I think what I was getting at is that postmodernism (as a condition) seems unable to bring about new ways of living (as you mentioned, modernisms obsession with newness, finding new ways of living re: marxism and etc. being a huge part of that). You can look at the current tumult as a rebellion against this limit, the inability to escape the current moment, in accordance with a rebellion against any specific oppression. (not to undermine the extent of the oppression)
thinking about this from a different angle - this post and one
@version made that I can't find (possibly deleted)
a phenomenon I find very interesting is the existence of what you might call postmodern fragments in cultural production predating postmodernism.
Las Meninas - possibly my favorite painting ever - is a very famous example. Foucault wrote about it in great depth in
The Order of Things, as symbolizing the transition from a Classical to a Modern episteme. Another example is Diderot's
This is not a story, a kind of precursor to
This Is Not a Pipe (which Foucault also wrote about), and I'm sure there are others.
if we take postmodern thought, at least initially (before it developed a canon, became a career pathway, etc), as a reaction to a condition, what moved Velasquez to insert himself watching us watching him paint the painting into the painting? like anything there's a specific historical context - I'm sure an expert could talk at length about technical elements, relevant trends in European art, the dynamics of the Spanish royal court, etc - but at the same there's Velasquez staring back at you across the centuries so that as Foucault put it "subject and object...reverse their roles infinitely".
what similarities can find in the postmodern condition (or our own post-postmodern condition)? why exactly does postmodernism "fail to bring about new ways of living"? is bringing about new ways of living the purpose of thought? is it the purpose of being (I would say no)? what is the relation between a "condition" and the episteme that arises from that condition?
obviously postmodernism can't simply be undone, no matter how much blame is heaped on a caricature of "postmodernism". once God is dead, it can't be resurrected. so, to paraphrase one of my favorite Camus lines - is there a way to find within postmodernism the means to proceed beyond (whatever that means) postmodernism?