201888

"Postmodern Social Theory"
Author(s): Norman K. Denzin

Source: Sociological Theory, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Autumn, 1986), pp. 194-204
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/201888
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"POSTMODERN SOCIAL THEORY"
NORMAN K. DENZIN
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Clough 1987; Dinnerstein 1976) currents of

My intentions are to review the major themes
and problematics that have emerged over thetheorizing
last (see also Hall 1980).
decade in postmodern social theory (see Foster Some claim that a new age of theorizing is
1983; Bernstein 1985; Jameson 1983, 1984a; beginning (Hayes 1985). Others argue that
Huyssen 1984; Jencks 1985; Newman 1985). Isociology is tired and some contend that
will examine the works of two leading French American sociology is in an interregnum (Wiley
postmodern theorists, Lyotard (1971, 1974, 1985) and has been in one since the late 1960's.
1984) and Baudrillard (1968, 1970, 1972, 1975,New efforts at grand, or synthetic theorizing
1981, 1983a, 1983b, 1983c) against the back-(Alexander, Habermas, Giddens) have not been
met with universal acclaim (see Hayes 1985;
drop of the poststructuralist and Critical Theory
formulations of Barthes, Lacan, Althusser, Livesay 1985; Lukes 1985).
Levi-Strauss, Derrida and Habermas. I hope to It is clear that large portions of the new theory
relate American social theory more closelywork to in American sociology share the following
postmodern formulations. At the same time commitments:
it is (1) a desire to conceptualize
my desire to make social theory more alive to
societies as totalities; (2) an attempt to wed the
the current crises that grip the present world micro and the macro levels of experience; (3) an
economic and cultural structures (Denzin 1986). effort to form sociology into a science of
Because Lyotard and Baudrillard offer explicit society; (4) a desire to speak to the conflict and
and implicit critiques of the Frankfurt School crisis that appear in post-or-late-capitalist soci-
and Habermas, it will be necessary to briefly eties. At the same time there is an undertheor-
speak to Habermas's theory of communicative izing of language, the human subject, the mass
action (1975, 1983) as it applies to the media, commodity relations in the consumer
society, and the legitimation crisis surrounding
legitimation crisis in post-capitalist societies.
I will take up in order the following topics: science, knowledge and power in the moder
(1) the current state of American social theory;world. These topics are the major problematics
(2) a brief discussion of the defining character-
in postmodern social theory.
istics of postmodern theory; (3) an analysis of
the major themes in Baudrillard and Lyotard's
works; (4) a discussion of the Habermas critiqueDefining Postmodern
of postmodernism and postmodern theory; (5) a
I define postmodernism as both a form of
set of proposals concerning the future directions
social theory and empirical research mighttheorizing
take, about societies and a period in social
in light of the postmodern critique. thought. Postmodern social theory is character-
ized by (1) a departure from theorizing in terms
of grand systems which conceptualize the social
as a totality; (2) an intense preoccupation with
The Current State of American Social Theory
the crises of legitimation and experience that
Recent dialogue and debate within Americancharacterize the moder computerized, media
dominated world cultural system; (3) a move in
social theory have centered mainly on the works
of Collins, Alexander, Giddens and Habermas. theorizing that goes beyond the phenomenolog-
If there has been a dialogue in contemporary ical, structural, post-structural and critical theory
theory it has been among varying proponents of formulations of Barthes, Derrida, Levi-Strauss,
conflict theory (Collins, Dahrendorf, Coser), Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Adorno,
microstructuralism (Blau, Giddens), exchange Horkheimer, Marcuse, Lukacs, and Weber; (4)
theory (Homans, Blau, Emerson), interaction- a radical conceptualization of language, linguis-
ism (Blumer, Turner, Stryler, McCall and tic philosophy and pragmatism (Peirce) (5) a
Simmons) ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, critique of scientific knowledge and realism in
Cicourel), functionalism and neo- or post- the late-capitalism era; (6) a critique of the
functionalism (Parsons, Merton, Alexander, subject in social theory; (7) a return to the
Luhmann, Munch; see Turner, 1986). In the commodity as a central theoretical problematic;
background have been powerful Marx-Weber (8) a concern for the collapse of metanarratives
(Antonio and Glassman 1985; Wiley 1986b) (science, religion, art) in everyday life; (9) a call
debates as well as world-systems (Wallerstein for new images of the social, society, language
1980), historical-comparative (Skocpol 1978) and the human subject; (10) a profound distrust
and feminist (Benjamin 1981; Chodorow 1978;of reason and science as forces which will
194 Sociological Theory, 1986, Vol. 4 (Fall:194-204)
POSTMODERN SOCIAL THEORY 195
Simulacrum
produce a utopian society based on consensus,
rational communicative action, and human
freedom (see Lyotard 1984, pp. 64-67, 79-82; A basic thesis structures Baudrillard's interpre-
Baudrillard 1983c, p. 133). tation of the postmodern situation. It is
Postmodern theory has emerged within the contained in the term simulacrum which means
last decade. The term has been primarily usedantoimage, the semblance of an image, make-be-
lieve, or that which "conceals" the truth or the
describe changes and developments in the fields
of architecture and art. It was first used in the real (Baudrillard 1981, p. 32-33). He opens his
United States to describe changes in modernist book Simulations 1983a, p. 1) with the
dance and architecture in 1949, and again in following elliptical statement: "The simulacrum
1974, and more recently in 1985 (Jencks 1985). is never that which conceals the truth-it is the
In the 1970's postmodernism was seen as truth which conceals that there is none. The
migrating to Europe in the works of Kristeva, simulacrum is true." With Barthes and Deleuze,
Lyotard, Baudrillard, Habermas, Foucault and Baudrillard assets that the modern situation was
poststructuralism more generally (Huyssen 1984). defined by the power of the simulacrum; that is
The time period for the beginning of postmodern- by the power of images and signs which have
ism in social theory would be the late 1960'scome to stand for the objects (commodities) that
and the early to middle 1970's, although C. make-up the everyday lifeworld of late-
Wright Mills used the term in 1959 (Mills 1959,capitalism.
p. 166). He elaborates this position as follows. Four
Post modernist theorists suggest that culturehistorical orders of appearance have character-
can be conceptualized as a set of myths ized Western culture: (1) the realistic order of
produced within a communication system. The Feudalism, in which symbols correspond to
texts of culture can no longer be read as external reality, (2) the "Counterfeit" period,
"realist" extensions of actual lived experiences. from the Renaissance to the industrial revolu-
Rather culture is a semiotic, linguistic production, (3) the order of "Production," which was
tion. The meanings of culture must be the dominant scheme of the industrial era, and
deconstructed, taken apart and traced back to (4) thethe order of "Simulation," which is the
productional activities of readers, audiences, reigning scheme in the current phase (Baudril-
and authors. This position produces a crisis, lard 1983a, p. 83). These four historical orders
often termed "the death of the subject" (Foster of appearance correspond to successive phases
1983, p. x-xi). It signals the loss of master of the image of the real: (1) the image is a
narratives in Western culture (i.e. the belief in a reflection of basic reality, as when a map
human subject immune to the structural forces depicts a geo-political territory; (2) the image
of a larger society). At the same time it turns perverts a basic reality, e.g. a religious icon
interest in the direction of the moder consumer subverts or trivializes religious dogma; (3) the
society in which the commodity has become the image masks the absence of a basic reality as in
focal object of experience (Baudrillard 1970),magic or sorcery; (4) the image bears no relation
1975). to any reality, e.g. Disneyland (Baudrillard
Since Foucault, correspondence theories of1983a, p. 11).
truth have been seriously challenged. Simplistic As indicated, Baudrillard asserts the centrality
causal models which argue for structural domi- of four historical moments: (1) pre-Renaissance,
nations that flow from the cultural, social, i.e., the feudal order where there was little
historical, political, or symbolic realms are nowsocial mobility. In this order there is a total
questioned. That is, domination and reflectionclarity of signs, for each sign refers to an
theories (i.e. the economic determines the assigned social position or status; (2) the
cultural, or the cultural reflects the social) have Renaissance in which signs are no longer
been displaced in favor of articulation, archaeo- obligated to refer to a fixed social stratification
logical and genealogical studies of contempo- system. In this moment the arbitrary sign
rary and historical structures of power (See appears. It no longer links two persons in an
Grossberg 1985, p. 146). unchanging relationship. "The signifier starts
referring back to the disenchanted universe of
the signified, common denominator of the real
Baudrillard world toward which no one has any obligation"
(Baudrillard 1983a, p. 85).
Baudrillard's texts embody, in varying degrees, At the same time Baudrillard argues there is a
each of the features of postmodern theory movement as into a democratic political ideology
sketched above. Four key terms, or processes in which there is a transference of values and
organize his analysis: (1) the simulacrum; signs(2)of prestige from one class to another. This
the mass media, (3) the sign, and (4) communi- makes it possible for one class to imitate, or
cation. I will take these up in order. simulate the value and prestige of another class.
196 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
There is thus a proliferation of signsno oflonger

valuea basic reality to which objects and
and prestige (fashion). Signs and images their signs refer. This is the age of the
become counterfeit; that is they now extend hyperreal.
to Disneyland is a perfect model of how
materials, and social statuses which are no each of the proceeding orders of the image and
longer clearly bounded by a fixed stratification
appearance are entangled. There are pirates, the
system. The modem sign is thus born in the frontier, a future world, a world of castles, a
Renaissance. It simulates the real world, and world controlled by robots, a make-believe
produces a nostalgia for the past. The sign noworld in which all values are exalted, simulated
longer has a fixed, referential relationship toand
a presented to the viewer (Baudrillard 1983a,
fixed, stable social world of social objects andp. 25-26).
persons. The third-order of the simulacrum contains
If the Renaissance creates the false (i.e. the postmodern experience. It constitutes a form
baroque theatrical machinery, stucco interiors)
of social organization in which the polity, the
(3) the industrial revolution pushers in a period
economy, culture and the mass media endlessly
where signs no longer have to be counterfeited.
reproduce one another in a proliferation of signs
Now they can be mass produced with machines. and codes. The industrial order is replaced by a
The problem of their origin, uniqueness, or computerized, cybernetic model. A logic of
authenticity is no longer relevant. Following deterrence operates in this historical moment, as
Walter Benjamin (1968), Baudrillard argues that
does a discourse of crisis. The only weapon of
the work of art (and the sign) in the age power
of has become the attempt to inject realness
technical reproduction is one in which there andis referentiality into the world of the mass
no longer any problem concerning the relation-media. Everywhere there are attempts to con-
ship between a sign and its object. The vince us that the social is real; the economy is in
Counterfeit period is over. We are in the age aofgrave situation, and solid political leadership
mass production. Objects become undifferenti- will take us out of this crisis. Hyperreality and
ated simulacra (imitations, reproductions) simulation
of thus become deterrents in the system;
one another. At the same time the men and that is "the very definition of the real becomes:
women who produce these objects also become that of which it is possible to give an equivalent
simulacra. This is the essence of the moder reproduction" (Baudrillard 1983a, p. 146,
division of labor according to Baudrillard (see
italics in original). We live, Baudrillard argues,
1983a, p. 97; 1975, p. 30). in a time in which the political, social, historical
The industrial age produces the mirror of
and economic have incorporated the "simulatory
production, in which men are induced todimensionbelieve of hyperrealism" (Baudrillard 1983a,
that their labor (use value) defines their p. 147).
worth
(exchange value). The assumption that use value
(concrete value behind exchange value) struc-
tures economic production emerges in the The Mass Media
early
capitalist period. This moment is organized in
terms of an ideology which links manThe as amedia is the hyperreal agency personified.
producer to man as moral being. The myth It stagesor and reproduces the deterrence drama. It
mirror of production thus underlies Marxism's brings alive the contradictions and oppositions
analysis of capitalism (Baudrillard 1975,between p. 31) peace and war, terror and security,
for it convinces men that they are alienated inflation and economic stability, employment
because they sell their labor power. Marxism and unemployment, hold-ups, hijacks and bomb-
thus becomes ideological at the very moment ings (Chang 1986; Baudrillard 1983a, p. 41).
when it should provide a radical critiqueThe of media
the provides the public with the illusion
political economy it has set out to analyze. of reality and actuality. The media over-
Marxism, like capitalism, appeals to aproduces
model information. It fabricates communica-
of simulation which controls the industrial tion, when non-communication is its goal
period; that is it codes human experience (Baudrillard,
in 1981, p. 169). The media has
terms of use and exchange value without created information consumers. Information has
become the central commodity of the current
realizing that these terms have come to rule the
entire capitalist system in a symbolic fashionage. The media short circuits events which
(see below). What Marxism misses is that occur in the realm of the political and the
capitalism, in the industrial age, has shiftedeconomic by broadcasting them and creating the
illusion of an abstract, universal public opinion.
from a model of the real sign to an age in which
The media actualizes the simulation models of
the image masks the absence of a basic reality.
the third-order of the simulacra (Baudrillard
(4) In the age of reproduction we are in the third
post-feudal order of simulacra where the entire 1981, p. 179). It creates and circulates a form of
order of production is governed by operational universalized opinion that excludes communica-
simulation. This is the postmodern age. There tion
is between interlocutors. What is communi-
cated is a univocal voice which sociallybolic exchange and use value). What is critical
controls
public opinion. is that the symbolic has invaded the commodity
and its signs and this has occurred through the
realm of the ideological which has now taken
The Sign
control over the political economy of signs. The
The internal structure of the sign operates object ininthe new political economy of post-
terms of a political economy. The signifier modernismandis indissoluably both commodity and
signified (as the two sides of the sign), sign (Baudrillard 1981, p. 148). In this analysis
correspond to the two sides of a commodity Baudrillard radicalizes the traditional Marxist
(exchange value and use value). Just as critique of the political economy and drives the
semiotics of experience directly into the sign
exchange value corresponds to use value, or the
structures
commodity form and the object form, the which surround the commodities that
are produced and consumed in the public and
systems of signifier and signified designate two
codes: sign value and symbolic exchange. private spheres of everyday life.
Ideology no longer stands outside everyday
Communication
life as an infrastructural relation between produc-
Communicative understanding is now trans-
tions of signs (culture) and contradictions in the
base. Ideology has invaded the very sign that formed into a fascination with the "spectacle";
signifies the commodity objects that capitalism with the latest ecological, geo-political, mone-
produces. Ideology is "actually that very form tary, or personal crisis that is presented to the
that traverses both the production of signs andsilent majority on the television screen (Baudril-
material production-or rather, it is the logical lard 1983b). The hyperreal of the media
bifurcation of this form into two terms ..." neutralizes the social, leaving the meaning of
(1981, p. 144). Exchange value (EV) and use events to be determined by media experts who
value (UV) thus lie on opposite sides of the sig- interpret the hyperreal as real for the public.
nifier (Sr) and the signified (Sd). "The logic of The media thus creates the illusion of
the commodity is the internal logic of the sign. audience or viewer participation in the events
[Baudrillard, 1981: 144, italics in original]. the day. A fantasy of communication is creat
Several important conclusions flow from this (Chang 1986, p. 175). The audience participat
analysis of the sign. First, the structure of the in an anti-drama which is created for them
sign is the structure of the commodity. Hence the media. The hyperreal that is created is th
the two have become inseparable-sign and given a structure of meaning that makes it m
commodity, T.V. and the television set, etc. real than the real that it has replaced. Reality
Second, the commodity that dominates in the erased, as in Disneyland and elsewhere.
postmodern world is information. Third, what is The mass emerges out of the mass media a
consumed is not objects, or commodities per se, an undifferentiated entity whose representat
but signs of these objects. The commodity is is no longer possible (Baudrillard 1983b, p. 2
produced as a sign of itself, as sign value. SignsThe mass is tnat which is surveyed and tested
are produced as commodities (Baudrillard 1975, sociologists. Yet it remains mute and silent,
p. 147). The world that the sign invokes is attitudes and feelings to be represented back to
nothing but a shadow, or hyperreal simulation of through public opinion polls. The masses lack
the real, which has now been mass produced. historical mission. They engulf mass cultu
Fourth, a social logic now governs the produc- swallow up its fashions, and contribute to
tion and consumption of objects. This logic system of social stratification which bases its
turns on four conceptions of value: (a) use on the prestige and status symbolism of th
value, (b) exchange value, (c) sign value, (d) commodities the economy makes available.
symbolic exchange. Objects no longer have an All of this is structured by a collapse of th
empirical status in the world, except as they are division between the public and private
captured within a sign. The pure object is a everyday life. A new historic scene has emerg
myth (Baudrillard 1981, p. 63). in which the interiority of private space (t
Objects now circulate through a political home) has been invaded by the media. The
economy of signs in which sybolic exchange domestic universe has become a public space in
value (the prestige of an object as signaled by its which the news of the world plays out its drama
sign value) replaces use value (which has on the television set. Individuals are no longer
actors in their homes, but controllers of
become an alibi for the commodity), while pure
exchange is now governed by the rules of information terminals which connect them to the
decorum, status and prestige. The logic of entire world system. They have become receiv-
prestige and status thus controls the commodi- ers of information. The home has become the
ties which are consumed. All everyday objects setting for the simulation of the real. Here work,
must now submit to the duality of a code which leisure, sexuality, family, education, banking,
simultaneously confers prestige and effort (sym- consumption and social relations are all played
out. Here we project ourselves intoare fantasy

trapped in a historical moment where the
worlds (Baudrillard 1983c). instantaniety of things gives rise to feelings of
This situation produces an obscenity of no defense and no retreat. We are at the end of
experience wherein the most private of eventsintimacy and private interiority. We have been
become fodder for the media. There are no overexposed to the world at large. The image
longer any secrets concerning the personal, Baudrillard (1983c, p. 133) leaves us with is the
sacred realms of daily existence. Information on The postmodern individual
following.
the person is now contained with information
banks, held by hospitals, the Social Security can no longer produce the limits of his own
System, the workplace, the Internal Revenue being, can no longer play nor stage himself,
System, the bank, and the loan agencies.can Theno longer produce himself as mirror. He
media exploits ruptures in the realm of isthe now only a pure screen, a switching center
for all the networks of influence.
private through its endless circulation of infor-
mation and news. The old divisions between
public and private have disappeared. Lyotard
Lyotard's most recent work (1984) may be read

Interpretations as a polemic against Habermas's (197 la, 1971b,
As Chang (1986, p. 161) and others have 1975, 1981) and Luhmann's (1969) conception
observed, Baudrillard's work is a reaction to theof the legitimation crisis in post-industrial
inadequacy of the Marxist and semiotic analysis societies and the nature of scientific knowledge
of the political economy of the present post- in those societies. The vision of a noise-free,
capitalist situation. His work shows how fully communicative social order, based on
"revolutionary ideologies can end by reaffirm- rationality and consensus is rejected by Lyotard.
ing what they intend to subvert" (Chang 1986, If Habermas and Luhmann locate the legitima-
p. 161). Marxism remains within the political tion crisis in the technical realm of the political
economy of production and exchange. Semiotics economy, which then displaces itself in the
has revealed a hesitance to locate the signifier sphere of the cultural and the everyday, Lyotard
and the signified in the logic of the political locates the crisis in the production and distribu-
economy of signs that merges with the postmoder tion of scientific knowledge in the moder
economic situation. Baudrillard's insight hascomputerized society. Hence Lyotard's critique
been to merge these two concerns, as evidenced centers on knowledge and its production, while
Habermas's is focused on the state and its need
in his critique of the political economy of the
for legitimation. Lyotard attempts to expose a
sign. It is clear that it will no longer be possible
to perform a sociological and Marxist or flaw in the post moder system which, if
Weberian analysis of the economy without acorrect, cuts to the core of the legitimation crisis
model which merges the economic with the Habermas attempts to repair through his concept
linguistic. of rational communicative action. Hence, while
Baudrillard's work can be read as an concurring with Habermas on the presence of a
elaboration of the early Frankfurt crisisSchool's
in contemporary social life, Lyotard
argument that the cultural has produced a contends that the crisis is one of representation,
one-dimensionality of experience. But his inter- science and knowledge and not communication.
pretation thickens this position and brings it up The following prolematics structure Lyotard's
to date in the moder computerized age. At the argument: (1) Knowledge, paralogy and legiti-
same time his work challenges the latest efforts mation in postmodern societies; (2) language
of Habermas to build an utopian theory of games and postmodern science; (3) the nature of
rational, communicative action. Baudrillard's the social bond under postmodernism; (4) a
work suggests that we have transcended thatcritique of Habermas and (5) a consideration of
historical moment in which the real, the rational what postmodernism is.
and the symbolic can unproblematically con-
nect. His work, grounded as it is in a descriptiveKnowledge and Legitimation in
analysis of the postmodern experience (ChangPostmodern Societies
1986), suggests that the ecstasy of communica-
tion, far from being competent and rational, hasPostmodernism is a different moment in the
produced its own circular emptiness, which issocioeconomic organization of society. Capital-
solitary and narcissistic (Baudrillard 1983c, p. ism has moved to a third stage, consumerism,
132). Intersubjectively shared meanings, groundedhaving surpassed prior stages where market and
in rationality and reason, have slipped away as amonopoly capitalism dominated. This third
dominant motif of the postmodern period. Westage has produced a media society, a society of
are in an age where there is a forced exterioritythe spectacle, a bureaucratic society controlled
of interiority (Baudrillard 1983c, p. 132). We by consumption and the computerization of
knowledge. This has created a crisis Examples

in the from many fields can be cited to
legitimation of science, technology andsupport
society. this claim by Lyotard: game theory,
artificialof
The grand narrative legitimating structures intelligence, utility theory, behavior-
the past turned on two myths: the beliefism, debates
that within structural-functionalism,
science could liberate humanity (thecompeting
French research paradigms in the sociology
of ascience,
Revolution), and the belief that there is unity conflicts between literary theorists
to all knowledge, producing cumulativeconcerning
rational constructionist and deconstructionist
understandings of man, nature and readings
societyof texts, etc. In each of these examples
a theorist,
(German idealism). Incorporated in this latter scientist, or critic poses a counter-
myth was a systems theory of society,theoretical i.e., as ainterpretation of a class of phenome-
unified totality. Lyotard contends that these
non. He or she justifies this question in terms of
myths have collapsed, leaving postmoder its ability to generate new knowledge and new
science in a situation where its task is no longerarguments regarding the subject matter at hand.
one of producing an adequate model of reality,
but rather one of producing more knowledge,
more work, and more information. The realist Language Games and Postmodern Science
epistemology, which underwrote the old version
of science (positivism), argued that science Two new performative criteria for science have
could reproduce reality objectively. It was a thus emerged. The first highlights efficiency,
mirror of reality, and its categories were production and performance. This is the criteria
adequacy, accuracy and truth. of information technocrats and bureaucrats, both
Postmodern science, which Lyotard sees as governmental and corporate. The second criteria
emerging over the last 40 years, has displayed a is the one that questions the very legitimacy of
preoccupation with language and theories of the scientist's theory. This is the criteria of
representation. It has moved from epistemolog- paralogy, i.e. a permanent tendency toward
ical realism to a concern for theories of scientific revolution. These two criteria clash.
nonrepresentational, simulated practices. Thean anti-model opposing scientific
Hence, while
leading sciences over the past fortystability underlies postmodern science, this
years have
had to do with language: model has been required to fit itself to the
bureaucratic model of performance efficiency
phonology and theories of linguistics, prob-
demanded by the larger system.
lems of communication and cybernetics,
By conceptualizing postmodern science in
modem theories of algebra and informatics,
this manner Lyotard is able to incorporate recent
computers and their languages, problems of
translation and the search for areas of philosophies of language and pragmatics into his
model. Drawing upon Wittgenstein, Austin and
compatibility among computer languages,
Searle, he argues that language games have
problems of information storage and data
become the model for postmodern science. The
banks, telematics and the perfection of
pragmatics of language use, the study of
intelligent terminals, paradoxology. The facts
language in speaking situations, and the under-
speak for themselves (and this list is not
standing that language is always an unstable
exhaustive) (Lyotard 1984, p. 3-4).
interactive exchange of messages between
Postmodern science no longer rests on the sender and receiver, leads him to offer a
search for stabilities. Since Goedel's theorem, conflictual, "agonistic" version of science and
Kuhn's theory of revolutions in knowledge the social bond (Lyotard 1984, p. 10).
structures, and Thom's catastrophe theory, Lyotard distinguishes two types of knowl-
instabilities, discoveries of unpredictabilities, edge, narrative and scientific. He also distin-
innovations and discontinuities have become the guishes two types of language games, narrative
scientific norm. Science now legitimates itself which rely upon rules of competency that are
through paralogy, or the production of knowl- not purely objective and denotative but promis-
edge which undermines previous understand- sory, performative, prescriptive,) and scientific
ings, and seeks legitimation through new (which rely upon denotative rules). Narrative
narratives which are pragmatic; that is, the newknowledge, which does not equal scientific
knowledge works for a limited period of time, knowledge, corresponds to the taken-for-granted
only to be overturned by a new de-stabilizing knowledge structures everyday individuals in a
discovery. Thus paralogy represents the hall-society employ and have access to, i.e. ordinary
mark of postmodern science. It involves the language. Narrative knowledge includes myth,
attempt, not to reach agreement within a folklore and ideology. It is the raw material for
framework, but to undermine, from within the the social bond. It is played out in language
framework, prior assumptions held under the games which are agnostically structured. Narra-
assumptions of "normal science" (Jameson tive knowledge carries its own authority. It
1984b, p. xix). absorbs the past into the present.
Scientific knowledge requires the language sional, labor, political and religious organiza-
game of denotation to the exclusion of all tions) are replacing the old power structure
others. It has, until recently, been set aside fromwhich moved between the nation-state, the
the language games that form the social bond.middle and working classes, institutions of
Yet it has influenced the social bond throughhigher learning, and the traditions embodied in
institutions of education and higher learning.the grand narratives of the past. This breaking
Science games and scientific knowledge judgeup the grand narratives produces for Lyotard,
narrative knowledge to be inferior, while not the dissolution of the social bond, as it does
narrative knowledge tolerates scientific knowl- for Baudrillard (Lyotard 1984, p. 15) but a new
edge. form of social organization in which the
Lyotard argues that knowledge in the conflictual language game predominates. In this
postmoder period displays a fundamental era the self comes to exist in a "fabric of
-tension between narrative and scientific forms. relations that is now more complex and mobile
Science now appeals to narrative when it than ever before" (Lyotard 1984, p. 15).
attempts to legitimate itself in the public's eye. Each individual is located at the center of
Pragmatically, postmoder science invokes the specific and multiple communication circuits or
new authorities of the state and the university,points. Multiple language games (political,
transforms the "people" into heroes, and economic, sexual, interactional, ideological)
promotes the narrative myth that science is innow play across the biographies of individuals.
the service of the people. At the same time more and more information
Postmodern science has been invaded by theabout each person is being generated, collated
language games of narrative knowledge. It hasand located within ever larger data banks. The
invested itself in a search for metanarratives reserve of knowledge about each person is
which would legitimate it. The contemporary inexhaustible. The computerization of society,
incredulity toward metanarratives, however, coupled with the pragmatics of science which
(Lyotard 1984, p. xxiv) reflects a crisis in now legitimates itself in terms of paralogy, has
philosophy, science and the university. In the produced a heterogeneity of language games
past these structures could appeal to the which defies consensus. (Lyotard 1984, pp.
metanarrative myths of the grand tradition: 65-66)
science equals reason. Today this is not
possible; and to the extent that such appeals Habermas
are
made they are done in the name of a new
metanarrative structure which masks the decline Heterogeneity and the search for dissent (the
of the old orders of reason, tradition and hallmarks of postmoder science) destroy the
consensus. very assumptions of Habermas's theory. In
particular they contradict
The Social Bond a belief that still underlies Habermas's
research, namely that humanity as a collectiv
As indicated above Lyotard postulates a
(universal) subject seeks its common emanci
conflictual, agonistic model of the social order.
pation through the regularization of "moves"
Conflict, not consensus, structures society. This
permitted in all language games and that th
view derives from his theory of language games.
Scholars such as Parsons, Habermas and
legitimacy of any statement resides in its
contributing to that emancipation" (Lyotard
Luhmann value a systemic, consensual, conform-
1984, p. 66).
ist, system-legitimating model of science and
society. Lyotard rejects this view and the For Lyotard consensus has become an out-
partitioning of knowledge into positivist, tech- moded value, as has discourse toward consen-
nological, and critical-reflexive categories that it sus. The model of society that Habermas
presupposes (Habermas). Such a division, he idealizes would produce, for Lyotard, a new
argues, reproduces the problems of computer-communicative community, terrorized by con-
ized knowledge in postmoder societies. It is formity and enforced consensus. The older
out of step with postmoder knowledge which models of society and science must be rejected
has fallen into the domain controlled by because they have in fact been rejected by
administrators, machines, data banks, archives society. Here Lyotard lays to rest Parsonian
and libraries. Such a division fails to raise thesystems theory, functionalism and outdated
central problematic of the postmodern period;Marxist theories which see society as a dialectic
that is who owns the data bank? of two classes struggling with one another.
A composite layer of corporate classes now The rights of the social and society have low
sits astride computerized society. These classes priority in the postmoder period. Alleviations
and their members (high level administrators, of social problems are of concern only if such
heads of major corporations, heads of profes- attention can improve the system's performance.
ized,
The needs of the underprivileged are no professionalized
longer a and subject to specific
concern of the system. The system has forms
becomeof rationality,
a including the cognitive-
vanguard machine dragging humanity rational,
along and the moral.
The 18th century project of modernity
with it (Lyotard 1984, p. 63). It dehumanizes
humanity "in order to rehumanize itproposed
at a newa rational organization of everyday
level of normative and performative life. Art and science would reflect and control
capacity."
Lyotard states: nature, producing understanding, moral progress
and human emancipation. The 20th century has
The technocrats declare that they cannot trust
shattered this premise.
what society designates as it needs; Habermas
they sees the various versions of moder-
"know" that society cannot know its own
nity and postmodernism as contributing to this
needs since they are not variables independent
demise of the Enlightenment belief structure.
of the new technologies. Such is the arro-
Moder art failed to give a rational structure to
gance of the decision makers-and their
everyday life. Rather it shattered any belief in a
blindness (Lyotard 1984, p. 63). consensual, normative order. The anti-
It can now be seen why Lyotard cannot follow modernism and postmodernism of such critics as
Habermas. Habermas's emphasis on rules whichFoucault, Derrida and Batille have further
are valid for all language games, where dialogue undercut the modernist project. They have
can produce consensus, is meaningless for celebrated de-centered subjectivity, located self-
Lyotard. Consensus can never be an end; it is a expression in a far away land, justified the
state in discussion. Its end is paralogy. The postmodern in the name of the new and
heterogeneity of rules in language games and the juxtaposed the will to power and instrumental
search for dissent question Habermas's model. reason. Habermas, accordingly, rejects the
Discourse can never be a weapon against a postmodern project.
stable system, as Habermas argues in his Lyotard responds in kind. He rejects Habermas's
criticism of Luhmann, or so Lyotard contends claim that the modernist project never had a
(1984, p. 66). chance and should not be abandoned. Lyotard
turns Benjamin's arguments concerning art in
the age of reproduction against Habermas,
What is Postmodernism? Lyotard
and Habermas suggesting that capitalism has always repro-
duced the familiar and the artistic, while
Lyotard (1984, pp. 71-82) analyzes the multiplesubjecting such productions to the technical
meanings of postmodernism. He addresses criteria of the best possible performance.
Habermas's (1981, 1983) critique of the Habermas's model is thus one based on
postmodern project and its reaction to thenostalgia and a longing for a return to an age
modernist agenda of the Enlightenment. I will realism.
first take up Habermas's critique and then Where Habermas would have artists return to
Lyotard's response. an age of realism, Lyotard endorses an art that
In "Modernity- An Incomplete Project" questions and challenges the canons and tradi-
Habermas argues that postmodernism presentstions of the past. Realism avoids the basic
itself as being antimoder; that is as being question of "What is Reality?" This is the
against the modernist impulse. The relation ofquestion postmodernism asks over and over
the moder to the classical has thus been lost. again and it is the question Habermas wants to
Certain neoconservatives, such as Daniel avoid; or so Lyotard argues.
Bell, have linked cultural modernity with
nihilism, hedonistic values and a general
weakening of the rational in everyday life. Redefining the Postmodern
These critics welcome societal modernization
but not cultural postmodernism. TheyFor
fail to
Lyotard postmodernism (1984, pp. 79-82)
see, however, that a crisis in the communicative
has the following characteristics: (1) it is part of
infrastructures of everyday life arises from the
the present, modern period; (2) it is a reflective
clash that has occurred between administrative
reaction to the present; (3) it is a withdrawal
and communicative rationalities in the present
from, and a critique of the real. It questions the
period. Nor do they grasp Weber's point that
power of representation to present the sublime;
cultural modernity involved a separation of(4) it emphasizes the jubilation of being and the
substantive reason in religion and metaphysics
invention of new rules of the game; (5) it rejects
into three areas: science, mortality and art. With
a nostalgia for the past; (6) it attempts to present
this separation rose the great claims of the
the unpresentable; (7) time, not the subject
becomes the hero; (8) the signifier is given
Enlightenment for truth, normative rightness,
authenticity and beauty. Each domain of the
primacy; (9) the grammar and vocabularies of
cultural could be seen as becoming institutional-
language are no longer just accepted. Postmodern-
ism plays with language in an attempt

howtothe
present
meaning structures which are arising in
the unpresentable. the postmodern age find verification in ordinary
lives.
Modernism, in contrast, presents the Schutz's
real and man on the street has been
the sublime in an aesthetic that is acceptable,
transformed into an expert on the happenings
and produces solace and pleasure. The "real"
within the global village that constitutes the
sublime, however, produces pain and discom-
world system. How this information then enters
fort and this is the underlying goal of and circulates within the realm of the taken-for-
postmodern-
ism; to produce, that is, a massive and painful
granted is not understood.
More works
reflection on the present. Postmodernism deeply Lyotard and Baudrillard's works
with rules that are constructed as the game
can be ismassive critiques in the sociology
read as
played. It rejects tradition and the old rules and
of science of knowledge. Each questions how
the game, whether this be in art, literary what passes for knowledge in the postmodern
criticism, political theory, social theory, or age becomes constituted as knowledge. Each
philosophy. questions the relationship between power, truth
The postmodern task becomes one that (1) and knowledge and each offers an analysis of
does not simplify reality, but (2) invents new the state as an agent which structures science
allusions to the conceivable that cannot be and truth. At the same time their works can be
presented under old terms; (3) will not read as critical
produce a phenomenological studies in the
theory that reconciles the chasm of everyday
a totalitylife worlds of the postmodern period.
which is missing; (4) pays the price for the terror
that is produced by dis-order; feeling that for too
Reflections
long we have paid for nostalgia and a desire to
reconcile the real with the conceivable. It is now necessary to reflect on the directions
Postmodernism thus urges a war onsocial totalities,
theory and empirical research might take
while it bears witness to the unpresentable in the near future.
and First, it is clear that, with the
activates the differences that exist in exception
the social,
of feminist theory, current American
social theory, evidences an attempt to salvage
cultural and historical realms of the everyday.
from the great early moder social theorists
(Marx, Weber, Durkheim) and the moder
Interpretations
theorists (Parsons, Merton, Homans, Garfinkel,
Lyotard's study offers a penetrating Goffman) analysis of a model of the social and the
the knowledge structures of postmodern interactional that still sees societies as totalities.
life.
Postmodern science now legitimates Thisitself in to theorize about the totality is a
impulse
terms of the rules of two language games: modernist, not a post-modernist theme. These
science and everyday narratives. By analyzing theories and the rereadings of the classic texts
the discourse structures that now legitimate that they rest upon still valorize the subject,
postmodern science he shows how a new mode while locating sociology's subject matter in a
and form of power has come into play in present world that reacts against the changes and
everyday life. His archeological and genealogi- transformation that have occurred in the last 40
cal interpretation of the transformations that years. That is, American social theory has not
have occurred in the communications and theorized language, the problematic of the
language sciences suggests that we are in anor has it critically reflected upon the
subject,
neo-representational age. The image ofgrand narratives of the past that gave rise to
reality
and computerized information about thatsociology reality in the first place.
has for all practical purposes, replaced any Second, recent theory work remains within,
direct contact with the world of the real. We live while its very actions deny, the positivistic
the real through the mediated knowledge paradigm. Attempts to formulate causal interpre-
structures postmodern informational systems tations of the social reveal this commitment. Yet
give us. These knowledge structures no longer the very theory work of Collins, Giddens and
carry their own proof of verification, for their Alexander evidences a move into the language
rules of legitimation have become absorbed into games of the postmodern that Lyotard so
the very language games they presuppose for convincingly analyzes. These new readings of
their existence. The implosion of meaning andclassic texts are justified, not because they yield
information that Baudrillard identified is thus better readings, or more truth, but because they
given new meaning by Lyotard. We are in arean new. Thus if current social theory is to
critically reflect back upon itself it must learn
age where the terror of over-information sur-
rounds us. how to analyze the language games it plays as
new theory and new textual readings are
Lyotard's and Baudrillard's interpretations
call for serious study and research. We doproduced.
not
know how this new information age is lived onThird,
a sociological theories and studies of the
postmodern situation must be undertaken-if
daily basis by ordinary people. We do not know
not within the frameworks of Baudrillard and Culture, edited by Hal Foster. Port Townsend, WA:
Bay Press.
Lyotard, then at lest within frameworks that
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"Postmodern Social Theory"

Author(s): Norman K. Denzin

American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and

Clough 1987; Dinnerstein 1976) currents of

There is thus a proliferation of signsno oflonger

out. Here we project ourselves intoare fantasy

Lyotard's most recent work (1984) may be read

knowledge. This has created a crisis Examples

ism plays with language in an attempt

Pp. vii-xxi in The Postmodern Condition: A Report

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