THE PROGRAMME holds that the human situation is at its deepest level problematic. We view the development of culture as the necessary response of a species seeking survival in terms established by its endowments from natural evolution. The capacity for consciousness of consciousness and the skill to remake the environment for the perceived advantage of the individual and the group lie at the heart of the concept.
The postmodern temper from this perspective is another in an endless series of engagements of human powers with the circumstances that challenge and threaten--and excite. We see in the discussion of postmodern points of view a predisposition to feel that, at last, we have got it right. That is the tone of every age's authoritative word, of course. THE PROGRAMME asserts that the postmodern, too, is finite as an explanation, as a comfort, and a post-postmodern must be born. Indeed, it is already born, and the shape of its legs and arms even now is being traced and measured by the more spirited.
We want it to be clear that the postmodern is a construct trying to become a reality. It will not become a reality, although the more we write about it the more we tend to reify it. It will remain a succulent construct. As such it will give us some meaning and much pleasure.
When the word " mess " is employed, it conjures up a picture of wrongdoing. That is not what we mean, unless we want to agree that this is a story about the gods--or just one--who wrongfully or not put humans into this pickle from which they can never finally escape, except, one by one, through the hatch of death itself. Instead of " mess " perhaps " dis-ease " serves better. The dis-ease of modern human beings runs as a major thread through the testimony of these times.
We are rooting around here for the fundamental dynamics that made the human situation to which a postmodern temper responds. That compels us to refer to the giants of modern social theory, Freud and Marx. One avenue to them is through the work of The Frankfurt School, which pioneered in what we could call pre-postmodern critical theory.