Lyotard

I read this assignment in the most post-modern way possible. The words turned into a blur that only marginally represented what they were supposed to in my head. I was seeing letters and shapes, not words. Not meaning. Hopefully this was Lyotard's point, to write about post-modernity to the point where it can only be read in a post-modern fashion.

I jest, but I third the motion that this was probably the most difficult reading so far. The quote I'll use is "What, then, is the postmodern? What place does it or does it not occupy in the vertiginous work of the questions hurled at the rules of image and narration? It is undoubtedly a part of the modern."

Modernity and Post-Modernity are binary opposites. However, it seems as though Lyotard is trying to say they are the same. This seemed similar to existential duality to me. The self is defined by two things, what it is and what it is not. We are equally what we are and what we are not. I am me because I am a cyclist and because I am not a quarterback. Me and the quarterback are the same because we are both defined by that one idea - our physical activity. The self is an illusion based on actions.

Post-modernity, it seems, is an illusion created entirely on the basis of modernity. Without the modern, there can be no post-modern. Post-modernity needs the modern in order to exist, and therefor it IS the modern. It is a function of the modern, it is a consequence.

Or maybe this text actually caused me to go crazy and find connections between my own loose understanding of existential theory and post-modernity. :D