ABSTRACT
The term ‘postmodernism’ has been the subject of much debate, especially during the 1980s and 1990s. Some see it as simply the continuation and development of modernist ideas; others have seen in postmodern art a radical break with classical modernism; while others again view past literature and culture retrospectively through postmodern eyes, identifying texts and authors (de Sade, Borges, the Ezra Pound of The Cantos) as ‘already’ postmodern. Yet another argument, associated principally with the philosopher and social theorist Jürgen Habermas, claims that the project of modernity – which here designates the philosophical, social and political values of reason, equality and justice derived from the Enlightenment – is as yet unfulfilled and should not be relinquished. This position also relates to the debate over the continuing relevance (or redundancy) of Marxism, as well as that of modernist art works. Where the project of modernity is defended (with or without an accompanying defence of artistic modernism), this is in the face of the leading contentions of postmodernism: first, that the ‘grand narratives’ of social and intellectual progress initiated by the Enlightenment are discredited; and second, that any political grounding of these ideas in ‘history’ or ‘reality’ is no longer possible, since both have become ‘textualized’ in the world of images and simulations which characterize the contemporary age of mass consumption and advanced technologies.
