Smiley Face - Lyotard

The reading by Lyotard was a challenging one that required a lot of attention and patience to get through. I found that it was difficult to fully understand, but I came across two quotes that made sense to me and shocked me, though I think I was shocked mostly because I came across something that made sense!
The first one is in the penultimate paragraph of the introduction whereby Lyotard states that society's interpretation of beauty and pleasure will be needed when put with the problems it faces for culture to heal its self (39). I take that to mean that society has evolved over time, and with it our perceptions of life have changed too. The best way of understanding our surroundings is through understanding the way that others see the world.
I like how the article went on to analyze the role of art and literature in society and how their development (film etc) have affected the 'original' (I use parenthesis around that word now as I have yet to figure out its definition). In today's world there is a huge presence of shallowness, and the need to acquire ones opinion before making decisions. Therefore, this element of shallowness acted as a catalyst to the evolution of society's interpretation of beauty, thus the expansion on different forms of art etc.
In conclusion, society has already experienced the different historical movements shaping the postmodernism era yet it is still coming to terms with its presence and the lack of the modernist time. I found the quote "a work can become modern only if it is first postmodern" as it firstly suggests a contradiction when in actual fact it recognizes the neccesity to rely on the past for the future to be shaped.