The subtlety of this distinction, however, is often lost in practical commentary. The postmodern enthusiasts often move with an unacknowledged but breathtaking velocity from the primacy of resistance to a discussion of consumption practices which would bring joy to the hearts of capitalist producers and advertisers. Once again the concept of 'difference' risks centralization and homogenization. And while it is very true that differences will always revive themselves in cultural practices, it is also true that the synthesizing of these differences into a banal, almost aphoristic, political discourse will dilute and extemporize the presence and ideological power of the Different. Moreover, this essentializing of the concept of difference has tended also to neglect theexaggarated differences which capitalism itself has produced within a given social formation.
Class divisions remain.
Poverty, spatial and material discrepancies, inadequate housing and health care remain. In fact, through its uncritical invocation, difference itself has developed a certain sameness, a certain entropy, which discolours it and diminishes its impact. Difference has virtually been restored as a cliche, a universalizing principle which absorbs a whole range of genericised and Romanticized formulations. Like postmodernism itself, the concept of difference has accumulated meanings at such a rate that it already is looking flabby enough to serve the needs of any political interest at all. Having said as much, this essay should not be read as a plea for revoked modernism.