In fifteen pages this paper argues that the social theory posited by Lyotard is beneficial in understanding Durkheim's sociological perspectives in terms of its limitations and strengths. Nine sources are cited in the bibliography.
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significantly better understanding of how postindustrialization forced humanity to fall - at least to some extent - out of touch with the discourse of knowledge. Individualism, capitalism, consumerism and
all the other postmodern quests for which people only thought they desired turned out, according to Lyotard, to be a complete abandonment of narratives, ultimately and effectively shattering the fundamental
basis upon which mankind understands his existence (Browning PG). "Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity towards metanarratives. This incredulity is undoubtedly a product of progress
in the sciences: but that progress in turn presupposes it. To the obsolescence of the metanarrative apparatus of legitimation corresponds, most notably, the crisis of metaphysical philosophy and of
the university institution which in the past relied on it. The narrative function is losing its functors, its great hero, its great dangers, its great voyages, its great goal.
It is being dispersed in clouds of narrative language elements--narrative, but also denotative, prescriptive, descriptive, and so on. Conveyed within each cloud are pragmatic valencies specific to its
kind. Each of us lives at the intersection of many of these...There are many different language games--a heterogeneity of elements. They only give rise to institutions in patches--local
determinism" (Lyotard PG). II. EXPOSING POSTMODERNISM Postmodernism was the breaking free of certain social, political and economic strangulation that decreed all followers
must abide by the same doctrines. Postmodernisms discursive system was a reaction to and critique of modernism, with particular emphasis upon modernisms elitist social, political and economic structure of
upper and lower classification. The influence of modernisms political and aesthetic projects of resistance and revolution, recooperation and universalism all played an integral role within the ultimate rise of