"Perhaps the clearest and most certain thing that can be said about postmodernism is that it is a very unclear and very much contested concept. Celebrated by some as a new wave of emancipation from the stifling constraints of modern ideologies that have grown stagnantly conservative and elitist, postmodernism is conversely con- demned for confining us in its own prison-house of conservatism for encouraging an attitude of slackening by its scepticism regarding the notions of progress and originality, by its advocacy of appropriation and recycling, and by its ideology of the end of ideology. But the controversy over postmodernism goes well beyond the question of its value. Its very meaning, scope, and character are so vague, ambiguous, and deeply contested that it has been challenged as a pernicious, illegitimate non concept. Advocates reply that the concept's very vagueness usefully challenges the view that concepts must be clear to be meaningful, fruitful, and important.
How exactly we determine the legitimacy of a concept is a fascinating question in itself. Is conceptual legitimacy a matter of logical coherence, reference to the real, entrenched usage, practical utility? In any case, the concept of postmodernism seems, for the moment, to be adequately vindicated by the profusion of scholarly work that is dedicated to its clarification and elaboration in the various arts and other forms of cultural production since the latter part of the twentieth century."