From Postmodernism to Postcolonialism

On the Interrelation of the Discourses

Paul Michael Lützeler (St. Louis)

Adherents of modernism and traditionalists alike have characterized the

postmodern discourse as "arbitrary," superficial," "cynical," "pointless," and
"hostile to history." The time has come to revise this bias, to note the merits of the
postmodern knowledge that strengthened the perceptions of democratic pluralism,
to examine how it expanded the scope of freedom, and to discern how much other
emancipatory cultural discourses such as multiculturalism and postcolonialism owe
to it.

One of the most consistent clichés encountered in the polemics against

postmodernism is that "anything goes," that all areas of life and art are subject to a
postmodern "arbitrariness." Postmodern thinking owes important impulses to Paul
Feyerabend's study "Against Method." Feyerabend examines the development of
theories and hypotheses in the sciences and he is strongly opposed to "fixed
methods" and "fixed theories." He feels that in science methods, theories, and
hypotheses must be questioned and revised continuously. He suggests a "pluralistic
methodology" that excludes no new viewpoints and instead propounds the thesis
that "anything goes." This anti-dogmatic premise cannot be dismissed in scientific
theory; however, at no time does Feyerabend mention ethics or social behavior, art
or literature. It is therefore difficult to understand how his motto - "anything goes" -
could have become a cornerstone in the polemics against postcolonialism. It is self-
evident that a Feyerabend-inspired theory of history would not fear criticizing
Hegel's dialectics or neo-Marxist interpretations of history. Postmodern thinking is
more informed by the dialogic of Michail Bachtin, in which competing dualities do
not need to eventuate in syntheses.

At its beginning in the 1960s, postmodern theory was concerned mainly with
aesthetic phenomena, as evidenced in the early essays of Leslie Fiedler, Susan
Sontag, and Ihab Hassan. In the 70s, however, it was further developed by
architects such as Robert Venturi, Robert Stern, and Charles Jencks; by
philosophers and cultural critics like Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard,
Frederic Jameson, and Richard Rorty; by feminists such as Linda Hutcheon, Nancy
Fraser, and Linda Nicholson; and by sociologists like Amitai Etzioni, Zygmunt
Bauman, Scott Lash, Ernesto Laclau, and Chantal Mouffe. From the beginning,
postmodernism had a dual meaning: on the one hand, a critical stance toward the
petrification, dogmatization, and self-imposed limitations of modernism, and on the
other hand, a comcept of an era, an attempt to grasp the cultural configuration of
the present that has continued since the 60s.
Like modernism, postmodernism is a Western phenomenon and as such is
connected to the democratizing processes of the Western world. I share this opinion
with postmodern theoreticians and historians such as Ronald Inglehart, Wolfgang
Welsch, Hans Bertens, John Keane, and John McGowen. From early on,
postmodernism was understood as a stage of modernism in its self-criticism and
self-reflection. When postmodern theoreticians like Lyotard did not validate the
unquestioning acceptance of the Enlightenment's metanarratives, such as those
concerning the progress of freedom, it did not mean that they shunned
Enlightenment ideals. Here we find the basis of Habermas's misunderstanding of
postmodernism. Lyotard's skepticism was aimed at the untouchable historical and
philosophical tenets of the Enlightenment, not at its professed goal to continue
democratization with regard to tolerance, equality, and personal freedom or to fight
for human rights. To the contrary, these political and legal ideals play an important
role in postmodern theory, as is demonstrated by the works of Lyotard, Wolfgang
Welsch, and Hans Bertens.

Postmodernism's democratic bend is also noticeable in other discourses that must

be considered part of the postmodern condition: feminism, multiculturalism, and
postcolonialism. While these discourses have their own history, their own specific
roots and goals, they have influenced and supported each other in the era of
postmodernism since the 60s. They were able to develop within the democratic
climate of postmodernism, directed as it is at the emancipation of women,
minorities, and the disadvantaged. It is no secret that the intellectuals involved in
these discourses at times distanced themselves from postmodernism and, in the
pursuit of their own ideas, emphasized the differences rather than the
commonalities. Postmodern thinking has often been chided for its lack of social
goals, which were indeed implicit rather than explicit. In retrospect, however, the
interrelationships between postmodernism and the above-mentioned discourses
cannot be ignored.

The philosophies and ideologies of modernism are replete with metanarratives that
focus on a common denominator of a whole era. Modernism had already stated that
these metanarratives were no longer able to carry out the tasks accorded them, but
it had done so with an expression of regret and melancholy. One of the most
impressive intellectual literary formulations of this regret is the essay collection
"The Disintegration of Values" in the last volume of Hermann
Broch's Sleepwalkers trilogy of 1932. Lyotard's preference for smaller, more
limited narratives was a further expression of the radical pluralism of
postmodernism and served as an additional impetus to the variety of discourses in
multiculturalism and postcolonialism. In contrast to modernism, postmodernism
does not register the increasing variety of life styles and world views as a loss, but
rather counts it as a gain; it is understood as a possibility to maximize freedom and
as an expression of the valuation of what is heterogeneous and different in
democratically organized societies. The general characterization of postmodernism
can be supported by mentioning the contributions of several theoreticians.
In the 1960s, Leslie Fiedler and Susan Sontag contributed in the field of literary
and art criticism to the revaluation of the popular - a constant irritation to Clement
Greenberg. Fiedler and Sontag opposed dogmatized views of modern art and
literature, especially with respect to their autonomy and their remoteness from the
everyday world. Both deserve credit for having taken the popular art movements
seriously and for having bridged the gap between elite and mass culture. Their texts
emphasize what from then on exemplified contributions to the topic of
postmodernism: the fundamental pluralism of artistic and intellectual processes and
paradigms. The insistence on a radical pluralism is the expressly democratic
component or postmodern knowledge. The age of postmodernism is the era of
pluralism, and it was in this climate that new emancipatory discourses could
blossom. Those initial texts on postmodernism by Fiedler and Sontag described the
establishment of the paradigm of plurality and of the construction of a bridge to the
feminist and multicultural discourses. Subsequently, during the 70s and 80s, the
revision of the canon was heavily debated internationally under the auspices of
postmodernism and multiculturalism, feminism and postcolonialism. The
revaluation of popular art and the examination, revision, and expansion of the
canon resulted in new scholarly methods, and with the consideration accorded to
everyday history and culture, openend up new areas in the humanities and social
sciences. In the course of pluralization and Euro-centric self-criticism, new
scholarly fields have evolved such as gender, minority, and ethnic studies. Charles
Jencks applied to architecture the thesis of the dual and multi-level codification of
literature that Ihab Hassan had propounded. Dual codification is also one of the
characteristics of Cindy Sherman's postmodern photography.

Robert Venturi insisted on the hybridity of postmodern architectural concepts, and

art critic Rosalind Krauss demonstrated that hybridity is also a characteristic of
postmodern sculpture. This preference for the hybrid quality is echoed in
postcolonial theory, as conceived by Homi Bhabha, for example. Irony, parody,
and mimicry, according to Umberto Ecco and Linda Hutcheon, determine the
relationship of postmodern to modern literature. Homi Bhabha sees the relationship
between postcolonial and colonial literature in a similar way. The interrelatedness
and mutual influence of postmodern and postcolonial tendencies stimulate the
valuation of cultural hybridity and the acceptance of the value of pluralism:
postmodernism pleads for the tolerance of a maximum of so-called small narratives
in contrast to modern attempts at totality, and postcolonial theory occupies itself
with the increasingly large number of overlapping and crossing civilizations, which
result in new cultural formations.

Ulrich Beck stressed the aspects of self-reflection, ecology, and risk taking in
postmodern society. He coined the expressions of the "other" or "second
modernity," the "zweite Moderne." However, since what he has described is
essentially synonymous with what we understand as the postmodern condition, this
alternative formulation is simply an accentuation of the modern in the postmodern.
The term "postmodern" signals a greater willingness, as far as revision is
concerned, and a more critical distance than does the term "second modernity."

Linda Hutcheon underlined postmodernism's renewed interest in history when she

called postmodern literature "historiographic metafiction." Historiographic
metafiction is self-reflective; it questions modern fundamental concepts of subject,
identity, gender, continuity, and originality. Yet, these ideas of the modern are not
simply replaced by others but are instead reviewed and brought into perspective
during a process of historicization. According to Hutcheon, postmodernism is
neither a purely revolutionary nor a merely affirmative phenomenon; it is
characterized, in her opinion, by both adaptation and objection. Hutcheon reviews
the concepts of modernity from a feminist, multicultural, and postcolonial
perspective.

In stark contrast to Hutcheon, Fredric Jameson feels that in the postmodern,

historical thinking has been replaced by nostalgia. He defines postmodernism as the
logic of late capitalism. In the consumer society of late capitalism, according to
Jameson, reality is turned into "images," and history is reduced to a patchwork of
scenes. Jameson shares this estimation of postmodernity with other neo-Marxist
critics such as Raymond Williams and Terry Eagleton. Zygmunt Bauman, whose
position toward modernity is a much more critical one, also expresses his
reservations vis-à-vis the postmodern condition and points to such aspects as
consumer ideology and market seduction, impoverization of the middle class,
problems of criminality, as well as the growing unemployment rate. Richard
Sennett has a similarly critical view of the relationship of postmodernity to the new
economic policy and the so-called new world order. These authors owe much to
Jean Baudrillard and his criticism of today's consumer society, which Baudrillard
had already voiced in 1970 in his book La Société de consommation, in which he
combined linguistic sign theory and economic analysis. This other, darker side of
the postmodern condition must by no means be overlooked. If its most imposing
problem, that of persistent unemployment, cannot be overcome, its multicultural
and democratic achievements will be endangered as well. Postmodernity must
produce a new social solidarity that can function without the totalitarian utopias of
modernity. Richard Rorty, whose roots lie in the pragmatism of John Dewey, is an
American representative of the philosophical postmodern. Rorty has always
insisted on the connection between postmodernity and solidarity. The category
"human solidarity" was at the center of his work Contingency, Irony, and
Solidarity. Here he recalled the human catastrophes like the Holocaust that occur
when solidarity is absent. His book Achieving our Country"relates to the pragmatic
nature of the American democratic intellectual tradition. Here, too, Rorty insists on
solidarity and demonstrates its meaning under the changed conditions of 1989. He
declares that one of the foremost topics of American postmodernism today is the
criticism of the increasingly drastic social inequality. The emancipation of women
has achieved immeasurable success, and minorities have been able to defend,
demonstrate, and maintain their cultural differences. In the future we will have to
occupy ourselves more intensively with social topics.

Postmodernism is associated much more strongly than modernism with the

discourses of feminism, multiculturalism, and postcolonialism. Postcolonialism
created a climate in which these discourses were able to unfold. Feminism,
multiculturalism, and postcolonialism, in return, aided in the understanding of
postmodernity, as can be seen in the works of Jean-François Lyotard, for example,
to whom both the postmodern and the multiculturalism discourses owe a great deal.
How strongly postmodern thinking influenced the multicultural discourse is
especially evident in Charles Taylor's study Multiculturalism: Examining the
Politics of Recognition." From Fiedler to Hassan and from Jencks and Lyotard to
Rorty, postmodern discourse has always involved insistence on cultural diversity,
the recognition of minorities' forms of thought, language, and lifestyle. This
acknowledgment of cultural difference is at the center of Charles Taylor's
contemplations on multiculturalism and its politics. The unencumbered life of
minorities is not possible without recognition. Taylor states that laws in Western
democracies, while seemingly the same for all citizens, are directed at the needs of
majorities, not minorities. Thus nations, purportedly blind to cultural difference,
can evolve as societies that propound a particularism that easily turns into
discrimination. Lyotard followed his book on postmodernity with the study Le
Différend." In essence, this book serves to provide the bridge between the
postmodernism and the multiculturalism discourse. According to Lyotard,
the différend comes about when - as in legal proceedings - the negotiators speak
two radically different languages. In order to avoid a situation in which the
language of one negotiator overcomes that of the other, one cannot rely on either
one of the legal languages but must develop a new legal language that can be
understood by both. In order to accomplish this, one must look for commonalities
in both languages. According to Lyotard, in postmodern societies one must discern
what is not yet codified instead of simply reiterating what has already been stated
in one of the languages.

The theory of multiculturalism has essentially been developed in the U.S., Canada,
and Australia, the so-called settler colonies. The diversity of this theory is
exemplified by the divergent studies of, for example, the Americans Avery Gordon
and Christopher Newfield, the Canadian Charles Taylor, and the Australian
Stephen Castle. What these theories share is that they replace the older cultural
identity paradigms such as specific national identity or the so-called "melting pot"
with models that propagate the acceptance of the diversity and hybridity of varying,
even contrasting cultures.

Feminism and multiculturalism are emancipation discourses typical of the West.

The theory and practice of postcolonialism, however, has its roots in the so-called
Third World, that is to say, in the former colonies as well as in South Africa. In a
modified way, postcolonialism continues the anticolonial discourse of earlier
decades; one must mention here the works of Frantz Fanon. It is significant for the
postmodern concept of Western countries that the postcolonial theory was
developed above all by academics from colonial countries who are teaching today
at leading universities of the West, particularly North America, like Edward Said,
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Homi Bhabha. It is no coincidence that the
discourses of multiculturalism and postcolonialism overlap and strengthen each
other, as is especially the case with Homi Bhabha.

During the study of the works on the postcolonial discourse, two prominent aspects
emerge: a descriptive concept of postcolonialism and a programmatic concept. The
descriptive aspect deals with the examination of the relationships between the
formerly or presently colonizing and colonized countries; the programmatic
concept, however, marks the political goals, goals that have to do with the
overcoming of old and new colonial structures, racial bias and cultural prejudice, as
well as overcoming the imbalance of power between the "First" and "Third World"
or "North" and "South." Both the analytical and the operative aspects are essential
for the postcolonial theory, and they are rarely strictly separated: the analytical
interest generally goes back to the operatively directed intent. The theory of
postcolonialism is focused on working out the intellectual means by which one can
descriptively enable the understanding of early as well as recent colonial
dependencies and programmatically deconstruct these inequalities in the sense of
decolonization. The operative aspect, whose foremost proponent is
Radhakrishanan, intends to achieve that state which is marked by the prefix "post,"
that is, it is lastly a matter of presenting the future relationship of the so-called
"Third World" to the so-called "First World" on a new basis, in the true sense of the
word post-colonial. The postcolonial view is thus at once detached and visionary: it
wishes to recognize factual colonial conditions in order to change them through
decolonization.

Since the 60s, the postmodern concept has been expanded continuously; it has
attracted an increasing number of disciplinary discourses and has thus been able to
develop into a cultural periodization concept. In contrast, the postcolonial view
continues to be confined essentially to its usage in the humanities. The theoreticians
and historians of this discourse are largely professors of literature or philosophy. In
the meantime, the discourse has achieved international acclaim within literary
scholarship, and there is hardly a country in the "First" or the "Third World" where
academics of the most diverse backgrounds have not contributed their share to the
theory and practice, method and goal of the postcolonial discourse. An internet
search in the "World Catalog" for bibliographical material yields under the
term postcolonial a list of several hundred book publications for the English-
language sector alone. A look at the abbreviated comments quickly reveals that the
contributions are in general of a literary nature, dealing with aspects of literature
from all continents. Since literary scholarship has tendentiously developed into an
interdisciplinary cultural field during the past few decades, there are a number of
studies that touch strongly on historical, sociological, anthropological,
psychological, and ecological areas but are rarely written by representatives of
these very fields. Since it is impossible to gain a complete overview of what has
been written on postcolonialism, one is thankful for collections and readers that
provide at least an impression of the variety and internationality of the literature
dealing with postcolonial aspects. The discussion initially centered on works of
authors from former colonial countries of countries of the so-called "Third World."
They counted among their existential experiences living between civilizations and
dealing with cultural hybridity. The application of postcolonial theory has since
been expanded considerably. First, those authors from the past who thematized
colonialism are examined from a postcolonial viewpoint, and second, contemporary
literary documents written in the vein of the postcolonial project are analyzed.
More recently there are also tendencies to read the literature of minorities and
foreigners in a postcolonial light, which at times brings forth interesting fusions of
the multicultural and the postcolonial discourse. The focal point of the
postcolonially oriented literary research, however, continues to be, on the one hand,
the confrontation with the literature of the colonial era and, on the other hand, the
discussion of the European and non-European literature that deals with the neo-
colonial or post-colonial relationships between the "Third "World" and the "First."

Although it seems impossible to work through all the contributions on

postcolonialism, the books of Edward Said deserve to be mentioned, as they are
cited in many contributions. With his book Orientalism (1978), Said set
postcolonial literary research in motion. He stressed that this work as well as his
book Culture and Imperialism were intended to provide comparative literature with
new impulses, new tasks, and new fields of interest. With the counterpoint method
Said wishes to confront the literature and history of the colonizing states with the
culture of the formerly colonized countries, thus raising the level of awareness for
the spectrum of interrelationships between the two worlds. Like Homi Bhabha, he
is interested in the hybrid marginal areas in which North and South, First and Third
World meet and overlap. In this process he is concerned with the profiling of two
rival perspectives, two irreconcilable historical approaches, two discrepant
experiences: those of the European metropolis and those of the so-called colonial
periphery. He calls to mind that monolithic-autonomous cultures existed neither in
the colonies nor in Europe, but that the civilizations of the colonists and of the
colonized have for centuries influenced each other. Said compares the interplay of
the divergent perspectives to the counterpoint method of classical European music,
in which different themes are played out against each other and where each theme
is accorded a period of its own. At this time of increasing globalization, it is
difficult to imagine a more appropriate kind of literary analysis.

In a manner similar to the American theory of New Historicism influenced by

Foucault, Said is interested in the power aspects of related discourses, in his case
the discourses of colonialism and imperialism. He demonstrates how the literary,
historical, social, and ideological variants of these discourses rely on each other,
thus determining cultural production. For example, when Said interprets Jane
Austen's Mansfield Park in his work Culture and Imperialism, he is able to
document how the novel's passing mention of British Antigua signaled the
dependence of the English upper middle class on the colonies: the world of the
Bertrams in Austen's book is founded on their overseas plantations, which are
worked by slaves. However, Said is interested not only in the colonialist and
imperialist literature from Defoe to Kipling, but also in the literature of opposition
that was written during the waves of emancipation in the colonized nations during
the 20th century. The deconstruction of the Western image of the non-Western
world is taken up in the works of Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, Walter Rodney,
Wole Soyinka, and Salman Rushdie. Thus, Said does not limit himself to
interpretations of literature of the Western canon from Jane Austen to Joseph
Conrad and Albert Camus. In the latter part of Culture and Imperialism he
addresses not the imperialism of the past but rather the neo-colonialism of the
present and the discussion of the North-South relationship. Like other
representatives of postcolonialism, he is not only a historian, but also a critic of the
times. Here the discussion of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses within the context
of Islamic fundamentalism and the American Gulf War plays a role. Said
acknowledges his exile existence and sees in it the fact that one may live in the
West - he teaches in New York -while at the same time belonging to the "other
side." The advantage that comes with living between cultures is being able to point
to what connects the cultures and to recognize their potential collisions. Like Homi
Bhabha, he stresses the non-monolithic condition of the cultures, their flowing into
each other, their hybrid nature. In so doing, he manages to avoid or to overcome the
sort of thinking in opposites that is representative of Huntington's book about
the Clash of Civilizations. The contrast between the Islamic and the Christian
worlds is at the center of his interest. While Huntington proceeds from fixed,
collective identities, Bhabha and Said point to the cultural mixtures and stress the
continuously changing hybrid cultural pluralism. Said takes a stand expressis
verbis against intellectuals, such as Allan Bloom, who wish to perpetuate the
fantasy of a "purely" Western culture and who miss no opportunity to emphasize
their superiority over other cultures. In his literary and cultural analysis it is not
Said's intention to contribute to the politics of confrontation, to enmity and
accusation, but to bring about mediation and understanding. Consequently, he ends
his book on the note that it is more worthy to think about others than to think only
about "us," but he also says that this entails giving up the constant need to repeat
that "our" culture or "our" land is number one.

After the postmodern criticism of the totalitarian comcepts of modernism, the urge
must be suppressed to construct a "spirit of postmodernity," a sort of master key
that would explain all historical and cultural phenomena of the postmodern decades
at the end of the 20th century. Instead, an attempt should be made to enumerate a
few outstanding characteristics of the postmodern constellation, characteristics that
distinguish postmodernity from the dominant tendencies of modernity in the first
half of the 20th century. This can only be done in an additive and descriptive
manner, keeping in mind that this list is certainly incomplete. The following
comparisons are not concerned with the establishment of binary opposites but with
a description of the changes in direction, each with different degrees of radicality.
These tendentious changes make clear that one can speak less of a break between
modernity and postmodernity than of a postmodern self-criticism of modernity, a
kind of reworking and understanding of modernism in the postmodern
constellation.

With regard to political and social issues, postmodernism is concerned with the
change from radical either/or ideologies to an attitude of compromise; from
thinking in strict left/right schemes or progress and reaction alternatives to the
acceptance of blending and transformation; from a friend-or-foe mentality to a
differentiated perspective that moves global interdependencies into the foreground;
from favoring monistic solutions to pluralistic considerations; from the priority of
technical progress to greater respect for the environment and recognition of its
fragility; from relying on constant economic growth to post-material values with
their acknowledgment of the limitations and exhaustibility of resources; from a
mentality searching for security to a more flexible attitude toward risk-taking; from
a male-dominated society to a social structure characterized by the equality of
women; from a Western or Euro-centric view to a multicultural and postcolonial
identity in which understanding of minorities and their cultures plays an increasing
role; from national market and information societies to continental and global
economic exchange processes and communicative networks.

In philosophy and world outlook, it is a matter of focusing on the particular versus

the general, the contextualized versus the abstract, the contingent versus the
necessary, the specific versus the universal, the individual versus the total; it is,
furthermore, a matter of the movement from monistic declarations to a multitude of
interpretative attempts; from a tendency toward singularity to thought processes
willing to consider plurality and heterogeneity; from traditionally rooted identities
and life styles to hybridity and flexibility; from universalist metanarratives to a
diversity of shorter narratives; from an attitude that expects consent to one that can
accept dissent; from a Euro-centric and male-oriented subject position to a broad
spectrum of ethnic, regional, and gender-neutral subject positions; from an
insistence on ordered concepts to an acceptance of entropy; from a fixation on
historical continuities to a belief in the discontinuity of historical processes; from a
focus on the universal to an acknowledgment of the historical; from a largely
utopian viewpoint to a dialog with history.

Finally, in art, architecture, and literature, it is a matter of the movement away from
merely functional beauty toward a pluralism of style, a rediscovery of the ornament
and the consideration of the historical architectonic surroundings; from a dogged
seriousness to an acceptance of the playful, which brings with it a preference for
pastiche techniques; from a favoritism toward elitist art and "pure" styles to a
preference for popular forms and eclectic and hybrid styles; from aristocratic and
exclusionary aesthetic forms to a more public-oriented and reader-friendly
literature; from a search for constant innovation requiring originality to the
recollection of older or the discovery of foreign styles; from a preference for
monologic discourses to dialogic interaction; from definitive categorization to
multi-coding; from ambivalence to polyvalence; from an avant-garde anti-
historicism to an occupation with the past.

The question arises whether postmodernity is already a closed period or whether

one can still describe this turn-of-the-century millennial period with the
postmodern characteristics that have been mentioned. The postmodern discourse
had its highpoint in the Western world during the 70s and 80s. The empirical
study Modernization and Postmodernization by the American social scientist
Ronald Ingelhart proves the song of the demise of postmodernity wrong, a song
sung by most contributors to the special "stock-taking" postmodernism issue
of Merkur in 1998. Inglehart's book is a thorough, factual, and comprehensive
sociological study. According to him, there is no reason to leave the postmodern
paradigm behind. His thesis states that postmodernity, with its post-material values
of self-realization and political participation, has displaced modernity with its
motto of political expansion and economic growth. But is this really the case? Is it
not rather true that a new wave of material value orientation with a fixation on
economic growth has swept away the attitude of post-material values? At any rate,
a similarly dominant discourse that would - like that of postmodernism - span
continents and be enriched by contributions from a variety of scholarly disciplines
has not yet surfaced. There is the possibility that the globalization discourse could
develop into a comparably integrative discourse. The globalization discourse could
possibly encompass the postmodern, multicultural, and postcolonial discourses, but
it could also develop into an ideology of modernist political and neocolonial
expansion and economic growth, an ideology of a second modernity.

It was not my intention here to affirm the continuance of postmodernism ad

infinitum but rather to examine its influence on other current discourses. In
retrospect, we may consider the three decades from approximately 1965 to 1995 as
the era of postmodernism. Altogether, it was not a bad time, considering the 1989
changes in Europe; there certainly have been worse periods in 20th-century history.
But it is too early for nostalgic retrospectives. I can well imagine that a
postmodern, pluralistic, and multicultural discourse on continentalism will evolve
as more important than the globalist discourse.

© Paul Michael Lützeler (St. Louis)

table of contents: No.11

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WWW: http://www.inst.at/trans/11Nr/luetzeler11.htm