Since postmodernism claims to be the new radicalism that is believed to have unseated Marxism in the last two decades, a kind of thought that began to gain ground since the 1980s, and as many advocates of Marxism consider postmodernism as its new adversary, at times I feel scared at the prospect of Marxists and postmodernists almost coming to blows! With this preliminary remark, I would now try to take a look at the subject of this lecture by focusing on the following: (a) the background of postmodernism; (b) the postmodern framework and its implications for Marxism; (c) the Marxist response to the claims postmodernism; (d) to consider the question whether the two perspectives are negotiable.

Although as a term postmodernism is associated with Jean Francois Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition (1984), where he situates postmodernism as a critique of metanarrative/grand narrative which has been modernity's standardized understanding of history and civilization, basically it originated as a critique of universalization of the European sense of rationality, which legitimized Europe's claim to domination of the world in the name of modernity. It emerged as a critique of how the inexorable discourse of modernity in the name of reason and universality enslaved and disciplined the individual by excluding all options of freedom, choice and autonomy. Philosophically speaking, it is a standard practice to trace the roots of postmodernism to Nietzsche's ideas of relativism and perspectivism, that is, his denouncement of the Hegelian legacy which made absolute of the notions of universality, essentialism and totality.