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Featherstone suggests that postmodernism is in part a \u201closs of confidence on the part of the intellectuals in the universal potential of their project.\u201d Thus, postmodern theory is marked by \u201ctendencies toward indeterminacies <\/em> , the recognition of openness, pluralism, randomness, eclecticism, incoherence, paralogism, intertextuality, the primacy of the many over the one,\u201d as well as \u201d immanences <\/em> , the acknowledgement of our innerworldliness, our own opaque symbolic self-constitution, our entrapment in a dissemination and diffusion of signs that derealize history and all the other meta-narratives.\u201d <\/p>\n Once theologians provided the intellectual support for Western civilization, but they were toppled in the early modern period. Now another circulation of elites is underway, as secular intellectuals are toppled by new intellectuals. Just think of the conflicts between \u201clegitimate press\u201d and \u201cblogosphere\u201d; or of the differences between academic journals and web discussion sites; or of the comparative cultural influence of Matt Groening and your ten most important liteary critics. It\u2019s just not fair. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Featherstone suggests that postmodernism is in part a \u201closs of confidence on the part of the intellectuals in the universal potential of their project.\u201d Thus, postmodern theory is marked by \u201ctendencies toward indeterminacies , the recognition of openness, pluralism, randomness, eclecticism, incoherence, paralogism, intertextuality, the primacy of the many over the one,\u201d as well as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"yoast_head":"\n
Postmodernism is thus the intellectuals\u2019 own loss of confidence in the superiority of Western civilization, and in their authority to establish the standards that will lead to universal progress. Structurally, this loss of confidence is linked to the loss of status of intellectuals in contemporary culture. In part, this is a matter of \u201cthe lack of use that today\u2019s state has for legitimation to reproduce the structure of domination,\u201d and on the other hand with \u201cthe massive expansion in the production of cultural goods which they can no longer control nor indeed are consulted about as \u2018gallery owners, publishers, TV managers,\u2019 and other \u2018capitalists\u2019 or \u2018bureacrats,\u2019 the \u2018agents of the market\u2019 undermine things\u201d (the quotations are from Bauman). <\/p>\n