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KEYWORDS

Metamodernism, belief,

SUMMARY

The aim of this research is 1) to explore how emerging discourses combine a desire to move beyond

postmodern relativism (and its accompanying subjective dispositions such as apathy, cynicism and

irony), with an awareness of the impossibility of a return to any totalizing meta-narrative (in the sense

of a final guarantee meaning, such as God, Nature, Communism, Nationalism etc.); 2) To asses if they

can avoid a reliance on new, but disavowed (or unconscious) meta-narratives. Because discourses such

as Metamodernism, Posthumanism and Speculative Realism, in some way try to expose and overcome

the limits of post-modernity, and at the same time refuse any nave return to previous totalizing meta-

narratives, it seems relevant to examine if and in what way an implicit meta-narrative might still be

operative. I will consider the possibility of this displacement from explicit to implicit meta-

narratives along the lines of Slavoj Zizeks insight that: The paradoxical result of this mutation in the

"inexistence of the Other" (of the growing collapse of the symbolic efficiency) is precisely the re-

emergence of the different facets of a big Other which exists effectively, in the Real, and not merely as

symbolic fiction.However, because of Zizeks unorthodox mobilization of Lacanian psychoanalytic

theory, a critically examination of terms such as inexistence of the Other, Big Other, symbolic

fiction and the Real is necessary.

CENTRAL AIMS AND ISSUES

This research start from the intuition that in modernity a continuous displacement of explicit to

implicit meta-narrative operates. Liberalism, for example, might undermine the fantasy of God or the

feudal king, but it relies on a new, but disavowed meta-narrative of the autonomous subject or

entrepreneurial self. In turn, Deep Ecology might undermine this anthropocentrism, but it produces a

new meta-narrative of ecology as a natural balance of which it is itself, as such, not necessarilyaware. Next, Timothy Mortons claim that Nature as a balanced whole does not exist, might have to

rely on a new implicit meta-narrative (perhaps his return to a kind of animism). While one could argue

that pervasive postmodern irony and cynicism have largely undermined the credibility of the existence

of an explicit meta-narrative, it is worth examining if the emerging discourses rely on still unexamined

implicit meta-narratives. To uncritically assume the inexistence of meta-narratives, to simply step out

into the real world, disavows any structuring fantasy underpinning it. Perhaps this is what Zizek

means when he claims that: the moment we think we stepped out of ideology, at that point wecan be

sure we are within ideology.

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Metamodernism, coined by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, is a conjunction

of the Greek word metaxis (which translates as both post and oscillation) and modernism.

Based on the observation that the postmodernism condition has been abandoned and new forms of

pragmatic idealism" they define Metamodernism as a discourse oscillating between a modern

enthusiasm and a postmodern irony, between a modern commitment and a postmodern detachment

(2). Vermeulen and Van den Akker point for example to Eshelmans description of performatism as

the willful self deceit to believe in, or identify with, or solve something in spite of itself and art critic

Jerry Saltz on new approaches to artmaking:Its an attitude that says, I know that the art Im creating

may seem silly, even stupid, or that it might have been done before, but that doesnt mean this isnt

serious. They grasp that they can be ironic and sincere at the same time, and they are making art from

this compound-complex state of mind.

Metamodernism thus is a discourse to be considered. Does its ironic sinceritysucceed in

moving beyond the postmodern condition? According to Vermeulen en Van den Akker, it does,

because its oscillation between both the sincerity of modern (with a meaningful cause) and the

postmodern (its immediate ironic mocking) ensures they can have it both ways. To me, however, it

comes rather close to Zizeks well know story about Niels bohr. When asked why Bohr, as a famous

physicist, had a horse shoe above his entrance he replied: I was told that it works, even if you dont

believe in it.The point of this story is that even if one explicitly denies every belief (i.e. the cynic),

belief still functions.

Interestingly, a more successful attempt to move beyond the postmodern condition may be

found in popular culture. Adam Kotsko has observed a recent rise of awkwardness as a central theme

in a series of popular TV-shows (from Curb Your Enthusiasm, to Ali G, to The Office, to Parks and

Recreation). According to Kotsko this points to an emerging awareness that there is no meta-norm

governing social interactions (68). Kotsto discerns two unsuccessful strategies employed to overcome

awkwardness: on the one hand ironic detachment, on the other hand the attempt to re-impose a meta-

norm (for example: trying to rehabilitate traditional rules of social interaction). Based on the figure of

Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm Kotsko proposes a third strategy: the identification withawkwardness itself. This would implies an immediate Utopia of awkwardness, in which the only meta-

norm is an all encompassing awkwardness itself. In this way, everybody is awkward, everybody is

included, but only as an exception. Is it possibly that, in this way, awkwardness moves beyond the

postmodern condition?

Constitutive exception vs not-all. Ontology of incompletness, deadlock. Impossibility of getting it all,

to totalize our notion of reality.

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Is it possible that this non-all notion of reality is already thought in (popular) culture? Can we

distinguish between (ideological) discourses that unconsciously still relies on the big other, and

discourses that thinks the reality as non-all?

Incompleteness of society : in order to make our experience of reality consistent, we have tosupplement our experience by some kind of virtual fiction.

Formualas of sexuation. Universal function and its constitutive exception. Non-all, there is no

exception, but for that very reason the set is non-all, non-totalized.

The difficulty is to think ontological incompleteness, or as Badiou would put it: pure multiplicity. I

would like to find out how both psychoanalysis in the Slovenian school and rhizomatic deleuzians.

This might lead to different political/ethical strategys.

How would ontological incompleteness look like? Do these think ontological incompletness, or do

they remain ideological.

Ontological incompleteness as non-all

If you are not a woman, you are not a man

If you are not a man, you are a woman.