Postmodernism

From metawiki
"Postmodernism, Metamodernism, and the Emergent Cultural Zeitgeist" by AI

Postmodernism is a highly abused term in the public discourse, similar to socialism, communism, fascism, and -isms generally.

As with most philosophical systems, the popular understanding diverges significantly from the theories of its original authors.

"We live in the postmodern world, where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain." -Vaclav Havel

Some common ideas attributed to postmodernism that have no basis in the writings of Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, or any of the other major works that define the movement are:

It also doesn't help that some calling themselves postmodernists actually advocate for these terrible takes, even if they aren't the ones taken seriously by academia.

When it comes to popular Internet philosophy (especially Jordan Peterson and other Secular Gurus), you can usually assume references to postmodernism refer to these popular misconceptions, not any serious analysis of postmodern theory.

Since the wiki targets a popular audience and not an academic one, speaking to popular misconceptions is necessary to be understood correctly. The goal is to provide accessible summaries of academic theories, not to make new ones. If many people think that postmodernists don't believe in science, it is necessary to address this point regardless of its accuracy.

With that in mind, the metaculture wiki refers to postmodernism as the movement that provided the framework for examining ideas from the context of culture, language, and power dynamics, exposing the blind spots of modernism that enabled the racial and cultural superiority complexes that led to two world wars. It reflects a general mindset in the broader Zeitgeist that prioritizes egalitarianism and coexistence as its highest value, and focuses on criticisms of metanarrative rather than creating them.

The Death and Flourishing of We

Postmodernism has been described as the "death of we" in the sense that it deconstructed the metanarratives that traditionally defined in-group identities, such as ideology and religion.

In another sense, it is also the "flourishing of we" because it was the first philosophy to really focus on being culturally neutral and respective of the beliefs and values of all people and cultures.

How can this dialectic be resolved? Can we define a universal in-group that inspires the same trust and loyalty that religious in-groups do?

Postmodernism and Metamodernism

The goals and perspectives advocated by Metamodernism have many similarities to metaculture. Metamodernism tends to define itself in relationship to postmodernism, and tries to address the more nuanced arguments about critical theory of interest to academics. It also ends up putting itself forth as the solution to a wide range of problems in philosophy and society. This opens it up to a lot of criticism.

Another problem with Metamodernism is that it tends to be get too caught up in jargon, including esoteric terms from academic philosophy, Integral theory, Eastern mysticism, and their own neologisms. This makes it inaccessible to wider audiences and rather niche, which is not good for a philosophy that seeks to define the new Zeitgeist.

metaculture avoids this by suggesting there is a new, emergent cultural Zeitgeist that metaculture is attempting to describe, rather than creating a theory and suggesting it will become the new paradigm for philosophy. It simply collects a diverse array of evidence and examples, shows their connections, and demonstrates that a common pattern is emerging. Metamodernism is just one of many such examples.

metaculture isn't a new solution, it's a way to collect all of the solutions that other brilliant minds have come up with and link them to a holistic metanarrative so they can spread more easily and be more useful for making life choices.

What is Metamodernism?

This video is a criticism of the book Metamodernism: The Future of Theory, which is one of the books that defines the movement. The criticisms are quite reductionist and depend on concepts that most lay readers wouldn't be familiar with. At the end they start to address the bigger picture questions of meaning that are the real point of the book, but this is after they spent over an hour dismissing it because it gets some of the details wrong.

The idea that we should move past criticism and deconstruction and find a framework for building solutions is the main point of the book. In that sense, this criticism misses the forest for the trees. However, they do point out many valid issues, and given the close ideological proximity to metaculture that Metamodernism has, an exploration of these criticisms is valuable.

Metamodernism is just bad

This video presents the perspective of convergence and emergence between many independent schools of thought and artistic expressions using familiar examples from popular culture.

After Postmodernism - Metamodern Synthesis

Is Metamodernism an example of the emergence of metaculture? Or is metaculture evidence of the emergence of Metamodernism? Why not both?

The fact that the philosophical framework for metaculture was developed completely independently of Metamodernism while sharing so many common ideas is evidence of a cultural attractor.

Postmodern Music

Not the most common thing to sing about, but people still do.

Jeremy Messersmith - Postmodern Girl


Clay Gladstone - Postmodern Teenage Angst


Cyborg9k - Postmodern Dreams


Muo Duo - Postmodern Romance