Have to admit I did not find this convincing unfortunately, I still view metamodernism as a subset of postmodernism.
Metamodernism doesn’t overthrow postmodernism; it extends it. Every major cultural movement tends to define itself agaisnt what came before (romantic mysticism rejected enlightenment rationality, postmodernism rejected modernisms grand narratives). Metamodernism does not reject postmodernism, it operates within its framework. It’s truly an extension, a modulation, of postmodernism.
Postmodernism has also long contained metamodern elements. Postmodernism isn’t just purely ironic and destructive—it often oscillates between irony and sincerity, just as Metamodernism does. (Ex: David foster Wallace, infinite jest). Even writers of the 1980s/90s were trying to move beyond cynicism while remaining embedded in postmodernist thought.
For metamodernism to be its own movement it would need to introduce a fundamentally new way of thinking about reality, culture, and art.
I would argue that metamodernism does, in a very real sense, "overthrow" postmodernism in that it's an entirely different algorithm that, no matter how you run it, leads to different results than the results you get from the postmodern algorithm.
To take a concrete example: A postmodernist would say that you can't criticize Muslim countries that require women to wear the hijab. Postmodernism is fundamentally committed to moral relativism, so it has no way of critiquing other cultures. A metamodernist, however, can acknowledge the value of being sensitive to other cultural practices but can still reference universal moral principles to cast judgement on other cultures. So while a postmodernist has nothing to say about women forced to wear the hijab, a metamodernist can argue that that cultural practice is wrong based on universal principles for how women should be treated by society.
Your initial claim was that "the deconstructionists have won." If culture has, in fact, shifted toward metamodernism, a deconstructionist would be baffled to hear that they won when they keep coming up against metamodernists who talk in terms of objective meaning and universal principles.
Fwiw I’m joking regarding my OP on the deconstructionists winning, there are other rejections of postmodernism that I highly value, such as Camille Paglia’s work and Rene girards. It’s fair that you misread that, it wasn’t a very good joke 😂😅
I also disagree with your depiction of the postmodern project. The idea that post modernists are stuck in total moral relativism — that they couldn’t criticize the hijab, for example — is a misreading. Many postmodernists are deeply engaged with feminist, anti-authortarian, and anti- colonialism critiques. Judith butler, Micheal foccualt, and gayatri spivak, to take a few of the foundational postmodernists, for example, all provide frameworks that could be used to criticize the hijab. Fatima Mernissi also directly uses post structuralist techniques to demonstrate the oppressive nature of veiling and the hijab.
Instead of saying “the hijab violates fundamental universal values” they critique it through revealing the power and social structures that enforce the custom — arguing that they are indeed morally bad because they are oppressive.
Id also fundamentally disagree that metamodernists believe in objective meaning and fundamental principles. Metamodernists believe these principles may work and selectively use them when they do. But they fundamentally understand and present meaning as constructed and fragile, which is a postmodernist understanding of meaning. At best they use principles pragmatically, not as metaphysical truths.
The metamodernist film, everything everywhere all at once, demonstrates this quite obviously (and to your point about needing an emblem for the metamodernist movement, I think it’s this film). It essentially argues through nihilism, irony, and absurdity that yes, everything is meaningless, everything meaningful is illusionary, but let’s pretend it’s not because it’s a more meaningful way to live.
I sincerely think it’s an adaption of postmodernism, not a guiene paradigm shift, which I find fundamentally problematic, as I find problem of the postmodern understanding of meaning detrimental to both society and individuals.
One positive thing I can say is that while metamodernism is consumed by its overbearing mother, postmodernism, it may signal that culture wishes to move beyond postmodernism. It could be the signal of an undercurrent towards something more substantial.
I really need to read Paglia and Girard... I like Paglia from what I've seen of her, but I've never committed to reading her work. I'll have to do it!
The point about Foucault, etc. reveals that failure of postmodernism. This is the classic critique: These postmodern writers rejected universal values and then conveniently recreated them to serve their own purposes.
I don't think we'll ever be able to abandon postmodernism. Going forward, it would be weird to never question grand narratives, to give up on fragmented, self-referential works of art, to forget that anyone ever heard the phrase "the medium is the message," etc. Given how powerfully these memes have been injected into our culture, they're here to stay, unless we're hit by an astroid or something.
But I'd say the point about metamodernism isn't that it "may" signal that culture wishes to move beyond postmodernism--it's that culture *has* moved beyond it. The academics writing about metamodernism don't do so in a prescriptive way, but in a descriptive way. They noticed (decades ago) that postmodernism had become stuck and that culture had moved on. The name they gave to this reality was metamodernism. (It's still a relatively obscure term but I think it's impact on culture is quite broad. "Everything Everywhere All at Once" is definitely a good example.)
Have you read All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity by Marshall Berman? I think you'd like it.
Metamodernism does seem closer to where we should be rather than post-modernism which is just an empty void of nonsense. I'm going to have to explore this a bit more.
I actually have been thinking about modernism quite a bit recently, ever since I started reading Berman. I think you'd like my piece "Maybe Modernity Has Only Just Begun" or my other archival investigation into the locomotive as a metaphor of modernity in the early 20th century.
Cool, great! The book is really a must-read, I am really devouring it at the moment. Highly recommend, especially if you are looking for inspiration on what modernity could and should be.
"Yet a movement needs something radical…right? Something that can be held up to the world so proponents can say: Look! This is our movement! This is the peak of modern humanity at this moment in time!"
I wonder how much of this kind of generational epitomizing depends on a post-mortem analysis of the culture. When the pendulum swings the other way, we might have a better idea of what came before and its uniqueness in relation to the next thing?
Have to admit I did not find this convincing unfortunately, I still view metamodernism as a subset of postmodernism.
Metamodernism doesn’t overthrow postmodernism; it extends it. Every major cultural movement tends to define itself agaisnt what came before (romantic mysticism rejected enlightenment rationality, postmodernism rejected modernisms grand narratives). Metamodernism does not reject postmodernism, it operates within its framework. It’s truly an extension, a modulation, of postmodernism.
Postmodernism has also long contained metamodern elements. Postmodernism isn’t just purely ironic and destructive—it often oscillates between irony and sincerity, just as Metamodernism does. (Ex: David foster Wallace, infinite jest). Even writers of the 1980s/90s were trying to move beyond cynicism while remaining embedded in postmodernist thought.
For metamodernism to be its own movement it would need to introduce a fundamentally new way of thinking about reality, culture, and art.
I would argue that metamodernism does, in a very real sense, "overthrow" postmodernism in that it's an entirely different algorithm that, no matter how you run it, leads to different results than the results you get from the postmodern algorithm.
To take a concrete example: A postmodernist would say that you can't criticize Muslim countries that require women to wear the hijab. Postmodernism is fundamentally committed to moral relativism, so it has no way of critiquing other cultures. A metamodernist, however, can acknowledge the value of being sensitive to other cultural practices but can still reference universal moral principles to cast judgement on other cultures. So while a postmodernist has nothing to say about women forced to wear the hijab, a metamodernist can argue that that cultural practice is wrong based on universal principles for how women should be treated by society.
Your initial claim was that "the deconstructionists have won." If culture has, in fact, shifted toward metamodernism, a deconstructionist would be baffled to hear that they won when they keep coming up against metamodernists who talk in terms of objective meaning and universal principles.
Fwiw I’m joking regarding my OP on the deconstructionists winning, there are other rejections of postmodernism that I highly value, such as Camille Paglia’s work and Rene girards. It’s fair that you misread that, it wasn’t a very good joke 😂😅
I also disagree with your depiction of the postmodern project. The idea that post modernists are stuck in total moral relativism — that they couldn’t criticize the hijab, for example — is a misreading. Many postmodernists are deeply engaged with feminist, anti-authortarian, and anti- colonialism critiques. Judith butler, Micheal foccualt, and gayatri spivak, to take a few of the foundational postmodernists, for example, all provide frameworks that could be used to criticize the hijab. Fatima Mernissi also directly uses post structuralist techniques to demonstrate the oppressive nature of veiling and the hijab.
Instead of saying “the hijab violates fundamental universal values” they critique it through revealing the power and social structures that enforce the custom — arguing that they are indeed morally bad because they are oppressive.
Id also fundamentally disagree that metamodernists believe in objective meaning and fundamental principles. Metamodernists believe these principles may work and selectively use them when they do. But they fundamentally understand and present meaning as constructed and fragile, which is a postmodernist understanding of meaning. At best they use principles pragmatically, not as metaphysical truths.
The metamodernist film, everything everywhere all at once, demonstrates this quite obviously (and to your point about needing an emblem for the metamodernist movement, I think it’s this film). It essentially argues through nihilism, irony, and absurdity that yes, everything is meaningless, everything meaningful is illusionary, but let’s pretend it’s not because it’s a more meaningful way to live.
I sincerely think it’s an adaption of postmodernism, not a guiene paradigm shift, which I find fundamentally problematic, as I find problem of the postmodern understanding of meaning detrimental to both society and individuals.
One positive thing I can say is that while metamodernism is consumed by its overbearing mother, postmodernism, it may signal that culture wishes to move beyond postmodernism. It could be the signal of an undercurrent towards something more substantial.
I really need to read Paglia and Girard... I like Paglia from what I've seen of her, but I've never committed to reading her work. I'll have to do it!
The point about Foucault, etc. reveals that failure of postmodernism. This is the classic critique: These postmodern writers rejected universal values and then conveniently recreated them to serve their own purposes.
I don't think we'll ever be able to abandon postmodernism. Going forward, it would be weird to never question grand narratives, to give up on fragmented, self-referential works of art, to forget that anyone ever heard the phrase "the medium is the message," etc. Given how powerfully these memes have been injected into our culture, they're here to stay, unless we're hit by an astroid or something.
But I'd say the point about metamodernism isn't that it "may" signal that culture wishes to move beyond postmodernism--it's that culture *has* moved beyond it. The academics writing about metamodernism don't do so in a prescriptive way, but in a descriptive way. They noticed (decades ago) that postmodernism had become stuck and that culture had moved on. The name they gave to this reality was metamodernism. (It's still a relatively obscure term but I think it's impact on culture is quite broad. "Everything Everywhere All at Once" is definitely a good example.)
Have you read All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity by Marshall Berman? I think you'd like it.
Metamodernism does seem closer to where we should be rather than post-modernism which is just an empty void of nonsense. I'm going to have to explore this a bit more.
I actually have been thinking about modernism quite a bit recently, ever since I started reading Berman. I think you'd like my piece "Maybe Modernity Has Only Just Begun" or my other archival investigation into the locomotive as a metaphor of modernity in the early 20th century.
https://novum.substack.com/p/real-modernity-has-only-just-started
Either way, subscribed... keep up the writing fren
I've never heard of that book but I'll definitely check it out! I'll check out your work, too. Sounds just like the kinda thing I'd enjoy. Thanks!
Cool, great! The book is really a must-read, I am really devouring it at the moment. Highly recommend, especially if you are looking for inspiration on what modernity could and should be.
"Yet a movement needs something radical…right? Something that can be held up to the world so proponents can say: Look! This is our movement! This is the peak of modern humanity at this moment in time!"
I wonder how much of this kind of generational epitomizing depends on a post-mortem analysis of the culture. When the pendulum swings the other way, we might have a better idea of what came before and its uniqueness in relation to the next thing?