After Postmodernism | 8. Metamodern Synthesis

Here I look at all the ways of understanding the metamodern turn in culture and show how they are all actually versions of the same phenomenon. Whether we call it "oscillation," "dialectical synthesis," "complexity," or "MHC stage," the same process of recursive reflection has caused a sensibility shift, as people are now able to critique on postmodern criticism and deconstruct its deconstruction. The result is a reconstructive project that reaffirms sincerity, hope, and a paradoxical authenticity. I use a clip from Bo Burnham's comedy 'Inside' as exemplary.
For more on this approach to metamodernism, see my 2024 book 'Metamodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Cultural Logics' (ARC Press).

[@willimeier8903]

Yeah this is big brain mode

[@voztoklov1393]

This is one of the best explanation I’ve found for sure

[@waxcomb]

“And so on, and so on…” -Slavoj Zizek

[@hab0272]

A very valueable way of thinking. Thanks for making this video.

[@TheDangoe]

Incredibly well done Brendan. Was worth waiting for!!

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

Many thanks.

[@AndyCincy]

The artist goes from painting things to painting for paint's sake. Time to reconsider The Great Divorce by CS Lewis.

[@arktseytlin]

This is a nice summary. Thank you!

[@LoreMIpsum-vs6dx]

Excellent essay. Thank you! It helped immensely.

[@holixbeats2475]

I love your explanation, very helpful for sure

[@user-xp1eh7mn5w]

Thank` u so much, awesome depthly and comprehensible explanation!

[@ChristianGrossCG]

This is remarkable! 👏

[@artelc]

Fantastic video. You are the epitome of the highest quality content creators vs. the rest of KZbin and the vulgar and repulsive videos that get millions of views.

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

Hah, thanks so much. I very much appreciate that. :)

[@DeLaSoul246]

This was great! Very enjoyable. Also got some great screenshots of books, quotes, & concepts to look more into later. Thanks!

[@JonathanSimard]

I bought The world we create.

[@tra.cihconig]

Im writing my masters thesis and its on my artistic work which ive never been able really to describe or "make sense of" (if that makes sense haha) and i've rediscover this concept and OMG its begining to make even more sense to me now! Thank you for the video!

[@gagi6294]

Similar here, I'm doing a master thesis for architecture school. What are you writing about?

[@fatimaib_]

wow i think thats the common topic now! I'm also doing my masters thesis on metamodern for design school :)

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

@fatimaib_ and @tra.cihconig: If this was helpful, you can use my book Metamodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Cultural Logics as a source for your bibliography ;)

[@brydonmcleod1241]

Great video, thanks mate!!!!

[@pweddy1]

After all these years of deconstruction why are people not deconstructing the Hegelian dialectic as a replacement for actual logic?

[@ronaldkable]

You've done a great job, and I've learned a lot. At times, especially when grumpy, I feel we've moved from the post-modern to a kind of pre-enlightenment fantasy-worldism

[@veronica_._._._]

Enlightenment, was, and inevitably always will be, Elitist. Also, built into enlightenment grades is the "never never". concept of keep going, keep going! (keep giving) Enlightenment is just around the corner! The veil between reality and delusion is thickening up again - leaving all too many in the dark about basic realities, addicted as they are to watching the flickering shadows on the cave's back wall.

[@gavinmason7986]

Very good synthesis of the key latest thinking of what comes after post-modernism. I think Wilber's Integral Theory still captures, with some better framing of the feared development levels by Freinacht, most of what you conclude. I do think the said development levels should be defanged to be classed as worldviews that many can move between, both up and down, depending on external factors or the "subjective states" that Freinacht defines. Integral theory stands the test of time.

[@JohnDoe-wv7ep]

Knowing the context of the meme at 22:42 strongly hints that you have an episode 9 planned. Is a critique or antithesis to metamodernism possible? MHC 14?

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

I am putting the finishing touches on a book on metamodernism called 'Metamodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Cultural Logics." In the last chapter, I briefly offer such a deconstructive critique of mm. The book will come out through the Archdisciplinary Research Center (ARC), which is effectively about synsthesizing unification metatheories at MHC 14 and beyond. Whether that will yield an "archmodernism" is up for debate. You can check the project out at www.arc.voyage/ and read the Foundations booklet we have up there which discusses this in more depth. :)

[@deyanirasaez9540]

Since we are in a narcissistic and individualistic society, we have the intellectuals we deserve. That they don't grow, that they don't get out of their intellectual childishness. The Peter Pan complex defines us and it does so especially among thinkers, critics and artists. What is all this about? Identity. Fact: when a partner leaves us (or we leave them), we enter into a small identity crisis, where in the next partner we look for the opposite of the previous one, as if to rectify our "mistake", clearly exaggerating the opposite traits. In the same way we try to be the opposite of what the lost partner criticized or even repudiated. The current state is the same, we do not refer to ourselves through the reality that we are, but through reacting to how we believe we have to be in society, especially due to the eternally changing trends of social networks. The reality is much simpler. Let's give two analogies. We all have a very specific voice register, we can also modulate it to be more shrill, baby-like, or hoarse, etc., but what my voice is, is the register that it IS without trying to modulate it (the series "comes to mind" new Girl" and the role of Zooey Deschanel: she modulated her voice when she felt insecure and when she was trying to "repair" a mistake or to fit into situations or people). In another analogy, a phrase has a message, which represents its "identity", but I can construct that phrase in many ways: comical, poetically, cheesy, very elaborate, simple... Regardless of how I write its message (identity). It does not change, it only nuances it (contextuality, according to postmodern jargon). In line with what has been said, on social networks people have "discovered" that it is impossible to fit in with everyone. If you "modulate" your personality in a fixed way, it is possible that it does not fit with many people, but nevertheless if the "identity" is modulated between several registers, it is possible to fit in with more people and therefore have more visits, followers and like's. Therefore we are not that multiplicity of "signs" or they are not real identities. They are simulations, as Baudrillard already prophesied, they are camouflages. In any case, they are always potentialities of each person, in the Aristotelian way, because no matter how many things one does, one tries not to do something that is immoral or that is inappropriate for us. That is, he sets limits for himself and plays with such limits, in the manner of the limits in which a pendulum can move, but knowing that his identity is at the center of all that tidal wave of expressions, intonations or modulations of his being. . Summary: we are in a world in crisis, enhanced by the fact that the leftist movement undermines the foundations of Western culture, which is to blame for everything. Such a state is similar to any other type of existential and personality crisis at the individual level. We act almost like "clowns", because if someone criticizes us or tries to cancel us we can claim that "it was just a farce", that we were just joking or parodying. The sign, therefore, is the fear of simply being ourselves, seasoned with wanting to fit in with everyone. One mistake after another. This same reality does not occur in our daily lives, or perhaps little by little due to contagion from the networks: in our most familiar and trusted environments, these types of modulations or changes do not occur. It is social networks that "push" reality to that distorted state of personalities and identities. Art allows itself to be infected more by the state of the networks than by the human family state, which is more trivial, monotonous and gray, because as is known, boredom is that alienated state in which narrative is not possible, and since " to think is to narrate", boredom is the unspeakable, the void of meaning, the death of Being. Sorry for going on!

[@veronica_._._._]

Eloquently put, thanks for your patience.

[@mattrudkin]

I got through this series explaining metamodernism up until minute 26 of this latest video. I've stopped because I've realised how many words have been used to describe ideas that apparently have so little relation to people's lived experience. It's seems all so theoretically self-referential and perhaps, like Herman Hesse's Glass Bead Game, not really intended to have anything to say about the world or how we might live it. Can there please be more examples of how this theory relates to things like specific artworks, or narratives in popular cinema, or styles of dress, or ways of shopping, or contemporary styles of political debate... or anything concrete, please. Asking for a friend.

[@ryana42]

At one pt there is a chart that has these modernism vs postmodernism concepts? Where does that chart come from? Thanks!!!

[@justinthillens2853]

What do you think about meta modernism in relation to Nietzsche's camel, lion, and child metaphor or even his stages of nihilism ending in nihilism's overcoming of itself?

[@byattwurns1553]

Fuck man idk

[@Dino_Medici]

Can you expand on the question and give more context please

[@vinizamartinez-flores2795]

Hi, can you help me with the reference (book , articule ) of the diagram that you show in minute 26:26 organisational levels!! please!!

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

Try "The integral holon: A holonomic approach to organisational change and transformation" by Mark G. Edwards in the Journal of Organizational Change Management.

[@marcobuncit7539]

I wonder if you'd like to review about metamodern's pop cultures on media like movies: Everything Everywhere All At Once (EEAAO) & Barbieheimer phenomena. Or it there needed some deeper rabbit hole of re-evaluation of some "hints" of meta narrative/ crisis/ critic had been let's say "indirectly emphasis through given undeveloped pre-modern/pre-medieval/antiquity seeds of later feedback of the present day affects". Especially it seems there still of those with post-modern glasses wonder how such message still looking suddenly occur (which I doubt of course is your intention that perhaps these fewer simply too narrow minded to accept your reviews in all due respect even within imperfect but close to fine analysis). But perhaps this petition is too much since your field isn't like Pop Culture Detective so best to be a mere wish. Nevertheless, a very insightfull videos despite of possible "lacks" & "haters gonna hate" 😃😃😃😃

[@Bizarro69]

for reasons unbeknownst to me, I woke up today all-of-a-sudden overflowing with commentary.

[@BassamAbusamra]

It's Strange that Ken Wilber has been writing about this topic for over 40 years now and It's rare that I hear his name or terms he uses in the metamoden discussion. I am not true expert but it feels like people are steeling his work and giving it another name like it's something new!

[@leviathania]

"Aufheben" has several meanings in German, it is negating, but also keeping ( in this state for later) or picking up. Which is kinda the opposite, but not quite.

[@4ppleseed]

Metamodernism? That just sounds like Postmodernism with extra steps.

[@ZestonN]

So, how do you critique a model that critiques itself? How do we go beyond Metamodernism, when Metamodernism comes to its end? Do we naturally evolve to Meta-Realism? Does a New New New Romanticism emerge? How do you go beyond a system that folds back on itself?

[@ZestonN]

I'm being facetious and sincere at the same time. But, seriously, if Metamodernism is after Postmodernism, how do we progress pass Metamodernism, if it infinitely regresses as it's moving forward?

[@evanalmighty9444]

​​@@ZestonNI am very far from some of the intellectual titans in the comments but, I think once you strip the label off of metamodernism and think of it as a group of ideas rather than a concept that exists on some linear line of continuity which requires a corresponding "next step" it becomes easier . I'm sure metamodernism as a concept will be inevitably critiqued through old and new styles of logical thought, personally I think metamodernism as a pragmatic "life framework" integrates itself well within the western psychoanalytical idea of critique (that is our critiques themselves are influenced by unseen psychic activity) by that idea I would assume the inevitable "next step" would be a critical examination of the critiques we choose to be aware of? Tldr: critical introspective analysis of our freshly thought metamodern conclusion which was made by reflecting on our prior analysis of our postmodern skeptical conclusion... Meta-Metamodernism??😂 (This is a word salad, I can't seem to make it more eloquent) I am fairly open ended on this, thank you for giving me a good prompt to strengthen my lackluster writing ability 😅

[@christinagurchinoff1517]

i like it. but im kind of a communication freak. Isn't all this verbiage just disecting the way we communicate?

[@christinagurchinoff1517]

Would this follow up qualify as level 2? My original comment expects that you understand the term "disect" the same way I do. Picture Biology 101 with a picture of a human cell; labeled with arrows pointing at each of its parts.

[@systemlfo]

The Gnostics are at it again

[@thomasgrasha]

Did you intentionally use the late John Deely's semiotic spiral? Or is this a coincidence? I recommend his work. It was focused on the movement past modernism (he considered post-modernism more accurately to be a hyper-modernism). He discussed the whole issue from a historiographic perspective focused on the development of the meaning of sign (from Augustine into the 21st century). I'm not sure what he'd have thought of meta-modern, I do wish he were alive to discuss it with him. So much of what you present here as derived from many sources is presented in the singular work of John Deely. I hope this comment finds you and finds you well. Peace.

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

Thanks for the tip about Deely; I'd never heard of him. Can you provide a time stamp of when his "semiotic spiral" appears in the video?

[@thomasgrasha]

@@BrendanGrahamDempsey You are welcome. 14:39

[@thomasgrasha]

@@BrendanGrahamDempsey I should have mentioned before that his most comprehensive work on this topic is his monumental The Four Ages of Understanding. Peace.

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

@@thomasgrasha Excellent. This looks like quite a work! I will definitely check this out. Thanks much for the recommendation.

[@thecookiejoe]

my fear is that metamodernism makes the same mistake that modernism made. That the Frankensteinification of everything learned before is somehow going to turn out a good thing is yet to be proven.

[@Andriak2]

By integrating multiple perspectives on this phenomenon you have taken a metamodern perspective on metamodernism. You are using this perspective to reconstruct itself. I wonder if you have arrived at a level of analysis above metamodernism.

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

I think metamodernism *is* that level of analysis, the one that includes itself. That’d be my take, I suppose. The art in which it is only implied or presumed is the entry phase, whereas the theory that reflects upon it is the full phase.

[@daskrumpl7570]

what about stage 14?

[@clintd3476]

Might as wells skip to phase 42.

[@RichardSmith-cl8qh]

It seems to me this is the way artists have evaluated their best art work forever - a sequence of reflection to deconstruct over and over there evaluation of their own work is sequence of alternate negation to achieve an acceptance that they have finished it. It is not new. It is not a progressive event. - Cultural diffusion in history is only possible thought these means.

[@youspidertube]

Intersting and useful. I think you should be careful to avoid reductionism however. Not everything can be broken down into dialectics. Complexity can't be, IMO. (e.g. see deleuze & guattari et al)

[@jesperandersson889]

re-fractalism

[@deyanirasaez9540]

I get the feeling that the repetitive tendency to put prefixes to the concept 'modernity' only announces the desolate path towards nihilism, in a culture, the Western one, that long ago entered into decline. He is actually committing sui@cide through the culture war. It does not redeem itself, as it claims..., it accelerates decay and nihilism

[@veronica_._._._]

Oil and water, all these stances are still pomo alienated, disembodied and meta, leading to analysis paralysis. The ironic "touch grass" is actually unironic. This is all so much mental self pleasuring, which can only forestall anomie temporarily.

[@eshwar6969]

Bo burnham?

[@Dino_Medici]

MY PEOPLE! Lmao I love it thank you for your work sir 🫡🕺🕺🕺🕺

[@philosophicsblog]

Nice video. Metamodernism as a synthesis of Modernism and Postmodernism doesn't make sense. Where Modernism constructs and assumes objective totality and progress, Postmodernism deconstructs and denies objectivity, favouring relativity and subjectivity. There is no right answer. For Metamodernism to operate, it can only do so by swaying back to Modernism, so it starts from a Modern perspective only to try to defend it. Postmodern has always been a stupid term anyway, as Modernism has not only not left, I'll argue that it's the position held by more in the West, despite it being wrong and explaining why there is a tendency to reclaim its territory lost to the Postmoderns.

[@mostlynotworking4112]

How timely, will point to PVK @PaulVanderKlay

[@chrisrusecki6320]

Wait a minute is this a hint to this christian reactionary mysticism and Petersonism channel @BrendanGrahamDempsey ? If so, please explain what has metamodernism with those reactionary anti-modern patriarchal theories to do