Jean-Francois Lyotard

“A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant.”

“Our working hypothesis is that the status of knowledge is altered as societies enter what is known as the postindustrial age and cultures enter what is known as the postmodern age.”

“Even now it is no longer composed of the traditional political class, but of a composite layer of corporate leaders, high-level administrators, and the heads of the major professional, labor, political, and religious organisations.”

“A self does not amount to much, but no self is an island; each exists in a fabric of relations that is now more complex and mobile than ever before.”

“Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorised in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange.”

“What is required of a working hypothesis is a fine capacity for discrimination.”

“Scientific knowledge is a kind of discourse.”

“And today more than ever, knowing about that society involves first of all choosing what approach the inquiry will take, and that necessarily means choosing how society can answer.”

“The ruling class is and will continue to be the class of decision makers.”

“If we wish to discuss knowledge in the most highly developed contemporary society, we must answer the preliminary question of what methodological representation to apply to that society.”

“On the other hand, in a society whose communication component is becoming more prominent day by day, both as a reality and as an issue, it is clear that language assumes a new importance.”

“Liberalism does not preclude an organisation of the flow of money in which some channels are used in decision making while others are only good for the payment of debts.”

“Increasingly, the central question is becoming who will have access to the information these machines must have in storage to guarantee that the right decisions are made.”

“What is new in all of this is that the old poles of attraction represented by nation-states, parties, professions, institutions, and historical traditions are losing their attraction.”

“One can decide that the principal role of knowledge is as an indispensable element in the functioning of society, and act in accordance with that decision, only if one has already decided that society is a giant machine.”

“What guides Marxism, then, is a different model of society, and a different conception of the function of the knowledge that can be produced by society and acquired from it.”