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This article looks at the problems Sociology has in theorising modern discourses in the light of the rise and consolidation of Postmodernism. The paper begins with an historical sketch of the emergence of Enlightenment and how its values helped to engender intellectual curiosity amongst the precursors of modernist sociological theorising. Indeed, the paper analyses how Sociology faces up to enlightenment thought and legacy via a critical analysis of the modern‐postmodern debate: its historiography, pathologies, and futurology. At the same time, there has been a huge escalation of neo‐Nietzschean theorists under the label of ‘postmodernist’ who have castigated the enlightenment to the dustbin of the history of ideas, that its metanarratives of ‘progress’ and ‘freedom’ have failed and that western rationality is exhausted (Lyotard, 1984). Subsequently, the paper assesses to what extent the values of the ‘project of modernity’ have to be abandoned, and whether, in turn, sociology can offer the epistemic stretching of postmodern narratives.

Attempts to reformulate the notion of organizational control considering the new dictates of the post‐Fordist agenda. Ideology, as a control mechanism, takes on a secondary role with the body (re‐)emerging as the ontological priority for the examination of human subjectivity, or more importantly the lack thereof. The major implication is the recognition that post‐Fordism, at least for the labour force, is nothing more than a ploy by the advocates of capital to further perpetuate control relationships. Identifies and discusses repercussions for postmodern organization “theory”.

Marketing academics have recently been exhorted to embrace postmodernism, the so‐called “new perspective on life and the human condition that is sweeping across the globe”. Using postmodernism′s own tools of playfulness, paradox and irreverence – in the shape of the multiplex cinema as a metaphor for marketing – attempts to clarify some of the confusion surrounding postmodernism. Argues that much of what passes for postmodern marketing, is not, and draws attention to several shortcomings in the postmodernist position. Concludes that, although the concept has much to contribute to marketing discourse, the adoption of postmodern perspectives is not without penalty.