Brief Notes on Postmodernism   Scholars debate the term
postmodernism. Jurgen Habermas would argue that modernism's
project is still incomplete and therefore the Enlightenment
values--philosophical, social, political--need to remain on the
table. Others feel that the old Enlightment project has been
discredited and that its old notions about history and social
reality lack any solid foundation or grounding in the
contemporary world. Late capitalism, they would say, brings the
commodification of culture and the complete undermining of
coherehnce and meaning in today's world. The world, they would
say, has become "radically decentered."   Jean Baudrillard, for
example, sees reality as defined by the media--it's a kind of
hyperreality with everything constantly on display, "moving
endlessly and transparently across a surface where there is no
control or stabilizing reference, or any prospect of
transformation."   Jean Lyotard, another postmodernist, might
say that there is one level of reality which is plural an