Postmodernism's starting point is a critique of the Enlightenment as a failed rationalist project that has outlived its time but continues to encumber contemporary thought with illusions of a rational route to knowledge, a faith in science, and a belief in progress. The core of postmodernism is in its commitment to the shedding of the illusions of the Enlightenment. The political ambiguity of postmodernism is its insistence that the received dichotomy between Left and Right is itself a product of Enlightenment thought and that contemporary Left theoretical and political positions, especially Marxism, are inscribed with the illusions of the Enlightenment. Modernity and enlightenment are more complex, ambiguous, and nuanced than this one- dimensional critique permits. Although this essay empathizes with postmodernism's critique of instrumental reason, scientism, the cult of progress, and other facets of the Enlightenment, it believes that the Enlightenment's central project of social emancipation remains unrealized. Modern liberalism has lost the will to pursue this goal, so its realization has fallen to contemporary socialism; this in turn underlines the author's view that socialism must interact with and draw significantly from liberalism to fulfill this objective. 2 references