Pre Class 9/24- Lyotard and Habermas

  Artist and writers have lost their place in society and the community and must fix this, according to Lyotard. Lyotard states, "There is an irrefutable sign of this common disposition: it is that for all those writers nothing is more urgent than to liquidate the heritage of the avant-gardes"(40). It seems that experimental work is being vilified, albeit carefully, "By putting the avant-gardes through the mixing process, the artist and critic feel more confident that they can suppress them than launching a frontal attack" (40). So, I feel that Lyotard is saying that avant-gardism is a part of the post modern condition for an individual but the capitalistic system itself shuns it as being to out there and opposite to the status quo's manufactured preferment for realism. 

  As I understand it the institutions of corporations, government, and media work together to construct a reality they deem as a status quo reality, that is hidden behind the name of realism, in which the tenets of capitalism are the guiding force. A pursuit for profits by those controlling the resources of production causes a full-scale campaign against any that would undermine the proposition of a consumer collective that would feed this system. In this you will find that experimental arts and work are marginalized due to the fact that they, often, challenge the fragile construction of reality. "What is clear, however, is that when it is launched by a political apparatus, the attack on artistic experimentation is specifically reactionary: aesthetic judgment would only be required to decide whether such or such work is in conformity with the established rules of the beautiful" (41).

  Habermas focused on Modernism and describes it as being a time in which changes occur from 'old ways' into 'new ways'. Such as during the period of Enlightenment in which philosophers and scientist separated the spheres of "science, morality, and art" (102). One thing that caught my attention is when talks about neo-conservatives and their techniques used to undermine opposition to their models by linking that opposition with extremism. This happens so much in politics today. Like with Obama, he is touted as being a totalitarian socialist because he supported socialization of healthcare. This fits closely with what Lyotards had also talked about since essentially oppositional thought is a sort of avant-gard social expression since it does not conform to norms of the status quo. 

  So do post modernism and modernism coexist, and neither of them are complete?