If we see postmodernism as the marked death of grand narratives, it still left us with the debris and fragments of meaning. Influenced by fast internet, social media, and meme culture, some of us now build new stories from these bits. These forms of expression-whether in film, art, music, or writing-resonate simultaneously across abstract and concrete dimensions. If we look at the term metamodernism as a next step in a developmental model - linear, we force it to be placed into a timeline as the “next step.” This imposed coherence is questionable, while there might be none. Using such frameworks can feel like inventing new layers on a cake: arbitrary and endless, and that cake might be half-assembled artificially already (Integral Theory). For me, metamodernism is understanding this fallacy in a linear approach. It’s not about following the next step to step guide (preacher of cult) or moving up on Jacob's Ladder into a next stage. I also think the Dutch pendulum model is outdated, because it describes a swing from one to the opposite, while in reality it is not that, it’s all at once. Many examples given by Vermeulen still feel postmodern, possibly because they’re outdated as well. Art today reflects the speed and distortion of modern information. We remix and reinterpret ideas quickly, quirky, creating new artefacts while staying playful and self-aware. In a way, this approach itself reflects this fluidity, blending multiple narratives, irony, sincerity, fear, doubt, hope, etc. It’s not one thing or another, there is no swing. Ultimately, for me, metamodernism isn’t about getting back those grand narratives from modernism, that time is over. And I think deep inside we are not longing for those constructions back in our lives again. Things become personal now, pluralistic, creating meaning in the moment. There’s no single-point story-just an evolving, multidimensional tapestry of narratives and interpretations. But that doesn't mean it all doesn't matter, it does..., just like having these kinds of open discussions, thanks!
I really appreciate this. It's really a breath of fresh air to see respectful critique when so few can do it well and without it turning into polemics and apologetics. Thank you 🙏
It's hard to write a brief comment on a 2:14min video. "Transcend, include, forget" helped me understand 'access' or lack thereof to less complex levels. One 'problem' that seemed to be common in this discussion is, "who is we?", are 'we in postmodern times?'. Time, and location, and individuals are all different. There are 'pockets' and as you mentioned, we can't neatly (and accurately) reduce culture to discrete categories - that should not be surprising. "I can't wait to have some solid ground under my feet" - it feels like you're looking for something that cannot be expected to be there. Maybe this 'solution' is too simplistic, but if we understand and expect a diversity and variety of thought and cultural expressions, from person to person, place to place, time to time, then it becomes relatively easy to 'name' any particular group by their traits, accurate to the appropriate level of granularity (e.g this section is mostly yellow with orange spots)
Very interesting discussion! At 9:30 James asserts that "we're not in the habit of talking about the politics of the baroque." In The Culture of the Baroque: Analysis of a Historical Structure, José Antonio Maravall does just that.
Great conversation! Nothing like having an “opponent” to stimulate some “processing”. Especially a well intentioned, intelligent and respectful opponent. Learned much, as usual! Thanks to both!
Great conversation guys. Was cool hearing James' perspective on metamodernism, and putting forth his critiques. I'm definitely more in the camp of grand narratives and wanting to build new cultural projects and institutions, but I think it is really important that people are refining the underlying structure and bringing as much rigor as we can bring to bare. I do think that at this stage, even with some fairly broad strokes, we can tell a story that is far closer to the reality of things compared to most of the other stories that might hold a similar spot in culture.
A good dialogue, guys! My take (major caveats): Modernity emerged contrarian to what it emerged from, a progressive idea of pure rationality. Post-modernity is the fractured outcome, a transition without an imagined cohesive future, a stasis and decay. Meta-modernism is… well, can we even frame it beyond ideas emerging from the decay of what is? Isn’t our point in time a bit like for e.g. Hegel - change is ongoing, but seemingly hard to integrate and project into expectation? We seem stuck in a cultural stage theory, where no steps can “lead down” - only “up”. Difficult, when there’s no cohesive framework of what “up” or “down” even means, outside of our perceived economic models - demanding “growth” beyond ecological limits we DO know. OK, that’s my ontology messed up. I’m old enough to experience how a given reality wasn’t sustainable at all. My peers become conservative in the real meaning of it - violently holding on to what was. My path is lonely in that context. Realising change, accepting change, embracing change - and finally imagining _some_ future. That’s where meta-modernism emerges. And yes, nothing in this is linear. It’s complex, not complicated. Ideal and material. Hopefully holistic. Big unknown is the global scale, constraints and time window. Change against the implosion of what “is”, because it never was static, as “common sense” always imprints on us.
I'm so happy James delved into this domain, I've had hives over it for years, and it is indeed hard to articulate a satisfying critique. None of these models or conversations will inspire the actions required to address the many ongoing catastrophes we've been addressing for decades. The plebs and proles lack the imagination and willingness to sacrifice to build organized resistance across cultures worldwide to take power away from the Players of "The Great Game 21st Century." We will have "the conversation" until circumstances dictate that we panic, and from there, all manner of violent chaos will emerge. Developing a new culture takes generations, and it's already past midnight. Let's enjoy our ponderances while we can. Much obliged.
So around 1:06:30 I believe Dempsey refers to examples of what Storm codifies as 'Strategies for Demolition' contained in those specific footnotes (specifically footnote 46 of Chapter 2) as examples of 'deconstruction'. But (assuming I am right) 1) I don't think this is quite Storm's claim - infact there are examples in those footnotes which predate Derridean deconstruction or its 'domestication'. They are by no means solely from the last 20-30 years, infact iirc he actively attempts to provide what he deems to be early examples of these destructive tools. 2) There are texts in the footnotes which probably wouldn't be called postmodern either, and I don't think Storm is claiming that they infact are. 'The sign of the negative' casts a wider shadow over intellectual life it would seem i.e. it's a superset. Now this is all very difficult stuff, so it's quite understandable that even the best of us would get these things confused. But the problem is that it doesn't seem reasonable to judge postmodernism by its textbookification, but then hide metamodernism behind the relatively steely Jason Storm, if even one of the most prominent metamodern scholars can't reproduce the subtlety of his categorisations. I would suggest that you can't really have it both ways, and this is actually a significant problem for Storm (and the 'normattive metamodern project' in general).
Recursivity seems to be impcitly tied to more complexity. I also have an issue with linear model of complexity. Also, a model being more complex doesn't necessarily mean that it will fit the world better. A pragmatist critique here would be that the move towards simplicity/complexity is determined by the feedback from the world and cannot be apriori determined by the theory.
I think there are those who would transcend and include postmodernism and that’s what should be called meta modernism. And there are those who reject postmodernism with a desire to return to modernism which should be called something else, the Jordan Peterson crowd. As Brendan points out I don’t think we should take our eye off the normative, political aspects here, the question I think meta modernism poses is what are the alternatives to capitalism and modernity as a whole and how do we build them? Again there are those who want to reject “identity politics” and return to old left modernist things forms like communism and then those are thinking about how do we acknowledge all the valid critiques to build new forms? That’s the exciting area of thought for me. Great convo! Thank you!
What was the book James referenced at the end of the episode? He mentioned it was a French conservative look at "the philosophers of '68", but never mentioned the title. I'm interested in looking that one up.
26:35 So have you guys (Brendan and James) ever heard of Ken Wilbers concept of „Ladder, Climber, View (Rung)“? There is a youtube video on the integrallife channel. It basically takes in account and answers this criticism you make here. You lose the view from lower stages in the course of development. The view from a higher rung isn't the same as from a lower rung, but you retain the structure or capability you gathered by climbing the ladder. Strange if you never heard of that concept. KW talks about it in the Course „Integral Spirituality - A deeper Cut“, also in the „Core Integral“ Courses One and Two. The Core Integral material is only available these days by semi-legal means on the Internet. Jeff Salzman has made a podcast on „Ladder, Climber,View“ and there is material on it on several sites like Integalpostmetaphysics. You really should at least look into all the advanced Integral Theory material and concepts before you write about it professionally.
Hi. Yes, I’m familiar with that. I encountered it in Religion of Tomorrow. It is relevant, but also doesn’t resolve the tension of conflating UL and LL perspectives. It could be applied to both those quadrants though, since decentration is happening in each, albeit differently.
@@BrendanGrahamDempsey Thank you very much for responding. You should go through "Core Integral - Course 2 - Advanced Integral" some day if you haven't. - Here is another concept I learned from Ken Wilber - you can read about it on Integrallife. The distinction between deepstructures and surfacestructures. Deepstructures are like hands and feet, everyone gets them by being a human being. They include psychological structure that your born with like archetypes for example. Surfacestructures are individual experiences and leanings that are actually embedded in deepstructures but you can't say anything about them in detail by studying psychology for example, because everyone in a sense is different. - So you can read and think about the deepsttuctures of societies in a spiral dynamics way but with that you never know their surfacestructres. - Agrarian societies in China had the same deepstructures as elsewhere and you can even draw similarities between their ways of thinking like between Confucian ethics and the feudal system in medieval Europe, but the surfacestructures are as different as the language of Chinese and French. You retain those spiral dynamic levels only in the way of deepstructures, you dont know their individual expression in other places or times, but can draw conclusions by reading the deepstructures - and even then societies are always all over the spectrum.
That emic vs etic clash of "postmodernism" and the ideological turing test was important but teeth pulling and indicative of a kind of jordan peterson derangement syndrome. A constructive insight I have is that Brendan speaks from a third person, historian, descriptive point of view, and James seems to be a very "interventionist" intention to enact metamodernism as a self-aware, conscious historicizing agent. The activist moral impetus is the same as revisionism, but the modus operandi is different. I suppose that is quite a valuable metamodern role and a developmental continuation of marxist praxis but leveraging complexity that is properly midwifing the zeitgeist rather than a historicist determinist usurpation or revisionist separatism. Nice talk
This conversation was a bit too abstract, conceptual, and, well, Meta for me. I wish there had been more specifics as, for example, the discussion beginning at around 1:52.00
Reality is always more complex than we can grasp, and scientists have job security. But the point is, complexifying at the level of science is not accessible to most people. You need a somewhat simplified meta narrative to unite a society in a way most people can believe, which is what a paradigm does. Otherwise, they will be alienated and uncomfortable with high numbers of strangers in metropolitan settings, which is conducive to paranoia and conspiritorial thinking.
1:56:08 cognitive complexity analysis seems to be the right conceptual tool to affirm the old Plato's Republic elitism and the masses, the noble myth, esotericism, forgive them for they know not what theydoism politics. As in, IQ research has been the tragic "ur dumb" individualist story whereas we are needful of emancipatory affordances in a analytic systems framework that says "all these people are getting cognitively crushed"
Hm, but we HAVE access to the pre-rational. The pre-rational is non-verbal and non-narrative. Wilber once did a pretty good meditation on craving food and eating disorders. In a short session he went from how we externalise hunger as something that controls us to how we can embrace it as part of ourselves. He pointed out how that urge to devour is millions of years old and reaches as far down as life does. And all that history is part of us right now and manifests as our present experience of the world. We are not single minds but carry an evolutionary history of hidden desires within us. That stuff is real within us and does not depend on us telling the right story of humankind. And it is there, despite being unconscious. I have often been told I repress the magical within. And I believe I know what people mean. It doesn't mean I don't know enough about magic mythologies and ritual. It means I am not in touch with the kinds of sub-personalities within that thrive on precisely that form of bios. What people mean is not that I have not read enough ancient mythology and don't know it by heart well enough. Children have no problem being megalomaniacs and just doing really stupid stuff, we however see that just as a vice in adults; but it is a virtue as well in certain contexts. It is magical thinking if you can look in the mirror and slap your fat belly and admire yourself for how beautiful you are. There is no way of propositionally grasping the meaning of that slapping gesture. But that gesture is the precise opposite of a mind captured by social narratives as to how to look, to look beautiful. That's the way we have access to the pre-rational, not by performing weird rituals and knowing the history of myth by heart. Because the pre-rational is just as real we can also socialise with beings capable of it around it. Your dog is not entirely different from you by having a different narrative of himself. We share a significant part of being with other creatures and can communicate with them in non-narrative form. Notice, the dog might be totally wrong about the world and in pretty much every single regard, yet we can have communion. Playing with your dog or just being able to play, that is communion and being in touch with the pre-rational. Notice how many of us just can't do that as adults even while being able to recount the history of domestication of dogs by heart. All of those dimensions are fully within us but it is the narrative-obsessed propositional mind which submerges them into the unconscious and "irrelevant". Wilber in his very first book, recommended against such narrative obsession, which never leads anywhere but endless questioning of all narratives and excessive focus on counter-narratives (that's what is exciting here, not fitting the narrative), because all narratives can be endlessly re-contextualised, a grounding in rediscovering embodiment. The "postmodern" take on this on the other hand is that not only can you not "know" your dog, you can basically not know anyone, not even yourself... ever! Everyone is always just different, because narratives, again, are endlessly open-ended and re-contextualisable. When everything is narrative the world loses all grounding. All social identity becomes questionable, so does all personal identity. There is nothing you can be proud of anymore, nothing to strive for. And when the Russians come, you don't know whether to pick up a weapon and defend something, because you don't even know what that something would be to defend in the first place. That's how we get to something that is unquestionably "true", not by figuring out the "right" narrative to tell about Western history but by settling in something that is unquestionably in friction with reality. Playing with your dog is that. I know this is disappointing, because people want to hear an uber-narrative that will lead them beyond narrative. But I fear that uber-thing might not come as a narrative.
I think you have up to much ground on the integration of past cultures and modes of thinking. Two arguments: technologies are rarely replaced rather the old continues along with the new or is integrated. The existence of a new development leaves many adherents to old modes of thinking. Second, we have individuals and subcultures that are clearly operating in a traditional Christian or modernist frame. We interact with these people, therefore we must be in part integrating their frame if not in the individual, in the culture. I don't think there is complete integration, but we are likely understating integration. Just as English is a mosaic of centuries of cultural influence there is major cultural strains where contemporary thinkers have access. These are not pure reproduction of historical thought, rather versions of those modes that have lived alongside the intermittent history creating some subsequent bias but also refinement.
On there being no cultural evolution since the axial age (later you say that the philosophers of 68 were in a transitional movement). It is often said that all of western philosophy are footnotes to Plato. But each and every individual 2500 years ago and now had still to work itself up to the quality of philosophizing that a Plato represents. What makes cultural evolution is numbers, density, availability of education, distribution, technology, demographics and many other factors.
It’s not that there hasn’t been cultural evolution since the axial age. Rather, the cognitive complexity exhibited by axial age thinkers it would seem is the same as in modern thinkers. The cultural evolution part comes in with regard to how that sort of cognition scales and gets applied to new social contexts and technologies etc
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If we see postmodernism as the marked death of grand narratives, it still left us with the debris and fragments of meaning. Influenced by fast internet, social media, and meme culture, some of us now build new stories from these bits. These forms of expression-whether in film, art, music, or writing-resonate simultaneously across abstract and concrete dimensions.
If we look at the term metamodernism as a next step in a developmental model - linear, we force it to be placed into a timeline as the “next step.” This imposed coherence is questionable, while there might be none. Using such frameworks can feel like inventing new layers on a cake: arbitrary and endless, and that cake might be half-assembled artificially already (Integral Theory). For me, metamodernism is understanding this fallacy in a linear approach. It’s not about following the next step to step guide (preacher of cult) or moving up on Jacob's Ladder into a next stage.
I also think the Dutch pendulum model is outdated, because it describes a swing from one to the opposite, while in reality it is not that, it’s all at once. Many examples given by Vermeulen still feel postmodern, possibly because they’re outdated as well.
Art today reflects the speed and distortion of modern information. We remix and reinterpret ideas quickly, quirky, creating new artefacts while staying playful and self-aware. In a way, this approach itself reflects this fluidity, blending multiple narratives, irony, sincerity, fear, doubt, hope, etc. It’s not one thing or another, there is no swing.
Ultimately, for me, metamodernism isn’t about getting back those grand narratives from modernism, that time is over. And I think deep inside we are not longing for those constructions back in our lives again. Things become personal now, pluralistic, creating meaning in the moment. There’s no single-point story-just an evolving, multidimensional tapestry of narratives and interpretations. But that doesn't mean it all doesn't matter, it does..., just like having these kinds of open discussions, thanks!
I really appreciate this. It's really a breath of fresh air to see respectful critique when so few can do it well and without it turning into polemics and apologetics. Thank you 🙏
It's hard to write a brief comment on a 2:14min video.
"Transcend, include, forget" helped me understand 'access' or lack thereof to less complex levels.
One 'problem' that seemed to be common in this discussion is, "who is we?", are 'we in postmodern times?'. Time, and location, and individuals are all different. There are 'pockets' and as you mentioned, we can't neatly (and accurately) reduce culture to discrete categories - that should not be surprising.
"I can't wait to have some solid ground under my feet" - it feels like you're looking for something that cannot be expected to be there.
Maybe this 'solution' is too simplistic, but if we understand and expect a diversity and variety of thought and cultural expressions, from person to person, place to place, time to time, then it becomes relatively easy to 'name' any particular group by their traits, accurate to the appropriate level of granularity (e.g this section is mostly yellow with orange spots)
Very interesting discussion! At 9:30 James asserts that "we're not in the habit of talking about the politics of the baroque." In The Culture of the Baroque: Analysis of a Historical Structure, José Antonio Maravall does just that.
Didn't expect such a thoughtful critique of metamodernism from Chad Kroeger.
Great conversation! Nothing like having an “opponent” to stimulate some “processing”. Especially a well intentioned, intelligent and respectful opponent. Learned much, as usual!
Thanks to both!
Great conversation guys. Was cool hearing James' perspective on metamodernism, and putting forth his critiques. I'm definitely more in the camp of grand narratives and wanting to build new cultural projects and institutions, but I think it is really important that people are refining the underlying structure and bringing as much rigor as we can bring to bare. I do think that at this stage, even with some fairly broad strokes, we can tell a story that is far closer to the reality of things compared to most of the other stories that might hold a similar spot in culture.
Well said
what an episode this is, I'm half way through listening in the background and I want to come back and listen in full attention..
A good dialogue, guys! My take (major caveats):
Modernity emerged contrarian to what it emerged from, a progressive idea of pure rationality. Post-modernity is the fractured outcome, a transition without an imagined cohesive future, a stasis and decay.
Meta-modernism is… well, can we even frame it beyond ideas emerging from the decay of what is? Isn’t our point in time a bit like for e.g. Hegel - change is ongoing, but seemingly hard to integrate and project into expectation?
We seem stuck in a cultural stage theory, where no steps can “lead down” - only “up”. Difficult, when there’s no cohesive framework of what “up” or “down” even means, outside of our perceived economic models - demanding “growth” beyond ecological limits we DO know.
OK, that’s my ontology messed up. I’m old enough to experience how a given reality wasn’t sustainable at all. My peers become conservative in the real meaning of it - violently holding on to what was.
My path is lonely in that context. Realising change, accepting change, embracing change - and finally imagining _some_ future. That’s where meta-modernism emerges.
And yes, nothing in this is linear. It’s complex, not complicated. Ideal and material. Hopefully holistic. Big unknown is the global scale, constraints and time window.
Change against the implosion of what “is”, because it never was static, as “common sense” always imprints on us.
I'm so happy James delved into this domain, I've had hives over it for years, and it is indeed hard to articulate a satisfying critique. None of these models or conversations will inspire the actions required to address the many ongoing catastrophes we've been addressing for decades. The plebs and proles lack the imagination and willingness to sacrifice to build organized resistance across cultures worldwide to take power away from the Players of "The Great Game 21st Century." We will have "the conversation" until circumstances dictate that we panic, and from there, all manner of violent chaos will emerge. Developing a new culture takes generations, and it's already past midnight. Let's enjoy our ponderances while we can. Much obliged.
1:53:50 "do you have a problem with that?" best moment
So around 1:06:30 I believe Dempsey refers to examples of what Storm codifies as 'Strategies for Demolition' contained in those specific footnotes (specifically footnote 46 of Chapter 2) as examples of 'deconstruction'. But (assuming I am right)
1) I don't think this is quite Storm's claim - infact there are examples in those footnotes which predate Derridean deconstruction or its 'domestication'. They are by no means solely from the last 20-30 years, infact iirc he actively attempts to provide what he deems to be early examples of these destructive tools.
2) There are texts in the footnotes which probably wouldn't be called postmodern either, and I don't think Storm is claiming that they infact are. 'The sign of the negative' casts a wider shadow over intellectual life it would seem i.e. it's a superset.
Now this is all very difficult stuff, so it's quite understandable that even the best of us would get these things confused. But the problem is that it doesn't seem reasonable to judge postmodernism by its textbookification, but then hide metamodernism behind the relatively steely Jason Storm, if even one of the most prominent metamodern scholars can't reproduce the subtlety of his categorisations. I would suggest that you can't really have it both ways, and this is actually a significant problem for Storm (and the 'normattive metamodern project' in general).
Great discussion
Recursivity seems to be impcitly tied to more complexity.
I also have an issue with linear model of complexity.
Also, a model being more complex doesn't necessarily mean that it will fit the world better. A pragmatist critique here would be that the move towards simplicity/complexity is determined by the feedback from the world and cannot be apriori determined by the theory.
I think there are those who would transcend and include postmodernism and that’s what should be called meta modernism. And there are those who reject postmodernism with a desire to return to modernism which should be called something else, the Jordan Peterson crowd. As Brendan points out I don’t think we should take our eye off the normative, political aspects here, the question I think meta modernism poses is what are the alternatives to capitalism and modernity as a whole and how do we build them? Again there are those who want to reject “identity politics” and return to old left modernist things forms like communism and then those are thinking about how do we acknowledge all the valid critiques to build new forms? That’s the exciting area of thought for me. Great convo! Thank you!
What was the book James referenced at the end of the episode? He mentioned it was a French conservative look at "the philosophers of '68", but never mentioned the title. I'm interested in looking that one up.
26:35 So have you guys (Brendan and James) ever heard of Ken Wilbers concept of „Ladder, Climber, View (Rung)“? There is a youtube video on the integrallife channel. It basically takes in account and answers this criticism you make here. You lose the view from lower stages in the course of development. The view from a higher rung isn't the same as from a lower rung, but you retain the structure or capability you gathered by climbing the ladder. Strange if you never heard of that concept. KW talks about it in the Course „Integral Spirituality - A deeper Cut“, also in the „Core Integral“ Courses One and Two. The Core Integral material is only available these days by semi-legal means on the Internet. Jeff Salzman has made a podcast on „Ladder, Climber,View“ and there is material on it on several sites like Integalpostmetaphysics. You really should at least look into all the advanced Integral Theory material and concepts before you write about it professionally.
Hi. Yes, I’m familiar with that. I encountered it in Religion of Tomorrow. It is relevant, but also doesn’t resolve the tension of conflating UL and LL perspectives. It could be applied to both those quadrants though, since decentration is happening in each, albeit differently.
@@BrendanGrahamDempsey Thank you very much for responding. You should go through "Core Integral - Course 2 - Advanced Integral" some day if you haven't. - Here is another concept I learned from Ken Wilber - you can read about it on Integrallife. The distinction between deepstructures and surfacestructures. Deepstructures are like hands and feet, everyone gets them by being a human being. They include psychological structure that your born with like archetypes for example. Surfacestructures are individual experiences and leanings that are actually embedded in deepstructures but you can't say anything about them in detail by studying psychology for example, because everyone in a sense is different. - So you can read and think about the deepsttuctures of societies in a spiral dynamics way but with that you never know their surfacestructres. - Agrarian societies in China had the same deepstructures as elsewhere and you can even draw similarities between their ways of thinking like between Confucian ethics and the feudal system in medieval Europe, but the surfacestructures are as different as the language of Chinese and French. You retain those spiral dynamic levels only in the way of deepstructures, you dont know their individual expression in other places or times, but can draw conclusions by reading the deepstructures - and even then societies are always all over the spectrum.
That emic vs etic clash of "postmodernism" and the ideological turing test was important but teeth pulling and indicative of a kind of jordan peterson derangement syndrome. A constructive insight I have is that Brendan speaks from a third person, historian, descriptive point of view, and James seems to be a very "interventionist" intention to enact metamodernism as a self-aware, conscious historicizing agent. The activist moral impetus is the same as revisionism, but the modus operandi is different. I suppose that is quite a valuable metamodern role and a developmental continuation of marxist praxis but leveraging complexity that is properly midwifing the zeitgeist rather than a historicist determinist usurpation or revisionist separatism. Nice talk
Pretty good
This conversation was a bit too abstract, conceptual, and, well, Meta for me. I wish there had been more specifics as, for example, the discussion beginning at around 1:52.00
Reality is always more complex than we can grasp, and scientists have job security. But the point is, complexifying at the level of science is not accessible to most people. You need a somewhat simplified meta narrative to unite a society in a way most people can believe, which is what a paradigm does. Otherwise, they will be alienated and uncomfortable with high numbers of strangers in metropolitan settings, which is conducive to paranoia and conspiritorial thinking.
1:56:08 cognitive complexity analysis seems to be the right conceptual tool to affirm the old Plato's Republic elitism and the masses, the noble myth, esotericism, forgive them for they know not what theydoism politics.
As in, IQ research has been the tragic "ur dumb" individualist story whereas we are needful of emancipatory affordances in a analytic systems framework that says "all these people are getting cognitively crushed"
Hm, but we HAVE access to the pre-rational. The pre-rational is non-verbal and non-narrative. Wilber once did a pretty good meditation on craving food and eating disorders. In a short session he went from how we externalise hunger as something that controls us to how we can embrace it as part of ourselves. He pointed out how that urge to devour is millions of years old and reaches as far down as life does. And all that history is part of us right now and manifests as our present experience of the world.
We are not single minds but carry an evolutionary history of hidden desires within us. That stuff is real within us and does not depend on us telling the right story of humankind. And it is there, despite being unconscious.
I have often been told I repress the magical within. And I believe I know what people mean. It doesn't mean I don't know enough about magic mythologies and ritual. It means I am not in touch with the kinds of sub-personalities within that thrive on precisely that form of bios. What people mean is not that I have not read enough ancient mythology and don't know it by heart well enough.
Children have no problem being megalomaniacs and just doing really stupid stuff, we however see that just as a vice in adults; but it is a virtue as well in certain contexts. It is magical thinking if you can look in the mirror and slap your fat belly and admire yourself for how beautiful you are. There is no way of propositionally grasping the meaning of that slapping gesture. But that gesture is the precise opposite of a mind captured by social narratives as to how to look, to look beautiful.
That's the way we have access to the pre-rational, not by performing weird rituals and knowing the history of myth by heart.
Because the pre-rational is just as real we can also socialise with beings capable of it around it. Your dog is not entirely different from you by having a different narrative of himself. We share a significant part of being with other creatures and can communicate with them in non-narrative form. Notice, the dog might be totally wrong about the world and in pretty much every single regard, yet we can have communion.
Playing with your dog or just being able to play, that is communion and being in touch with the pre-rational. Notice how many of us just can't do that as adults even while being able to recount the history of domestication of dogs by heart.
All of those dimensions are fully within us but it is the narrative-obsessed propositional mind which submerges them into the unconscious and "irrelevant". Wilber in his very first book, recommended against such narrative obsession, which never leads anywhere but endless questioning of all narratives and excessive focus on counter-narratives (that's what is exciting here, not fitting the narrative), because all narratives can be endlessly re-contextualised, a grounding in rediscovering embodiment.
The "postmodern" take on this on the other hand is that not only can you not "know" your dog, you can basically not know anyone, not even yourself... ever! Everyone is always just different, because narratives, again, are endlessly open-ended and re-contextualisable. When everything is narrative the world loses all grounding. All social identity becomes questionable, so does all personal identity. There is nothing you can be proud of anymore, nothing to strive for. And when the Russians come, you don't know whether to pick up a weapon and defend something, because you don't even know what that something would be to defend in the first place.
That's how we get to something that is unquestionably "true", not by figuring out the "right" narrative to tell about Western history but by settling in something that is unquestionably in friction with reality. Playing with your dog is that. I know this is disappointing, because people want to hear an uber-narrative that will lead them beyond narrative. But I fear that uber-thing might not come as a narrative.
I think you have up to much ground on the integration of past cultures and modes of thinking. Two arguments: technologies are rarely replaced rather the old continues along with the new or is integrated. The existence of a new development leaves many adherents to old modes of thinking. Second, we have individuals and subcultures that are clearly operating in a traditional Christian or modernist frame. We interact with these people, therefore we must be in part integrating their frame if not in the individual, in the culture.
I don't think there is complete integration, but we are likely understating integration. Just as English is a mosaic of centuries of cultural influence there is major cultural strains where contemporary thinkers have access. These are not pure reproduction of historical thought, rather versions of those modes that have lived alongside the intermittent history creating some subsequent bias but also refinement.
On there being no cultural evolution since the axial age (later you say that the philosophers of 68 were in a transitional movement). It is often said that all of western philosophy are footnotes to Plato. But each and every individual 2500 years ago and now had still to work itself up to the quality of philosophizing that a Plato represents. What makes cultural evolution is numbers, density, availability of education, distribution, technology, demographics and many other factors.
It’s not that there hasn’t been cultural evolution since the axial age. Rather, the cognitive complexity exhibited by axial age thinkers it would seem is the same as in modern thinkers. The cultural evolution part comes in with regard to how that sort of cognition scales and gets applied to new social contexts and technologies etc
Yes, it was a "delight" to listen to as well.
The easiest way to destroy the sun would obviously be to have a large black hole devour it. I can’t really think of anything else.
Less conceptualization and more connecting to personal experience with growth, change, and transcendence please