"Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorized in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange. Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself, it loses its 'use-value'." (Lyotard 4-5) I believe the second half of this statement to be false and the first half to be inconsequential. As long as liberal arts colleges exist, knowledge will always be an end in itself. This class offers me no material gain, any knowledge I gain will broaden my understanding of the world, but will have little effect on my career in Real Estate. In reference to the first statement, knowledge is knowledge no matter how it is obtained. Pharamachetuical companies discover new drugs, or knowledge, all the time for profit, yet that knowledge benefits everyone. I don't understand why all these authors speak with such a note of condescension with respect to any form of capitalist theory. We wouldn't have nearly the amount of drugs, quality institutions, and life improving objects. Hell, authors wouldn't have an outlet for their work if wasn't for publishers.
Which brings me to my next topic for discussion, the nature of narrative knowledge versus scientific knowledge and the llegitimacy of knowledge. The origin of the legitimacy of knowledge is a central theme in Lyotard's work. Narrative knowledge gains its legitimacy through the narrator who has witnessed the thing on which he is narrating. It is true because it has been witnessed and retold. Scientific knowledge gains its legitimacy through proofs. Using logic and experimentation, people gain a sense of authentic truth. Lyotard makes the very important point "How do you prove the [first] proof?" Namely, how can you prove that this particular system of study produces knowledge? What are the rules of the game? The beauty of scientific knowledge, that Lyotard alluded to but never addressed, is the ability to change over time. Something is only true until it is proven false. Nothing is ever totally, or legitimately, true over time and Lyotard seems to take issue with the fact that the truth of scientific knowledge is not completely legitimate.
No conceptual systems stay stagnant over time; that is part of Lyotard's point: "Modernity, in whatever age it appears, cannot exist without a shattering of belief and without discovery of the 'lack of reality' of reality, together with the invention of other realities" (77). Science is not special; that it parades as such says more about discursive hegemony than "truth" or "beauty." Lyotard's point is that no knowledge is "legitimate," or, that is to say, that all knowledge systems must produce their own legitimation. Contemporary bourgeois society privileges science, but really, it's just like any other set of discourses.
To break down some ideas in 3NT's post, it seems that Lyotard is working debunk the concept of 'fact' and 'objectivity.' In our era, science is religion: we hear about a study that says chocolate is good for you, and we think 'Awesome! Now I can stuff my face with chocolate all day long because someone found enough facts to say that it's good for me!' What's happening here is that I am worshipping on the alter of scientific proof, bowing my head in reverance for the 'truth' that is promised to me by a bunch of pasty guys in lab suites because they have access to some sort of empiricism that I, the humble layfolk, cannot being to understand. I take empirical research to be the closest thing to truth that this world has seen yet. And I begin my chocolate diet.
But just as religion was for centuries, empericism, ushered in by the 'Enlightenment' or 'Age of Reason,' is an ideological moment. OUR ideological moment. The whole idea of 'proofs' and 'authenticity' is bound by the fact that someone created the systems of 'proof'. Someone decided that running and expirement five times, instead of six or ten or fourty, was enough to 'proove' truth. Subjectivity seeps into everything worked at by human hands.
'True' or 'false' are relative terms. Ask the American Indians if they think the telling of US history offered up in our AP US textbooks is their history. Science can be 'true' in as much as it is able to uncover, yet its means for doing so may be tainted by the hands of those who created the system that we call 'science.'
In regards to the Lyotard quote ["Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorized in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange. Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself, it loses its 'use-value'"], I agree it sounds pessimistic, however, I think he might be onto something. I don't think he meant to speak in such specifics as to say that knowledge has to be applicable to the knowledge-seeker's ultimate career goal, for example Real Estate. Although this class has no application to Real Estate, what you are indeed participating in is, say, acquiring this knowledge in order to exchange and share with other peers for a better understanding of Postmodernism so you can receive a strong grade in the class and graduate with a strong GPA for a better chance in obtaining a good job. At the same time, of course, that person would benefit by learning and sharpening certain skills. But what would this knowledge be without exchange?
Idealistically, we might all want to think that knowledge is something everybody simply thirsts for just to know (an end in itself). That's a nice thought, and sure, there are people who are naturally curious about things just to know. But in the grander scale of things, why do we all learn? What good would knowledge be to a person if he or she could not exchange and share it with others with the greater goal in mind of improving himself and/or the world?