I hope you don’t mind, but the response to this is going to be a bit blunt. Metamodernism, as it is described here, is little more than a continuation of postmodernism. It is the work of postmodernists who have not fully accepted why postmodernism has been defeated (politically – philosophically it ran out of ideas some time ago), and are trying to preserve it by dressing it up as “the next big thing”.
I never went through a postmodern stage. I went straight from modernism to something very different in a very short space of time, and at no point did postmodernism seem to me to be anything other than a pack of ill-motivated lies made up by deeply cynical people. I disagree with most of what Hanzi Freinacht says, and I believe he implied I am a fascist (it wasn’t to my face, but more than one person made me aware of the reference). I could be wrong…maybe he was referring to somebody else. The Metamodern Community Has a Fascist Problem — Let’s Talk about What We Can Do about It | by Hanzi Freinacht | Mar, 2025 | Medium
Not quite so romantic, eh? Apparently I have never got over my “allergy” towards postmodernism and wokeness. I prefer to describe it as having a fully functioning immune system.
I was not familiar with the essay, which I have just read.
However, one defining quality of postmodernism is that it is modernism turned in on itself: the tools of reason questioning their own reasonableness; the idea of progress noticing, as a kind of progress, that it is indeed an idea.
This I agree with, but would describe it in terms of McGilchrist’s hemispheres. Modernism was a creation of the left hemisphere. Postmodernism is also a creation of the left hemisphere, but it is a wholly destructive thing – it is what happens when the left hemisphere goes mad and starts butchering its own flawed creations, without ever reconnecting with the right hemisphere’s capacity for attempting to make any sense, with catastrophic results.
Can you tell I am a little bitter? That’s because the only religion I have ever had has been a commitment to seek and defend the truth. I have spent my whole life trying to defend the truth from postmodern attempts to deny and distort it (originally from the left, then from the right too). “What truth?”, says the pomo. “Who’s truth?” As if there is no such thing as the truth. At that point I was usually banned by the postmodern “fact checkers” for challenging their toxic propaganda. And worse. I’m not famous, but I am well known enough in the foraging world to have been worth them doing their best to “cancel” me. I never backed down. I never stopped defending the truth. Now they are being routed and the job needs to be properly finished. The epistemological disease must not be allowed to come back.
Some see Nietzsche as a kind of postmodern prophet writing before the 20th century;
Of course he was. That was the moment the rot really set in.
Ontologically, metamodernism oscillates between the modern and the postmodern. It oscillates between a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony, between hope and melancholy, between naïveté and knowingness, empathy and apathy, unity and plurality, totality and fragmentation, purity and ambiguity.[23]
In which case I want nothing to do with it. Oscillating between wrong and more-wrong is not going to help. What we actually need to do is go back to the point in modernism where the original structural defect occurred, fix it, and find a new path forwards from there. This does not involve oscillating between modernism and postmodernism. It means throwing all of that out, starting again, then picking through the wreckage of modernism and postmodernism to see what might be useful for the rebuild.
My problem with metamodernism as it is being described here is that it does not clear the conceptual space for a restart. It doesn’t conclusively rid us of all the bad things that need to go. Rather, it attempts to smuggle postmodernism into the new paradigm, as well as some problematic bits of modernism (such as unreformed metaphysical naturalism like that of UTOK).
And Lyotard does not say there can be no metanarratives of big stories, just that we are right to be sceptical about them (and surely that’s sound advice?).
Why is that sound advice? I am making my own proposal for what this new paradigm could look like ( The Praeternatural and the New Epistemic Deal. This is my proposal for making 2R a reality - General - Second Renaissance Forum)
The first principle of my proposed New Epistemic Deal is this:
1: Ecocivilisation is our shared destiny and guiding goal.
Ecocivilisation represents a vision of a society that harmonises human activity with ecological principles. This is not a utopian ideal but a necessity dictated by the realities of ecosystems and evolution. The claim that ecocivilisation is our destiny is pre-political, transcending specific ideologies or systems. The precise social, political, and economic structures of ecocivilisation are not part of this definition, but the core premise is clear: civilisation must work ecologically to endure.
This realisation, however, is insufficient on its own to inspire a mass movement. The challenge lies in how we navigate the path forward. Choosing a “least bad” route demands careful thought and collaboration, as well as a willingness to embrace complexity. Yet, despite the uncertainties and debates about how to proceed, we can and must agree on this: ecocivilisation is our ultimate goal – a commitment to creating a world where humanity thrives within the limits and laws of nature.
Does this qualify as a metanarrative or big story? Looks like it to me. Should we be skeptical of it? I don’t think so. I think we desperately need something to believe in – a new way of galvanising people and society for a new start.
I think this means that metamodernism has to reckon more clearly with its defining structural and cultural limitations in metamodernity. Since that context is both modern and postmodern but without necessarily having any higher-order synthesis or funky oscillation beyond our own projection, metamodernism struggles to create distinctive normative vision without losing its conceptual fidelity to metamodern context and sensibility.
Yes. Because it is still postmodernism.
1 x -1 = -1
Modernism x postmodernism = postmodernism.
Gregg Henriques’ Theory of Knowledge
A Unified Theory of Knowledge which equates genuine spirituality (the mystical – the occult) to belief in aliens, “higher dimensions” and the afterlife.
Metamodernism as it is being described in this essay is not fit to provide foundations for the Second Rennaissance that is so desperately needed. I am growing ever more convinced that the only way to make 2R happen is to draw some very clear red lines about what the essence of the old paradigm is, and what needs to go.
These three things need to go:
(1) Growth-based economics
(2) Metaphysical materialism
(3) Postmodern antirealism
What we require is not some romantic combination of these things. Rather, all of them need to be very clearly identified as The Problem, and banished from the new paradigm.
I believe this is what is needed to make 2R reality. Hanzi Freinacht apparently thinks that makes me a fascist. This might have something to do with his agenda of trying to get as many people as possible to “the postmodern stage of development” as a stepping stone to his vision of metamodernism.
Am I a metamodernist? Some people have insisted that I must be. I am not convinced.