The E.C.H.O. in the room
Earnestly Contexualising Hyper-modern Oscillations of the Liminal Web
“Ours is an age of both deep anxiety and giddy euphoria. Vibrating between poles of despair and ecstasy, the central tendencies of postmodernity may be characterized as a catastrophic implosion of the languages of modern power into a dense and high speed oscillation between meaning and meaninglessness, control and chaos, increased centralization and an orbital spin into abstract and disembodied codes of information. Indeed, central to the human situation of the late twentieth century is the profound paradox of ultramodern technologies as simultaneously a prison house and a pleasure palace. We now live with the great secret and equally great anxiety that the technological experience is both Orwellian and hopelessly Utopian.” Kroker et Al 2015
Context
To start, I’ll begin with a definition of terms. The intention here is to steer the conversation in the liminal web towards embodying initiatives that lead to social superpositions to integrate the cognitive dissonances caused by oscillation. I give thanks to those who offer continual support.
Metamodernism is way of interacting with ourselves and the world. There are two main parts to the practice, a cultural code and related structures of feeling. The cultural code is based on diunital, both-and, thinking and this leads to the structures of feeling as rooted in the integration of cognitive dissonance and reconciliation of paradox.
Diunital thinking is the opposite to dichotomous, either-or, thinking. Where dichotomous thinking sees opposites as in antagonistic conflicts diunital thinking sees opposites as complementary contrasts.
Kroker et al describe Hypermodernity by stating that its a technological intensification that flings us in all ways to oscillations between extreme poles. Their description of hypermodernity above is eerily similar to the original metamodern manifesto
Oscillation in short is a moving backwards and forwards between to poles. The difficulty here is that oscillation is one of the main producers of cognitive dissonance.
An example of cognitive dissonance is when our intentions don’t end up matching up with our outcomes. For example I want to rest and I want to exercise.
Oscillating between the two means I don’t get much of either done and comes from seeing the two aims or modes of being as in conflict. When I plant-in-me the idea that exercise can improve sleep, and when I count meditation as a form of exercise (and exercise as a form of meditaition), I can fulfil my goals of resting and exercising. As long as I internalise and embody this diunital dichotomy.
Subculture Life Cycles
This article is going to feel like an attack to many. I’m going to argue that cognitive dissonance is a result of dichotomous oscillation. For this reason it’s important that I contextualise the seriousness of the situation. If it isn’t already clear to the reader. So in order to paraphrase this article by David Chapman , state where I’m at in relation to Metamodernism, and give some context to Dave Snowden’s criticism I offer the following:
Subcultures were the main driving force of creativity in culture from 1975 to 2000. However since Y2K their influence has faded as they were invaded by “muggles” who disrupted their unique qualities Watering down the culture to a Lite version and commodifying it. These “muggles” can be divided into two groups: “MOPs” and “sociopaths.”
“MOPs” are fans of the subculture, they soak up info and yet don’t contribute as much as the magic-like creators — the fanatics and geeks. Mops are good because they soak up the cultural information and are critical for its spread and uptake in wider society. This leaves the culture open for exploitation by “sociopaths.” Who eventually commodify the culture.
These individuals imitate the creators of the subculture, but in a more refined manner. Performatively similar to the creators. They also figure out how to monetise the “MOPs” through better marketing and increased admission fees. This leads to the culture being watered down just as it has the opportunity to impact change in the wider society.
As a result, the original fanatics and geeks of the culture either get pushed out or leave in disappointment, and the cultural goals fail as they are subsumed by the performativity of the New Lite future.
Anyone saying that is becoming the case with metamodernism (especially with such harsh terminology) is cause for alarm. Dave Chapman alreaady said it, Dave Snowden said it. Now I’m kinda saying it, I hope that contrary to recurring themes we will now understand why the alarm
Now firstly, the terminology is strong and inflammatory, and it’s important for me to note that what we’re talking about here are Kinds of Social Archetypes and not clinically deterministic absolutes. Also I clearly don’t flat our agree with the terminology. For instance the ‘sociopaths’ are named Neo-narcissists by Kroker et al, and can be seen as hyper-individualist urges to earn a sustainable living while attracting external validation (documented here in AI assisted -human referenced and edited- long read on the meta-myth of metamodernism titled “Metamodern Individualism Anonymous: Narrative Archaeological Therapy for the Hypermodern Neo-Narcissist”).
Secondly, it’s important to note that we are not living in modernity or postmodernity, we’re oscillating between both and yet neither are dead yet. Both are present in contemporary ( or modern ) times and this process is known in academics (since 1999) as hyper-modernisation. Jason Storm in a recent interview brings attention to the fact the term was first used by the ancient Romans . This has informed the Black Meta Modern School of thought.
This hyper-commodification of almost everything, everywhere all at once, is part of hyper-modernisation. In fact while that film has been lauded as a metamodern masterpiece a far more salient perspective shows that it’s in fact hypermodern through and through.
We were warned
So how did we get here? Many, if not most, people have come to associate oscillation with metamodernity, namely via the Dutch School. And yet since 2000, at the latest, the terms (under) postmodernity and modernity have been so ironic, counterproductive, convoluted and overlapped that most of what we’ve produced has simply been hypermodern.
This includes wokeness and anti-wokeness, after all many so called woke-folk seem to be bound to enact that which they seek to get away from, and the anti-woke seem to not understand why wokeness reoccurs, thus recreating the environment in which wokeness is reborn. It’s a mess, and some have come to call it metamodernism adding to the mess, just as some have come to call my skin colour black. Its gonna cause problems isn’t it?
Its not as if its gone unsaid. Brent Cooper showed that Borgmann warned of the bifurcating split from postmodernism into hypermodernism or metamodernism, in addition the role technology has played in the modern project. Kroker and Kroker described our contemporary hypermodernity and how oscillation plays a part as early as 1999, as we’ve seen. Brent Cooper has also outlined how exactly this has happened in the aptly titled article “The Hypermodern Highway to Hell” .
This all would suggest we’ve been optimistic in thinking we avoided hypermodernism and stayed stagnated in the postmodern era, with modernity a bygone moment (or even more that we’ve staved of postmodernity and are in the era of remodernism). Nevertheless, oscillation took hold as a metamodern praxis, as hypermodernism was bypassed (apart from by the meta-right), leading Sam Ludford to crafting this article Against (oscillatory) Metamodernism. I’ve out lined all the above, as a form of Narrative Archaeological Therapy for the Hypermodern Neo-Narcissist, here in “Metamodern Individualism Anonymous” and discussed it with many others including on The Integral Stage with Layman Pascal here.
To underscore this all Seth Abramson had these choice words:
“In metamodernism there is no ‘oscillation’ between discrete states, however much some may say so, for to say that metamodernism manifests in the oscillation between states is merely to entrench the idea that discrete states do and must exist at either end of dialectical spectra.”
Oscillation Fascination
Oscillation is a sort of perennial wisdom harkening back to Kemet (and probably before) via the knowledge of the Kybalion, (Thank you Brig Feltus). A combination of Vibration, Rhythm, Polarity, and Correspondence, which according to Hermes Trismegistus are the fundamental patterns of existence (along with All being Mind, Causality and as above so below). Therefore it’s easy to spot in interesting places. Especially in art depicting the rise of the third cradle of humanity, the interconnected hypermodern environment. This is exactly what the Dutch School of Metamodernism did.
What they didn’t do is check the academic literature for prior uses of the term, or of the term oscillation and its associations with modern praxis. Another concerning reason I suspect oscillation is valued is because of the empty perceptual space of the western mind. I’ve documented this in the AI assited long read titled “The Third Cradle: Decolonising AI and Dehumanising Black Thought”. (To my haters no AI was used in the formation of this article you’re reading) You can read the relevant excerpt here, albeit slightly decontextualised. Empty perceptual space is what allows us to pass by and avoid the more uncomfortable elements of (post/hyper)modernity and ourselves.
For example the Dutch School, via Vermeulen and Akker, passed by the fact that art has relevance on and from the world beyond academia and galleries, including the arts impact on politics. As such for them metamodernism is not political, because art and academia are not political. The Nordic School found the political import of the project and yet was largely and atheist project forgoing spirituality all together ( under the Hanzi Freinacht project).
The American School finally picked up Spirituality, and yet by this time it was too late, forgoing God in favour of science on one hand (under the branding Metamodern Spirituality and Emergentism), and forgoing science almost altogether on the other (under the branding Camp Oscillation, or the Oscillators Stone). Others centred Science as a standalone domain (under the branding Scientific Metamodernism) separate in its silo, in a heavily dichotomous manner.
Jason Storm author of “Metamodernism: The Future of Theory” correctly questions the extent to which these separate, and dichotomous, silos of art or science or spirituality or politics or economics are truly separate. A diunital both-and reading of Category Theory sees overlaps between categories as complementary and informative, not distracting and antagonistic. The enforcement of rigidly gated modern academic categories and their absolute deconstruction under postmodern critique are not metamodern. But is another story for another time, as is the fact that the black meta mode, like the colour black absorbs all contrast diunitally.
If we recap the story of the Liminal Web the further we went into this process of developing oscillatory meta-theory the deeper the process of commodification also became. This was intensified by the joining of the Hypermodern Integral and Spiral Dynamics in to the fray. For some reason both Integral and Spiral Dynamics have been exempt as a Meta-Theory to the designation of whether its modern or postmodern, or whether it itself is one of the colour designations it holds true in its stages of development. (At least to my extremely limited knowledge. After all I know that I know nothing)
Spiral Dynamics (SD) is an oscillatory model of development represented by seemingly arbitrary colours. However, when the linear development stages are taken as a spiral I’m told they oscillate between two axis, one individual (I), one collective (We). In fact the SD colours make follow the colours of the light spectrum when you draw the spiral as a double helix. Here’s how via Fiona Clubb’s brilliant insight:
Starting with our 2 axis as 2 vertical lines on a piece paper.
Label the left line “I” and the right line “We”.
Start at the bottom of the left line and write Red.
Above that orange and above that yellow.
Go across to the top of the right line and write green.
Below that blue and finally purple at the bottom.Now reading from the bottom right at purple, jumping alternately from We to I, you will see the SD sequence. Turquoise subsumes them all. The developmental sequence is still there. Purple Red Blue Orange Green Yellow.
Situating Disintegration
I have already written how oscillatory and negatory practices end up repeating the Culture War here in a piece about Negation. This was in response to two articles by an oscillatory metamodernist in an article calling me Icarus while making incorrect assumptions of my intent, and another on non-dual Good, to which I responded with this text on Diunital Morality here. As I showed, hypermodern oscillatory tactics and strategies end up repeating the culture war, largely due to a difference in world views as I showed here in the except from The Third Cradle
This conversation is relevant as legend has it that Don Beck worked in post-apartheid Africa in a failed project of unification and racial harmony:
“What is beyond doubt is that Don Beck was involved and used the Spiral Dynamics model (Don Beck & Chris Cowan, 1996) developed from Clare W Graves’ research (1970) to replace the skin pigmentation and ethnic origin categories with an understanding of the value systems (vMEMES) and ways of thinking universally accessible to the human race.“
“This use of a colour code to describe different thinking systems provided a new language to understand natural differences and anticipate major personal and societal changes. ‘Whites’ could now see the differences between Black RED and Black ORANGE; ‘Blacks’ could acknowledge that Afrikaners of 1988 were not the same as the Afrikaners of 1948. All groupings could recognise what Beck calls the ‘evolutionary dynamic’ that was at work in all South Africans.”
I suggest that the oscillatory nature of SD fuelled the current and ongoing culture war in South Africa as opposed to quelling it. The use of colourful vMemes in addition to race actually compounded the original problem of light supremacy and made supremacy more insidious and subtle.
I outline in my recent videos and moderated exchange with an Integralist that he was engaging a subtle game of one up manship I called “Throwing the Stone and Hiding the Hand in Glass Houses”. It’s a form of ad hominem projections, that are subtle hidden by under wholesomeness and or moralising. Its closely associated with seemingly innocuous supremacism. For example the supremacism of being teal created what Vinay Gupta calls the Teal Mans Burden, replacing Rudyard Kiplings vvhite mans burden.
Danger Zone
I can only imagine the mess all this would have caused in a post-apartheid South Africa, after all oscillation leads to performativity via cognitive dissonance between actions and outcomes. Integral exacerbates this as to an extent Integral can be seen as a Commodification of Spiral Dynamics. Brent Cooper has again done some great work on situating Integral including critiques from others such as Joe Corbett and Michel Bauwens.
This is not to say that Sprial Dynamics, Integral, Hypermodernity, or any personalities associated with the Liminal Web is absolutely and monolithically bad and unproductive. No one and nothing is from a diunital perspective. Theres plenty of good work and ideas there to parse into layman’s terms. However they aren’t metamodern, modern or postmodern.
The anchoring point is these subcultures and personalities have brought their own influences on to Metamodernism, mainly in the way of fixed hierarchal development models that are rooted and give rise to supremacy, and never really account for the need to neutralise said supremacies. I call this need step of neutralising supremacy The Supremacy Paradox as in order to neutralise supremacy we need to make neutralising supremacies supreme. (This paradox and the paradox of intolerance being the key way to move past ‘mean green’ hypermodernism into the 2nd Tier of metamodernity and beyond, into the infinite and immanent future present.)
Unfortunately these absolute and supreme hierachical dynamics have been picked up by through a flattened reading of The Nordic Schools political work. Work that has influenced the American Schools mentioned before, and also by the metamodern left and right. (According to a diunital catergory theory can there be a metamodern left and right only, but what about an ambidextrous politics? Both progressive and conservative and not yet claiming objective centrist neutrality)
It is when we come to understand the end goals of the metamodern right that we understand the dangers of oscillation and the cognitive dissonance it leads to. The metamodern right has picked upon the the oscillation fascination and opted for moving between an anarchism-futurism. A move that sees the global south become the new plantation ground to produce the global norths food and produce demands. In addition to this syndicalism is also suggested in these circles.
This of course would need to rival the current City of London Corporation and avoid the hellish future dipicted by Octavia Butler in the Earthseed series, perhaps we need to wait for Outcompeting Capitalism? Needless to say this seems to be a dystopian future and it seems to be the one we’re heading for in someway.
Some believe there is hope for a healthy hypermodernity. To that I remain optimistic and I make a suggestion. The more unhealthy and unsustainable the metamodern practice the more hypermodern it is. The more healthy your hypermodern practice, the more metamodern it is. Further more the move to process the unhealthy and unsustainable into the healthy and sustainable is to move from dichotomy to diunity in varying degrees.
Fortunately I’ve written about 12 degrees of dichotomy to watch out for and what it takes to be metamodern here. Can you see which stage the paradox of supremacy is at?
Dave Snowden has penned a response, when in seen in conjunction with this article begs the question: to what extent is sincere irony and ironic sincerity oscillatory?
