The Listening Society: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book One

by Hanzi Freinacht

For state, width means the length of the time period you manage to stay within di...

For depth it is the time you have spent at states and the variety of different experiences you have successfully i...

The difference between vMeme and effective value memes is that the latter theory allows for four kinds of comparison.

This is not very surprising, given that the symbol-stages are the most observable part of people’s overall development; they give us the words and templates we use to relate to the world. Whereas state, depth and even stage are all difficult to observe directly, the symbol-stage is relatively manifest. But symbol-stages and effective value memes are not the same. The symbol-stages are the abstract logics inherent to the symbols, whereas effective value meme are descriptions of embodied behaviors.

Very important for data linguistic studies aimed at measuring or predicting effective value memes

Remember, remember: The effective value meme is only a “master pattern” in your four dimensions of development. So people within the different effective value memes can look very different from one another.

In my book on historical development, The 6 Hidden Patterns of World History, I present so-called metamemes, which have the same names as these value memes (and the symbol-stages).

displays of social strength

Nice distinction from animistic physical strength

Only in the last few decades have a majority of socialists taken up the postmodern value meme.

One of the main faculties of humans is that they can think rationally. Since humans are the sole source of this rationality in the world, they are viewed as being at the center of reality.

Humans are not only individuals but also citizens. This is an extremely powerful idea.

They present an absolute truth and people can know this truth by reason and science. But knowing the truth depends on intersubjective verification; otherwise it might be an illusion of the senses or a delusion of the mind.

The postmodern mind focuses on questioning, criticizing and picking apart the things that are generally taken for granted.

Very good generalization

No longer humanity in creative opposition to nature, but rather, in creative opposition to culture.

The need for a sense of uniqueness grows from alienation. Alienation makes you miserable so you have a pervasive sense that there must be something wrong: Is it the world, or me? Because we all need to maintain a positive self-image, we must conclude that the world is at fault rather than ourselves, and that we are somehow an exception from the world, hence not partaking in its badness.

an inclusive and harmonious society cannot be achieved within the confines of modern life or by means of a postmodern critique thereof. Hence, a new society must be created from the modern one, which means that the metamodernist must ultimately be against modern society.

you can spot the Metamodern value meme in people who have successfully internalized all of the postmodern values and thinking, but also add a developmental perspective and begin to value inner growth and authenticity to a much higher degree.

The postmodern mind seeks to include all voices, but only insofar as those voices say things that are acceptable to the postmodernists themselves.

there would be a murderous critique of the metamodern code—which is nowhere to be found.

The criticism that metamodernism is too much ado about nothing in comparison to dropping out from society, caring for the immediate spot and people and work as little as possible?

It’s an immature fantasy.

Haha

Secularism isn’t really about religion vs. non-religion, or spirituality vs. non-spirituality; it is about expanding the ability to question and recreate reality.

just seems like most normal people are not that complex or obsessed with symbolic codes; it is more common to just have higher states and greater depth.

People who are of high complexity, state and depth, will tend to be progressive in comparison to their own societies.

When societies, for any number of reasons, produce large segments of populations that are lagging behind when it comes to value meme development, you get value meme retardation. The word retardation means “being too late”, which is what we’re talking about here.

So when light-modern Trump draws on postfaustian ethnocentric values he is being regressive;

the soft-edged folks—who prefer vagueness over certainty, openness over boundary-making, and wholeness over parts—are the ones who out-depth and/or out-state their own complexity and code.

We live in a magical and miraculous world, but there is no magic and there are no miracles.

All according to the metamodern dictum: after deconstruction must follow reconstruction. Let’s also take stock

We need to, above all, improve the subjective states of all humans.

Christian love imperative

Is it really beyond our ability to create institutions that support our happiness and development?

The modern value meme didn’t evolve for the purpose of maintaining a super-productive, environmentally monstrous, hyper-connected, hyper-mobile mega-civilization of seven-going-on-nine billion people, spanning across all world cultures and across all value memes.

Otherwise—how could Sweden’s population have much higher average effective value meme than the US population, which is in turn much higher than India’s average population?

And the pomos don’t like it one bit when metamodernism shows up and tells them that they’re not being anywhere nearly as inclusive, critical and multiperspectival as they thought they were.

postmodern hipster snobs and creepy yoga hippies

Which we have a couple of examples of at Aengsviksgarden :-)

Postmodernists have shown very little mercy against the modern mainstream people these last few decades: Using all manner of judgmental shaming strategies and political correctness to make people comply with moral causes like gender equality, anti-racism and animal rights.

Nor can they devise a plan for increasing the effective value meme over a few decades.

can we?

Value memes cannot be friends.

One such piece is the process oriented party, like The Alternative in Denmark and some other interesting movements around Europe.

The ones who use the map will much more accurately predict the behaviors of others, spot the developmental trends of society, and identify the key issues and problems of the world.

But how spot what actions to take?

We go ahead with pragmatic idealism, with magical realism and informed naivety.

Well put

To see that God is dead and humanism dying (humanism is the humanity-centered worldview originating in the Renaissance) and to accept and celebrate this by taking meaning-creation into one’s own hands.

there are substantial insights and relevant knowledge in all stages of human and societal development, including tribal life, polytheism, traditional theology, modern industrialism and postmodern critique. In another book, I call this the evolution of “meta-memes”.

acknowledging inner experience is often the golden key to managing society’s problems.

To support a democratic, intersubjective, participatory, scientifically supported, peer-to-peer created spirituality, rather than traditional paths, teachers, gurus or authorities.

To see no fundamental divide between nature and culture.

often associated with Carl Jung, etc., which is not part of the metamodern paradigm).

To see sustainability and resilience as fundamental questions to all social life.

To see “everyday life” as something that humanity can and should transcend in favor of a more actual and authentic form of life and community.

adopt a depth psychology stance towards humanity, seeing that her consciousness is transformable by changing her fundamental sense of self and sense of reality. This is achievable through psychoanalysis (or “schizoanalysis”) and love relationships as well as athletic, aesthetic, erotic, intellectual and spiritual practices—where contemplative mysticism stands out as a very valuable path.

It oscillates between a modern enthusiasm

What Per Johansson calls for

Although ISIS is hardly run by people at the metamodern stage of development, its very occurrence is, in a way, a metamodern phenomenon—its