Thus, the term employed here is "the postmodern," which designates an attitude toward modernity, unfolding within modernity, yet constantly questioning its nature, as a result of which the achievements of modernity are reevaluated in the context of its overlooked and undisclosed features. Hence, modernity emerges as a heterogeneous phenomenon, and a different, unfamiliar story needs to be told about its history. Even though signposts of alternative versions are sketched out in the process, the postmodern is a departure from modernity that entails no arrival at a particular destination and has no status as a period. Thus, by any standard the negative spirit of criticism dominates every constructive tendency that the postmodern might have. One of the benefits of opting for the concept of the postmodern as opposed to that of post- modernism is that the postmodern, understood sheerly as a critical vantage point and enterprise, already covers a considerable history throughout the time of modernity - indeed it is a full-fledged parallel, second agenda of modernity , as real as overshadowed - whereas postmodernism, by virtue of its hidden positivity claim and presupposition that modernity is over, is still only a possibility that, though widely opened, awaits to be grounded in sufficient legitimization.