The Narrative of Liberation

 

In an earlier essay on postmodernism, I pointed out that, contrary to the usual story, there are indeed metanarratives of postmodernity.  And I named a few of them.

Better yet, and more simply put: one of the most persistent narratives (meta or otherwise) is the narrative of liberation.  Marxists saw themselves as liberators: see, for instance, "Emancipation of Labour" - the first Russian Marxist group, founded in 1883, which included Georgi Plekhanov, Vera Zasulich, and Pavel Axelrod - the parent organization of what would, decades later, become the Bolshevik party (as well as the Mensheviks, and other groups).  When Jean-Francois Lyotard wrote The Postmodern Condition, he was essentially writing his own autobiographical story of his emergence out of the Marxist movement, and then projecting his own preoccupations onto the history of the 20th century and the general decline, among intellectuals, in faith in various supposedly Marxist regimes.  Of course, the anticommunists of the 20th century, by and large, also saw themselves as liberators, freeing people from totalitarian tyranny.  Lyotard was using Wittgensteinian philosophy to justify his incredulity towards Marxism, and Robert Vinten has shown, the overriding theme in Wittgenstein is, again, freedom.  So it's not surprising that postmodernists also see the endless play of signifiers as liberating.  Nearly everyone places themselves within a narrative of liberation.  It was the overriding narrative of the 20th century, and continues to be somewhat relevant in the 21st - though perhaps not for long.

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