Reflecting on Jean-Francois Lyotard's work "The Postmodern Condition" may provide those who work in the writing center with additional ideas about how to make writing centers the next best thing in composition instruction. Lyotard offers a way to argue against the affirmation of traditional values and characteristics in writing (i.e., Standard Written English), to argue for differences in writing, and to celebrate all the writing that happens despite the academy's rigid restraints. According to Lyotard, postmodern knowledge is not simply a tool of the authorities: "it refines our sensitivity to differences and reinforces our ability to tolerate the incommensurable." He also has a good deal to say about the value of practice (performativity) and contends that practice is the primary mode of legitimizing knowledge. Lyotard further defines the postmodern condition as one in which people have lost their nostalgia for the lost narrative; rather than reproducing traditional ways of teaching, writing center instructors must remove themselves from a nostalgic reliance on what no longer works and perform the postmodern. While a variety of prominent critics would agree that it might be a problem to think about the postmodern condition as Lyotard does, his theories free both teachers and students from prescribing rules for the elimination of comma splices, fragments, and lapses in agreement and promote the recognition that the writing group itself can decide what rules of usage and grammar make sense for developing texts. (SAM)