I accidentally put this up as a reply to Anon's related post, but it was intended to be an independent post. Anyway, here it is again.

In the beginning of Origins, Lyotard is quoted as saying that "What alone could destroy capitalism was the world-wide 'drift of desire' among the young, away from libidinal investment in the system, to libidinal power," which he views as being enacted by works of art (27). But, by the end of the book, I'm seeing very little possibility for such revolutionary works of art.

What did people make of Jameson's claim, quoted on 53 of Anderson, that the only way to make 'essential mystery of the cultural past' present and urgent was to place them within a single narrative? Is the schizophrenic loss of the past a consequence of the loss of meta-narratives (something I thought Jameson claimed was itself a metanarrative) or visa versa?

(Note: this is much longer than I expected. I recommend reading the last two paragraphs and returning to the beginning if you're still interested)

This began as a response to 3NT's post regarding Lyotard's definition of state.