True knowledge, in this perspective, is always indirect knowledge; it is composed of reported statements, that are incorporated into metanarratives o… - Jean-François Lyotard

In the discussion we had last year at Siegen, in this regard, emphasis was put on the sort of emptiness that has to be obtained from mind and body by a Japanese warrior-artist when doing calligraphy, by an actor when acting: the kind of suspension of ordinary intentions of mind associated with habitus, or arrangements of the body. It’s at this cost, said Glenn and Andreas, … that a brush encounters the “right” shapes, that a voice and a theatrical gesture are endowed with the “right” tone and look. The soliciting of emptiness, this evacuation—very much the opposite of overweening, selective identificatory activity—doesn’t take place without some suffering. … The body and mind have to be free of burdens for grace to touch us.

The relationship of the suppliers and users of knowledge to the knowledge they supply and use is now tending, and will be increasingly tend to, to assume the form already taken by the relationship of commodity producers and consumers to the commodities they produce and consume--that is, the form of knowledge.

The grand narrative has lost its credibility, regardless of what mode of unification is uses, regardless of whether it is a speculative narrative or a narrative of emancipation.