The Birth of Metamodernity from the Spirit of Alchemy
Both/And. Almost no piece attempting to seriously discuss Metamodernity fails to mention those two words, that sum up the central tenet in a nutshell. “both/and”.
It is by now obvious that this attitude, or shall we call it a principle, says something important about the new paradigm, which follows Postmodernity.
But it would be very surprising if a new paradigm, that has “both/and” as its central tenet was itself just new. And that’s what this article will show: It’s both old and new.
In fact, a kind of proto-Metamodernity was present, and gradually maturing, in the subconscious of Western civilization for centuries, attempting a breakthrough here and there. This fact isn’t really important for understanding Metamodernity as such, but it helps to place it in perspective — and that perspective is one of human evolution.
Metamodern insights were always there, but just couldn’t push through: whenever “proto”-metamodernity raised its head, it got knocked over by the reigning paradigm like in a game of whack-a-mole. Because it was offensive, to each of the preceding three paradigms in a particular way.
It was offensive to the traditional Christian worldview, because it placed masculinity and femininity on an equal footing. It was offensive to scientific materialism for the great emphasis it placed on the subjective experience of reality, which could not be “measured” or categorized. And finally, it was offensive to the paradigm of Postmodernity, for it went against the prevailing view of intellectual detachment and Nihilism, because of its emphasis on embodiment and teleological sense of purpose.
Each of these reigning paradigms had its own cultural defense mechanisms operating that pushed proto-metamodern insight back into the subconscious, preventing it from emerging and asserting itself.
To be fair, it wasn’t a deliberate choice by anyone. Rather, these push-backs occurred involuntarily, like a reflex, because already proto-metamodernity was simply too much to integrate. It went so much against the common-sense assumptions and values of its preceding paradigms, that these couldn’t have assimilated it without exposing themselves to the danger of disintegration.
And what do humans usually do with psychic content they can’t integrate? Exactly, they project it. But not only on foreigners, political opponents, scapegoats or spouses, even though that are the ones we hear about mostly.
Psychological content can also be projected onto something much more basic: On physical matter and its fascinating transmutations. Whoever remembers the fascination that fire had on them as a kid knows it.
And so, that was what happened: psychological content in general, and more specifically psychological growth, got projected onto matter, in the form of the “royal art” of Alchemy.
All those years, Metamodernity was hiding in the Alchemical laboratories — among the retorts, alembics, crucibles and leather-bound folios, full of obscure symbols, allegorical images and magical incantations, where nobody would have thought to look for it.
Alchemy? Really?
A perfectly legitimate question. But equally, the answer is a resounding yes. The link between Metamodernity and Alchemy becomes apparent once you consider the idea behind its central goal, the Philosopher’s Stone.
The Philosopher’s Stone was, of course not a real stone, but a symbol — a symbol for the transcendent endpoint of a developmental journey, during which the opposites that reveal themselves to our senses undergo a process of amalgamation, purification, and integration. Male and female, up and down, intellect and feeling, liberal and conservative, Fanta and Cola.
Both-and.
Sound familiar?
The essential ingredient in this union, the one thing that makes it more than a mere “mix” of opposites, is awareness, or rather consciousness. It is above all a conscious union between opposing principles, forged by the embodied experience of their contradictions, of inner tensions and the hardship of having to live through them, and the triumph of integrating them.
Along with that goes a gradual taking back of projections.
Every successfully re-integrated projection is one small step towards full realization in the here and now, towards a closing of the gap between transcendence and immanence, towards spirit becoming flesh.
The Vessel
The process of purification through consciousness needs a vessel. It can be a real vessel, like an alembic, a human body, or it can be a geographical place, one where the tensions and the psychic energy are high.
Ukraine is precisely this vessel.
The sense of being in-between runs deep through Ukraine’s history and culture: between West and East, modernization and traditionalism, democracy and totalitarianism, faith and faithlessness, agriculture and industrialization, guided by both the red star of Mother Russia and the white stars of Father-Uncle Sam.
Ukraine is suspended in mid-air, immovably crucified on the intersecting beams of Russian and Western geopolitical interests, a grotesque image of our times and, simultaneously, a signpost on the way of what is to come.
It is precisely this inner torn-ness, and the suffering that accompanies it, which predisposes Ukraine to becoming the locus of metamodernity. It is the alembic in which the accumulated memetic heritage of centuries can come together to react, and purifies into something new, something metamodern.
Welcome to UtopiA
Slowly but steadily, a growing awareness of this unique situation has been constellating itself in Ukraine’s collective unconscious — at first in the fine arts, in that field into which every nation’s intuitive introvert characters tend to flock, ever since becoming a shaman ceased to be a viable career strategy.
It’s the artists, who always sense first what lies in the air, long before the scholars, philosophers or the people on the street. They might not be able to put it into words, but they blob it onto canvas, hint at it in their fiction, or enact it on stage.
A particularly revealing Ukrainian art project in this vein was Pavel Makov’s UtopiA. The Ukrainian artist asked his friends from all over the world to send him letters in which UtopiA would be written in place of the country identification, and in parentheses — the first and the last letter — UA. Since, bureaucratically, UA is also the designation of Ukraine, sent letters had, for the most part, reached their destination, accumulating a heap of incontrovertible material evidence that Utopia not only does exist, but that Ukrainians are living in it.
When the meaning crisis is in full swing, hope can only come from the margin. After all, where can one expect to encounter Utopia? In the old centers? Most certainly not. In the margin, if at all.
Ukraine is on the margin of two rapidly disintegrating centers. And, paradoxically, a new center in its own right. One where it all comes together, where the psychic temperature is rising.
One theory about the origin of the name Ukraine says, that it means “margin-land“. The other theory says, that it means “our land“.
Both are true.
Cultural Alchemy
There is a vessel.
And there is already lots of material in it: historical, contemporary, social, individual, local, western, eastern, technological, biological, physical, metaphysical, and for sure Waldo is in there somewhere, too.
If we start the process of bringing all this into awareness, and work through it in a manner that is extracting the valuable essence of it all, what comes out might be the antidote to the crisis we’re facing today.
This is what we’re attempting. Not exactly because it’s fun, although it will be, considering the bright minds of the beautiful people who we’re doing it with. But because it is something meaningful.
The festival is just the beginning…
Hope to see you there!
The Festival Team
Meta-Poem:
So, let us get going
Let us share another bite from the forbidden fruit.
A bigger one, this time.
Or even several bigger ones, so that we grow in awareness with each bite, and become a little bit more our Selves.
And meanwhile, let us work our fields amid the sweat of our brows, and give birth to offspring, physical and spiritual, from the pain of our labour.
After all, we have eternity ahead of us.
That’s pretty damn long, with nothing to do, and hedonism only gets you so far. (And believe me, we’ve tried.)
For one’s life to matter, one has to pick one’s battle.
One has to choose a hill to die on.
And for that purpose, the hills of Kyiv are a pretty neat choice:
And when I die, then bury me / in my beloved Ukraine / My tomb upon a grave mound high / amid the spreading plain / So that the fields, the boundless steppes / The Dnjeper’s plunging shore / My eyes could see, my ears could hear / The mighty river roar.
(This article wouldn’t exist without the contributions of D. R. Bakirov, T. H. Shevchenko and CG Jung. We hereby express our most sincere gratitude to each.)
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