Jean-Francois Lyotard’s material has been highly influential in the development of postmodern thought. His book, “The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge“, considered by some to be the ‘Postmodern Bible’, was published in French in 1979. The report was commissioned by the Conseil des Universités of Quebec to help its members develop a philosophical grounding for the introduction of computers into higher education.
Impact of Computer Technology on Education
Lyotard begins by saying that the introduction of computer technology has changed the way we understand knowledge. The electronic storage and distribution of knowledge has led us to the point at which knowledge is produced in order to be sold. Knowledge is bought in order to be passed on in new forms.
So what are the ethical issues faced by a government or education system when considering this development in technology? How will universities decide on the focus of research? How transparent will they be in the distribution of information and insights?
Lyotard’s Context
Lyotard’s approach to the distribution of knowledge and the justification of research is coloured by his changing contexts. In the 1950s he was lecturing in Algeria where he became involved in a Marxist movement to challenge France’s colonialist oppression. Later he became disillusioned with the totalitarian and terrorist approaches of Marxist movements. He moved toward a pluralist approach in which no one metanarrative could be forced on all members of a society.
Alternatives to Modernist Understandings of Social Bond
Here in The Postmodern Condition, Lyotard draws on Wittgenstein‘s approach to language as discourse or language game. His critique of the modernist understanding of social bond outlines two methods of social analysis.
1. Society forms a functional whole (e.g. Talcott Parsons)
2. Society can be divided into two (e.g. Marxism)
Lyotard proposes a postmodern alternative to these two frameworks. Don’t talk about ‘society’ as a whole or two wholes. Recognise that society has been atomised into flexible networks based on many levels of communication. The modernist approaches to society are tied up with levels of bureaucracy that are becoming less and less relevant. Postmodernist approaches to society are hard to categorise and are continually being reinvented in evolving contexts.
Informationism Critiqued
And now Lyotard goes on to critique the informationism of modernist science. Knowledge goes beyond science and learning. It is much more than a set of ‘denotative statements’. It includes knotions of ‘know-how’ (savoir-faire), ‘knowing how to live’ (savoir-vivre), and ‘how to listen (savoir-ecouter).
Knowledge is linked with competence to make ‘good’ performances. This capacity to communicate and live with justice, beauty, truth and efficiency goes beyond scientific knowledge. It is a knowledge that is formed by shared and passed-on narratives.
So what is the narrative that is used to justify government investment in higher education? Lyotard points to the metanarrative of emancipation used by the French Republic under Napoleon. By equipping all people to share in the development of knowledge people are made free, particularly at the level of primary and secondary education. Universities, up to the 1970s, have been seen as places where liberal intellectual elites can engage in the social progress or emancipation of their society.
The second form of legitimation described by Lyotard is a self-referential ‘speculative’ grand narrative that points to the spirit of life. He points to the modernist philosophy department’s claim to link together all disciplines of empirical sciences in the pursuit of universal knowledge for its own sake. Lyotard links this approach with the development of professions defined by their mastery of a body of knowledge.
Lyotard produces postmodern alternatives to the arrogance of modernist self-legitimation. Philosophy as a discipline no longer can claim to prescribe the peramters of every field of science. Now the key to legitimation is in effective communication between scientists, between researchers, between publishers. This is where we come back to the introduction of computer sciences. Electronic storage and sharing of information introduces a huge measure of efficiency in communication of scientific norms, testing of data and research.
Performativity – the connection between input and output – is of great interest to higher education providers. Information technology can take performativity to levels never before known. Already universities are becoming places in which performativity outside the university is the bottom line. Ongoing professional development now takes its place alongside the nurturing of a body of students who learn how to learn. Universities move away from ‘en bloc’ courses to young people before their entry into the work force and now pick up an ‘a la carte’ offering for adults who are already working or who expect to be.
The use of computers for storage and transmission of information brings into question the role of teachers in the postmodernist setting. Computers now make it possible to access information without referring to a teacher. Higher education involves teachers equipping co-learners to actualise the relevant data for solving a problem ‘here and now’ and to organise that date into an effective strategy.
Interdisciplinary studies, with its emphasis on open transparent teamwork, will make it possible for new frontiers in learning, application and communication of knowledge. In this context the setting apart of the sole-operator ‘professor’ as expert will become an anachronism.
Postmodern Science
So what would postmodern science look like? Scientific disciplines in a postmodern era are not required to provide absolute certainties or evidence of stability. Lyotard explores quantum mechanics and atomic physics as examples of disciplines that deliberately explore paradox and instability. Postmodern science verifies its work concerning undecidables, the limits of precision control, conflicts characterised by incomplete information, catastrophes, fracta, and pragmatic paradoxes. The result – the development of fresh ideas.
Lyotard, having described the trend towards economically or pragmatically driven perfomativity, now puts on paper his unease with current trends. Despite the move towards small narratives based on smaller contexts, participants in higher education could still be restricted by the call for acadmeic consensus. As attractive as consensus may sound, Lyotard points out that it can lead to a new form of totalitarian terrorism. Performativity based on consensus and economic rationalism could lead to the quashing of imaginative disciplines such as quantum mechanics. Instead, Lyotard suggests ‘paralogy’ as a form of legitimation. Paralogy as a paradigm actually values dissension and alternative views.
Lyotard says that consensus has become and outmoded and suspect value. “But justice as a value is neither outmoded or suspect. We must thus arrive at an idea nad practice of justice that is not linked to that of consensus.” He suggests that this would begin by recognising that there are many ways to communicate with each other. This would involve renouncing terror. Any rules on definining the language game would be local, agreed by the players involved and able to be cancelled. Lyotard is aware of the drawbacks of short term employment contracts but points out that they have the potential to bring a greater sense of justice to people in their local context.
Lyotard finishes by challenging academic institutions to use computer technology to give the public free access to the memory and data banks. This would respect both the desire for justice and the desire for the unknown.
My Personal Notes
My first attempts to get into this book led me to leaving it on the shelf for some time. It wasn’t until I read up on Lyotard’s biography and the context for the report that I was able to make sense. Lyotard was answering a question that I hadn’t been able to see. The Quebec University and information technology contexts of the late 1970s brought this book alive for me. Likewise I only appreciated Lyotard’s ambivalence toward Marxism and State ideology when I learned of his involvement in Algeria.
It is fascinating to see the ongoing philosphical direction of University education with the move towards users pays here in Australia and New Zealand. Even more fascinating is the call for free electronic access to information through the universities. The internet was birthed in the universities and armed forces in the late 1980s. Lyotard died in 1998. I believe he would have been excited to see in his lifetime the opening up of local and global communities through the World Wide Web.