Abstract

The political practice of the Left is going through a deep crisis, an important part of which is connected to the crisis of modernity and the rise of the postmodern era. It is true that postmodernity is a relatively confused phenomenon. J.-F. Lyotard, who is more committed to providing clear definitions than some other philosophers, has attempted various descriptions: from postmodernity understood as a nascent state of rupture with modernity, to that which defines it as the paradox of a “previous future”, or that which defines it as a process of “ana-”. It seems, however, that in general terms, postmodernity claims to represent the dissolution of modernity and the experience of the end of History and/or the end of ideologies. But this view of postmodernity as rupture has more than one problem. There are those who think that if ours is a postmodern epoch then “Postmodernity is in every respect parasitic on modernity: it lives and feeds on its achievements and its dilemmas.” Others contend that what we are going through is a phase of the radicalization of modernity but in no way its end. Still others argue that “the aspiration to become postmodern is one of the paradigmatic ways to be modern”.