I’ve been to one of my favourite cities for most of the week, namely Copenhagen. I spent a lot of time there in IBM days thanks to the support of Hanna (I think I have the name right but its 25 years ago and I have lost touch with so if you are reading this …) and we did a lot of method development there as we could facilitate in English, but the participants would speak in Danish thus avoiding interference. The formal reason for this visit was to run the first Rewilding Leadership masterclass. But the originating reason was when Beth let me know that the Louisiana Museum was holding an exhibition on the Weimar Republic, a long-term interest and one of high current topicality as the 2020s and 1920s seem to have some depressing parallels. The banner picture is from my walk to the masterclass venue, and the portrait is by Christian Schad of the Italian pianist Anna Gabbioneta and represents both the shift from expressionism to precise realism and the increasing recognition of Die Neue Frau, Weimar art increasingly challenged gender norms, exemplified by Otto Dix’s androgynous portrait of Sylvia von Harden which featured in the exhibition. An added bonus was that we used to hold masterclasses in the Boat House situated on the grounds of the Louisiana Museum so the visit there on Wednesday night was a sentimental journey.
The new objectivity of art in this period, as illustrated and also exemplified in the Bauhaus school really acts as a segway into yesterday’s session where I gave a talk on Metamuggleism, a somewhat ironic title that I had to persuade the organiser to accept. The wider subject I was addressing was meta-modernism which has been popping up in several areas of interest over the last couple of years. The movement stands in Art for something that lies between modernism and post-modernism. It is characterised in some of the literature as ironic sincerity and one of the best examples is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where the irony lies in the young woman beating up the monsters. My use of Metamuggleism as a title was to suggest, ironically that its use outside of art, and some social movements lacked any real magic.
Meta-modernity describes a wider movement in art and social thinking, Like Modernism and Post-modernism it describes a multi-faceted movement even though many of the practitioners would not use, and did not use the label itself. All three modernisms are in effect a form of analysis of emergent phenomena. Aside from the artistic side of this, I’d probably place Lane Rachel Andersen’s vision of a future society which aims to combine the best of indigenous thinking with modernism and post-modernism, while avoiding their downsides, how to do this is another matter. We had coffee together in Copenhagen and she will be one of three eagles at our coming retreat on Education. Both of us, interestingly are converts, we chose our religions rather than growing up in them which gives us a different perspective. We also both chose religions that are distinctly not socially atomistic in their ontologies, but focus on community forms of identity. The conversation was wide-ranging and could have gone on for longer than the hour we had available. But it will continue at, and before, the April event.
I think there is a significant issue when a way of describing an emergent and somewhat messy movement shifts to being a thing in this case called Meta-modernism. In that talk I identified three areas of concern:
You can probably gather by now that I see meta-modernism, but not meta-modernity as dangerous. I’m not sure any of the three above have anything to do with ironic sincerity, it just looks like they like the name. I may have gone a little far at times in the session and there was a little confusion when I compared rhetoric styles: some people thought I was comparing people. But overall this stuff needs calling out for what it is, a dangerous set of distractions from real engagement with the various crises we face. And while the authors and promotors of those distractions may, in the main be well-meaning the direction of travel has historical precedence and at that point, I return to the Weimar Republic.
Postscript
In response to some social media questions – the reference to ‘between’ modernism and post-modernism is in the sense of mediation not some sort of halfway house. My focus in this post was on my concerns over the appropriation of a way of describing an emergent aesthetic and social movement to be a think hence my separation of meta-modernity from Metermodenism. My use of a hyphen and capitals is deliberate here by the way.
Another distinction is that meta-modernity is engaged in an ironic mediation by the two, while much of Metamodernism seems more about the assertion of a new doctrine and the othering of post-modernism. I’m doing my best to wade through Stone on the subject and he at least seems to be wrestling with the wider issue but dismisses in a paragraph other alternatives to post-modernism such as the various strands of new materialism which I would favour. Interestingly his only argument against new materialism is that it uses some of the tools of post-modernism which is a little (sic) ironic as mediation would permit that.
But as an overall statement, there are too many theologians and not enough philosophers involved in this, and they are very protestant in their orientation. The focus on stage theory is itself the product of atomistic thinking which confirms that view.
Second Postcript
Brendon is now justifying his use of the dubious statement by an appeal to authority, namely Vervaeke said it. I’m even less impressed and of course there is no link to the so called research which would allow review of sample of questions. But even if you take it seriously it says that the main reasons for the depression is lack of money and/or illness, Using religion to distract from people from their physical condition has a somewhat negative set of precedents in human history.
If you read the Sun article this is further emphases. Yakult’s UK PR Manager, explains that “As a Japanese Company, we want to introduce the nation to Ikigai, a Japanese self-development concept, which is a framework for bringing satisfaction, happiness and meaning to your life.” So their use is pretty similar to that of the the meta-muggle religious tendency.
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