Metamodernism is still struggling to understand the ways of metamodernism. I am not convinced the current definitions of modernism, postmodernism and metamodernism really make sense.
The way I understand them, modernity is all outward facing without inward inquiry.
Modernism is certainty of belief, positive assertion, and disagreement over opposite beliefs. (Either/or) Itās self concept is that of the rational self-interested individual; of self-sameness
Post-modernism is objective critique of modernity, post-structuralism, deconstruction of unquestioned use of language, conceptual engineering to change established meanings of words. (Neither). Itās self-concept is one of superficial identity, categories that exclude as well as include; and of irreconcilable differences.
Meta-modernity is the search for complexity and depth, and a way beyond the impasse of oppositions of belief, and the incommensurable modern - postmodern movements. It recognises the partial truth of both and the insufficiencies of both. It embraces inclusivity and plurality of beliefs and perspectives. (Both/and) It self-concept is one of structured feeling, of dividual fragmented selves and is searching for greater self-understanding, spirit and meaning. Jt is a movement in search of a new foundation and progress beyond the old; i.e. the search for a new paradigm.
All three movements are intellectual movements, and they all represent external objective stages of the subjective internal dialectic process that I described in a previous response. I.E. the process by which we escape the constraints of the intellect and the mind, and progress beyond the need for certainty, and actually progress towards greater understanding. (Both/neither, discovery, new foundations and recursion)
What my work is trying to do is provoke this cognitive shift in others; to facilitate the subjective experience in others of the very means to transcend our own cognitive limitations, and escape the trap of intellectualism and epistemic constraints.
A process that I have already, haphazardly, undertaken, but for a long time didnāt know how to help others achieve the same.
I have not. Is it worth it?
Ironically, I imagine it deconstructs the narratives that underlying the assertions of post-modern activists. I.E. a form of modern post-modern critique and deconstruction of the positive assertions and self-righteous certainties of activist post-modernists (which are, ironically, very modern and patriarchal)
Aside: This could be a session at the regular weekly research collective sessions Research
/cc @JonahW
I enjoyed it. I think you already know what it is going to say.
Do you mean - escape the trap of intellectual scholasticism? Iām asking because postmodernism seems to be addressing it already.
Common to both modern and postmodern movements is the believe that the proponents are more enlightened or more āwokeā (aware of injustices of the world than anybody else). They are movements of self-certainty and self-righteousness respectively.
Both are still knowledge paradigms, in which the proponents are very much identified with what they think they know, and the activities and adversarial and antagonistic. This merely provokes an oppositional reaction rather than genuine means of progress. Both are static and non-progressive. (Woke being a past event, rather than an ongoing process)
In an earlier post, I mentioned that both movements are external manifestations of stages of dialectic cognitive process; i.e. a means of progressing and deconstructing oneās own understanding.
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Do you think that itās possible to synthesise these incompatible worldviews in any meaningful way? If we were to āimagineā it - what would this cognitive shift look like and how would you implement it?
Would you agree that postmodernism already āunderstandsā the premises of modernism, but criticises its inertia and doggedness to view the world through the prism of grand narratives that have become dogmatic? At the same time - modernism might not understand postmodernism because it recognises (for example) mysticism and its embrace of subjectivity as something more primitive and already superseded?
Possible to synthesise - not sure, but supersede and incorporate values and members of both, I believe so.
What would it look likeā¦ youāve probably already experienced it. When you study a new subject, eg language, all the lessons makes sense, but at some stage it clicks, and makes sense to you. This is what the process of understanding is like.
Collective experience online, evolution over time, evolving socioeconomic conditions, etc, and History are all complex forms of experience that weāve lived through. Weāve all noticed patterns within the experience.
A coherent narrative will emerge that identifies these patterns, provides a coherent explanation of them; one that makes sense to us, but also resolves sources of incoherence in our individual understanding of them.
At this stage, the intention is that it will just click, i.e. an emergent comprehension of history, and the vision of future that follows from it. All of which will seem obvious in retrospect. Just like when we become fluent in a new language, we struggle to remember what it was like when we were struggling to understand it.
āWould you agreeā¦?ā
Postmodernism is aware of insufficiencies in the foundations of modernism, is critical of them, but is not itself progressive. It remains stuck at critique without changing modernism at all, and it lacks the tools to progress further beyond this.
Modernism, in its arrogance, believes post-modernism is āintellectually immatureā when they call for more revolutionary means of progress.
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