Part 3: On the evolution of our contemporary state

How our metamodern state is developing into a neomodern state

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the last in a three-part series titled On The Evolution of Our Contemporary State. To see the first CLICK HERE. To see the second CLICK HERE. The series is the work of Christopher Campbell, a 2020 summer intern with Saint Philip’s.

What is neomodernism? What might Hegel say about the current direction of our world? In this final part of On The Evolution of Our Contemporary State we will look at neomodernism, its relation to metamodernism, and discuss how Hegelian dialectic might play a role in the current and future development of our art and culture.

Together we will break down the similarities and differences of neo- and metamodernism, as well as determine where we may be heading given what we see in the world today and patterns we have seen in the past.

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One may ask if metamodernism is describing the Hegelian synthesis or merely the observed combat between the thesis and anti-thesis of modernity and postmodernity. For, one way we may understand metamodernity is as a balance, but perhaps it is merely an intermediary stage. For now, something new seems to be taking hold. We seem to now have a close tie between the previously undulating pendulum of irony and enthusiasm. The pendulum seems to have now landed in a place where our apparent reality is ironic and we are enthusiastic about it.

In Anna Szyjkowska-Piotrowska’s 2016 paper “Neo/modernism – philosophical awareness in art” she describes a transition into neomodernism:

...the self-appointed representatives of neomodernism wish to restore representation as something powerful. They suggest a return to the easel, to painting, to the grand topics in the painting tradition. They view contemporary art as led astray. To support this thesis they quote Damien Hirst, who once stated that there has to be something wrong with the art world if one can ‘do’ it at the age of 32. The abovementioned representatives wish to restore the Christian symbols – such as the lamb, or the grand themes – like the nude. On top of this synthesis of all the past and the future, they believe that they are pointing the way to a new direction in art... For now we need to note that their understanding of neomodernism – but also any vision that incorporates synthesis – would have to include a possibility of a progression, of a path towards completion. The past of art should be then perceived by a neomodernist in the following way: the initial thesis lacks empirical validation (modernism). Therefore, the second negative phase is to give the thesis the sense of the concrete to negate it (postmodernism). The tension between the project that dominated modernity (modernism) and its anti-project (postmodernism) leads us to a synthesis (neomodernism?).

Based on protests and riots which coincide with, and were perhaps intensified by, this global pandemic and which mirror other events prior to it (the French, Hong Kong, Spanish, and many other protests, perhaps dating back to the Ukraine invasion by Russia and still even further into our early contemporary age) we see a rising up of revolutionary factions throughout our world. And this is perhaps not wrong at all. The modernist movement was one which came out of the Enlightenment and developed from the Industrial Revolution and World Wars I & II. It was one of both hope for the great possibilities of the future and consciousness of the seeming futility of humanity's nature. Regardless, it was hopeful in its end while conscientious of its beginnings. But the postmodern called out this hopefulness and made fun of its apparent lack of revolutionary progress and, further, questioned what progress truly was.

In the midst of a pandemic an atrocity of government power, the murder of several civilians by police officers, have ravaged our identity more than even the pandemic seemed to, and their deaths have become symbols of the many other atrocities similar to what they fell victim. For their deaths brought back to our minds the things which were resting so softly: the questions of government power and overreach, and race. Though these questions have never been far from our minds, the current climate seems to have developed a new sort of enthusiasm out of our given situation.

But now, instead of a rise in enthusiasm leading to irony, the two appear to have become balanced. We see the absurdity of our phenomenological world and we have accepted it, but at the same time we seek to somehow better it. We now use irony to enrich our enthusiasm rather than quell it, and vice versa. As such the Hegelian synthesis would be brought to completion and our new age defined more as a new modernism which includes reflection on the critiques of postmodernism: neomodernism.

But our time is still current and “Minerva in the end is right: we cannot grasp phenomena while they last. We also never know when they actually come to an end.” To understand whether we are now metamodern or neomodern in our artistic, philosophical, and social definitions we must choose. Do we follow the metamodern attitude and continue to undulate as a pendulum between the modern enthusiasm and postmodern irony, or do we take the momentum of both sides to truly synthesize into a neomodern state?

Whatever our decision I am hopeful. One of the world's last great global pandemics, the black plague, and its resulting sociopolitical upheaval helped pave the way for the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution. Both of these changed society on a fundamental level and propelled it forward. It seems very likely that what we are seeing now is something similar and, while it may be difficult for us now, we seem to be shaping a new and revolutionary age in history.

Christopher Campbell