Reminds me of Camus' suggestion in The Myth of Sisyphus that much of the reason people don't commit suicide is just the habit of staying alive. Where he ends up recommending we imagine Sisyphus happy, maybe metamodernism imagines Sisyphus thinking maybe he really will get the rock somewhere one day.
Great article! I'm always blessed by your writing Alan. I just read the other mereorthodoxy articles last night. I think one of the things grounding people's optimism and hope is the fact that they are the ones choosing to hope. It may be framed as "The reason chasing carrots is good is because I'm the one choosing to chase them". Instead of choice being a means to the end telos of serving and glorifying God. Choice ends up as the telos. I believe one of the reasons modernity feels so exhausting is the constant need to justify and actualize our existence through choice.
This is great, and captures well why I've always found metamodernism completely intellectually unsatisfying.
For what it's worth though, I think the authors completely butchered Kant's quote. I haven't read the broader context of what Kant writes there, but I think they've misread the grammar of his sentence and made him say something he isn't saying (in that sentence at least).
Reminds me of Camus' suggestion in The Myth of Sisyphus that much of the reason people don't commit suicide is just the habit of staying alive. Where he ends up recommending we imagine Sisyphus happy, maybe metamodernism imagines Sisyphus thinking maybe he really will get the rock somewhere one day.
Great article! I'm always blessed by your writing Alan. I just read the other mereorthodoxy articles last night. I think one of the things grounding people's optimism and hope is the fact that they are the ones choosing to hope. It may be framed as "The reason chasing carrots is good is because I'm the one choosing to chase them". Instead of choice being a means to the end telos of serving and glorifying God. Choice ends up as the telos. I believe one of the reasons modernity feels so exhausting is the constant need to justify and actualize our existence through choice.
Thanks for drawing my attention to this.
This is great, and captures well why I've always found metamodernism completely intellectually unsatisfying.
For what it's worth though, I think the authors completely butchered Kant's quote. I haven't read the broader context of what Kant writes there, but I think they've misread the grammar of his sentence and made him say something he isn't saying (in that sentence at least).