This was an enjoyable article to read, thank you for posting it! I loved the term "epistemic agility," and the call to acquire more of it somehow. The reference to Zach Stein's warning about getting lost within the infinite regress of meta-meta reflecting, and also that pointing out the meta is not necessarily a solution itself to the problems revealed through meta-awareness. Continually my attention returns to the mechanism of Justification as a critical foundation point in remaining anchored and moored whilst encountering these overlapping waves of problems and overlapping articulations of those problems (and, naturally, the problem-waves that the articulations themselves produce, and so on and so on). -Chance On Fri, Feb 14, 2020 at 6:21 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx < [log in to unmask]> wrote: > Hi List, > > Below is a note from Jonathan Rowson sharing an essay on the meta-crises > we are in, followed by my reply. > > > Best, > > Gregg > > > > > > *From:* [log in to unmask] < > [log in to unmask]> *On Behalf Of *Jonathan Rowson > *Sent:* Friday, February 14, 2020 6:33 AM > *To:* New Metamodernism List <[log in to unmask]> > *Subject:* How to think about the meta-crisis without getting too excited. > > > > Hello friends. > > > > You are friends, right? > > > > I've been working on a longer paper making some conceptual distinctions > between 'the emergency', 'the crisis', 'the meta-crisis' and 'the pickle'. > > > > I realised I will need a few more weeks or even months to finish it, and > won't have time for a while, so I wrote a brief reader-friendly overview on > Medium to elicit some feedback in the meantime (and because it's an > emergency!). > > > > The brief overview is this: > > > > The emergency is about the urgency to act. The crisis is about the > unreasonable necessity of transformation. The meta-crisis is about the > tenacity of our inertia. The pickle is not another name for the meta-crisis > but a way of recognising its plurality without getting lost in it, and > keeping it connected to the beating heart of the emergency and the > materiality of the crisis. > > Experiencing the pickle is playing with abstraction enough to know our > predicament as fully as possible, but then gladly returning back into > everyday existence, crucially in a way that is no longer naïve about the > provenance of our situation. > > > > I also believe there are three main patterns of meta-crisis (each of which > has at least three illustrations in the longer paper): > > > > The hyphen in *‘meta-crisis’* speaks of a crisis of self-reference and > sometimes a paradoxical failure of achievement; too much liberty may kill > liberalism, too much voting can weaken democracies, and we don’t always > understand how we understand, we tend to deny our denial, and we are > struggling to imagine a new imaginary. > > The composite word *‘metacrisis’* is inspired by our German friends, and > useful for resolving to speak to the cross-pollinating crises of our time > as one thing; the aim is to better ‘join the dots’ between apparently > disparate phenomena while recognising that no single grand vision or > narrative, however textured and inclusive, can fully make sense of itself. > > The adjective in *‘meta crisis’* says that’s the kind of crisis it is — a > crisis defined by a debilitating lack of epistemic agility –too much > abstraction in some ways and too little in others; a cultural inability or > unwillingness to ‘go meta’, for instance to think *about *the political > spectrum rather than merely thinking with it, or for economic commentators > to question the very idea of ‘the economy’ or what exactly we mean by > ‘money’. > > In the longer paper, metamodernism also features more prominently, but for > now you'll have to put up with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a Batman > (1989) clip and the return of the meta pumpkin pie. > > > > Hope you like it! > > > > > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__medium.com_-40jonathanrowson_how-2Dto-2Dthink-2Dabout-2Dthe-2Dmeta-2Dcrisis-2Dwithout-2Dgetting-2Dtoo-2Dexcited-2D62066a82b9c9&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=XNsBStZM1ZXEgqJrq2JR0MxHr3m7E96Yl5QXauZDW9g&s=OBi0EwnTh92j-4mvB3WSazKQJr8aBfj-jXN7MNrVbrE&e= > <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__medium.com_-40jonathanrowson_how-2Dto-2Dthink-2Dabout-2Dthe-2Dmeta-2Dcrisis-2Dwithout-2Dgetting-2Dtoo-2Dexcited-2D62066a82b9c9&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=wjF8cZoiFchamTuxBdDEmw&m=nvAt0T79_dfnraU4_eaicAgUxD8dAi_39G3ksrO1V04&s=TlpyYonJ8ScELJM1WTv1-YX6Ef4Jn_7g7AyahXwroYg&e=> > > > > Jonathan. > > > > > > Jonathan, > > Very nice. I will forward your note over on my Tree/Theory of Knowledge > List serve with your permission. > > > > My own version of describing the meta-crisis is “the Digital Identity > Problem > <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2Dknowledge_201908_the-2Ddigital-2Didentity-2Dproblem&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=XNsBStZM1ZXEgqJrq2JR0MxHr3m7E96Yl5QXauZDW9g&s=2sldvPiD1KG2FR16wAU7s6A2cLICOC0w-WX4UkzBAkM&e=>” > and my commitment is to try each day to be part of the solution. For me > that involves “awareness, acceptance and active change” in one of the four > domains that are listed. I was reminded the other day of an important > slogan that I think captures some of the pickle we are in. I was having a > conversation with a doctoral student about my Unified Framework > <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2Dknowledge_202001_new-2Dmetapsychology-2Dthe-2D21st-2Dcentury&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=XNsBStZM1ZXEgqJrq2JR0MxHr3m7E96Yl5QXauZDW9g&s=Dck_r4M6DtnhJMdJJ21O3L_rYFRhVj-P2lt7rdnNgJ0&e=> > being metamodern vision and that I had been having a number of clashes at > work with folks who are fully embracing the postmodern vision, especially > on issues of diversity and inclusion and identity politics. She stated that > although she wanted to get to a metamodern view, she also noted that folks > needed to go through the postmodern view. She warned me that people often > face a choice between going fast and far alone or going slow and steady > together. I agreed that made sense. And yet part of the struggle I have is > that, given the situation we are in, we now need to go fast and far > together! That seems to be another way to think about the pickle we are in. > > > > Best, > > Gregg > > > > ___________________________________________ > > Gregg Henriques, Ph.D. > Professor > Department of Graduate Psychology > 216 Johnston Hall > MSC 7401 > James Madison University > Harrisonburg, VA 22807 > (540) 568-7857 (phone) > (540) 568-4747 (fax) > > > > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "New Metamodernism List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [log in to unmask] > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__groups.google.com_d_msgid_new-2Dmetamodernism-2Dlist_CAMbegO-2D2ZVNkVoKDmZBE-252BWbcRYMvCnJOsh2NihVJ9w-252BSRgzGzA-2540mail.gmail.com&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=XNsBStZM1ZXEgqJrq2JR0MxHr3m7E96Yl5QXauZDW9g&s=s4rPbvz-8Rhxn56xG4tqB43JF4zoJD63aUM2ogXAlAE&e= > <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__groups.google.com_d_msgid_new-2Dmetamodernism-2Dlist_CAMbegO-2D2ZVNkVoKDmZBE-252BWbcRYMvCnJOsh2NihVJ9w-252BSRgzGzA-2540mail.gmail.com-3Futm-5Fmedium-3Demail-26utm-5Fsource-3Dfooter&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=wjF8cZoiFchamTuxBdDEmw&m=nvAt0T79_dfnraU4_eaicAgUxD8dAi_39G3ksrO1V04&s=ImsAD7I_vW9uiRf6N7WNGgj1iy0uO7c3MwZFFTQTnBM&e=> > . > ############################ > > To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: > mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the > following link: > http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 > ############################ To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1