Realistic applications of metamodernism

constant escape

winter withered, warm
While the point of this thread is to generate useful and quotidian applications for this otherwise abstruse ideology, I'm afraid I must start off with a more academic application: hermeneutics. @catalog the gadamer/ricoeur stuff could help us out here - I'm unfamiliar with the two.

By hermeneutics, here, I mean the interpretation of texts (texts proper, film, music, etc), or of messages more broadly. Seeing how vast this territory is, we can see how it isn't just an academic concern... although it certainly will sound like it.

I just learned a nice word: agapeic, "showing unconditional love". An agapeic interpretation of a text/message is a trusting interpretation, rather than a skeptical one.

Another good word is ephexis, which, from what I gather, means a sort of prevailing skepticism. Perhaps even an ideology around skepticism used in a constructive way. Nietzsche mentions it near the end of Antichrist, I believe, when he talks about the rigor of philology, and how ephexis is a sort of defense against succumbing to conviction. In the same book, he asserts that conviction is a prison.

For anyone unacquainted with metamodernism, the core dynamics, from what I understand, involve "oscillating" between the ambition/belief dominating the modern, and the criticism/disillusionment dominating the postmodern. The central positive of the postmodern is, arguably, that it sees clearly what the modern was blind to. It is now privy to reality, at the cost of losing belief in a better reality. The optimal synthesis would be ambition minus illusion, a critical belief.

In hermeneutics, we can associate an agapeic reading with the modern side, and an ephexic/skeptical reading with the postmodern side.

Read the text as if it were sincere and sufficiently informed, as if it were divinely correct. Bracket the skepticism, which can be difficult. Consider where such a reading might lead you.

Then read the text as if it were misguided, the fruit of naivety and illusion. Don't let yourself get carried away by any of its currents. Consider where such a reading might lead you.

Then compare the two. Consider the sheer distance between the two roadmaps. How is the world presented in an agapeic light, and how is it presented in an ephexic light. Then, between these two extremities, where is the optimum?


So there's a mostly academic application of metamodernism, but what about a broader use for it? As I've mentioned, the sensibility of metamodernism -- the balancing act between belief and criticism, where one extreme is fanaticism or mere conviction and the other extreme is Nihilism -- has helped me contend with demotivation and meaninglessness, two formidable forces in many walks of life (especially in idealism).

So how can this be mobilized, elaborated, or translated to help us process and approach the ominous and convoluted problems we face today?

Part of why I'm such a jargon-mongerer is that I believe this kind of theory can make it easier to render such theory more accessible. Using it to process itself - which is how the discourse can become exponential denser and, yes, less accessible. But that is not the only application of metamodernism (nor is the trend confined to architecture, which is the conclusion you may arrive at after reading some the papers about it).

It's possible to process discourse down to the ground. But that seems to be opposed to building a discourse up from the ground. How opposed are they, really?

I mentioned Gramsci earlier today, but I fear the timing was poor. Can we identify a common sense, and express it in metamodern terms?

Ephexic reading: institutionally codified racial injustice undergoes waves of largely superficial recognition, which only slightly eat away at it, and the world as we know it won't be around long enough for it to be effective; so long as profit is incentivized, all means toward profit are incentivized, and seeing as capitalism is semantically and actually built around profit, as a form of growth, we can expect to see all other values yield to profit; tactics of control are thoroughly engineered and are even more thoroughly implemented (hegemony, etc).

Agapeic reading: Evolution is progressive; biological systems have come to equip themselves with increasingly metaphysical abilities in order to solve increasingly abstract and complex problems; dialectics of progress and conserve amount to pseudo-progress, which is still progress; the means of social deterritoralization is mingling, while the means of social territorialization is nationalism - the former is arguably inevitable, while the latter's Hail Mary defense, genocide, is arguably increasingly untenable; humans, as the lead actors in the Tragedy of Entropy, have hearts.

A mess of an example, no doubt. But how can this approach be implemented in a practical way? How can metamodernism, perhaps masquerading as a less lofty movement, revitalize hope whilst preserving reason?
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
But what is to be done when one half of that is missing? Can a secular program be worked out, or need it be religious?
 

catalog

Well-known member
is metamodernism the thing bratton's on about? i read a gossipy article by him in 'tank' and he sounded quite interesting so i started reading that big book of his, 'the stack', and it seemed like an interesting way of conceptualising things, but it was way too boring for me to carry on. i think i made some notes on one of the chapters but honestly can't remember anything from it.
 

catalog

Well-known member
gadamer is really all about achieving understanding between opposing viewpoints. he says, in a nutshell, that we all have opposing 'horizons of understanding' due to our various situations and contexts. this includes us holding various prejudices. this is where he is interesting, actually, cos he says that prejudice is a completely natural way to think and feel, and in fact is quite positive, as you are using the evidence avilable to you to form a judgement. but obviously it means you literally pre judge, so it's unhelpful in terms of connecting with those who have opposing viewpoints. so you have to be wary of your prejudices. actually ive forgotten what he says you need to do, but the objective is basically something i think he refers to as a fusion of horizons. so i guess its like thesis, antithesis, synthesis in some ways, but he uses a lot of heidegger to inform his way of thinking.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
I've only heard Bratton on a podcast and a lecture, I think, and that book sounds properly dense. I don't know if he brings metamodernism into it. He might.

It seems, as a movement, not to have gotten much traction, although it was passionately endorsed by Shia Labeouf, who apparently was jogging laps around the building where/when a metamodernism panel was being held.
 

catalog

Well-known member
ricouer i cant really remember but its basically the idea of freezing an activity in time and examining it as though its a piece of writing. so you would ook, for example, as all the different elements that might not be immediately apparant eg what people wear or how they stand or whatever. i dunno with this one actually, you would be better off reading his short essay, you should be able to find it, its very nicely written
 

catalog

Well-known member
I've only heard Bratton on a podcast and a lecture, I think, and that book sounds properly dense. I don't know if he brings metamodernism into it. He might.

It seems, as a movement, not to have gotten much traction, although it was passionately endorsed by Shia Labeouf, who apparently was jogging laps around the building where/when a metamodernism panel was being held.
its that luke turner thing? that guys an idiot mate
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
gadamer is really all about achieving understanding between opposing viewpoints. he says, in a nutshell, that we all have opposing 'horizons of understanding' due to our various situations and contexts. this includes us holding various prejudices. this is where he is interesting, actually, cos he says that prejudice is a completely natural way to think and feel, and in fact is quite positive, as you are using the evidence avilable to you to form a judgement. but obviously it means you literally pre judge, so it's unhelpful in terms of connecting with those who have opposing viewpoints. so you have to be wary of your prejudices. actually ive forgotten what he says you need to do, but the objective is basically something i think he refers to as a fusion of horizons. so i guess its like thesis, antithesis, synthesis in some ways, but he uses a lot of heidegger to inform his way of thinking.
That sounds almost completely in line with some of this. That was pretty much what the Ismopticon was designed for - pitting perspectives against one another in a dialectical fashion.

I had no idea Gadamer went there.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
its that luke turner thing? that guys an idiot mate
Yeah Luke Turner, I think, was some figurehead of it. I only read the Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin Van Den Akker stuff though. Don't know if they worked with Turner or not.

What's wrong with him?
 

catalog

Well-known member
That sounds almost completely in line with some of this. That was pretty much what the Ismopticon was designed for - pitting perspectives against one another in a dialectical fashion.

I had no idea Gadamer went there.
truth and method is a really really hard read, but it is also very good. but then you've gotta read being and time by heidegger to really get it.
 

catalog

Well-known member
heidegger big book is hard but good, i've read a few chapters. the best thing i ever read by heidegger is this short essay, 'the question concerning technology'.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Starting to see what you mean. And yeah I don't think Vermeulen / Van Den Akker are attached to him at all, but I could be wrong.
 
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