After Postmodernism | 8. Metamodern Synthesis

in this piece I'd like to use the above clip from Bo Burnham's critically acclaimed 2021 comedy inside to identify some essential aspects of the metamodern turn and culture what is metamodernism you ask well curiously in the short span of just four years between 2017 and 2021 no less than four different books were published by different authors of different backgrounds attempting to answer just that so you may ask do all these authors answer the question the same way well that depends on who you ask some say no that these represent considerably different theories and Frameworks I disagree I see profound complementarity between these different articulations of the emerging cultural intellectual paradigm like leibniz and Newton independently working out the basics of calculus or Wallace and Darwin independently realizing the theory of evolution I believe some ideas have their time because well their time has come multiple independent convergence towards similar theories and in fact identical terms is Not an Accident but speaks to the fact that people are genuinely speaking of something real happening in culture to appreciate how all these theories of metamodernism are actually expressions of one very deep structure though we'll need to go through each in turn the case I'd like to make here is that there is a sequence of increasing theoretical depth as we move from the dipolar oscillation positive of the Arts to the dialectical movement of philosophy to the notion of increasing complexity of cultural codes to mapping this complexification in terms of hierarchical complexity models from Human learning we move deeper down the stack of structural explanation once we see this progression we can acknowledge the profound consonants of all the theories of the meta modern in short all are speaking to the same phenomenon emerging in post-post modernism just from different levels of analysis let's start with this all started in the Arts in the first decade of the New Millennium cultural theorists were taking note of the fact that more and more Works were not conforming to the by then established rubric of postmodern forums and approaches post-modern cynicism and apathy were beginning to yield to a novel kind of qualified sincerity and enthusiasm depth and meaning we're returning to Art and a new register after the late 20th century dominance of postmodern problematization and deconstruction modern and even pre-modern sensibilities seem to be making a comeback even as these were filtered or translated through a post-modern lens that signaled a self-awareness that was holding all of these modalities in check a new style of quirky films for instance by the likes of Wes Anderson Michelle gandry Spike Jones jorgo solanthimos and others were employing typically post-modern strategies for example ironic distance emphasized self-awareness metafictional remove towards very unpostmodern ends namely not in cynical efforts to expose and disillusion but rather to Showcase Earnest and sincere feeling and connection the deconstructive act used to highlight artificiality in the constructed nature of perceived Givens was being adopted towards a reconstructive aim Beyond relativism and value nihilism whereas in post-modern works the orthogonal move of higher level reflection leads to self-conscious critique skepticism and pessimism in metamodern ones the same move when iterated further moves Beyond cynicism and actually winds up leading to a Transcendence of reflection greater epistemic humility and a more optimistic orientation towards reality in this way metamodern art began to gesture towards a sensibility beyond the postmodern Bo Burnham's inside offers a vivid example of this the comedy features a sketch in which a song of his gets its own reaction video an internet genre in which people respond in real time to a video with reactions and Reflections here Burnham adopts this reflective genre to offer an even more hyper-reflexive satire the sketch opens with the original music video of his song let's call it level one hear Burnham humorizes the plight of the Contemporary unpaid intern subjected to getting coffee for people in an economic scheme that seems quote Barely Legal after the music ends though Burnham begins his reflection matching the usual reaction video genre what we can call level two here he offers some rather trivial Reflections about his song that it's written in the style of older working class labor rights music that his beard was shorter when it was recorded Etc when the reaction ends however he then reacts to his reaction from this even more self-conscious remove level three his responses now become more critical and caustic about he reflects on his first reflection as being quote pretentious says the song is actually quote stupid and quote doesn't mean anything at all indeed talking about its meaning just reflects a quote desperate need to be seen as intelligent then when the reaction to the reaction ends Burnham reacts to his reaction to the reaction or level four this even further layer of remove he is able to be critical of his own criticisms he says that calling it all pretentious is actually just quote a defense mechanism he admits quote and I think that oh if I'm self-aware about being a douchebag it will somehow make me less of a douchebag but it doesn't self-awareness does not absolve anybody of anything he eventually determines that this endless overthinking needs to stop and the sketch ends the sketches of vivid representation of the way recursive reflective awareness shifts the sort of sensibility and evaluative measures of meaning making with each deeper iteration if the original song level 1 represents a sort of unreflective immediacy then the first reaction level 2 matches the rather basic kinds of reflective rational analysis typical of modern thought when these modern Reflections are in turn reflected upon and deconstructed however we get a cynicism and nihilism familiar to postmodern thought level three which considers the contextual system in which the first reflection arose and skeptically undermines it however when the next iteration of reflection comes and postmodern thought is in turn deconstructed level four we come to an even deeper layer at which something truly Earnest and vulnerable can emerge psychological defense mechanisms are owned and a deeper moral responsibility is taken for life's conditions I.E cynicism by itself does not quote absolve anyone in the deconstruction of deconstruction Burnham thus moves past cynicism and nihilism to something else that's something else is the meta-modern sensibility that infuses inside as a whole as well as an increasing Corpus of metamodern Art and cultural production this is what the cultural theorists identified and named in all cases though this deconstruction of deconstruction is a defining aspect of meta-modernism wherein it always serves a reconstructive end Burnham's inside is recognized as exemplary of the meta-modern sensibility by cultural theorists historically the cultural studies framing of metamodernism appeared first and was the first to successfully heed Linda Hutchins 1992 call to name the cohering expression of post-post-modernism for the 21st century the multiple meanings from Moylan and Vandana are offered of the Greek prefix meta here Were Meant to speak simultaneously to metamodernism's tendency to quote oscillate between meta modern sincerity and postmodern irony while also recognizing that the product of this oscillation lies somewhere beyond meta them as vermoilen and Von daniker put it in their seminal 2010 article on the topic quote ontologically metamodernism oscillates between the modern and the post-modern it oscillates between a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony between hope and Melancholy between naivete and knowingness empathy and apathy unity and plurality totality and fragmentation Purity and ambiguity indeed by oscillating to and fro or back and forth the meta-modern negotiates between the modern and the post-modern one should be careful not to think of this oscillation as a balance however rather it is a pendulum swinging between two three five ten innumerable poles each time the meta-modern enthusiasm swings toward fanaticism gravity pulls it back toward irony the moment its irony sways toward apathy gravity pulls it back towards enthusiasm this ability to temper modern optimism with postmodern skepticism is what allows for the recruit essence of things like meaning depth even myth and metanarratives without succumbing to the pitfalls of what Terry Eagleton called modernity's quote fetish of the totality by toggling between perspectives even totalities are held Loosely in the light of plurality but not so loosely as to succumb to post-modernity's cynicism and radical relativism this allows the meta-modern episteme to move Beyond post-modern deconstruction by means of such deconstruction towards new reconstructive efforts um trout Huber and Wolfgang funk's essay reconstructing depth authentic fiction and responsibility in metamodernism historicity affect and depth after post-modernism captures the aesthetic strategy by means of which reconstructive efforts are attempted they name a quote literature of reconstruction quote in which recent narratives take their cue from post-modernist insights and deconstructive impulses but explore the ways in which fictionality and meta-referentiality may serve in the Endeavor to reconstruct some kind of meaning that allows for inter-subjective communication for human connection and for a paradoxical authenticity such are the Hallmarks I would argue of meta-modern art more broadly which can be seen more holistically as an art of reconstruction we see this clearly in inside where increasing ironic distance which grows more absurd with each iteration of reaction in Burnham's video actually leads to a newfound sense of paradoxical authenticity through sincerity vulnerability and responsibility going meta on the post leads to a new sensibility a meta-modern Sensibility since its identification in the Arts more aspects of the metamodern have continued to emerge adding greater depth and further Nuance to its theorization so in 2021 historian and philosopher Jason and Nanda Josephson storm published his systematic philosophy meta-modernism the future of theory though Storm's point of entry is quite different from the cultural studies theorists his articulation of a meta-modern philosophical Paradigm turns out to be profoundly consonant with the cultural studies framing quote metamodernism is what we get he writes when we take the strategies associated with post-modernism and productively reduplicate and turn them in on themselves this will entail disturbing the symbolic system of post-structuralism producing a genealogy of genealogies deconstructing deconstruction and providing a therapy for a therapeutic philosophy in this sense for storm the quote meta prefix here is primarily meant to suggest a higher or second order position Beyond post-modernism to do so requires a dialectical move What In hegelian terms is called the negation of the negation a storm says quote in some I aim to move Beyond deconstruction by radicalizing it or turning it inside out well it may sound paradoxical negating negativity is actually the beginning of a positive gesture that authorizes the new accumulation of knowledge advancing the theorization of metamodernism beyond the notion of a period defined by oscillation storm rights quote most fundamentally meta-modernism is an attempt to give rise to the next phase of the dialectic or to advance the movement of thought in hegelian terms rather than just a response to post-modernism or an oscillation between modernist and post-modernist modes meta-modernism is an overcoming of both but insofar as post-modernism is itself primarily a negation of the preceding mode of modernism meta-modernism must negate post-modernism in turn without merely returning to the previous system thus in hegelian terms metamodernism represents the sublation or alphaben of all that preceded it not only does this dialectical move Explain how and why a quote deconstruction of deconstruction is to be undertaken it more ambitiously positions metamodernism as integrating quote all that preceded it from this higher order Vantage now this makes sense since Shirley modalities like earnestness naivete idealism and sincerity are by no means the Hallmarks of modernism alone indeed compared to traditionalism modernism is itself skeptical cynical and reflective perhaps metamodernism isn't just relating the post-modern and the modern then but also more naive forms of pre-modern sensibilities too we can use Storm's dialectical framing of metamodernism to better understand Burnham's reaction video here each new level represents another advancement of the dialectic as Burnham comes into conversation with more and more levels of reflection as he does the sensibility shifts as the material he is engaging with becomes increasingly laid bare to awareness in this sense we can see level 1 leading to the modern analysis of level 2. this leading to the post-modern critique of level three and this leading to the meta-modern critique of that critique negation of the negation that leads to a new positive reconstructive frame understanding metamodernism dialectically then we can see that the oscillation named by vermolin and Von daniker is actually a form of synthesis however it is a storm notes necessarily A synthesis of quote all that preceded it not just a modern and the postmodern such a view gets us closer to theorizing the meta-modern in terms of an integration of all the previous cultural codes meaning meta-modernism is itself complex this brings us to the complexification models of metamodernism which are the sort I emphasize in my own work and which represent I think the most thorough framework for understanding the term Lena Rachel Anderson's 2019 meta modernity meaning in hope in a complex World reflects a version of this strand there Anderson Maps multiple cultural codes adding to the modern and postmodern of meta-modernism also the pre-modern and indigenous for Anderson then quote meta modernism is the incipient appearance in the Arts of quote meta modernity which represents quote a cultural code integrating all four previous cultural codes indigenous pre-modern modern and post-modern not just the oscillation between modern and post-modern she suggests that quote we need to move Beyond post-modernism where we can both deconstruct our value hierarchies imagine communities Collective imaginaries and epistemologies and keep them and strengthen them at the same time in this way we retain the insights of the postmodern code from a more complex Vantage that is able to integrate it as well as the others in a multi-layered perspective in his own 2019 book the world we create from God to Market not even one of the four mentioned above Thomas bjorkman one-time co-author with Anderson takes a similar approach seeing metamodern reconstruction precisely is the integration of multiple perspectives into a more complex higher order whole whereas post-modernity brought epistemes themselves to the fore thereby relativizing all to one another metamodernity sees the complexifying map in which these perspectives unfold allowing us to integrate the insights of each as contextually appropriate quote instead of choosing he writes between modernism's totalization of creation and post-modernism's deconstruction we could Aspire towards reconstruction I.E putting together the many criticized and deconstructed parts of reality into new entireties and instead of choosing between the dubious claims of modernities largely mythological Grand narratives and post-modernism's emphasis on different interpretations smaller narratives and thereby fractured historical consciousness the New Perspective could attempt to coordinate the many interpretations and smaller narratives into an overarching narrative so-called metanarrative Conscious Creation of overarching partially fictive narratives such as the aspiration of the quote meta-modern perspective says bjorkman which represents the next stage in Social complexification after the earlier cultural codes indigenous and slash animist pre-modern modern and postmodern using the language of complexity science bjorkman sees the evolution of these codes as following the pattern of other complex adaptive systems which undergo phase transitions at certain bifurcation points that either cause a breakthrough to a new level of complexity or a breakdown his framing of the emerging metamodern movement is representative of just such a social Tipping Point has been influential with complexity science serving as the chief Paradigm in forming this framing we can see that complexification though is just a more detailed way to talk about dialectics in the dialectic two things are synthesized to form a third thing that somehow contains them both while also being something greater than either quote the whole is more than the sum of its parts as complexity theorists put it the integral philosopher Ken Wilbur use the phrase quote transcend and include to express this essentially hegelian notion but that's precisely what complexifying entities do they include the prior stages while also transcending them complexity Theory then simply offers us a more theoretically and empirically robust language for speaking of dialectical advance and thinking about Burnham's reaction video we can thus say that each new reaction becomes more complex than the last as more and more information is being responded to we get a nice visualization of this in the way the video literally becomes increasingly nested within itself a hole with more and more parts complexification like dialectic is an iterative recursive process level one is included in level 2 which transcends it level 2 is included in level 3 which transcends it and so on as this happens sensibility shifts metamodernism thus refers to a specific stage in this complexification process as art and cultural production more broadly come to reflect on the reflection of the reflection the work of hanzi freynoch represents the most complete theorization of the complexity take on metamodernism as it brings to Bear some of the best constructivist models of informational hierarchical complexity to articulate why and how cultural codes indeed complexify freinach uses the post-piagetian model of hierarchical complexity or MHC to interpret the various cultural codes seeing in them symbolic networks linked together according to its various stages like storm Friday's approach is explicitly dialectical with metamodernism offering the next stage of intellectual history by means of attaining a higher Vantage from which to reflect upon and critique post-modernism that is to reconstructively deconstruct deconstruction Hale says quote the metamodern dictum after deconstruction must follow reconstruction in a literal dialectic or dialogue he writes between the med of honor and perspective and the postmodern one the meta-modernist of sales quote if you want to be Progressive you have to admit that progress is at least provisionally possible which then necessitates that you define at least for the time being in what direction such progress can and should unfold if you see that social reality is constructed that it is a form of patterned metanarrative in that there are serious gaps and limitations in that narrative aren't you obliged to try to reconstruct it to create a new story about Humanity Society reality and progress to suggest a protosynthesis and if you want to include the excluded voices don't you need to show at least some solidarity with all perspectives even the ones you don't like or that you feel Superior to in short if post-modernism gained a higher Vantage on the various perspectives or epistemes it also acquired a blind spot to all the ways its own perspective engaged in performative contradictions or did not carry through its own logic far enough the dialogue concludes quote dear Pomo you have been monolithic in your Embrace of Multiplicity narrow-minded in your attempts at open-mindedness judgmental in your non-judgment hierarchical in your anti-hierarchy in a few words your problem is not that you have been too critical post-modern and multipleistic you have not been nearly critical post-modern and multiplicity enough thus meta-modernism constitutes the application to post-modernism of its own post-modern logic as this recursion occurs we get complexification of metamemes according to freyanach ideas at similar levels of complexity logically Connect into coherent conceptual complexes cultural memes coming together into metamemes which are logically tied together due to their shared complexity level in this sense the code has a life of its own we might say in the sense that ideas at a given complexity level will tend to operate in conjunction with other ideas at their same level for instance with MHC stage 10 abstract thought abstract Concepts become possible which can allow for their production of conceptual memes like goodness or truth or evil all capitalized and in the abstract absolute sense to enter into cultural discourse but rather than remaining isolated memes they connect together into intra-level metamometic complexes by all individuals able to operate stage 10 abstract thought with access to such code so the meme of goodness stands in relation to the meme of evil in a way that mutually relate to the meme of Truth and so on advancing the dialectic to a higher Advantage at MHC stage 11 formal relationships among those relations enter the picture goodness refers to things when X conditions obtain truth is made more or less apparent depending on why Etc now these relational Concepts can be networked together into a coherent logical structure by those at this complexity level with access to this code the ensuing metamine of Concepts at the formal level will look and feel quite different from the one organized according to only abstract absolutes each represents its own Gestalt I would say or better its own umvelt coherent sense making totality structured according to a given level of symbolic complexity freimact writes quote each of these metamemes operates as a set of thousands of propositions and assumptions about the world which interlock into a self-supporting whole a kind of ecosystem or equilibrium each of them is a kind of underlying structure of the symbolic universes that constitute our lived and shared realities so each one of them roughly have an ontology theory of reality of what is really real and ideology theory of what is right and good and an identity an idea of who or what the self is caring to completion this analysis of cultural codes in terms of MHC stages we see that post-modernism corresponds to Stage 12 systematic thought and meta-modernism stage 13 meta systematic thought metamodernism then is the cultural code that coheres at stage 13 symbolic complexity which can see the relations that hold across systems such that it can identify culture itself as a learning slash complexifying process it is the level at which dialectic becomes core to the code itself if that sounds complicated it is but no one ever said cultural analysis must be easy anyone who has not grappled with the logic of cultural code complexification in depth shouldn't be so quick to dismiss such ideas or write them off as not real meta-modernism quote unquote to my mind they offer the most thorough explanation of all that we have been considering here with profound implications for how we think about metamodernism and culture more broadly in some says freinoch metamodernism is a stage of development both one individual and two Collective coherent according to three an abstract pattern of symbolic complexity called a metameme all of which manifests as for a particular cultural phase in history yet also defines five a cultural movement some members of which prescriptively Advocate six a specific developmentally informed political project and frynox says that the term metamodernism can refer to all six of these Dimensions which interrelate with one another and to which the cultural and philosophical articulations can themselves be mapped returning to Burnham we might posit that level 2 of his reaction video offers an analysis at MHC stage 11 formal level three a more post-modern critique at MHC stage 12 systematic in level 4 a stage 13 meta systematic reflection that is able to take into its can multiple systems levels one through three and speak from the Insight of that Vantage the result is a reconstructive deconstruction of deconstruction a meta systematic analysis of systematic thought which offers an advance out of skepticism and cynicism towards Clarity and Hope so what can we say about the meta modern cultural code in general terms well all seem to agree that it moves Beyond post-modern relativism cynicism and nihilism towards a sensibility that returns to sincerity through slash by means of irony that it acquires a new naivete even after being hyper-informed or reflective and affirm's idealistic aspirations out of a cautious pragmatism it turns skepticism on itself and deconstructs deconstruction whereby it reconstructs a more generative affirmational modality instead of ideas it progresses by means of a dialectic movement creating a unique third thing from a prior polarity and whether you choose to speak of all this as oscillation dialectic complexity or MHC stage is up to you my point is only to show that all of these framings are speaking about the same phenomenon namely the meta-modern turn and culture that anyways my reflection on the reflection on the reflection foreign

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Length: 29min 29sec (1769 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 12 2023