Metamodernism might be the most important idea you encounter this year. In
a world that is growing increasingly fractured and complex, Metamodernism is
a worldview that offers a way forward. In a recent video we looked at the
difference between the worldviews of Modernity and Postmodernity. Each of these
evolved in response to particular historical and cultural trends.
Modernity as we saw was the cultural phase that was at its height in the 19th
and early 20th centuries. Postmodernity emerged in the 1960s and is the
dominant cultural perspective in the 21st century.
Our current cultural landscape is polarised along these battlelines. With only
these two worldviews to choose from it seems that society is doomed to
fracture. But this is where Metamodernism comes in.
Metamodernism has been emerging in the past couple of decades and it offers
a way past the gridlock.
The Meta in metamodernism comes the ancient Greek word Metaxis used by
Plato and Plotinus to capture the sense of in-betweenness. In the case of
Metamodernism this means being in-between Modernity and Postmodernity.
But it is not simply a middle ground. In the language of Ken Wilber's Integral
school of thought, which is the main theoretical underpinning to Hanzi
Freinacht's school of Political Metamodernism, Metamodernism
transcends and includes these previous worldviews. This synthesis is critical for
the problems we face in the 21st century.
In this age of the meta-crisis, we find ourselves staring down the barrel of half a
dozen existential crises all at once. It is not simply the climate crisis, but the
meaning crisis, the mental health crisis, the dangers and potentials of emerging
AI technology which on the one hand may make us redundant as a species and
on the other hand with technology like swarms of AI drones flying around, AI
technologies threaten our survival in a much more tangible way. There's the
energy crisis, diminishing natural resources, the politics of space, the Cold War
shaping up between China and America not to mention increasing inequality
and the coming deluge of unemployment brought on by robots.
This is an age of complex problems and much of our public discourse is so
much rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic. The challenges facing
humanity are too complex and too dangerous for us to fall back into the luring
narrative of us and them. Metamodernism at the very least is a new worldview
that doesn't fall into this us and them left and right trap. It is a complex
worldview for an age of complexity. In this episode we are going to look
at the characteristics of this new cultural trend. its relationship to the previous trends
of modernity and postmodernity and why, in this world in crisis,
we need Metamodernism. The Metamodern Synthesis
In the previous episode on modernity and postmodernity we looked at the
characteristics of these two worldviews. To briefly summarise, modernity was
characterised by an exuberant self- confidence. Hegel believed we lived
at the end of history, Wittgenstein believed he had dissolved all the problems of philosophy,
Freud believed he had found the source of all mental illness,
Einstein came up with his theory of relativity and believed that a theory of everything
was within his grasp. In short, we seemed to be solving all the problems that
faced us at an incredible pace and ultimate truth seemed to be just
around the corner. There was a fervent belief in Progress
and Reason sat in the throne left vacant by God. Even in the countertrends
of modernity Marx and the work of Anarchists such as Bakunin and Kropotkin,
there was an audacious vision of a utopia within our grasp.
Modernity then was characterised by grand narratives in every domain from
the social and political to the philosophical and scientific. The tone of
modernity was an almost arrogant faith, a haughtiness that modern man was
the pinnacle of life itself. Postmodernism, as characterised by
Jean-Francois Lyotard, is defined as distrust towards grand narratives.
The focus of postmodernism is the fringe cases, the peripheries the exceptions basically
all the cracks in Modernity's beautiful narratives.
Postmodernism deconstructed all the bullshit of Modernity. The jadedness
with the kool-aid of modernity's optimism was embodied in Postmodernity's
tone of cynicism, sarcasm and irony. Rather than seeking a monolithic objective
truth, postmodernism exposed the million and one truths of different
perspectives. It gave a platform to the voices exploited and neglected by Modernity's narrative:
the voices of African- Americans, women, the LGBT community,
colonial voices and those of prisoners and the insane. All the
voices in short that modernity had excluded from its great proclamations of life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness of liberty equality and fraternity.
In taking such an abundance of perspectives, a spirit of relativism and nihilism
came to prevail in the broader postmodern perspective. In trying to give equal
voice to so many perspectives, postmodernism had no unified central vision as
Modernity had. It had no anchor point to orient itself towards.
It turned its back on finding a grand narrative that tried to encapsulate all of
these perspectives. And this is where
Metamodernism enters the scene. What is Metamodernism?
In the language of the Hegelian dialectic, Modernity was the thesis to which
Postmodernism's antithesis opposed itself. Out of this conflict a new synthesis has
begun to emerge in Metamodernism. The challenges facing humanity today
refuse to be tamed by either the arrogant optimism of modernity or postmodernity's
relativistic multiplication of perspectives.
By the same token these complex problems cannot be solved without the
audacity of Modernity and the nuance of postmodernism. And so what is
required is an integration of these virtues while moving past the gridlock. What
is required is to transcend and include. As Hanzi Freinacht notes in his book on
political metamodernism "The Listening Society":
"metamodernism is qualitatively very, very different from
postmodernism: It accepts progress, hierarchy, sincerity, spirituality,
development, grand narratives, party politics, both-and thinking and
much else. It puts forward dreams and makes suggestions. And it is still
being born." From the perspective of Metamodernism,
the Postmodernists had thrown a lot of baby out with the bathwater of Modernity.
There's no doubt that these traits can have dark sides and turn toxic
but that does not mean they should be discarded.
In facing the problems of the 21st century, we need the bigger picture that
Modernity offered. We need the structure and order of hierarchies; we need a
vision of progress and a grand narrative about why it all matters.
And more than that we need to be able to talk about big issues without getting
ensnared in mere cynicism and irony. If there's one thing that the different
commentators on Metamodernism have all noted, it is its peculiar tone
of ironic sincerity. This dynamic is already
familiar to us all from Social Media. There are people who post honest
depressing posts on social media like this person and it doesn't inspire compassion and
empathy. It just makes everyone else cringe.
Then there are the humblebraggers like this guy. The thing with social media is that if you
can't simply post something. There are rules of discourse that you must follow or
god forbid you'll end up posting cringe.
Most people now have the more nuanced awareness of what other people are
going to think about what they're posting and so they can avoid most of the
pitfalls but still it leaves us with something of a predicament: how can you say
something meaningful on social media? The transparent antics of the one-dimensional
are eviscerated by the ironic cynicism of those with some basic
social awareness. But this awareness also constrains the expression of genuine emotion.
This isn't limited to social media of course it's just the latest and
most visible appearance of a cultural trend stretching back to the ironic detachment that
first made David Letterman an icon in the 1980s.
Over against this we have the work of people like the shame researcher Brene
Brown who talk about the importance of vulnerability. And we have a culture
that likes to make a lot of noise about mental health but usually without a word
said about why it is so hard to express emotion. So the real question becomes how do we
communicate something genuine in a culture where emotional expression tends
to be so disingenuous? How can we be earnest without the cringes?
And this is where the Metamodern enters the scene. The Metamodern tone has
been characterised as ironic sincerity. It uses irony as a delivery mechanism
for deep sincerity. There's no better example
of this than Bo Burnham's masterpiece of Metamodernism Inside which we'll be looking
at in greater depth next week. The opening song of the
special is called Content. This song epitomises ironic sincerity.
When Inside was released, it had been 5 years since the release of Burnham's
previous special and so there was something of an elephant in the room.
How can you explain to the fans that love you why you've been away for 5
years? He could have opened with a heartfelt moment to apologise to the fans
and explain that he'd been having some troubles with mental health. But he
couldn't do that because that would be cringe. He could have given into the Postmodern
straitjacket that limits this type of expression. He could have justified it
as not needing to explain himself to his audience. He could have played it cool. But
that's not a great option either. And so instead Burnham integrated
it into the opening song. The song is hilarious, it's catchy and it says sorry
in a joking ironic way but one that overflows with sincerity. Genius.
[I'm sorry I was gone But look, I made you some content
Daddy made you your favorite Open wide]
He doesn't say sorry please forgive me and I hope you like it. Except that he
does but he wraps in a container of sweet sweet irony that makes this earnest
message wholesome rather than cringey.
And that is the very essence of the Metamodern tone. It's acknowledging the
cynicism of Postmodernism which sees in most forms of earnestness a sort of
performativity. The ironic packaging acknowledges this, modestly mocking
itself but in doing so it reveals an earnestness.
This ironic sincerity is an example of the oxymoronic theme that runs to the
core of metamodernism. When the creators of the 2011 Metamodern Manifesto
used phrases like Pragmatic Idealism, Informed naivete and Magical Realism
they were pointing to similar juxtapositions. Metamodernism is moving beyond the cynical
straitjacket of Postmodernism and striving once again for a
greater form of meaning, a truer form of connection and a deeper sense of truth.
In aspiring for a grand sense of meaning and idealism, the Metamoderns aren't
fervent believers like the Moderns. Instead, as noted by the Dutch art scholars
who first ignited the Metamodern Movement with their 2010 paper What is
Metamodernism: "their intention is not to fulfill it,
but to attempt to fulfill it in spite of its 'unfulfillableness'."
Or as Hanzi Freinach puts it in The Listening Society:
"The metamodernist has her own unapologetically held grand narrative,
synthesizing her available understanding. But it is held lightly, as one
recognizes that it is always partly fictional-a protosynthesis."
And so we might say that one of the traits of the metamodern is playfulness. It
takes the awareness of our limits that Postmodernity became so acutely aware
of but instead of being crippled by them it instead opts for playfulness for an
acceptance of its inadequacy-its fallible nature. It's a delight in the attempt; it's
the belief that there is something beautiful in the striving.
This playful spirit of Metamodernism, this ironic sincerity and pragmatic
idealism is essential for the problems we face today.
We need Metamodernism. Our world is drowning in complexity. The naiveite
of modernity and the relativistic nihilism of postmodernism are only
compounding the problems that we face. We need a bigger vision again. Our
world is facing a meta-crisis - we have a climate crisis, a meaning crisis, a
mental health crisis as well as approaching another political crisis and perhaps
a new Cold War. We are a world in crisis and no amount of naiveite or nihilism
is going to get us past this. We need a grand narrative again. We need
something that is going to give us hope once again. Metamodernism is the trend
that is evolving out of that need. It is the bridge-builder between all the
different factions in our world. As Freinacht notes:
"Metamodern principles are already inherent to the contradictions of
modern society; late modern society is pregnant with metamodernism.
People need irony in order to build interpersonal trust based on self-
knowledge, humor and critical thinking. Only when such trust is in place
can we successfully gather around a meaningful struggle for something
greater than ourselves, like the climate crisis. There, another ironic quirk of our age:
Irony brings trust. And trust crowns a winner."
That's everything for this episode of the living philosophy. If you've enjoyed it
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