Metamodern Futures: Prescriptions for Metamodern Foresight

In light of this sweeping scope and elastic structure, the test of the value of metamodernism is no less than this: whether it helps us feel at home in a world that might not be falling apart.

When seen in this light, whereby meta is a sincerely ironic ‘trinity’ of between, after and beyond, and metamodernism has four orienting touchstones of interiority, intimacy, historicity and ecology, what is on offer is a lodestar that helps to orient our perception of context.

The point of metamodernism is therefore to help us better perceive our historical context by developing theories and practices that allow us to feel into what it means to be in a time between worlds, where meta-crises relating to meaning and perception abound and we struggle to perceive clearly who we are and what we might do;

• post-tragic (meaning and agency on the other side of despair)

• post-extrinsic (driven by new societal purposes)

• post-rational (open to ways of knowing that transcend and include the intellect),

• post-exploitation (reflective about the uses and abuses of power)

• post-tribal (whole-hearted togetherness in a world of love and power; an expansive ‘W

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“The Official Future” tells us to “think exponentially, act incrementally,” beckoning us to utilize foresight in service of the ever-expanding present systems of quantifying, micro-analyzing, extracting, consuming, and automating. This way of futuring is at the heart of Epistemic Uncertainty. “The Emergent Future” instead challenges us to “ think t... See more

Metamodernism, then, is not so much a word for a new historical epoch, but rather a new disposition towards the experience of history unfolding.

The future depict­ed here is one where Euro­pean cit­i­zens reclaim agency through intro­spec­tion. As pre­vail­ing nar­ra­tives of per­pet­u­al eco­nom­ic growth and tech­no­log­i­cal fix­es fal­ter, more and more indi­vid­u­als believe that chang­ing the world begins with per­son­al trans­for­ma­tion.