Reddit reviews Metamodernism: Historicity, Affect, and Depth after Postmodernism (Radical Cultural Studies)

> That sounds like new age garbage

That's because it is. Eschewing politics wherever possible, refusing to formulate a dialectic of transcendence subsumes ourselves to nothing more than a bastardized form of nihilist negation. The need for an accelerationist aesthetic necessitates participation in the very myths we create, for sure; but I don't think that implies ephemeral experience over everything else. Such things could easily be construed as liberal, centrist bullshit.. leading people to justify their own intellectual laziness as a result (sots' very own disagreeable wizards come to mind). The general sentiment I get here is that y'all are perfectly fine with the "structure of feeling" that Vermuelen and van den Akker utterly failed to properly define seven years ago. Fortunately, they're publishing their first book this September in which they recontextualize Fredric Jameson's arguments regarding our waning historicity in an attempt to do so; maybe that'll clear things up.

Thanks for that - I'm glad you found it interesting.


My father's argument was perhaps a little closer to something JBP might argue: he essentially asserted that we might think we have fairly unlimited freedom and self-determination, but that this is ultimately illusory. The circumstances of our existence essentially dictate a large proportion of what we do and how we do it, and therefore, a focus on freedom from such circumstances is naive, and the resentment that it inevitably generates is unnecessary. I think I agree with this to a large extent - though what I find interesting is how much some people struggle in the face of this somewhat obvious truth.


I agree with your comments re materialism, and DFW's need for certainty. I think his self awareness of this fact is probably one of the hallmarks of his writing!


I think I might have interpreted the admiration for AA a little differently to you. In Infinite Jest, AA is presented as a way of resolving the spiritual crisis of the frustrated will to addiction I described in my article, and I think it is ultimately a 'metamodern' view on the nature of faith. Gately's struggle with AA seems to be that the escape of spiritual nihilism relies on placing faith in a set of maxims that are self-evidently constructed - and yet, engaging sincerely with these maxims, despite knowing their constructed nature, still results in a more spiritually fulfilled life for those that do it.


There's a great article on DFW in this book where the authors suggest that DFW's ultimate message is that the escape of the solipsism and nihilism of postmodern thought seems to rely on allowing oneself to be vulnerable to interpersonal interaction: to place faith in the power of connectedness. I think I agree with this to some extent - I would be interested to hear your thoughts though. https://www.amazon.com/Metamodernism-Historicity-Postmodernism-Radical-Cultural/dp/1783489618