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modern style and content.)

It's a big word that most of us have heard but few have understood. Don't worry. No-one really understands postmodernism. Its whole raison d'etre is to allow the clueless to appear profound on any topic they choose. It's our manna from heaven.

If literacy is the tool we work WITH then postmodernism is the material we work ON. In a postmodern world anything is possible and even, perhaps, probable. What on Earth are we talking about here? We're talking about an opportunity to appear smart in even the most illustrious company. Read the following:

"These were indeed the two facets of nihilism that Pliny and Daffy Duck shared: Volcanic exactitude and complete color-devoidance. Their temperaments were one. We cannot say that because there is historical narrative to lend shape to the eruption of Vesuvius at the time of Pliny, the volcanism of Daffy Duck's temper was negated in time. We know his color was combined. His devoidance has been proved and was real. We cannot argue against it."

Dieter Maachenberg. From 'Converse Color Theory in History'.

The above paragraph is nonsense. It is meaningless. There is no such word as devoidance. Converse Color Theory doesn't exist, neither does Dieter Maachenberg. I made it all up, yet it SOUNDS sort of plausible, doesn't it? The fictitious Mr Maachenberg seems to know what he's talking about. If a learned gent quoted such bull in front of us we might not understand a word he said but we would suspect he, at least, knew what he was talking about and we would nod and pretend to understand; We don't want to look stupid, after all. So there, tricksters, lies our power. Don't underestimate the ability of your audience to behave like sheep. One person alone is not going to stand up and say, "Actually, I don't understand any of this," when everyone else is nodding and, apparently, understanding.

Cynicism: The ultimate get-out tool.

So what happens if someone suspects (or knows absolutely) that we don't have a clue what we're talking about? It IS possible. After all, there are some genuinely smart people out there (somewhere). Don't panic. Remember that the chances of running into people who have absolute confidence in their arguments are rare. The successful trickster will simply take a breath, pick up on one of their opponent's points and throw it back in their face. It's not about argument (remember, you don't know what your talking about); It's about cutting your opponent down to size with your cynicism, and

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