CO-OPTING A REVOLUTION
EVERYTHING, ALL THE TIME, EVERYWHERE: How we became postmodern, by Stuart Jeffries (Verso, $45 hb)
In a 1997 television interview, the novelist David Foster Wallace was asked to define postmodernism. He looked bored and amused simultaneously. “It’s after modernism,” he replied, adding, “It’s a very useful catch-all term because you say it and we all nod soberly as if we know what it means.”
That was back when the term was fashionable in academic circles: today when we hear it in the wild it’s usually from conservatives lamenting the decline of everything: provocateur and best-selling author Jordan Peterson is
