Integral, Metamodernism, + the IDW, Part 2

The Journey from Inner Development to Global Transformation

*This article is part 2/2. This series is also conceptually paired with Integral Abstraction.

In Part 1/2, the differences (and few similarities) between Integral and metamodernism broadly were spelled out. The slowly increasingly interactions between Integral and metamodernism were charted. The so called “civil war” within Integral was discussed, along with how the mixed response to the IDW reflects the continuation of this schism. Finally, the IDW critique begins and some elements of metamodernism are introduced, noting this divergence between them.

Part 2/2 begins with Integrating the Intellectual Dark Web looks closer at the tenuous convergence of the IDW and Integral adherents, and Foregrounding the Future outlines some ways forward through post-Integralism and metamodernism, clarifying the critique against the IDW, and appreciating the renewal of ‘small i’ integralism. Finally, The Metamodern Mo(ve)ment articulates what is novel about metamodernism and serves as a conclusion and call to action to change your mind; to exit Integral and the IDW stage left and converge on the progressive cause.

Integrating the Intellectual Dark Web

The tension here is in the incompatible three-way between Integral, metamodernism, and the IDW; a fundamental differences come down to what of postmodernism and social justice is transcended and included, and what is rejected. A further distinction is the more paradigmatic and superordinate concerns of metamodernism, versus the reaction to politics of the others.

Rebel Wisdom posits a convergence between Integral and the IDW; Integral itself mostly rejects this convergence while the IDW is actually quite indifferent to Integral; and metamodern thinkers criticize both but through Hanzi is at least connected to Integral. Yet, all three cover some overlapping topics or issues to considerable extent, so a resolution and reconciliation is desirable.

Rebel Wisdom’s embrace aside, Integral Life itself was actually quick to criticize Peterson and the IDW. Note that in the previous article Joe Corbett criticized Jeff Salzman for being naive about Integral global leadership, because here Salzman writes that “Peterson is tantalizingly close to integral thinking” and later grants to Fuller than Peterson is an Integral thinker. The distinction is utterly irrelevant if we accept a critical view of both Integral and Peterson. Nevertheless, Salzman’s earlier stated critique of Peterson resonates here, calling out his blind spots and false promises:

“Peterson misses the integral mark by seeing postmodernity as a poisonous political ideology rather than a fully fleshed out stage in human evolutionary development, which, like all stages has its gifts and baggage. This misreading kicks off a cascade of conflict and consternation that, while stoking the culture wars, does not provide an authentic evolutionary path forward.” — Jeff Salzman, What Jordan Peterson (and His Fans and Foes) Can Learn from Integral Theory, March, 2018

In Integral Meets the Intellectual Dark Web (April, 2019), Fuller and Salzman double down on this conversation, and strive for nuance, but miss a bigger picture and the relation to metamodernism. Fuller confirms that he learned Peterson was ‘aware’ of Wilber, but not overtly interested. Within their own context, Fuller and Salzman’s commentary has some resonance and will appeal to the general Integral and IDW communities they’ve fostered, but neither of them reflect an informed view of deep IDW critiques from other Integral, post-Integral, or non-Integral folks alike discussed here.

For example, in response to the Bari Weiss NYT opinion piece, Mark Forman and Robb Smith spent an hour discussing The Intellectual Dark Web: An Integral View (May, 2018). They agree that the diverse yet centrist IDW is primarily just going against the grain of Green, generating blowback from both sides. Robb Smith argues that the “dominant monadology of the IDW” is “part of an anti-Green vanguard… what I’m less convinced of is that they’re really a post-Green vanguard. I actually see them as quite stuck in the very postmodern condition that actually gives rise to the fragmented media they’re taking advantage of.” He continues;

“I see sort of a commitment to positivism, and the thing that I find myself asking often is, have they really digested the very very (sic) advanced critiques of the postmodern thinkers both socially in critical theory and in the philosophy of science…” — Robb Smith, 9:09–32, The Intellectual Dark Web: An Integral View

This is the sincere and charitable type of reading of postmodernism that is completely absent from the IDW and their preferred rampart magazines Areo and Quillette (the latter of which supports debunked ‘race science’ and opposes social justice unequivocally). To handwave away all postmodern critique as some frivolous resentment is anti-intellectual — and yet some very intelligent educated people seem to embrace it as a modus operandi. Nassim Taleb calls them (the IDW) IYI (Intellectual-Yet-Idiot). Mark and Robb from Integral Life do not fall for the IDW trap because they’ve done their basic readings in critical theory, while all-too-many intellectuals and influencers have become loyalists and defenders.

Robb also notes the obvious unequal philosophical footing of the IDW members and calls into question their ability and commitment to “reconstructive postmodernity.” Mark echoes this and adds;

“Habermas devastated that move, as positivism brings all kinds of hidden value commitments in the back door that are there unseen, and so there’s all kinds of things going on here I think that are philosophically problematic and that Integral actually does a really good job to just sort of, you know, reframe and help them understand.” — Robb Smith, 14:32–54, The Intellectual Dark Web: An Integral View

Then they move to Peterson. Mark echoes Jeff Salzman’s observation that Peterson lacks an inner developmental framework, such as Kegan’s which frames the need for proper deconstruction before a more Integral “reconstruction.” Mark goes on to argue that the IDW may be a blessing in disguise for them, because the Integral community itself has failed to get to a post-Green place, which is ironic because Sex, Ecology, Spirituality produced a critique of Green 20+ years earlier (19:00- 21:20). And yet Mark still laments “I don’t think a lot of them see what would be the next step”.

But again, as I have stressed elsewhere, especially in the series Missing Metamodernism, the critique of postmodernism (both as a discourse and a culture) is not unique to Integral/Wilber at all, and certainly not novel when the IDW does it with even less coherence. Not only were critiques extant in the 90s and 2000s across a swath of “post-postmodern” precipitations, but some even did it invoking the term “metamodern” independently (ie. Borgmann, Gonzalez).

To be sure, the failure of political, academic, and social movements to converge on a paradigm shift is one we all share some blame and responsibility for. But in the end, social justice advocates are not the cause of any of the problems they address, no more than a human rights lawyer is responsible for genocides they oppose. The immediate causes of many problems the planet is facing are bipartisan neoliberal policies that have widened inequality to new extremes, and right-wing fundamentalism (from climate change denial, to market worship and cutting taxes for the rich, to white-supremacist mass shootings, etc…). I would argue along with other critics that the IDW, moderates, and conservatives are all (unwittingly) providing cover for extremists, under Trumpism and trending right-wing authoritarianism globally no less. Their univocal answer to everything wrong?: Blame the left.

This polarization devolves from a higher order manipulation: the capitalist control of both political parties and cultures. Thus, the annoying persistence of “green” can not be properly criticized or understood outside the context of being suppressed and obstructed by conservative hegemony. The late postmoderns persist with increasingly subtle critique and tactics (whether academic or activist), because inequality has widened further and the “system” which they resist calcifies and has not changed in any meaningful way. They need a metamodern turn as much as the IDW, and they too don’t realize it.

In Rebel Wisdom’s final synthesis and critique of Peterson (June, 2018), they still frame him relatively positively. There is still a large ecology of criticism off their radar. They think the left’s problem with Peterson is that he doesn’t talk about systems or critique capitalism enough, but that’s not the case. Most on the left don’t want to see Peterson even attempt such a feat, because it’s evident that he cannot. The problem with Peterson is that he’s flat out wrong about so many things; Marx, for starters. At any given moment, he’s always providing fresh sources for mockery. Here’s a recent one (Aug. 5, 2019), another piece for PragerU, the far-right propaganda outlet: You Can’t Fix Other People, But You Can Fix Yourself.

Rebel Wisdom mostly highlight Peterson’s considerable strengths (Maps of Meaning, the Bible Lectures, his self-help rhetoric), and omit his provable falsehoods: the nuanced flaws in his aforementioned strengths, his total ignorance of analytic Marxism juxtaposed with a teeth-grinding conviction of a cultural-marxism conspiracy, his utter contempt for race theory and social justice combined with his dogwhistling denial of white privilege (at Trump Hotels no less), his raging antipathy to feminism, women’s studies courses, or basically anything to do with gender, his quixotic tilting at a monolithic strawman of postmodernism, his climate change skepticism, the list is long… The notion that Peterson is an “Integral” thinker — which is not true and actually moot either way — clouded Rebel Wisdom’s judgement on these issues.

In Alter Ego’s Metamodern Intervention “Have you made up your mind about Jordan Peterson yet?”, Ronan Harrington builds on comprehensive research and critique to make a viral video capturing the lively spirit of exchange between Russell Brand and Jordan Peterson, the closest Peterson’s ever come to a leftist, notwithstanding his hard lesson from Zizek. The goal was to depolarize audiences by highlighting Brand’s critique of capitalism alongside Peterson’s merits and gaps in thinking.

In Rebel Wisdom’s follow-up interview with Harrington, they both made sincere efforts and strides to find common ground, but it was as if there was prison glass between them, preventing any of the deeper critiques of Peterson from getting through. As a result, in my view Rebel Wisdom kept asking the same wrong question — What can the left learn from Jordan Peterson? — but not its inverse. It has to be a two-way street, if nothing else.

When Rebel Wisdom does criticize Peterson, even in the mildest way, it generates hostile pushback from their audience. Indeed, taking a nuanced and critical perspective is risky. The silver lining though is that Rebel Wisdom has featured some other great thinkers, and my criticism notwithstanding, the continued distancing from Peterson is a healthy move. It ends up having a positively subversive effect; bringing in the Peterson and IDW community and influencing them in a new direction, ultimately diminishing the attractiveness of their more paranoid and anti-sociological dogmas. It is a proudly committed “Yes-And” approach to the IDW, but is not without its costs and trade-offs. We can only hope it affects the IDW too.

Finally, Ken Wilber himself sits down to tell us What’s Missing in the Intellectual Dark Webin a 6-part series. The inquiry was prompted by Rebel Wisdom’s fascination with Peterson/IDW and the projection of Integral onto their conversation. Wilber welcomes you to the “Integral Dark Web”, confirming he thinks the IDW are “second tier” because they don’t fall into the traditional left/right spectrum. Eric Weinstein seems content with this analysis, but also somewhat indifferent:

Rather than actually criticize the IDW (to even a remotely comparable caliber to his aforementioned Integral colleagues, or other critiques), Wilber uses it as an opportunity to analyze the IDW through an Integral lens, to dispense more of his tired political analysis, and essentially echo much of what the IDW claims about the left boogeyman. He (wrongly) explains that the IDW are thinking at a meta-systematic stage of development, but (rightly) that they view the world through postmodern complexity, but without the worldview:

“Many of the IDW are fully in touch with the rung of development that is most responsible for a postmodern worldview… most of them have gone beyond that stage and moved forward into second tier awareness… they’ve kept the capacity of the postmodern rung, but let go of the postmodern view, and they don’t like what the postmodern view is doing, even when they themselves are using the postmodern rung.” — Ken Wilber, Politics and the Intellectual Dark Web

Wilber doesn’t like the postmodern view either, and in his book Trump and a Post-Truth World, he lays the blame “for the nightmares of postmodernism on the doorstep of a badly broken green worldview, and its contradictory values.” However, a much more accurate description is what Matt McManus calls post-modern conservatism, which has “been able to assimilate the lessons of post-modernism and synthesize them with older reactionary philosophies.” Or, if you prefer, here’s the Zero Books youtube version of it. This is why metamodernism matters; it contextualizes the landscape of terms with the nuance and complexity that Wilber/ the IDW waives.

Sure, the failure of “green” is true to the extent that the Obama administration, the Liberal establishment, and Clinton campaign all paved the way for a reactionary insurgency. But the Obama administration also faced daily obstruction by Republicans, and overt racist fear-mongering by Trump himself. Moreover, I contend these levels aren’t comprehensive enough, because it doesn’t account for competition within levels.

It’s also important to keep in mind the collapse of the so-called Democratic “Blue Church” is also the collapse of the traditional Republican party, which was also primed for a pop-fascist takeover by Trump and nihilistic teens with memes. Republicans and neo-conservatives first resisted, then embraced it when their base loved Trump. No shame.

Rest assured, the best critiques of the regressive and Establishment parts of the left, come from the New Left itself, not apostates, not from the IDW or Integral, not from Bret Weinstein (who considers himself the “rational left”), and that is the point. The most rigorous and articulate critiques of Obama and the left today come from serious Left thinkers like Cornel West, Chris Hedges, or Noam Chomsky; they also all advocate for Bernie Sanders. The Weinstein’s pay lip service to progressivism and leave no space for criticism of themselves, even from close allies in their own circles. A key lesson is that the 2016 election was botched by the Establishment, not lost by real progressives.

Michael Brooks and the wider eco-system of the New Left has been hammering these points daily over the past couple years and criticizing the IDW directly — while the IDW ignores or denies critiques them on the most trivial grounds possible. The most shallow critiques of leftism emerge from the right (from Breitbart to Quillette), and these are what the IDW generate and amplify. Overpaid ideologue (and IDW sycophant and tag-along) Bari Weiss fuels the flames with outright lies, constantly whining ‘the left’ never talks about this or that issue, when if fact they are the only ones who do.

When Cornel West and Bernie Sanders appeared on Joe Rogan, Rogan himself transcends the IDW stereotype, but these are exceptions to the rule — and we welcome them, because the rule is insular and ideological. Within their particular clan, all their so-called ‘model conversations’ have been sucking the oxygen out of the discourse; which is tragic because they could all do so much better. Joe Rogan demonstrates this when he has progressive guests on; something none of the IDW have really explored.

To continue with Wilber’s commentary, he discusses the trend of convergence of stage theories, which he argues is the anticipated higher culmination of Integral:

“Those who have moved beyond it, to Integral second tier, are acutely aware of its limitations, inadequacies, and contradictions. An enormous amount of developmentalists have found exactly that stage sequence… [Clare Graves, Michael Commons, Howard Gardner, Cheryl Armon, William Perry, Deirdre Kramer…]

“The evidence for theses stages is just enormous… In all the explanation that I’ve seen for what postmodernism is and why its showed up just now, I’ve never seen this specific development evidence taken into account, or even really mentioned… The book The Listening Society,on the other hand, does start to go into that topic, and I would recommend looking at that.” — Ken Wilber, Politics and the Intellectual Dark Web

Boom. This is the really significant take away from his whole series, although it is almost a passing mention. Wilber doesn’t say anything more, but it’s an endorsement and hat tip to metamodernism that is appreciated nonetheless. It confirms what I wrote above about Hanzi being the inevitable apotheosis of Integral, and a sincere-ironic one to boot. And perhaps no more context is necessary, because metamodernism is a new conversation that emerges beyond and before the IDW was even assembled. I even emailed Sam Harris about it in 2016: no response, because in truth, he’s not complex enough to care, though he may qualify one day.

In Hanzi’s case, metamodernism begins at a post-Integral threshold. It is the post-postmodern paradigm the IDW may have been looking for, but could never see through their own egoic agendas, even if it’s offered to them on a silver platter. Their priorities are using free speech to mock activists, whereas metamodernists are still trying to get people to listen, while angling to be heard themselves. At any rate, both Integral and the IDW have to go through basic sociological literacy before they critique anything, let alone the left. In some sense, Integral has exploited and exhausted its own potential:

“You can google integral “blank” and there’s somebody who will have written a book about it, at that high level of detail; integral ecology, integral leadership, and integral psychotherapy, books related to global warming. You know — there’s really a lot that’s been done.” — Mark Forman, 56:29–50, The Intellectual Dark Web: An Integral View

“If one of the numerous genealogies that I have tried to trace here weaves a rhizomc path toward Delphi, and self-knowledge, aletheia, the unconcealment of truth, the uncovering of what is hidden, shouldn’t the first move of integral sociology and politics be to unveil its own blind spots?… And who if anyone can see into that spectrum of invisible light?” — Richard Carlson, Integralworld.net

Foregrounding the Future

Other post-integralists, such as Michael Brooks and Jeremy Johnson, have been making profound contributions in other sectors, but in ways that circle back on this conversation. In a TMBS patron-only “Idea Primer #24 — Integral Theory and the ‘Battle of Ideas’ ft. Jeremy D. Johnson” (March, 2018), they implicitly discuss some themes of metamodernism through the lens of integral, with more weight and significance than the best of IDW conversation. They trace paths through Jean Gebser, Teilhard de Chardin, William Irwin Thompson, Lynne Margulis, James Lovelock, Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Mark Fisher, and more, as they background the current moment through the history of “counter-cultural intentional communities” like Esalen and Lindisfarne.

They agree the pseudo-woke center has nothing substantive to say about policy or social issues (showing they understand the problem better than the IDW). Johnson explains the contradiction of Peterson’s mastery of “depth psychology” and an explosive mixture of bad hot takes on social issues, such as “evolutionary psychology ‘statements of the week’ about lipstick and women.” Brooks tentatively describes himself as an ‘integral-marxist’ and appreciates how Johnson’s general approach “is both very imaginative and much more realistically politically grounded than most stuff we usually get from the integral community…”

For even fresher insights, see for example Mutations podcast #05 Michael Brooks on Jordan Peterson, James Hillman, Integral Theory and Building Planetary Meshworks (Feb, 2019). Brooks understands that Integral typically does not include any critical theory perspective or economic analysis, but that it pays lip service to them in the spirit of synthesis and holistic theory. These are the kernals of a metamodern left.

Thus, Integral is useful for personal development, intellectual growth, and consulting, up to a point, then it too gets pathological, or at best redundant in a social world more complex than it can decode. Brooks cites James Hillman as an almost perfect antidote and alternative to Jordan Peterson, supplying just as much myth but with a social consciousness. For many now, John Vervaeke is filling that similar gap.

Jeremy Johnson describes Rebel Wisdom as being “in an interesting place between IDW and Consciousness Culture” but critiques them for turning a blind eye to Peterson’s politicism. This is part of the general weaponization of critique against the left for the sake of it, and just recycles Wilber’s old “Mean Green Meme” trope, which stalls discourse.

Johnson and Brooks worry that the persistence of Integral is still insufficiently critical and is ignorant of the material basis of politics. Brooks expands on this by explaining the backstory of how “third way” politics ideas were developed in the 1990s, as espoused by Wilber, Blair, Clinton, and Giddens, as they were “not theory projects to synthesize the world, [but] they’re branding efforts to position campaigns — It was just so credulous.”

In Integral Theory +Marx & The IDW (July, 2019), Brooks invokes the broad foundations of integral thinking from Sri Aurobindo and William Irwin Thompson, later formalized by Ken Wilber (in the modern American context). For all Integral’s merits, he says Wilber has a “limited information base” on politics and somewhat just “replicated mediocre conventional wisdom,” although he’s still much better than Peterson.

This harsh criticism comes from a place of love. The AQAL Quadrants are still very useful in practical and relatable ways. For example, Brooks discusses how “depression” has important factors beyond the personal including “social, political, ecological dimensions” not recognized by medicalization and self-help cultures.

Brooks endorses Wilber but with many caveats, considering him somewhat ‘adjacent’ to the IDW for the rather tepid (and late in the game) critiques of Peterson et al. Brooks grants that the IDW have “open terrain because there’s weaknesses in the pop-culture left that they can run through; [ie. vampire castle, outrage culture]…” but through such ideologically tone-deaf association, the IDW washes out any strengths and reduce themselves to a “grievance driven echo-chamber” where they trivialize and rehash the same tropes ad infinitum, whining when criticized instead of integrating critique. Here, the IDW may well be what Samo Burja calls “Dead Players” — “a person or a group of people that is working off a script, incapable of doing new things”, however ‘intellectual’ they may sound.

As much as the New Left would like to ignore them, the IDW warrant a continued response, as they are also indicative of broader problems. The IDW plays to a large audience of people desperate for a new narrative, but Wilber already had a critique of postmodernism where the insight was ostensibly to “transcend it through synthesis rather than rejecting its insights.” Brooks’ project of cosmopolitan socialism (new internationalism) achieves this, where Integral itself falls short. Furthermore, I see convergence between Brooks, the post-Integral metamodern politics of the Nordic School, and the Abs-Tract.

Brooks’ discussion “loops back to the quandrants…” so that we can “face questions of meaning and purpose” to “generate our own discourses… on spirituality, existential meaning” that understand how “alienation from your own economic life is a profoundly important existential and spiritual question and we can start to come with our own materially grounded integral framework.” In this way fighting for political, social, and economic justice is embraced as a spiritual struggle, as it is with liberation theology.

This is what I attempt to do in Integral Abstraction; to complement Brooks’ rich understanding of material politics (of which abstraction plays a complex role) through the Four Quadrants. Brooks ends on a counter-hegemonic Gramscian note before busting into his patron demanded sincere-ironic ‘right-wing Mandela’ and ‘Nation-of-Islam Obama’ impersonations (that is, if Mandela was like Jesse Lee Peterson, and if Obama was like Malcolm X). It’s a clever inversion of reality and comedic commentary on the ridiculous and paradoxical world we live in.

For Conatus News, Jacob Kishere argues that the IDW is A Prelude to the Future of Dialogue (Feb. 2019), calling them “a devolved and self-regulating sense-making structure”, essentially taking the same tack as Rebel Wisdom. He showers them with praise for their novel conversations and laments they are “excommunicated from the church of liberal orthodoxy”, but actually they’ve mostly defected in favour of an adjacent status-quo. It is true they’ve been pushed rightward by an angry mob, but they lack the context to understand their own predicament.

The real rebels are those outsiders who actually understand critique, social movements, and systems change; those already outside liberal orthodoxy. Thus, the only thing I can agree with is Kishere’s title, suggesting that the IDW is a precursor to something better. This is what Rebel Wisdom has pointed towards as well through their more coherent content (such as Schmachtenberger and Wheal), and what I’ve argued for in the Emergentsia series (part 2, 3) and my work on metamodernism in general.

Finally, in Integral Theory, Metamodernism and why Voting Matters (Oct. 2018), Terry Patten, another post-Integralist, talks with Daniel Thorson about the relationship that I’m trying to unpack and bring to a conclusion in this article. Early on, Patten says “I see metamodernism as being free of the karmas of the Integral movement, and really expressive of the same essential thing… an inherent development advance that is needing to find expression.” Metamodernism “leads with vulnerability, and humility, and curiosity, in a way that is different in its flavour, very much so, from Integral.” But of course, metamodernism, as a cultural sensibility and proactive paradigm is much more. The entire discussion is fruitful, as well as Patten’s wider work.

As far as I can tell, what I have covered here is an accurate survey of the relevant interactions between Integral (and itself), metamodernism, and the controversial Intellectual Dark Web. However, many expert Integralists and aspiring metamodernists likely have critiques and knowledge that can fill in the gaps or run parallel, and this is encouraged.

We now have a fair-sized mountain of evidence for the flaws of both Integral and the IDW, and an awkward tension of metamodern thought cutting across them both. The IDW’s cookie-cutter critique of postmodernism generated a wide field of leftist rebuttals that, from my perspective, have more in common with metamodern thought than the IDW or Integral Theory (TM) do combined, and there still has been no reconciliation yet, which is what I partially pursue here.

And it needs to be stressed, though this is not the place to explore it, we know what they’re right about — we know! It’s old news. We simply aren’t impressed anymore. Pinker doesn’t need to write the same book again, and he certainly doesn’t need to condescend to his critics. The post-Integral thinkers I’ve discussed still honor their Integral foundation but have ethically and intellectually evolved beyond it — so can Integral and IDW subscribers shed their old skin and grow a new intellectual identity; and so can post-IDW people adapt to metamodernism, but only once they’ve fully atoned for their ideological sins.

In the most neutral sense, Peter Limberg’s (and Conor Barnes) pivotal article on Memetic Tribes of the Culture War 2.0 placed the IDW in league with other camps like Integral Theorists, Post-Rationalists, and Street Epistemologists, none of which (despite their merits) rise above to see the big picture. The various tribes are clearly demarcated in relation to each other.

It was through this that Limberg was invited into the metamodern conversation, which itself is not a tribe per se, but a dynamic discourse and cultural trend responding to the meta-crisis. The IDW, along with other more fundamentalist tribes like neoreactionaries, MRAs, Trumpers, the Christian Right, are all locked in circular battles with various other tribes, while the IDW remains mostly fixated on the left, not seeing that this is all a fragmented extension of the Culture War 1.0:

“An establishment leftist who squabbles with the right must contend with mockery from the Dirtbag Left. Meanwhile, the Dirtbag Left endures critiques from Social Justice Activists (SJA), who in turn are criticized by the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW). The trench warfare of the old culture war has become an all-out brawl.” — Memetic Tribes of the Culture War 2.0

The Metamodern Mo(ve)ment

At this point the differences within the Integral community, between Integral and metamodernism, and their mixed perspectives on the IDW should be clear. If you want to read a hyper-complex post-Integral critique of Wilber from an implicit metamodern mind, try: Paradoxes of Wilber’s Appreciation of the Trump Challenge: Reframing integral possibilities for the future. And if you’re really crazy, spend some time wandering on that site.

As mentioned in the intro of Part 1, the explicit discourse of metamodernism is scattered across at least 230 sources (not including uncounted articles within sites, and implicit metamodernist work that could be catalogued): Metamodernism: A Literature List. With the theory and popular speculations of Vermeulen and van den Akker (2009-) et al, the publication of The Listening Society (2017) and Nordic Ideology (2019), the emergence of meta-gamers over the past couple years, many artists innovating metamodern themes, and other efforts (including my own), metamodernism is cumulatively building to a meta-movement and moment in which a new level collective coherence is achieved.

In various ways and capacities, we’re all working on the same meta-problems, the same meta-crisis in fact. In my view, that is singularly what unites metamodernism and differentiates it from other epistemic communities. Even the Dutch School, with their pedantic analysis of (sometimes popular, often obscure) sincere-ironic culture and art, there is an unspoken solidarity with them, albeit our missions expressed in very different ways. As Hanzi Freinacht writes in the Appendix of The Listening Society;

“Basically, metamodernism is keeping the postmodern suspicion of progress and “grand narratives” (science, socialism, etc.) but bringing in the modern hope and sense of direction through the backdoor, as vaguely suggested open potentials. Vermeulen and van der Akker are chiefly leftwing intellectuals like most people of their brand, and they link this new trend to a wider hope in political renewal, critique of capitalism (or neoliberalism), etc.” p. 374, The Listening Society

And I concur; through their brief history of the 21st century, their periodization rubric, their art and culture analysis, their intense and naked geopolitical snapshot, and Fredric Jameson-redux schema of the return of historicity, depth, and affect, the “Dutch School” (they don’t like my term) lays a solid foundation to build off of or tangential to, which I analyzed at length. But it is not enough, and we can and must do better for something we are calling a paradigm shift proper — and we are. Further down, Hanzi continues (playfully);

“I share much of the analysis of these different scholars of metamodernism (whose works, to be fair, I have presented in a simplified manner)… But they fall short; their project doesn’t really land us in hope and pragmatic idealism. It doesn’t really take modern society into its hands and look beyond it, towards what comes after… I commend these thinkers as scholars, but I denounce them as small spirits and yellow cowards. They are too careful, too critical of themselves, too afraid of putting forward visions of progress and development. They are too wary of evoking existential or spiritual faith.” p. 376, The Listening Society

Put another way, they are stuck in academic protocols, not wanting to rock the boat. Our higher metamodernism is building the airplane in the air, constantly growing and crystallizing into a coherent meta-philosophy to solve the global crisis at the micro- and meso- and macro- levels. It has many strands weaving into a single unbreakable cord, not the least of which is The World We‘re Creating with Club of Rome member Tomas Bjorkman, his vision of social entrepreneurship and metamodern ideas outlined in his books.

It all calls forth an understanding of Evolutionary Globalization (inevitable historical convergence, perhaps even teleology or teleonomy) and Systemic-Conspiracy as Social Pathology (paranoid hegemonic institutions and perverse incentives), two of my favored approaches to understanding the bewildering (sometimes sinister) complexity of the globalizing world. These and other attractors are being workshopped and proofed outside the hyper-intelligent yet intellectually-sterile campuses of Silicon Valley and universities alike, by meta-gamers, memetic mediators, and other nodes in the noosphere.

Most metamodernists and post-Integral thinkers have moved on from the frenzy of the IDW to focus on this more important work — and you can too — but because the IDW problems have deeper roots (in conservatism, centrism) it still requires constant engagement, or at least to support leftists who engage. As such, Michael Brooks has a forthcoming book (for Zero Books) critical of the IDW, and it is of course much more than that; an urgently needed disquisition on cosmopolitan socialism. And because some intellectual communities are still high on IDW hype, or burned out from culture war proxy battles, they need guidance, healing, and collaborative engagement in the next wave of avant-garde discourse.

The journey from personal development to global transformation goes both ways. Individualism (which is mostly a myth) at least becomes possible again when there are fair social structures and scaffolds to level the playing field and lift people up (pulling on bootstraps doesn’t work). In order to do that, we need to definitively debunk and move on from the hyper-individualist dogmas and anti-socialist/anti-sociological ideology of the IDW, and to a lesser extent, Integral Theory (TM). Positive global change can happen quickly when majorities converge on trustworthy political and cultural attractors, and it helps if they have trust worthy intellectual leadership — whereas we’ve been constantly let down by our ‘thought leaders’.

Peterson and the IDW took the intellectual world and public discourse by storm for two years, while metamodernism has been quietly and patiently analyzing and critiquing them, all the while offering a more meta-perspective on the meta-crisis and paradigm shift. During this time and before, Integral has been torn and split over the issue of social justice. Perhaps if there was more intellectual integrity in the world, a fresh bold consensus could be reached sooner, and we might have avoided Donald Trump (and Hillary Clinton) altogether.

Ideally, in the future when such inevitable epistemic conflicts arise, all parties will stop and listen, engage with the critique honestly, and undergo metanoia (fundamental change of mind; conversion), so rather than digging in our heels to further polarize civil society and the public sphere, we can converge on solutions. The path between personal development and global transformation needs to be paved not just with good intentions and civil conversations, but memetic mediation, truth, and reconcilation.

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