Extract from Alexander Beiner -
The end of Postmodernism and the promise of Theosis https://beiner.substack.com/p/welcome-to-peak-fragmentation We are living through Peak Fragmentation. Across the Western world, there is a resurgence of traditionalism and authoritarianism in response. A ‘quiet revival’ of Christianity is getting louder every day. Others are looking to new horizons, building AI religions or retreating to ‘conscious communities’ to try and sow the seeds of a new society.
death of a cultural aesthetic : postmodernism
people also tend to be more prosocial and conscientious when they’re embedded in a coherent social network.
people’s commitment to values like love, honour and justice is often viewed as independent of culture...economic pressures often force people to trade those ‘sacred values’ in what he calls ‘taboo trade-offs,
desire to reconnect to these authentic values.
We could revert to a more authoritarian, closed-minded traditionalism, or beat the dead horse of progressive politics
we have an opportunity to re-craft culture in a way that takes the best of postmodernism and combines it with traditionalism to create something new.
Exhausted trying to figure out what it actually means to be progressive, or conservative. Political homelessness
idea that human beings can become like God through grace... It’s also found in the Hindu concept of Tat Tvam Asi, or “thou art that” which teaches that Self (Atman) is not separate from ultimate reality (Brahman). Threads of this non-dual awareness are also found in Integral Theory, Nora Bateson’s Warm Data, Trish Blain’s Four Forces, Iain McGilchrist’s work, and countless other people we’ve had on Kainos recently.
Many of these perspectives see reality as made up not of distinct things, but of relationships. In a relational view on reality, truth can’t be boiled down to a single polarity or story. Instead, all things, all paradoxes, all truths and contradictions are contained in a whole which is neither part nor whole.
We can combat pre-rational forces of authoritarianism by growing a culture that embraces multiculturalism, but doesn’t shy away from celebrating white identity and history. Education that recognises everyone learns differently, but doesn’t do away with rote learning and discipline when it’s required. Sexual politics that recognise the unfair power dynamics at play around gender identity, without shying away from biological reality in the process.
Embedding trans-rational perspectives into mainstream culture is one route toward the cultural aesthetic that comes after postmodernism,