Meta-Modernism In Action
Yes, Actually, Everything Can Be Saved by a New Aesthetic (and Ben Stiller's Movies)
Dear Republic,
The Republic of Letters is “a product of our moment of our cultural decay,” according to those who seem very confident about these things. But ROL thinks not — and believes that the Republic is involved in something in vital and new, maybe even helping to launch Meta-Modernism as a viable aesthetic, as in ’ genre-shaping piece a couple of weeks ago followed up on (in true Republic fashion) with ’ elaboration of the idea.
-ROL
META-MODERNISM IN ACTION
I
A man spends his days trapped in his own head, strangled into inaction by the weight of his vivid fantasies, failing to do anything with his life except imagine what could be, and his twenties and thirties tick away until he’s in his forties with nothing to show for it: no wife, no family, no purpose. His only attempts at romance are stifled by his bottomless insecurity, so he pivots to online dating, but he has no experiences to reference in his profile, no life to share with anyone. His job is as a ‘negative assets manager’ for a once-famous but now failing publication, and his duties are to receive and process photographs from others who are exploring the world as he sits in his basement. Because of this, he perceives the real world as a film negative — inverted, distant, microcosmic. This negative world cannot compare to the colourful, impossible fantasies he constantly lapses into.
This is the post-modern man. In a world devoid of meaning, devoid of truth, we have no external reality. The world, other people, even our own lives, are a dull backdrop for our more entertaining fantasies.
II
The man I’m describing is Walter Mitty, from Ben Stiller’s 2013 film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which is tangentially inspired by a 1939 short story of the same name. In the original narrative, the main character escapes the mundaneity of running errands with his wife by retreating into his memories of the war and the positions of responsibility he once held. He is thoroughly a modern man, and his escapism is that of an old man looking perpetually backwards to avoid the discomforts of a world that’s leaving him behind.
But Stiller’s character doesn’t even have a past to look back on, his existence is a vacuum. This Walter works at the crumbling LIFE magazine as it transitions to a purely digital affair, carrying on the lost art of managing and processing film negatives in preparation for printing. He’s had no true exposure to the world, so everything is filtered through his own fantasies of how life ought to be. Through Walter we can see that the post-modern man is afflicted with childishness. No grown-up person should spend their days fantasising about what could be while avoiding anything outside of their moribund routine.
III
In 2013, the idea of a guy being so distracted by his illusions that he goes missing from every conversation, drops in and out of reality, doesn't see things happening around him, etc. was laughable. Now when I walk around the city and I see people scrolling TikTok on the train, clicking through Instagram at work, watching YouTube in restaurants, I realise Walter Mitty represents the vast majority of us. But we’re sadder, for we're not even slipping into our own delusions, we're being fed them by conglomerates.
IV
So why, then, would I describe TSLOWM as one of the 21st century’s most genuinely optimistic, unironic, hopeful films? Because it offers the antidote to the post-modern man’s childishness, it gives Walter a way out. I believe this movie is one of the first harbingers of what some are calling ‘meta-modernism’ — a road beyond the nihilistic highway that post-modernism has constructed and a window into a better way of living. We can’t return to the past, but we can seek new paths to walk down.
Walter receives a call to adventure in the form of photo negatives and a wallet sent from LIFE magazine’s enigmatic adventure photographer, Sean O’Connell (played by Sean Penn). But missing from the set of negatives is the very photo intended for the front cover of the last ever print issue of LIFE magazine. Following a series of clues within the other photographs Sean has sent, Walter throws off the shackles of inactive fantasy, finally talks to his office crush, and engages in a mad chase to find Sean and the missing photograph before the magazine goes to print. To Greenland then Iceland, by plane, helicopter, boat, bike, skateboard — Walter pursues Sean’s trail, only to reach a dead end when a volcano erupts and Sean goes missing.
I don’t intend to spoil the film too much (just enough to get you to watch it), but you should know that Walter doesn’t give up, despite being fired from his job and let down by his office romance. Following another clue, he engages in an even more desperate, illogical attempt to find Sean in the depths of the Afghanistani Himalayas, hell-bent on pursuing something meaningful. Ultimately, he learns the photograph he was seeking was in the wallet Sean had sent him the whole time, rendering his entire search pointless. Except, of course, it wasn’t pointless because it led Walter beyond a life of fantasy into the beauty of reality.
To the post-modernist, nothing really matters because nothing is really true. Everything is subjective, everything is ironic, and all that matters is the emotions and thoughts in your own brain. To the post-modernist, there’s nothing wrong with Walter living his hollow, lonely life filled only with visions of what could be. But the meta-modernist knows that although it seems there is no singular truth, no objective reality, no singular definition of beauty, there are things which do matter, there are goals worth striving for, and there is real joy in the pursuit of important things (and not necessarily in the finding of them).
V
“Beautiful things don’t ask for your attention,” Sean tells Walter near the end of the film, as they observe a snow leopard in her natural environment. In a world that clamours to profit from your attention, you have to seek the truly beautiful things yourself. They will not be seeking you, they are complete in themselves and don’t need you. But you need them.
VI
The opposite of childishness isn’t maturity — it’s childlikeness. To put away childish things, such as dwelling in fantasy, is the first step. But that only leaves you with a sad, analytical realism. The second and more important step is to discover the suspended animation and ‘informed naivety’ of the childlike pursuit of meaning, the hopeful approach to life which Thaddeus Thomas recently described as “allowing us to understand complexities and yet still believe in transformative power, authenticity, and the relevance of the spiritual search in an increasingly secular society.”
The wild adventures Walter goes on, as incredible and beautiful and harebrained as they are, do not measure up to the full extent of his physics-defying imaginings. He is not ‘manifesting’ his desires into reality, he is experiencing the beauty and magic that is on offer when we take risks to pursue a meaningful life. And the fact that the photo was in the wallet, and that his journey was in some ways circular and unnecessary, does not render it meaningless.
The post-modern man would view this as an ironic joke (he had the photo with him all along! none of the movie was necessary! plot hole!) whereas Walter, our meta-modern hero, has discovered a childlike way to view and live his life, filled with wonder and dogged, naive pursuit. The circuitous journey does have meaning, because it was a real journey with real obstacles in pursuit of something real that mattered to real people.
VII
One of the best songs from the TSLOWM soundtrack is ‘Stay Alive’ by José González. Its lyrics tell a story of a person moving from a bleak, post-modern world toward the dawn of something new.
The song begins:
There's a rhythm in rush these days
Where the lights don't move and the colors don't fade
Leaves you empty with nothing but dreams
In a world gone shallow
In a world gone lean
Sometimes there's things a man cannot know
The gears won't turn and the leaves won't grow
There's no place to run and no gasoline
Engine won't turn and the train won't leave
Who among us hasn’t felt this way? The world is not getting better, things are both speeding up and yet nothing works. We are lost and there are many things we do not know. The train of our lives is forever idling at the station, waiting for the engine to turn over, waiting for us to actually do something.
But by the end of the song, we’ve turned a more hopeful corner:
Well the way I feel is the way I write
Racing like the thoughts of a man who lies
There is a truth and it's on our side
Dawn is coming
Open your eyes
Look into the sun as the new days rise
And I will wait for you tonight
You're here forever and you're by my side
I've been waiting all my life
To feel your heart as it's keeping time
We'll do whatever just to stay alive
We’ve gone from the monotonous rush of our modern, shallow world toward the very thing ‘a man cannot know’ — in seeking the unknown, and seeking to be close to and care for another person, we find deeper meaning. In the pursuit, we find there is such a thing as objective truth, and we find we are on the side of that truth. The song predicts a new dawn, if we’ll wait through the night, keeping those we love close by.
So to pursue a life of meaning is to pursue loving people, appreciating this creation, and ultimately, seeking to know and love God. We may find God as we step out in new adventurous directions like Walter, or we may find God was with us all along, a photo in the pocket of a wallet we forgot to check (also like Walter). Both are possible — God is out there, you find him in your love for others, in the beauty of nature, and you also find Him in the depths of your own soul, the Divine completeness that your empty heart longs for.
VIII
“To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, to draw closer, to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of life.”
The wallet Sean sends Walter, which holds the missing photo, is inscribed with this quote (which paraphrases a real 1936 quote by the founder of LIFE magazine). And while we might not agree this is the sole purpose of life, it does set us off to a very strong start. The point is to do something real, to take real risks and see real places and draw near to real people. To see beyond illusions and fantasies into what actually is. To have yourself tested and be found wanting, instead of never tested at all. To reach out in a gasping leap at the meaningful life, to slip and fall and be caught by the net of love and faith and grace, only to clamber back up and attempt the leap again. To truly sacrifice and surrender for a greater purpose, for the sake of another person, and to not let it embitter you but free you. This is all essential to discovering a meaning to life, which is essential to have a life worth living.
A. A. Kostas is a Canadian-Australian poet, writer, and lawyer (in that order), currently based in Singapore. He writes the Substack newsletter .
 | A guest post by
|
I can't tell you how much I love this movie--every time I hear 'Step Out' by José González I have the profound urge to do just that, and set myself off to another country or go backpacking somewhere. One of those movies that really hits a certain string of the heart. The newer 2021 TV series of 'Around the World in 80 Days' gave me a similar feel--the man who has let his life happen without really paying attention, caught in the mundane comforts of his job while living with no true meaning or intention in his life, and sets out on a journey based on a dare that turns into so much more than proving himself to others, but learning what it means to be alive (that last episode made me cry in a similar way 'Walter Mitty' did). Phenomenal piece of writing A.A! I definitely need to go watch the movie again now.
I appreciate what you're doing here, A.A., and Thaddeus, too, but metamodernism isn't really new. Vermeulen and van den Akker and others have been identifying its aesthetic "structures of feeling" for at least 15 years now. Interest in it seemed to wane by the mid-2010s (I blame Seth Abramson on Twitter for being overzealous about it, partly, but I also think it was seen as out of step with the identity-based aesthetics prominent since then). It's nice to see it making a comeback here.
(The "informed naivety" of metamodernist attitudes also undergirds the "neo-romantic" stuff being promulgated on Substack, but, of course, every movement practically demands that its members think they were the first to formalize an idea...).
https://www.metamodernism.com