Man in the Age of Metamodern

Yuliia SHABANOVA,

 professor, doctor of philosophical sciences,

professor of the department of philosophy and pedagogy

 of Dnipro University of Technology

Dnipro branch of TS in Ukraine "H.P. Blavatsky Lodge"

Introduction 

The world of postmodern man (XX century) is much more complex than the world of man of modernism (New time XVII-XIX century). The instability of human life is due to the individualized society, which has replaced the society of the mass consumer. An individual is lost in the world of cyberspace, technical simulation and unjustified risks of losing personality. Postmodern simulacra and narratives were expressed in the extreme deconstruction of the human phenomenon. “Death of the Subject” (Foucault, 1994)[1], “The Death of the Author” (Barth, 1994)[2], “The End of the History” (Fukuyama, 2009)[3], turned out to be dead-end sentences.

After the irony, sarcasm and criticism of modernism by the postmodernism, at the end of the 90s of the XX century, a tendency towards changes in the worldview is brewing. Infertility of postmodernism, which generates simulacra as copies of copies, the originals of which no longer exist, is fraying. There is a need to revise the values and meanings assigned to the postmodernism, the renewal of which is increasingly taking place due to the rethinking of the ideals of modernism. At the same time, all the tools accumulated by the postmodernism are preserved, and the cultural space of the beginning of the XXI century generates a request to search for the meanings of human existence in the context of new cultural tendencies. In this hesitation between irony, skepticism, criticism of the postmodernism and the rational purity of the modernism ideals, something new appears, which has received the conditional name post-postmodernism, one of the brightest manifestations of which is metamodern, requiring philosophical and anthropological comprehension. 

Worldview Foundations of Metamodern

Metamodern, stepping over postmodern relativism and conceptual plurality, seeks to fix and create a new description of anthropological reality. The fast-paced variability of the modern world leaves no time for static system developments that become obsolete before they mature. Obviously, this feature of the modern era, which began its countdown, conditionally from the XXI century, determined the specificity of metamodern, which moves away from mono-determination, ideology and chooses dynamism and variability as its attribute. But what is behind this variability? Is metamodern a new anthropological paradigm or just a new construction of “isms,” the tendencies of which have no chance to develop into a mature cultural phenomenon? Time will tell, relying on the essential milestones of evolution hidden from man, but while being in today, let us try to figure out what the metamodernism is trying to express?

The paradox of the metamodernism genesis, which lies in the compatibility of incompatible binary oppositions of modernism and its criticism in the face of postmodernism, expresses the essence of metamodernism. At the same time, “meta” is understood not in the Aristotelian sense of “outside,” “above” or “after,” but in the Platonic sense of the Greek term metaxis – which denotes the interaction of polarities, essentially related to each other (meta – between). This interpretation fundamentally changes the understanding of the essence of man, who in the modern world is on the stretch between the actual and the real world, between the meaning and its situational objectification. At the same time, the Platonic meaning “meta” means hesitation between two opposites and the simultaneity of their participation. Metamodernists use the prefix “meta” (metaxic) in its most authentic meaning, as presented by Plato in the Symposium dialogue (Plato, 2018)[4]. Plato applies the concept of metaxic to the characterization of the Greek priestess Diotima in the meaning of “intermediate” or “medium level,” using the concept of metaxic to express the relationship between a thing and idea, as something separating and simultaneously connecting the world of illusion and reality. If in Plato’s ontology Metaxis appears in the meaning of the middle state, which includes both the world of ideas and the world of things, then in metamodernism this medial position brings novelty to the understanding of man as a dual entity, simultaneously manifested both as a meaning (idea) and as existence (the form).

In the first decade of the XXI century, the term “metamodernism” receives active application and semantic content in the work of the Dutch authors Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker. In 2010, in the “Journal of Aesthetics & Culture,” they published “Notes on Metamodernism” (Vermeulen & Akker, 2010)[5], in which they define metamodernism as a discourse of hesitation between the optimism of modernism and the mockery of postmodernism, as a neo-romantic turn to the problem of man, calling this the philosophical position as the “structure of feelings”[6]. Anthropology of metamodernism is based on a constant that escapes completion, as the dynamics “both – nobody”[7]. This medial position indicates anthropological demand between existence and consciousness, which found expression in the work of Dutch authors in the form of “the double message of the modernist pursuit of meaning and postmodern doubt about the meaning of all this”[8]. A man is positioned in metamodernism through performism, embodied in the modern aesthetics of hesitation, as a combination of enthusiasm and mockery, “hope and melancholy, swinging between awareness and naivety, empathy and apathy, integrity and splitting, clarity and ambiguity, ... in search of the truth, without expectations to discover it”[9]. In search of the anthropological foundations of metamodernism, the authors substantiate the concept of neo-romanticism as an actualized return to subjective sensibility. Unlike romanticism, metamodern neo-romanticism, striving for ideals, never asserts them, partly relying on Schlegel (1975): “always in becoming, never in perfection”[10]. Anthropological meaning of metamodernism is expressed in the form of “atopic metaxis,” as “the middle outside the topos, hesitation outside the place.” Following the “Notes on Metamodernism” in 2011 Luke Turner’s “Manifesto of Metamodernism”[11] emerges, which asserts hesitation as the basis of the cultural dominant of metamodernism based on “diametrically opposed ideas acting as pulsating polarities of a colossal electric machine that sets the world in motion”[12]

Talking about the programmatic works of metamodern anthropology, one cannot ignore the work of the Swiss political philosopher and sociologist Hanzi Freinacht “The Listening Society: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book One”[13] (Freinacht, 2017). The author considers the combination of different-vector values in modern society to be the main issue of our time. “How can modern, postmodern and premodern people live productively together?”[14]

Seth Abramson expresses his view of metamodernism in a peculiar way in his article “Ten Basic Principles of Metamodernism”[15]. With baseless optimism and postirony characteristic of metamodernism, he expresses these principles in the form of a tenfold repetition of It`s all right[16]. At the same time, the work contains productive anthropological ideas, which Abramson expresses in the form of: collapse of distances, which in the era of digitalization and the Internet manifests itself in the simultaneous possibility of anonymity and false intimacy; recognition of a multitude of subjectivities as the ability to accept and share in virtual reality of Internet discourses; blurring the boundaries of familiar forms of identity; the formation of individual and collective identity based on semantic content; orientation towards cooperation in all social spheres, as an opportunity for individual self-expression. Optimism of justification of man is expressed in “basic trust in the world”: “A metamodernist chooses life” ‘as if’ positive changes are possible, even if we are every day reminded that human culture is in a state of chaos and probably even decline”[17]

The worldview and value issues of metamodernism are actively studied by domestic researchers. In this regard, Ukrainian authors Miroshnichenko V. S.[18], Drozdovskiy V. I.[19], Skybytska Yu. V.[20], who view metamodernism as a field of modern axiological and aesthetic discourse.

In my opinion, the authors of the presented works express metamodern anthropology as a descriptive position of the modern cultural dominant of the digitalized era. Its feature is not a rational-theoretical position in philosophy, but a sensual experience of the aesthetic principle, which allows the subjective I to integrate new meanings. In this regard, the problem of man becomes the main content of metamodernism, striving for anthropological solutions to the eternal questions about meaning in a hesitative worldview perspective. 

Man in a state of metamodernism

The consistency of metamodernism will be proved by time, but even today we can talk about the tendencies of self-awakening of man – a holisitic man. All extremes of the paradigmatic pendulum have been tested, from the rational assertion of the highest values (modernism) to their complete leveling (postmodernism), from hypostatizing the rational to extremely subjective immersion in the abyss of the irrational. Being is no longer represented as the identity of thinking, just as it is not a reflection of the transcendent. At the same time, the transcendent is realized in man through the attributes of beingness.

Modernism sought the essence of man through metaphysical ideals. Postmodern rejected the search for the essence of man and any meanings. What to look for metamodernism after complete deconstruction? The goal of metamodernism is the reconstruction of man, multifaceted, true, deep. At the same time, the reconstruction of man is not accomplished in the affirmative way by means of substantiated declarations about what is due, like modern anthropology. Choice, search, acceptance of different and many things leads to the need for self-reconstruction of man.

Metamodern man experiences both the freedom of postmodernism and the framework of the value constraints of modernism. Everyone has the right to choose between opportunistic pragmatism and value self-determination of spiritual meanings. Any choice is correct for everyone who makes it and through this choice the formation of society, world politics, new cultural paradigm takes place. In this paradigm a Single man, who now makes decisions for the future is not forgotten, in contrast to non-classical subjectivism, where a man is immersed in self-flagellation, despair and loneliness.

At the same time, the solitude of the metamodern man is quite productive. Solitude becomes a necessity, fulfilling the saving function of self-determination of modern man in the multidimensionality of crowd strategies. Solitude, like collecting oneself in a mass agiotage of vain communications and imitations of crowd activity, is the way of self-restructuring of the inner man.

In the mainstream of metamodern, individualization takes a different form, as a self-sufficient life in its own world of true reality, which does not conflict with external reality. Digitalization of the era as a process of the digital reality of our time has changed the perspectives of the life world of a metamodern man. Social networks contribute to the absence of a stereotype of behavior; norms go beyond the bounds of obligation, while the world order is not violated. One can get lost in the network, put on the desired mask, choose, expand or limit one’s social circle. The pendulum of the digitalized metamodern space fluctuates from the possibility of hiding, getting lost to the implementation of a public “crucifixion” or praise outside the spatial framework. Like or dislike have no national or state identity, remaining on the verge of impunity and the threat of public evaluation. Information of the network space is unpredictable in its further consequences.

After nihilism, irony and disappointment of postmodernism, respect, sincerity, openness, originality, uniqueness, which define the essence of man of metamodern, in contrast to modern standardization (the principle of obligation in Kant's imperatives) or postmodern lack of principles, again in value.

Metamodern is the integration of the individual I into the outer worlds. Individuality acts as a point of bifurcation, which can unpredictably change the turn of reality, the reorganization of the system based on unsystematic premises. The spontaneous manifestation of sincerity can confuse and motivate independent self-transformation.

It is no accident that art has become a sign of the cultural paradigm of metamodern. Art, addressing the intuitive depth of man through the manifestation of a touching and naive simplicity, expresses hesitation as a defining feature of metamodern. The dominant feature of metamodern is ethics in its daily manifestation – the ethics of authenticity, open sincerity and innocence. Ethics, in which the universal is combined with the everyday, and the sincerity of the concrete gains superiority over the general, managing moral constructs not from above – the metaphysical ideal of universal obligation, but from below – existential meaning as a universal value, as a form of realization of being outside temporal non-linearity.

Metamodern is the time of searching for the extra-spatial-temporal topos of man, where I feels “at home,” outside social roles, but socially realizing at the same time. The pendulum swings between the desired and the unrealizable, but at the same time intuitively precisely felt. A kind of “straight-knowledge” allows one to stay “at home” going on social wanderings, to keep oneself true in social standardization. A society of individuals is being formed. Not personalities, with a hypertrophied standard of social demand, but Individualities, equally manifested in the implementation of the universal, eternal, at the same time vitally tangible. Simply put – a space in which everyone can be right and wrong at the same time, and everyone has the right to any position, while maintaining focus and involvement in the life process, in evolutionary formation, in the realization of the universal goal – to Be!

Metamodern anthropology is characterized by a dynamic balance between the spiritual and the material, which are not opposed, but are a simultaneous manifestation of objective reality. Metamodern man is dual, spiritually material. Neglect, as well as exaggeration of the significance of one of the modes, is fraught with ontological distortion.

Duality of the metamodern man is expressed, in the so-called new sincerity, which allows direct acceptance of everything and at the same time does not finally assert anything – hesitation as unconditional optimism, unconditioned enthusiasm.

Metamodernism realizes that truth is unattainable, because the only true is the ultimate objective reality, which is not given to us in its completness. We will never be able to reach this reality; abstractly (mentally or spiritually) we fall into delusions, since we do not have a verification tool. Everything is always subjective. The subject of cognition has limitations due to its conditionality by the form of being. Therefore, the spiritual always slips away, but at the same time expands the material.

That is, everything that a man can create – judgments, theories, ideologies, worldviews, scientific approaches, works of art – are all models of realities behind which there are key ideas that invariably accompany an individual search.

Conclusions 

The last decade of the development of modern culture has qualitatively changed the content of the anthropological paradigm. For the first time, the definition of the socio-cultural context is expressed in hesitative state that absorbs all the modes of previous eras, while not unambiguously affirming the semantic dominant of time. Metamodernism forms a new level of manifestation of freedom, not limited by any of the ideologies of the past, while being called upon to preserve and expand to evolutionary meanings all worked out ideological attitudes. The thin line between the values of the Modernism and the Postmodernism determines the subtle characteristic of the metamodern man, whose evolutionary vocation lies in a qualitatively new level of world attitude. The simultaneous acceptance of the highest values and their leveling with an unambiguous assertion makes it possible to formulate the peculiarity of time as a reconstruction of the Holistic Man, impartial to the dominant worldview attitudes of a social nature. In this regard, the anthropology of metamodernism manifests such features as baseless optimism, individualization of the sociocultural space through postirony, naive sincerity, openness and penetration in the dual complementarity of the I with the mass nature of modern society. The expression of the anthropological space of metamodernism becomes mutual complementarity of the spiritually-material, metaphysical-existential, rational-irrational, religious-scientific, esoteric-exoteric, universal-concrete at a new qualitative level of living of the meanings of the Holistic Man, who reconstructs himself at all anthropological levels. An era without an unambiguously expressed moral guideline is based on the ethics of all-acceptance, the only justification for which is the existence of a universal right to beingness. Digitalization as a process of digital transformation of society creates conditions for the value realization of the free choice of a man of metamodernism, through which the Holistic man is accomplished. Metamodernism is more likely not a solution to a problem, but its posing in a new perspective of the question of a man – what to be and how to survive between the extremes of semantic poles without losing dignity and unique intrinsic value. On this basis, the fate of a metamodern man is determined in pursuit of the endlessly receding horizons of the anthropology of incompleteness.

References 

Abramson S. (2015). Ten Basic Principles of Metamodernism // Haffpost : [Web site]. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth- abramson/ten-keyprinciples-in-met_b_7143202.html

Bart, R. (1994) Izbrannye raboty: Semiotika. Poetika. — M. : Progress, — s. 384—391(in Russian)

Drozdovsjkyj D.I. Dyskusijnistj metamodernizmu v aspekti teoriji postpostmodernizmu / Naukovi zapysky KhNPU imeni Gh.S. Skovorody. Vyp. 3-4 (89-90), 2018. S. 58-71. (in Ukranian)

Freinacht H. (2017). The Listening Society: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book One (Metamodern Guides 1) – Metamoderna ApS.

Fuko, M. (1994) Slova i veshchi. Arkheologiia gumanitarnykh nauk.– SPb. Progress. (in Russian)

Fukuiama, F. (2009) Konetc istorii i poslednii chelovek. – M.: AST.  (in Russian) 

Miroshnychenko V. S. Metamodernizm, oscyljacija, interpeljacija / Kuljtura Ukrajiny. Vypusk 55,  2017.  S. 109-117. (in Ukranian)

Platon. Benket (2018) / per. Uljjanа Gholovach. – L.: UKU/ – 220 s. (in Ukranian)

Schlegel F. (1975) Аtheneum Fragments //  Lucinde and the Fragments, ed. P. Firchow – Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, рр. 150-182.

Skybytska Yu. V. Dramatychnyi dorobok Nedy Nezhdanovoi u konteksti metamodernu / Synopsys: tekst, kontekst, media, № 2 (18), 2017

Turner L. (2011). The Metamodernist Manifesto // Metamodernism: [Web site]. Retrieved from http://www.metamodernism.org

Vermeulen,T.,  Akker R. (2010) Notes on metamodernism // Journal of Aesthetics & Culture. V 2.  pp. 56-77

[1] Fuko, M. (1994) Slova i veshchi. Arkheologiia gumanitarnykh nauk.– SPb.: Progress. (in Russian)

[2] Bart, R. (1994) Izbrannye raboty: Semiotika. Poetika. — M. : Progress, — s. 384—391(in Russian)

[3] Fukuiama, F. (2009) Konetc istorii i poslednii chelovek. – M.: AST.  (in Russian)

[4] Platon. Benket (2018) / per. Uljjanы Gholovach. – L.: UKU/– 220 s. (in Ukranian)

[5] Vermeulen,T.,  Akker R. (2010) Notes on metamodernism // Journal of Aesthetics & Culture. V 2.  pp. 56-77

[6]  Ibid., p. 57

[7] Ibid., p. 70

[8] Ibid., p. 59

[9] Ibid., p. 75

[10] Schlegel F. (1975) Аtheneum Fragments //  Lucinde and the Fragments, ed. P. Firchow – Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, Р. 175

[11] Turner L. (2011). The Metamodernist Manifesto // Metamodernism: [Web site]. Retrieved from http://www.metamodernism.org

[12] Ibid

[13] Freinacht H. (2017). The Listening Society: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book One (Metamodern Guides 1) – Metamoderna ApS.

[14] Freinacht H. (2017). The Listening Society: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book One (Metamodern Guides 1) – Metamoderna ApS.

[15] Abramson S. (2015). Ten Basic Principles of Metamodernism // Haffpost : [Web site]. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth- abramson/ten-keyprinciples-in-met_b_7143202.html 

[16] Ibid

[17]  Ibid

[18] Miroshnychenko V. S. Metamodernizm, oscyljacija, interpeljacija / Kuljtura Ukrajiny. Vypusk 55, 2017.  S. 109-117. (in Ukranian)

[19] Drozdovsjkyj D.I. Dyskusijnistj metamodernizmu v aspekti teoriji postpostmodernizmu / Naukovi zapysky KhNPU imeni Gh.S. Skovorody. Vyp. 3-4 (89-90), 2018. S. 58-71. (in Ukranian)

[20] Skybytska Yu. V. Dramatychnyi dorobok Nedy Nezhdanovoi u konteksti metamodernu / Synopsys: tekst, kontekst, media, № 2 (18), 2017