METAMODERNISM: FROM IRONY TO SINCERITY IN THE SINKING CITY
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways;
the point, however, is to change it.”
-Karl Marx, ‘Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach’
the point, however, is to change it.”
-Karl Marx, ‘Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach’
Literary and cultural theorists have long recognised that the postmodern era is concluded or, to paraphrase cultural critic Alan Kirby, postmodernism is dead (2006). Consequently, there have been cross-disciplinary efforts to not only outline new cultural movements but to do so with purpose. Whilst the importance of both postmodernism, and indeed modernism, are still pertinent within literary criticism, those entrenched in the discipline are still striving to identify a theoretical approach by which to analyse fiction (and in this, I include other textual mediums) that has emerged in the years since 9/11, and especially those produced in the very midst of the digital era. As well as mapping out what constitutes metamodernism according to its most prominent of theorists, Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, I will also attempt to make sense of the way in which new tropes in textuality are related to and contribute to what we understand to be metamodernism or, metamodern literary devices. An analysis of Ben Lerner’s 10:04 (2014) will form a, hopefully, illuminating part of this paper where I will seek to map out the authors atypical narrative in order to isolate key mechanisms that underpin a move towards sincerity. However, in the first instance, this paper will seek to define and explore some of the dominant theories that are understood as post-postmodernism with a view to understanding the emergence of metamodernism. Metamodernism, as is understood presently, seeks to counter the collapse of our detachment from authentic interaction and creative processes and aims to, instead, reincarnate a sincere and substantial philosophical response to tragedies born from the failings of global capitalism. In order to then use this as an effective tool for literary and cultural analysis, this paper must first of all attempt to initiate some understanding of the fertile theoretical ground in which Metamodernism has found a prominence amongst an array of disciplines.
Post-Postmodernism – What now?
Since Alan Kirby pronounced postmodernism as dead, there has been a plethora of proposed theories and cultural perceptions that have tried to understand and diagnose this strange, rebooted modernism that we have faced since 9/11, the financial crash of 2007/8 and the ongoing (and seemingly increasing) political anxiety. Alan Kirby somewhat anticipated the present theories in his 2006 essay, ‘Death of Postmodernism and Beyond’ when he mapped out what he, at first, christens ‘pseudo-modernism’. Kirby sets forth in his piece that postmodernism has been dislodged of its prominence by an escalating materialisation of digitisation and global advances in technology. However, while it would be wilfully neglectful to not acknowledge the wider point in Kirby’s early piece, his theory of pseudo-modernism is not without fault. Kirby superciliously portrays this new, digitised era as a negative space for irreverence whereby he romantically memorialises the postmodern period where “one read, watched, listened” and alleges that this has been replaced by “…clicks, presses, surfs, chooses, moves, downloads.” (Philosophy Now, 2006). Whilst this is certainly an accurate assessment of the changing nature of cultural communication, it is not unbiased in its accusatory tone. Kirby’s assertion that one method will replace the other (I note that this may be due to the essay’s embryonic state) fails to accept that the ‘digital’ ways in which we now access culture only augments the experience of reading, watching and listening and, most importantly, can be done without obstacle. By the time Kirby published his 2009 text, Digimodernism: How New Technologies Dismantle the Postmodern and Reconfigure Our Culture, his theory, (with some nuances) is now rebranded as Digimodernism which he describes as “…another stage within modernity, a shift from one phase of its history into another.” (2009, p. 2 – 3). Within this, Kirby discusses the cultural repercussions of the collapse of the World Trade Centre on 9/11 and somewhat parallels this with what he recognises as an appetite for a ‘new sincerity’;
Since Alan Kirby pronounced postmodernism as dead, there has been a plethora of proposed theories and cultural perceptions that have tried to understand and diagnose this strange, rebooted modernism that we have faced since 9/11, the financial crash of 2007/8 and the ongoing (and seemingly increasing) political anxiety. Alan Kirby somewhat anticipated the present theories in his 2006 essay, ‘Death of Postmodernism and Beyond’ when he mapped out what he, at first, christens ‘pseudo-modernism’. Kirby sets forth in his piece that postmodernism has been dislodged of its prominence by an escalating materialisation of digitisation and global advances in technology. However, while it would be wilfully neglectful to not acknowledge the wider point in Kirby’s early piece, his theory of pseudo-modernism is not without fault. Kirby superciliously portrays this new, digitised era as a negative space for irreverence whereby he romantically memorialises the postmodern period where “one read, watched, listened” and alleges that this has been replaced by “…clicks, presses, surfs, chooses, moves, downloads.” (Philosophy Now, 2006). Whilst this is certainly an accurate assessment of the changing nature of cultural communication, it is not unbiased in its accusatory tone. Kirby’s assertion that one method will replace the other (I note that this may be due to the essay’s embryonic state) fails to accept that the ‘digital’ ways in which we now access culture only augments the experience of reading, watching and listening and, most importantly, can be done without obstacle. By the time Kirby published his 2009 text, Digimodernism: How New Technologies Dismantle the Postmodern and Reconfigure Our Culture, his theory, (with some nuances) is now rebranded as Digimodernism which he describes as “…another stage within modernity, a shift from one phase of its history into another.” (2009, p. 2 – 3). Within this, Kirby discusses the cultural repercussions of the collapse of the World Trade Centre on 9/11 and somewhat parallels this with what he recognises as an appetite for a ‘new sincerity’;
|
“Digimodernist earnestness, as far as a cultural mode can be, is necessary, that is, a sociohistorical expression, not a personal preference. It cannot be called for or promoted as it’s already here, and right at the heart of our culture.” (p. 151).
|
|
This idea of ‘sincerity’ seems to be the axis on which theories of post-postmodernism (before and after Kirby’s piece) convene. This idea, in fact, of sincerity becoming a leading literary paradigm was conceptualised over a decade before Kirby by David Foster Wallace in an essay, ‘E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction’ (1993). Foster Wallace imagines a group of literary “rebels” who “back away from ironic watching” as an attempt to thwart irony that was rooted in the culture of the 1990’s, though he concludes that such a shift in literary circles would draw immediate criticism. Later, though three years before Kirby published his text, cultural critic Jesse Thorn wrote a piece on his bloG, Maximum Fun, where he explicitly outlined what he called ‘A Manifesto for The New Sincerity’ (2006) and explained how one can understand The New Sincerity; “Think of it as irony and sincerity combined like Voltron, to form a new movement of astonishing power. Or think of it as the absence of irony and sincerity, where less is (obviously) more”. Further Thorn asked us to embrace it; “Throw caution to the wind, friend, and live The New Sincerity.” (2006). The cultural shift towards sincerity, especially in film and literature, has gained increasing prominence in the last decade and now exists as more than a fringe artistic statement, but, in fact, can be witnessed very much in the mainstream.
Metamodernism, Now.
One branch of the post-postmodern theories that seems to have gained the most legitimacy in recent cultural theory is metamodernism which is a semi-amalgamation of other proposed theories but is largely established in the post-irony faction with a heavy emphasis on the move towards sincerity. Whilst there have been valid efforts from other academic or cultural critics, none seem to embody the scope for evolution as Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker’s theory of metamodernism (‘Notes on Metamodernism’, 2010) who proposed that there had taken place a seismic deviation in our culture from postmodernism to metamodernism that is to do with increasing alienation and suffocated creativity. Though still in relative infancy, metamodernism, according to Vermeulen and Akker, accomplishes more than other proposed cultural philosophies as it not only responds to but envelops the current political, economic and cultural quagmire which is grounded in impendent (and purposefully orchestrated) apprehension. Whereas Kirby’s earlier ideas illustrate a distinct contrast to separate postmodernism and digimodernism, Vermeulen and Akker not only adopt a more progressive tone, but also convey a much more accurate depiction of a much more complicated culture that “…oscillates between a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony, between hope and melancholy, between naïveté and knowingness, empathy and apathy, unity and plurality, totality and fragmentation, purity and ambiguity.” (‘Notes on Metamodernism’, 2010, pp. 5-6). Though this seems like almost a too-fluid summary of an era, like both modernism and postmodernism, metamodernism is born of an enormous global shift that has reached the limits of outward-looking digital advancement and instead, asks we turn the focus on to ourselves to reflect on how we can face the failings of late capitalism. Simultaneous with the conception of metamodernism, Lecercle wrote “I am proposing not a return to the old Marxist concept of literature as a reflection of the historical, political, and linguistic conjunctures but an active concept of literature as an intervention in them” (‘Return to the Political’, 2010, p. 919). Conclusively, we can map the shift which concurrently calls for an active endeavour towards sincerity and a shift towards literature (again, I include other textual mediums in this) that seeks to challenge rather than document the political and cultural climate. Undoubtedly, there is evidence of this dichotomised narrative in many ‘post - 9/11’ texts, though the idea that 9/11 is somehow indicative of a shift towards post-postmodernism is countered by Vermeulen and Akker in their collaborative paper;
One branch of the post-postmodern theories that seems to have gained the most legitimacy in recent cultural theory is metamodernism which is a semi-amalgamation of other proposed theories but is largely established in the post-irony faction with a heavy emphasis on the move towards sincerity. Whilst there have been valid efforts from other academic or cultural critics, none seem to embody the scope for evolution as Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker’s theory of metamodernism (‘Notes on Metamodernism’, 2010) who proposed that there had taken place a seismic deviation in our culture from postmodernism to metamodernism that is to do with increasing alienation and suffocated creativity. Though still in relative infancy, metamodernism, according to Vermeulen and Akker, accomplishes more than other proposed cultural philosophies as it not only responds to but envelops the current political, economic and cultural quagmire which is grounded in impendent (and purposefully orchestrated) apprehension. Whereas Kirby’s earlier ideas illustrate a distinct contrast to separate postmodernism and digimodernism, Vermeulen and Akker not only adopt a more progressive tone, but also convey a much more accurate depiction of a much more complicated culture that “…oscillates between a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony, between hope and melancholy, between naïveté and knowingness, empathy and apathy, unity and plurality, totality and fragmentation, purity and ambiguity.” (‘Notes on Metamodernism’, 2010, pp. 5-6). Though this seems like almost a too-fluid summary of an era, like both modernism and postmodernism, metamodernism is born of an enormous global shift that has reached the limits of outward-looking digital advancement and instead, asks we turn the focus on to ourselves to reflect on how we can face the failings of late capitalism. Simultaneous with the conception of metamodernism, Lecercle wrote “I am proposing not a return to the old Marxist concept of literature as a reflection of the historical, political, and linguistic conjunctures but an active concept of literature as an intervention in them” (‘Return to the Political’, 2010, p. 919). Conclusively, we can map the shift which concurrently calls for an active endeavour towards sincerity and a shift towards literature (again, I include other textual mediums in this) that seeks to challenge rather than document the political and cultural climate. Undoubtedly, there is evidence of this dichotomised narrative in many ‘post - 9/11’ texts, though the idea that 9/11 is somehow indicative of a shift towards post-postmodernism is countered by Vermeulen and Akker in their collaborative paper;
|
“Terrorism neither infused doubt about the supposed superiority of neoliberalism, nor did it inspire reflection about the basic assumptions of Western economics, politics, and culture - quite the contrary. The conservative reflex of the ‘‘war on terror’’ might even be taken to symbolize a reaffirmation of postmodern values. The threefold ‘‘threat’’ of the credit crunch, a collapsed center, and climate change has the opposite effect, as it infuses doubt, inspires reflection, and incites a move forward out of the postmodern and into the metamodern.” (p. 5)
|
|
Accordingly, in this paper, I will pay particular attention to Ben Lerner’s 10:04 (2014) which is set both post-9/11 in the New York landscape but as posited by the above theorists, gains little from identifying itself as such and makes a decidedly conscious effort to inspire reflection and infuse doubt.
10:04.
Much like the unequivocal tenets of metamodernism, Lerner’s novel is about oscillation. In 10:04, the narrator himself tells his fictional publisher that in his next novel he will “work [his] way from irony to sincerity in the sinking city, a would-be Whitman of the vulnerable grid.” (2014, p. 8). However, the narrator is also almost Lerner, and what he proposes for his upcoming fictional novel, he delivers in 10:04. The temporality of Lerner’s novel oscillates between two devastating real-world events and is set in New York in the period between Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Sandy – events of the type which Vermeulen and Akker propose “…incites a move forward out of the postmodern and into the metamodern.” (2010, p. 5). The narrator in 10:04, as mentioned previously, closely reflects the achievements of and life events of Lerner himself – a purposeful, and of course, sincere method by which to circumnavigate detachment with the reader and it is impossible not to engage with the narrator as if it was Lerner himself as he specifically tells the reader that is exactly what he is doing; “the book you’re reading now, a work that, like a poem, is neither fiction nor nonfiction but a flickering between them.” (p. 159). The oscillation between fiction and non-fiction, here, signals the problematic nature of the reader/author relationship and the limitations of fiction that do not exist within poetry (Lerner is a celebrated poet before novelist) and criticism. While the narrator of the novel ruminates on the novels he should be writing, the reader is aware that the text must have been formulated as, seemingly, it is the text they are reading;
Much like the unequivocal tenets of metamodernism, Lerner’s novel is about oscillation. In 10:04, the narrator himself tells his fictional publisher that in his next novel he will “work [his] way from irony to sincerity in the sinking city, a would-be Whitman of the vulnerable grid.” (2014, p. 8). However, the narrator is also almost Lerner, and what he proposes for his upcoming fictional novel, he delivers in 10:04. The temporality of Lerner’s novel oscillates between two devastating real-world events and is set in New York in the period between Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Sandy – events of the type which Vermeulen and Akker propose “…incites a move forward out of the postmodern and into the metamodern.” (2010, p. 5). The narrator in 10:04, as mentioned previously, closely reflects the achievements of and life events of Lerner himself – a purposeful, and of course, sincere method by which to circumnavigate detachment with the reader and it is impossible not to engage with the narrator as if it was Lerner himself as he specifically tells the reader that is exactly what he is doing; “the book you’re reading now, a work that, like a poem, is neither fiction nor nonfiction but a flickering between them.” (p. 159). The oscillation between fiction and non-fiction, here, signals the problematic nature of the reader/author relationship and the limitations of fiction that do not exist within poetry (Lerner is a celebrated poet before novelist) and criticism. While the narrator of the novel ruminates on the novels he should be writing, the reader is aware that the text must have been formulated as, seemingly, it is the text they are reading;
|
“Later we would learn it was Goldman Sachs, see photographs in which one of the few illuminated buildings in the skyline was the investment banking firm, an image I’d use for the cover of my book — not the one I was contracted to write about fraudulence, but the one I’ve written in its place for you, to you, on the very edge of fiction.”(p. 193)
|
|
Lerner completely breaks down the ironic distance between himself and the reader and directly appeals to his reader by asking questions as if the reader were able to answer; “Do you know what I mean if I say that when I reached the second floor and disposed of the wax paper…” (p. 17). Though it would be dismissive to say that the techniques employed by Lerner are born of anything but his own style, the style of his fiction corresponds with the objectives outlined in Luke Turner’s ‘Modernist Manifesto’ (2011);
|
“2. We must liberate ourselves from the inertia resulting from a century of modernist ideological naivety and the cynical insincerity of its antonymous bastard child.” (2011).
|
|
To further subvert the formulae of the ‘traditional’ narrative, Lerner’s narrator takes to assuming that the reader is inside the quasi-fictitious world with him, or he is outside with us; “You might have seen us walking on Atlantic” (p. 11) and as unfolds throughout, even as the narrator directly addresses the reader, we learn that the narrator is unreliable but in a way which is unlike other fictional ‘unreliable narrators’ like Humbert Humbert in Lolita (1967), the narrator is not trying to manipulate or seek trust from the reader but instead, he merely questions memory as a device for creating and accepting narratives; “one of the two iconic dinosaurs of my youth turns out not to have existed… retrospectively [this] struck hard at my childhood worldview, my remembered sense of both galactic and geological time” (p. 14). All of Lerner’s devices are intended to make the reader a part of the action whilst simultaneously enforcing some of the onus of the narrative upon the reader. Kirby, in ‘The Death of Postmodernism and Beyond’, argues that post-postmodernism era is one which sees (in this example) author and reader as a collective (p. 57). The narrator in 10:04 acts as a vehicle by which Lerner questions his own standing within the world (literary and wider) and, in turn, forces the reader to attempt to question their relationship with the world (literary and wider).
Linda Hutcheon in her text A Poetics of Postmodernism (2003) outlines that the text is inefficient as a mode by which we can recall history but it is the only medium which can attempt to somewhat interpret history (p. 87 – 91). As I have shown throughout this paper, the themes within Ben Lerner’s contemporary novel, 10:04, parallel those that underpin the ‘inevitable failings’ of metamodernism as Lerner encourages a pursuit of authenticity both within and outside of the text whilst simultaneously referencing its mortality as a text. Attempting to define the present time in which we live is an almost futile endeavour. This is made especially difficult for those tasked with analysing the relationship between contemporary cultural artefacts and rapidly transmogrifying political, economic and societal sphere. However, it is human nature to attempt to characterise an era past or present by its cultural artefacts. Throughout I have attempted to map the relatively slow-burning shift from postmodern thought to a move towards sincerity using Lerner’s novel which, like metamodernism, seeks to overcome the impossibility of accomplishing meaning through language or even theory. If modernism ended with the disavowal of a grand narrative, then postmodernism ended when we started to make a sincere pilgrimage towards an inward-facing narrative.
References:
Hutcheon, L. (2000). A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory and Fiction. London: Routledge.
Kirby, A. (2006). ‘The Death of Postmodernism and Beyond’. Philosophy Now, 58. Available at: https://philosophynow.org/issues/58/The_Death_of_Postmodernism_And_Beyond. [Accessed 01/04/2017].
Kirby, A. (2009). Digimodernism: How New Technologies Dismantle the Postmodern and Reconfigure Our Culture. London: Continuum
Lecercle, J. J. (2010) ‘Return to the Political.’ PMLA. 125.4, 2010. Pp. 916-19. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41058289?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents [Accessed on 15th June 2017)
Thorn, J. (2006). ‘A Manifesto for The New Sincerity’. Maximum Fun. Available at: http://www.maximumfun.org/blog/2006/02/manifesto-for-new-sincerity.html [Accessed on 9th June 2017)
Turner, L. (2011). ‘Metamodernist Manifesto’. Metamodernism. Available at: http://www.metamodernism.org/ [Accessed on 11th June 2017).
Wallace, D. F. 1993. ‘E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction’. Review of Contemporary Fiction. 13 (2). p.151. Available at: https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf. [Accessed on 14th June 2017).
Vermeulen, T & van den Akker, R. (2010) ‘Notes on Metamodernism’, Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, 2. pp.1-14. Available online at: http://www.emerymartin.net/FE503/Week10/Notes%20on%20Metamodernism.pdf [Accessed on 26th May 2017].
Hutcheon, L. (2000). A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory and Fiction. London: Routledge.
Kirby, A. (2006). ‘The Death of Postmodernism and Beyond’. Philosophy Now, 58. Available at: https://philosophynow.org/issues/58/The_Death_of_Postmodernism_And_Beyond. [Accessed 01/04/2017].
Kirby, A. (2009). Digimodernism: How New Technologies Dismantle the Postmodern and Reconfigure Our Culture. London: Continuum
Lecercle, J. J. (2010) ‘Return to the Political.’ PMLA. 125.4, 2010. Pp. 916-19. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41058289?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents [Accessed on 15th June 2017)
Thorn, J. (2006). ‘A Manifesto for The New Sincerity’. Maximum Fun. Available at: http://www.maximumfun.org/blog/2006/02/manifesto-for-new-sincerity.html [Accessed on 9th June 2017)
Turner, L. (2011). ‘Metamodernist Manifesto’. Metamodernism. Available at: http://www.metamodernism.org/ [Accessed on 11th June 2017).
Wallace, D. F. 1993. ‘E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction’. Review of Contemporary Fiction. 13 (2). p.151. Available at: https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf. [Accessed on 14th June 2017).
Vermeulen, T & van den Akker, R. (2010) ‘Notes on Metamodernism’, Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, 2. pp.1-14. Available online at: http://www.emerymartin.net/FE503/Week10/Notes%20on%20Metamodernism.pdf [Accessed on 26th May 2017].