Modernism-Post-Modernism McHale B

"This is the distinction that I developed. Modernist fiction was preoccupied with what we know and how we know it; with the accessibility and reliability of knowledge; it explored epistemological questions. Postmodernist fiction, by contrast, explored ontological questions - questions of being rather than knowing. It asked questions like those the Fluxus artist  Higgins once posed: "Which world is this? What is to be done in it? Which of my selves is to do it?" Obviously, the distinction was not absolute: modernist fiction also asked ontological questions alongside its epistemological questions, and postmodernist fiction continued to ask epistemological questions alongside its ontological ones. The difference was one of priority, or of dominance: in modernist fiction, epistemological questions take priority over ontological ones; in postmodernist fiction, it's the other way around. So the change-over from modernism to postmodernism isn't a matter of something absolutely new entering the picture, but of a reshuffling of the deck, a shift of dominant: what was present but "backgrounded" in modernism becomes "foregrounded" in postmodernism, and vice-versa, what was "foregrounded" in modernism becomes "backgrounded" in postmodernism."

This less than absolute distinction between the modernist and post modern, possibly enables there to be some relation between critical meta narrative and localised space, I guess this points in the direction of Fairclough


To be read as a post marxist  critique of the postmodern (ref other critique from 1st essay)
not a performative machiavellian ploy ...


Institutions are built on distinctions 
Anyone who utilises disctinctions makes inclusions and exclusions
The expert role acts as a filter, excluding to select a few, they get exclusive rights(via capital)
In the context of post structural theory of Barthes they are artificially(constituatively) denying any form of ubiquitous quality. Actively creating negative quality by recreation and  selection of 'texts'  of common source. As the expert is defining self as better than the common source. Hence incrementally the expert language groups detatch themselves from the common source, creating closed discourse communities excluding those (not in the know ) using double coding etc. These language groups defend themselves with flat plane post modernist theory (Hicks), attacking any critical theory approach to the institution by choosing to give priority to a critique of the local 'texts', recreating them negatively, compared with their critique their own institutional structural (capital/wage) effects.
This matches the instrumental rationality (neoliberal approach) where the system slowly colonises the original purpose of the institution pushing it further to the right replacing its original mission with a set of increasingly obscure techniques and language games. The technologies themselves may also recreate the texts / recode them in a way that biases perception?




One 'solution' is to abandon critique completely (but capital remains acting as a critique/filter)(Derrida) moving toi  discussion of individual affect/agency 
Perhaps if the critique enables mutliple perspecrtives to build a rich picture of how the system in question (a language game etc) imposes  subject positions and consequent trajectories  conflicts/resolutions we have something of value...(post structralist research?)