Meta Negation: How Icarus lost his wings and found solid ground
A meditation on the dangers of negation and oscillation
“. …There is no firmament,
only a void, unless a jewelled tent
myth-woven and elf-patterned; and no earth,
unless the mother’s womb whence all have birth.
The heart of man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,”
J R R Tolkien — Mythopoeia
In this article I will assert a hidden meaning to the story of Icarus’ death and show a connection in the myth to metamodernity. I will outline the ways in which the culture war is perpetuated through a misunderstanding of this text, which also has a hidden warning about the dangers of dichotmous oscillation. I’ll outline the problems and solutions to oscillation and non-duality in general as part producers of the culture war. So let continue on with the story of Icarus
We don’t know much about Icarus. His story, like most histories, is told from the role of survivors and victors. We do know about the times he lived in and we know much about his father, from many different perspectives. The myth, if seen as an allegory based on a subtle truth, centres squarely on Daedalus. Icarus’ father was a murderer, a traitor, morally suspect and a liar. This we know. At the same time Icarus’ father was a great inventor and craftsman. He built some nice stuff and was celebrated for it. The works of Daedalus were known across the Ancient Greek world. This we know. He was trusted, and respected, for a time, and he survived, so of course his account of his sons death was trusted.
Bottom line up front: I want to suggest that Icarus was murdered by his father for threatening to out shine him, to fly higher than his father in his potential as an architect. I’m going to show my working too. I’m taking this from a metamodern perspective. I define metamodernism as applying diunital, both-and, thinking to embody complex, and often hidden, problems. This in turn leads to the emergent certainty of the integration of paradox. Another way to put it is that metamodernism is archaeological therapy of the human condition, and along the way I’ll show you why diunital, Both-and, Logic Matters.
We often like to read ancient myths from our own perspective. The perspective of the ancients were often more nuanced and complex than we think, Ancient Greek families were patriarchal, and as such Icarus would have been well versed in the family business, as we knew his cousin to be. In fact Icarus’ cousin was explicitly named a craftsman. Ancient Greeks would have already assumed that Icarus would take up the family trade being the eldest son.
Icarus’s cousin, who has many names (best known of course as Daedalus’ nephew), in the end was turned in to a Partridge by Athena, after being thrown from a cliff by Daedalus. Daedalus killed his nephew for outshining him. So we know Icarus’ father was a violently jealous man, capable of killing family members. In fact, Daedalus was in Crete when he conceived Icarus, having fled Athens after being tried and convicted for murder. We could even see Icarus’ nephew as a scout for what would become the end fate of Icarus himself. Falling to his death from a great height with only the Gods to save him, much like his cousin.
Born in exile for his fathers misdeeds in Crete Icarus would become imprisoned by King Minos who wanted to keep his Daedalus for his inventions. Icarus was a second generation stranger in a strange land. An alien in Jerusalem. A prisoner in relative comfort. King Minos had a history of selfishness and even refused to sacrifice a bull which was given to him by Poseidon for the expressed purpose of sacrifice. In return his wife was made to desire the Bull by Aphrodite and Poseidon. Daedalus then made false cow for her to hide inside, where she and the bull conceived the Minotaur.
King Minos then had Daedalus make the Labyrinth for The Minotaur. No easy way out for liberation and so a good place to trap his enemies. I assert the labyrinth was designed, at least in part by his son, Icarus. It is for this reason that Daedalus couldn’t escape his own maze. It wasn’t his sole design. Once again, Daedalus would have begun to realise that he was being surpassed by his own son. After being imprisoned in the Labyrinth after his father committed treason, helping Theseus murder the being he had facilitated the conception of, Icarus finally convinced his father to flee.
I assert Icarus’ father believed a great escape to freedom was impossible. So when Icarus designed an elaborate way do just that his father grew jealous and designed a way to both murder his son and get away with it. Daedalus told Icarus he would help by making the glue, allowing him to apply a less durable glue to the smaller wings intended for Icarus. Then came the ominous warning, be mediocre, don’t outshine the master, all wrapped up in a riddle. Don’t fly too high lest the sun melt the wax, don’t fly too low lest the water weigh you down.
The Ancient Greeks loved a riddle as a measure of Metis or skill. Now not to quote a Black American cultural classic, but How High? How high do you have to fly for the sun to get hotter on your back? Is that the way it works? The higher the altitude the hotter the temperature because of the sun? Is this true? Are we assuming that the Ancient Greeks who lived in a very mountainous region did not know that the higher you go the colder it gets?
This is always taken as a story of Hubris. Icarus’s hubris for not listening to his elder. Icarus’ hubris for thinking he could fly as high as he wanted. Not only do we ignore the hubris of Icarus’ father that led to Icarus’ exiled and imprisoned life but I want to suggest Icarus broke the first of the 48 laws of power. Never outshine the master. Don’t worry though. In my mind Icarus was turned into an island by Poseidon and Persephone from the ashes of his body and his broken wings. His cousin joined him there to watch their killer weep for their forgiveness and the Gods. Prometheus seeing what Daedalus had done transformed the cousins one final time. Into a Phoenix. Prometheus then warned Icarus’ Father, ‘do not misuse my gifts, if you continue on this path of hubris it is you who will feel the wrath of the suns heat upon your death’.
Yes I’m making shit up, but I’m not lying and this shit is fertile. Resistance is fertile and solid ground to get good grief and good growth. Reacting from anger and fear and rage is an understandable trauma response (aka a triggering). Resistance is a more direct and indirect form of power. Besides Pliny The Elder’s description of a Phoenix looked a lot like an eastern golden pheasant so I’m rocking with the whole partridge, pheasant, phoenix thing for now. Icarus ain’t no game bird.
Icarus’ father was not completely mistaken in his trauma response to being upstaged. There was an added hidden message he left for his son, perhaps unawares. Beware of oscillation. We take Daedalus’ warning dichotomously all too often. Now we move from the archaic to the metamodern. Shits about to get real. There’s an erroneous opinion that metamodernism is oscillation between modernism and postmodernism. It’s not, we must go beyond oscillation.
If we oscillate between modern and postmodern solutions to solve problems emerging from postmodernism and modern we simply repeat the original causes of the problem. Both postmodernism and modernism have allowed dichotomous dialectics to dominate discourse. Promoting the very thing Kierkegaard warns us of with Either/Or. Viewing both modernism, postmodernism and metamodernism with an either/or framework leads us in emergent circle. And it’s not a merry dance, I can tell you that for free.
As such when the metamodern mode is described by those still bound to dichotomous dialectics we arrive at ideas of oscillation. Oscillation is the departure point for what comes before metamodern shores, not the shores themselves. It’s the transitionary method of transportation. So if you’ve been oscillating all is not lost. Once we discover ways to playfully and joyful onboard modern and postmodern thinkers to oscillate, and oscillators to find superposition, we will have found the philosophers stone for the metamodern mode.
Let’s get into the matter with oscillation. Oscillation appears to be diunital, ‘both-and’. On one level it is ‘Both this then and that now’. However this conceals a deeper, higher order of dichotomy that is waiting to be diunitised. On this level oscillation is ‘either this now or that now’, and then ‘either this then or that then’. This is where and why we must deepen our capacity for diunital thinking and living.
Bear in mind diunital is not non-dual, and in a way it is non-dual and more. Non-dual is a negation, a negation born from dichotomy, a negation of dichotomy. It shows us that negation is not enough. In the negation lies a hidden value. Here is the ever present danger of dichotomy. Dichotomy encourages ignorance, the act of ignoring. Whether through repression, regression, silence or oscillation bypassing friction. The danger of enforcing a cultural silence can be seen in the death of Socrates. Another moment in the Ancient Greek canon grossly misunderstood by most modern scholars. A simple mystery that could of been unravelled only the academic schools of thought weren’t so separated, dichotomised and so lobotomised. But we’ll come back to Socrates at the end. Lets get into the thick of it.
Non-duality is dichotomous in 10 ways*
The zeroth is elementary.
0 — Existentially/Being: a thing is either non-dual or not.
The next four are situational
1 — Vertically/time: it’s either dual or non dual now and either non-dual or non-dual then, not both at the same time.
2 — Horizontally/space: this is non-duality here that is duality there.
3 — Depth/value: Non-duality is more valued than duality and so is seen as dominant.
4 — Scale/Consumption: Non-duality is right and contains and consumes duality.
The above dimensions interact and produce three forms of imbalance.
5 — Light/visibility: Spotlighting of non-duality resulting in the occulting of duality.
6 — Gravity/divisibility: Binding the non-dual perspectives together and fragmenting valid dual perspectives in a hidden orbit around this centre, sometimes being ejected completely, sometimes being assimilated in.
7 — Electromagnetism/charge: friction forms between non-dual and dual ideations manifesting unstable charges
These three energies interact with instability requiring two forces
8 — Strong/Crude: Powerful methods aimed at holding non-dualisms integrity together force bright clashes and shadow separations
9 — Weak/Subtle: Subtle methods aimed at transferring charges to neutralise violent releases.
All in all the forces work to keep a fragile situational balance. This involves the shadowed being weakened and the spotlit strengthened, generating chaotic energy when charges are brought together and forced apart. As such steps must be taken to protect the nucleus of non-duality as a whole despite threats of destabilising from the hidden orbit of duality.
In non-duality ‘Non-‘ is a negation of the dual, the dichotomous. The absence of a feature is a feature. Negation does not create a whole, it leaves a hole. As such the negation of the negated contains the entirety of what is being negated, as a defining feature, literally. Non-dual negates duality so is not the whole. The whole includes duality and non-duality without negation. That is diunitality, not non-duality. Diunitality contains non-duality and duality. Non-duality excludes duality. Duality excludes non-duality. Diunitality includes both duality and non-duality, not either duality or non-duality. Neither duality (dichotomy) nor non-duality (anti-dichotomy) can do what diunitality can. That’s why we need both-and. When we embody dichotomy and anti-dichotomy in all ten dimensions, we may enter into diunital living. This isn’t to say non-duality or duality are bad. Just incomplete and so inaccurate ways of modelling the world.
This is beyond ancient Greece, this is biblical. If the only thing that contains the whole is the negation of the whole, the whole is not the whole. This is the premise of Meta-Nothing. We must negate the negations to find the hidden meanings. Take away the act of taking away so what is already can there be scene anew. The negated. So in my ignorance I shut my eyes before I sleep, I sniff, I sigh and I pray to the most negated one, oh my. The alpha and the O-Nega. Zah-over. My own Personal Geesus.
Now let’s take a look at some oscillator solutions to our nebulous culture war. An oscillator will often see themselves as fairly neutral despite obvious bias. They may even admit their bias with a playful complicity, in order to negate it, which often leads to performative hypocrisy, as they state the dominant perspective on the crisis. This is actually the end of the last cycle of emergent crises’. A collective ritual of virtue signalling to lament and ‘heal’ from the previous cycles of oscillating over divisions and rough patches. After all the suffix ‘post-‘ is a negation (Anti- is a negation that explains why Antifa sometimes becomes what it hates) (A- is also a negation, saying atheism isn’t a religion or a position ignores the implication)
To harmonise division they will suggest a liberating holism and then a liberating pluralism on seeing holism fail, leading to separation and alienation. Pluralism doesn’t smooth latent friction (it can’t really determine what the frictions are) and so conflicts will require behaviour modification, often passivity, where these are applied equally they will impact the marginalised the worse. Take a cultural silence about a problem. It doesn’t solve the problem, it allows those it supports to keep benefitting, and those who it hurts to suffer in silence. Playful complicity. Grin and bear it. Performative hypocrisy. One big happy dysfunctional family.
Failed pluralism oscillates back into holism at the presence of continued division. Often ‘united’ through a public display meant to say we’re all in it together. These collective rituals often involve more playful complicity and performative hypocrisy in the form of virtue signalling that is held as more authentic than ever before but is a passive tourism in the place of active compassion. Inescapably this dichotomous emergence cycle supports the pre-existing structure, including who it props up and who it holds down. Grin and bear it. One big happy family.
This was all put succinctly by Samuel Ludford in Against Metamodernism:
Oscillation is not Synthesis its Indeterminacy
Oscillation is not Agency its meta Passivity
Oscillation is not Liberation its Alienation
Oscillation is not Intimacy its Tourism
O SALI I PAT
Those lines are the cure to help us avoid sleepwalking into 1984 in the 21st century. Oscillation is against metamodernism. Holism and plurality are modern and postmodern ideas respectively. Applying homogeneity or heterogeneity to create homeostasis, via degrees of separation from centres of power, is a popular tool. As these solutions are dichotomous the culture war emerges from the culture war. Integration becomes assimilation or alienation. Trying to apply holism and pluralism to phenomena such as language has been called political correctness that many oscillators disagree with (although the phrase ‘Political Correctness’ is a form of Orwellian doublespeak when used negatively. If political correctness is wrong it allows for political incorrectness)
As mentioned before we must watch out for negation. Holism and Plurality both negate each other. We need a model that accepts that it includes what it negates. We need Diunitality. Di- means two. Unital, is the adjectival form of unit. Making a unit from two. Diunitality emanates heterostasis. Heterostasis being the stability of a multiplicity. We do not negate the two in making them a unit. We accept the duality as two and unite them as two. This is not co-dependency, this is independence and interdependence at the same time. Andependence hahah. Any way the negation of duality inherent in non-dualism is negated.
You know I am no Donald Trump fan. In fact his political incorrectness was proved popular as a negation of political correctness. Still, on countless occasions my friends on the right would prove the media twisted both his words and his meanings. In the case of Kanye West (anti-Semitism is wrong, and ought not be encouraged) (Big love to all Palestinian people) (Big love to Beta Israel) there is no excusing either his behaviour or our societal of spectacle surrounding mental illness and unwillingness to forgive (especially among black men who have higher disproportional representation in the mental health systems than in the criminal justice system in both UK and US last I checked).
When applied to comprehension of language diunitality ends the way the ‘fake news’ media can twist the words of the weeks enemy into saying what they did not, and implying what they did not mean. Diunital communication is not solely fixated on how things are said it is also concerned with how it is received. This is important. Comprehension is a two way street. Requiring emotional intelligence and intellectual humility on both sides. Holism/plurality oscillations repeat the problem by not fully situating and recognising tensions, and not allowing for meaning to be lost and found in translation. Instead the tensions are separated out and so silenced.
Encouraging behavioural modification by way of win-win strategy whilst using the dichotomous logics, such as oscillation and non-duality, will only serve to hide deeper what is being negated. In this case the very cause of the behaviour that has been requested to be modified is the negated. The very meta-object we need to explore to untangle the crises. (Win-win scenarios must be produced by means of diunitality. Both you win and I win. Not either you win or I win. A lose-lose situation is result of a dichomous solution meeting a diunital solutional, as we miss the chance for a collective win, we both lose.) Collaborative rituals of grief and atonement with high level virtue signalling often come with the absolution of guilt for the guilty, aimed at removing blame, but taking the ownership of responsibility with it too. Often, in line with individualism, the structural system will be seen as a spirit and the dividual body as a host of this spirit.
While this is accurate and true the opposite is also true. The truth hidden by negation of is that we are also the short lived spirits in the host system of dichotomous dialectics feeding light supremacy with oscillation and non-duality. Fortunately metamodernism is the Phoenix rising from the ashes. Besides whiteness described as spirit is often rejected as racist in bids for cultural silence. Just as calls of observing/experiencing unjust systems at work is often called unjust itself and for the same reasons.
The Ancient Greeks left us a message. All we have to do to comprehend is to see Daedalus as Modernity, King Minos as Postmodernity and Icarus’s cousin as pre-modernity. Icarus is Metamodernity of course. Post-postmodernity would be The Minotaur. Stuck in the linear and non-linear labyrinth. Oscillating back and forth. So instead of oscillating between hoping this cycle will end and actively taking part in it again we need to apply diunitality. Create ways of holding two together as a unit and as two at the same time. Where our similarities and differences are identified and explored.
This means speaking and more importantly listening with more kindness. We need to examine hidden structures of power and hurt. Identify and reveal them and research them. Deconstruct and redefine them. Discover their properties, their parts, their causes, their impacts. Anthropomorphise them, draw them, sing them, dance them, eat them, rock them to sleep, shit them out. But embody them, become them. Held in the body all at once calmly, safely, until they ask to be free again.
We need a sense of embodied virtue. Less talk more action to remake structures in a more diunital way. This will lead to authentic collective rituals of grief processing. As we’ve seen none of this is possible with dichotomous thinking that negates and hides the uncomfortable. None of this is possible while remaining stuck in oscillation, which is a thoroughly transitory and post-postmodern phenomena. We need metamodernism. Don’t let it die
The story I gave about Icarus is not Icarus’ perspective. I don’t know what happened. Not in the original events that inspired the myth or the myth itself, or what the citizens of the mountainous Ancient Greeks thought. They would have known up the mountain it gets colder, from experience, surely? Just as they know sons learn the fathers business. The version I gave is the one that is the most logically consistent with the rest of the myth. I didn’t make additions. I negated possible negations and found a new perspective with a new message and anew lesson to learn. Taking those L’s with gratitude. Turning losses to lessons lessens the stressing and freshens the blessings.
Back to Socrates. The strangest thing about the story of Socrates death is its similarly dubious and actually plays out the emergent dynamics of dichotomous dialectic given above. After the rule of the 30 tyrants there was a cultural silence regarding the atrocities Athenians carried out on each other, that was enforced and punishable by death. Everyone knew it. Probably the near enough the whole of the Ancient Greece knew it came to know it. The reconciliation agreement they call it. Socrates broke this silence, as he obviously thought it to be bad, unjust. You know what Soc was on, he loved to ask the difficult questions.
He felt so strongly about this behavioural modification of censorship to force a holism after a collective ritual of virtue signalling that he was willing to die for it. You can check the dates of the story and the ‘reconciliation agreement’ after the tyrants. I think Sparta were the conquerors. I can’t be sure about that. Or the number of the tyrants actually. The rest though you can read in the apology. Soc gets acquitted and then mentions details about the time of the tyrants. They all give up on him and he’s sentenced to die. Facts
Let’s not repeat the same mistakes. Diunitality is the glue that will hold fast our new wings on lines of flight. If you think I make sense go check out my other writings, give me a follow and come find me at Black Metamodernism on IG and FB
Now we’ve arrived at the end I will leave you with a quote from a final source on the dangers of metamodernism. Until next time: All praise is due to the most negated.
“Neither “modernity” nor “postmodernity” is doing us much good as a conceptual lens; if anything, they seem to be masking serious theoretical disagreements under a superficially shared terminology. I don’t want metamodernism to fall into the same trap. Claiming that metamodern culture oscillates between modernist and postmodernist modes would be adding further obscurity on top of two already overly general periodizations.”
Jason Ananda Josephson Storm — Metamodernism: Future of Theory
The template for the ten dimensions of dichotomy can be found: here where its scientific correlates are shown, here where its mathematical underpinnings with the model of higher complexity are highlighted, and here where a metatheistic story is devised to explain it.
