I lack the academic background and —frankly — the interest, to get in the weeds with Metamodernism theory. But I view Metamodernism as necessary to get out of this strangely fragmented dead end we seem to be stuck at.
We've reached the impasse pointed out by the postmodern critique — that modernity brought the capacity to build this amazi…
I lack the academic background and —frankly — the interest, to get in the weeds with Metamodernism theory. But I view Metamodernism as necessary to get out of this strangely fragmented dead end we seem to be stuck at.
We've reached the impasse pointed out by the postmodern critique — that modernity brought the capacity to build this amazing world but also destroyed any unifying vision and handed us the capacity to destroy at heretofore unknown scales. But postmodernism offers no fixes, only the critique. It's not all that useful. We need something that takes that critique and uses it to craft something better, to tell us what ends are meaningful and good. That's what I hope a future metamodernism can do.
In the "philosophy of science," things are grounded by measurements. It provides a solid "is," but no "ought." This tends to orient practitioners in a nihilistic direction. It's somewhat agnostic about what we should put technology toward. It's a kind of nihilism of social darwinism in which the only thing that's good is what's best at coming out on top in game theory.
The best philosophy/liberal arts are about relating to our emotions, desires, and thoughts in a way that's meaningful. The true, the good, and the beautiful become facets of an integrated reality emerging from an intuition of integrated metaphysics. It attempts to reify ethics and epistemology and helps inform individual and group choice making (the ought).
There's a bizarre siloing of the liberal arts and the sciences right now. Both are needed to make sense of society and our world.
Isn't it interesting that "Heart" — those who care the most have — have picket lines and handcuffs as their primary tools to fight for what's right, while "head" — has ...well, everything? We need to break open both silos and get them mixed.
I don't have solid proof of this, but I view the West to have had two major enlightenments — The Ancient Greek Enlightenment and the 16th century Pan-European one.
It strikes me that both mixed an "is" and an "ought." and brought them into harmony.
The Athenian ideal was that everyone should learn logic, history, the arts, math, etc, and that everyone should assess reality instead of parroting dogma. But it also added Socratic dialectic so everyone could understand others' perspective.
The 16th century enlightenment was a mixing of the scientific method with Hegelian dialectic.
Both mixings lead to a flourishing and some common views on reality.
I'm oversimplifying, and I'm not suggesting these tools were universally deployed, but I think that's the basic idea of what we need metamodernism.
I appreciate the reply Andrew. I am sympathetic to your general sentiment of Metamodernism and it resonates with the metamodernism I am in favour of. Alexandra Dumitrescu's formulation of Metamodernism as an "attitude towards integration" and Jason Ananda Storm's integrative paradigm are both noble and I believe helpful for growth in the current moment. My critique is more pointed at theoretial overgrowth that is unnecesary and I feel undermines the metamodern quest.
I lack the academic background and —frankly — the interest, to get in the weeds with Metamodernism theory. But I view Metamodernism as necessary to get out of this strangely fragmented dead end we seem to be stuck at.
We've reached the impasse pointed out by the postmodern critique — that modernity brought the capacity to build this amazing world but also destroyed any unifying vision and handed us the capacity to destroy at heretofore unknown scales. But postmodernism offers no fixes, only the critique. It's not all that useful. We need something that takes that critique and uses it to craft something better, to tell us what ends are meaningful and good. That's what I hope a future metamodernism can do.
In the "philosophy of science," things are grounded by measurements. It provides a solid "is," but no "ought." This tends to orient practitioners in a nihilistic direction. It's somewhat agnostic about what we should put technology toward. It's a kind of nihilism of social darwinism in which the only thing that's good is what's best at coming out on top in game theory.
The best philosophy/liberal arts are about relating to our emotions, desires, and thoughts in a way that's meaningful. The true, the good, and the beautiful become facets of an integrated reality emerging from an intuition of integrated metaphysics. It attempts to reify ethics and epistemology and helps inform individual and group choice making (the ought).
There's a bizarre siloing of the liberal arts and the sciences right now. Both are needed to make sense of society and our world.
Isn't it interesting that "Heart" — those who care the most have — have picket lines and handcuffs as their primary tools to fight for what's right, while "head" — has ...well, everything? We need to break open both silos and get them mixed.
I don't have solid proof of this, but I view the West to have had two major enlightenments — The Ancient Greek Enlightenment and the 16th century Pan-European one.
It strikes me that both mixed an "is" and an "ought." and brought them into harmony.
The Athenian ideal was that everyone should learn logic, history, the arts, math, etc, and that everyone should assess reality instead of parroting dogma. But it also added Socratic dialectic so everyone could understand others' perspective.
The 16th century enlightenment was a mixing of the scientific method with Hegelian dialectic.
Both mixings lead to a flourishing and some common views on reality.
I'm oversimplifying, and I'm not suggesting these tools were universally deployed, but I think that's the basic idea of what we need metamodernism.
I appreciate the reply Andrew. I am sympathetic to your general sentiment of Metamodernism and it resonates with the metamodernism I am in favour of. Alexandra Dumitrescu's formulation of Metamodernism as an "attitude towards integration" and Jason Ananda Storm's integrative paradigm are both noble and I believe helpful for growth in the current moment. My critique is more pointed at theoretial overgrowth that is unnecesary and I feel undermines the metamodern quest.