But the other key factor in all this is the growth of the internet and mass media in general. We are all exposed to a huge diversity of artistic and cultural expression. At the touch of a button or click of a mouse we can switch between anything from contemporary Iranian cinema to The Two Ronnies, say. Postmodernism is in a sense an attempt to make sense of this great jumble of "high" and "low" art.
As well as diversity of artistic form we are also exposed to an unprecedented range of political viewpoints. This makes it much harder to hold one?s own political ideals, as the opposing argument is always readily available. This perhaps is a key factor in the abandonment of politics in postmodern art.
(Another effect of this dearth of absolutes may be that when we are faced with something obviously indefensible ? child pornography being the extreme example ? we respond as a society with extraordinary vehemence, our disgust propelled by the relief of experiencing a rare moral certainty.)
While the volume of information we are exposed to is unlikely to reduce, we can already see moves to censor the information available, through anti-terror legislation for example. If this kind of censorship increases over the coming years, we would expect artists to respond with increasingly politicised art.
But as to the burning question of a name for this new era of post-postmodernism - I have no idea.