosophical shift, but the "cultural signal of a new stage in the history of the regnant mode of production". He identified this stage as "multi-national capitalism," characterized by technological explosions (electronics), global corporations, increased speculation, and media power. These changes profoundly impacted life, but the deepest change was the "new existential horizon" where modernization was "all but complete," eliminating the last remnants of pre-capitalist forms and even natural spaces. In this world, culture expands to become "virtually coextensive with the economy itself," with everything becoming a "tractable sign and vendible commodity". Culture becomes "our second nature". Modernism drew energy from the persistence of the non-modern past; postmodernism signifies the "closure of that distance," the "saturation of every pore of the world in the serum of capital". This wasn't a sudden political event, but a "very modest or mild apocalypse," a "momentous transformation in the underlying structures of contemporary bourgeois society". 2. **Alterations of the Subject:** Jameson explored how the psyche changes in this new environment. He described a "waning of affect," a loss of stable identity leading to a "new depthlessness of the subject". Psychic life becomes "unnervingly accidented and spasmodic," marked by sudden shifts. This is linked to a loss of any active sense of history, replaced by endless retro styles. Space dominates the imagination, but it's an overwhelming, global space (satellites, fibers, multinational networks) that perception can't grasp, leading to a sense of the "hysterical sublime". The blurring of high and low registers is tied to this depthlessness. Personal experience swings between the euphoria of the "commodity rush" and the "deeper nihilistic void" of being trapped in an uncontrollable system. 3. **Expansion of Cultural Inquiry:** Jameson greatly broadened the scope of the postmodern, examining it across virtually all arts and related discourses. This provided a much richer picture than previous, more limited views. Architecture remained central due to the prominence of space, with his analysis of Portman's Bonaventure Hotel being particularly famous. He looked at painting (comparing Van Gogh and Warhol, exploring conceptual art), noting a "privilege of the visual". In literature, the key motif was "pastiche" – a "blank parody" of past styles without satire, seen especially in historical novels that shuffle styles and periods. Beyond the arts, traditional academic disciplines began to blur into "Theory," a new discursive phenomenon. This erosion of clear disciplinary boundaries signals a "de-differentiation of cultural spheres," something theorists of modernization like Weber and Habermas had seen as central to modernity and feared losing. 4. **Social Bases and Geopolitics:** Jameson identified the immediate social group associated with postmodern culture as the "newly affluent employees and professionals" ("yuppie layer") created by the service and speculative sectors. Above them are the multinational corporations, "vast servo-mechanisms" shaping the global economy and cultural imaginary. Below, traditional classes weaken as industries decline, and fragmented identities (ethnic, sexual) multiply. Globally, a stable class structure hasn't crystallized; privilege has coherence, but lower groups lack unity. The system's "sudden horizontal enlargement," integrating the whole planet, brings new peoples and dilutes inherited culture, leading to a "drop in 'level'" compared to modernist elitism. Postmodern culture is more "demotic," dissolving high/low frontiers, aided by new patterns of consumption (best-sellers) and production (access for excluded groups). While some leveling occurred, the "great individual signatures" of modernism were less prominent. This reflected a different relationship to the market – one of "accompaniment, rather than antagonism". Despite this accommodation, Jameson argued postmodernism is _hegemonic_, a "dominant" force, albeit not totalizing (allowing for "residual" and "emergent" forms). This hegemony is global, projected primarily from the US: "Postmodernism may be said to be the first specifically North American global style". 5. **Appropriate Stance:** This was perhaps Jameson's most original move. He refused the common approaches of simply lamenting or celebrating postmodernism. He saw such responses, particularly moralism, as an "impoverished luxury" and "intellectually and politically disabling" binary code. Drawing on his long-held view that ethics mystifies political realities, he argued that a genuine critique wasn't an ideological rejection but a "dialectical-task" to work _through_ postmodernism to understand the time transformed. The goal is a "totalizing comprehension" of unlimited capitalism. Simple condemnation is "sterile". Even facing its complicity with the market, understanding it from within as a system is a condition for the emergence of any necessary collective agency. **Outcomes and Legacy: A Marxist Capture** Jameson's intervention provided a "coherent account" and a powerful "vision" that has dominated the field since. The essay argues this represents an "opposite achievement" compared to other concepts whose meanings were co-opted by the Right; Jameson, through a "prodigious display of theoretical intelligence and energy," wrested the term away from usages complicit with the established order for the cause of a "revolutionary Left". This was a victory "against all the political odds" during a period of neoliberal dominance, precisely because his "cognitive mapping" captured the feel and structures of the time so powerfully. The essay sees precursors to the postmodern problematic throughout Jameson's earlier work, from his early sense of a society without a future to his analysis of culture becoming coextensive with a commodity-saturated economy. It also places his work firmly within the tradition of Western Marxism, which focused on the culture of developed capitalism, often with an aesthetic emphasis. Jameson's work, particularly his synthesis of elements from key Western Marxist thinkers, is seen as a "culmination" of this tradition. However, the essay argues that Jameson's work also significantly _exceeds_ Western Marxism. While that tradition remained largely European, Jameson's theory of the postmodern is intrinsically global. His work incorporated a theory of economic development (Mandel's _Late Capitalism_) in a way Western Marxism often hadn't fully integrated, linking culture to the "transformations of this social form as a whole". Because economic life is now so pervaded by symbolic systems (information, persuasion), any major theory of culture must encompass more of the "civilization of capital". This magnified the traditional object of Western Marxism, allowing Jameson to provide a "more central and political description" of contemporary life. His sense of "epochality," viewing the present historically, is crucial, especially in an age that seems to have "forgotten how to think historically". Jameson also broke the Western focus of his earlier work, incorporating visual arts more prominently and expanding his scope to cultures and regions beyond the West, seeking a "geopolitical aesthetic". **Debates and Tensions: Timing, Politics, and Polarities** Jameson's work set the stage for further debate, particularly among Marxists. Key questions involved periodization, intellectual configuration, and the appropriate response. A central debate concerned the timing. Critics noted the gap between Mandel's dating of late capitalism's arrival (1945) and Jameson's dating of the postmodern's emergence (early 1970s). David Harvey, focusing on economic changes, argued that postmodernity in the early 70s _did_ reflect a break in capitalism: the crisis of Fordism (1973) and the rise of "flexible accumulation" (flexible labor, financial deregulation), which formed the "existential basis" for postmodern culture. While not a fundamental change in the mode of production, it altered the system's stability. Alex Callinicos, conversely, argued these changes weren't a "break" in capitalism. He saw postmodernism as largely a "figment" as a distinct artistic practice, arguing its features were present in modernism. For him, it was a "gradual degradation of modernism" linked to commodification and, more significantly, the "political defeat of the radical generation of the late sixties," leading to "cynical hedonism". The essay emphasizes the importance of the political context. The optimistic revolutionary energies of the sixties proved a "climacteric," followed by defeats and the rise of the Right and neoliberalism in the eighties. The "universal triumph of capital" is seen as canceling political alternatives, thus ending modernity's "antonym". The postmodern conjuncture is summed up as a "déclassé ruling order, a mediatized technology and a monochrome politics," aligning with the economic shifts of the early eighties. Thinking about the contours of the postmodern, the essay contrasts it with modernism. Modernism was a _post facto_ term for diverse movements with sharp demarcations and manifestoes. Postmodernism is closer to an _ex ante_ notion, lacking these features, celebrating "intermixture" and the hybrid, making the external label more salient. Within postmodernism itself, the essay identifies a constitutive tension, drawing on de Onis's early distinction and adapting Robespierre's terms "citra-revolutionary" and "ultra-revolutionary". The "citra" refers to tendencies that break with high modernism by reinstating the ornamental and accessible, often appealing to the market and the "spectacle". The "ultra" refers to tendencies that push modernism's negations further, resisting immediate intelligibility or gratification, seeking to elude or refuse the spectacle. Examples include Pop vs. Minimalism in art, or ornate vs. deconstructive architecture. The essay argues that the "citra inevitably predominates over the ultra" because the market generates supply on a massive scale and the spectacle captures the widest audience. This dominance of the "citra" and the pressure of the spectacle lead to a "cultural slide". Even sympathetic commentators note the standardization of innovative art forms. This tension is felt as contemporary art is pulled between reassessing modernism and embracing "celebrity, commercialism and sensation". The essay also discusses the "ideology" of postmodernism, distinct from its artistic forms, seeing it as the counterpart of the "citra" in the theoretical field. Terry Eagleton's critique is highlighted, describing this ideology as an "undemanding medley" that aligns with market hedonism but also, paradoxically, undermines state legitimations. While linked to the defeat of the left, Eagleton also sees it reflecting the emergence of marginalized groups. Finally, the essay suggests that the function of the theoretical avant-garde – providing a critical vision of the age – has migrated to Jameson's work itself. While radical artistic strands ("ultra-modernist") exist, they haven't produced a confident account of the time. Jameson's theory provides this "totalization," embodying the "critical ambition and revolutionary élan" of the classical avant-garde, necessary in an age of complacent capitalism. Regarding the global scope, the essay addresses critiques (like those from postcolonial theory) that Jameson's focus is unduly homogeneous or ignores resistant practices in the periphery. While acknowledging valid points about neo-imperial domination and cultural penetration, the essay suggests that the presence of postmodern forms in the periphery often _confirms_ Jameson's description rather than contradicting it. The question isn't homogeneity but whether uneven development is too great for a common cultural logic. While postmodernism emerged in wealthy societies, global communications ensure its influence elsewhere, even if it's only "emergent" rather than dominant in certain regions. The essay concludes by noting that Jameson's tone has become "steadily sharper," tracing a "perceptible regression" in the postmodern since its initial release, seeing it degenerate into a commodified aestheticism and a reinstatement of ossified disciplines in theory. This is linked to the "complete extinction of the Communist alternative" and the relentless advance of neoliberalism. These later writings are seen as "political interventions at full tilt". **Areas for Further Exploration** Whew! That was quite the journey through the origins of this complex idea. We've seen how the term itself had unexpected beginnings, how it was used and debated across different fields, and how Fredric Jameson provided a powerful, unifying framework by linking it to the economic changes of late capitalism. Thinking about this, here are some exciting questions and ideas we might explore further: - **The "Citra" vs. "Ultra" in More Detail:** Can we map this tension in specific contemporary art forms like digital art, music, or even television shows? What contemporary examples fall clearly into one category or the other, and which ones blur the lines? - **Flexible Accumulation and Culture:** How does David Harvey's concept of "flexible accumulation" specifically manifest in cultural forms? Does the ephemerality of fashion, the rapid turnover in media, or the rise of temporary/gig work for creatives directly shape the _content_ or _style_ of postmodern culture? - **Postcolonial Perspectives:** While the essay suggests postmodernism's influence is widespread, are there specific cultural practices in postcolonial contexts that genuinely _resist_ or offer alternatives _outside_ the citra/ultra polarity? How do they draw on local traditions or different political histories? - **The "Waning of Affect" Today:** Jameson discussed the "depthlessness" and "waning of affect." Does this resonate with contemporary psychological experiences shaped by social media, constant information streams, or global anxieties? Are there new forms of "hysterical sublime" in the digital age? - **Is Postmodernism "Over"?** The essay hints at a regression within the postmodern. What might come _after_ the postmodern? Has the term lost its analytical power, or does it still help us understand the present? - **The Role of Technology:** The essay mentions television as a key "technological package" of the postmodern era. What about the internet, social media, and AI? How do these technologies act as "cultural logic" or reshape the "sensibility" of contemporary life? These are just a few threads to pull on. Understanding the origins and key debates around postmodernity, especially through the lens of thinkers like Jameson, gives us powerful tools to analyze the world around us. It shows how ideas evolve, how they intersect with economic and political forces, and how different perspectives offer crucial insights into the complex texture of our time.