MetaModernism and the Granularity of Coherency

Perhaps Postmodernism attempted to achieve diversity in the form that resembles static noise. The motivation may have been to undermine the formation of dangerous metanarratives that could lead to large scale fighting and intellectual dishonesty. However good the intentions, the price for incoherence may often be a low quality of life and, ironically, a type of homogeny that’s born from the long term effects of a mixing of random elements. How many screens of static noise can you recognize as distinct? Could a beast like the metanarrative of static noise ever exist and what violence may occur to those enthralled by its logic? Is it honest to say no acceptable alternatives exist?

The way forward may be for us to respect that the concerns of Postmodernism were legitimate but that larger granules of coherency may achieve the same goal of resisting a uniform metanarrative without as many negative consequences for quality of life. If total coherency is on one end and total random noise on the other, how many paths might we take through the middle? I propose that MetaModernism should explore conventions (MetaConventions?) for creating granules of coherency that are larger than the bits in statice noise by enabling a plurality of high quality conventions to coexist.

But who will create this conventions and how will people be assigned to them? Although capitalist may promote the market as the only practical way for this to be achieved, it’s dishonest to present the traditional capitalist market as the only possible market. Options are options in name only if they are not practical to exercise. For many people, traditional capitalists markets present them with many options they can see but few they can access.

A MetaModern approach may be to present the land and other natural resources as the proper inheritance of all of humanity, where each generation is entitled to benefit from their use and tasked with being good stewards for the benefit of future generations. The use of the land and extraction of natural resources could require that a fee be paid to the community, where the collected fees are distributed as a Universal Guaranteed Income (UGI). Acknowledgment of the land as the collective property of humanity would also entitle the community to the right to determine its proper use. Voting could decide how the land and other natural resources should be used and what the penalties should be for pollution that makes those resources less available to others. Markets could still exists, but the proper parties would now receive payment for use of these resources.

With every citizen now able to access more options in the marketplace of goods, services, and ideas - the notion of a plurality of conventions coexisting in the market seems more actual than nominal. Other post-capitalist conventions, such as accessible voluntary communes, may also facilitate allowing a larger portion of humanity to select from many high quality conventions for living.