Yes, this is a pretty good assessment of the situation. They can see what is happening in the world, they don’t like where we are heading, and they have recognised that postmodernism cannot deliver any significant change.
I have a troubled relationship with one particular group of these people. They are called Second Rennaissance, and they see themselves as an umbrella group for the liminal/integral movement. Their own white papers quote metamodernism, and they exist purely to birth a new cultural paradigm. But they are also completely stuck, and never get passed the talking stage. My presence there is problematic because I am offering them a fully formed new paradigm which meets every criteria they could hope for. The result is repeated suspensions for no given reason, but they cannot ban me because of the amount of mostly-lurkers who can see exactly what is going on. Last time I came back from a ban I posted this, which they largely agreed with, but still don’t know how to internalise and act on it. (this is quite long, but directly relevant).
Based on the current state of books written on this topic the new paradigm we are all searching for should look something like this:
- Reality is not fundamentally material but relational and experiential . Matter, mind, and meaning are not separate domains but aspects of a deeper unity.
- Consciousness is not an anomaly but a principle woven into the fabric of the cosmos. It is as basic as mass, energy, or spacetime, and perhaps more so.
- The cosmos is participatory. Observation, valuation, and relationship help shape what is real, not just passively register it.
- Time and process are fundamental. Being is not a static block but an unfolding, in which novelty, emergence, and irreducible subjectivity matter.
- Ecology and interconnection are the true grammar of existence. From fungi and forests, brains to quantum events, the world is a web of mutual becoming, not a collection of separate objects.
- Meaning and value are ontological, not epiphenomenal. They belong to the structure of reality, not just to human projections.
In one sentence the missing paradigm, according to contemporary integralists, is a participatory, meaning-infused, relational cosmology where mind, matter, time, and life are continuous aspects of one living process: the universe as a communion of subjects. But if we can get this far, why can’t we get any further? Why does the new paradigm always feel as out of reach as ever? [Note: I am not just talking about 2R here – the situation applies to the wider liminal/integral movement]
I believe the answer is that 2R, and all other similar groups I am aware of, are making the fundamental mistake of searching for a new metamodern paradigm inside the postmodern part of the old one. This is directly equivalent to materialistic scientists searching for the new paradigm (to fix their problems) inside physicalist naturalism, unable to even consider that physicalism itself might be part of the problem.
The Old Paradigm according to 2R and similar groups
2R is conflicted about the identity and nature of the old paradigm. Everybody is happy to say modernism is the problem, but what they are talking about started disappearing over a century ago, and what is left of it has since become part of something else. WWI was the beginning of the end of European imperialism, then in 1926 quantum mechanics shattered classical materialism. Postmodernism’s status is far less clear – it was treated by postmodernists (but nobody else) as the successor paradigm to modernism and is still widely viewed by many as a necessary stage of development for both individuals and societies. There is also a muted acceptance that something has gone seriously wrong. At the very least it is admitted to be incomplete, and that it can’t build anything new, which makes it a dead-end.
At the same time, 2R also wants to retain many elements of postmodern thought, including its epistemic relativism and refusal to consider anything that could function as a new “grand narrative.” Metamodernism is regularly mentioned, but there is no consistency about what that actually entails. If defined as an “oscillation” between modern and postmodern then it is functionally identical to postmodernism. Jason Storm’s version is different: it much more clearly identifies anti-realism as the problem, and urges people to start looking for truth and building systems again, but I see no evidence that anybody involved with 2R has accepted and internalised this. Actions speak louder than words, and your actions (and frequently your words too) are those of unreformed postmodernists: there is no serious attempt at coherence or consistency.
The Old Paradigm in reality
Surely the old paradigm isn’t modernism or postmodernism but the entire problematic known as The Meaning Crisis. Classical materialism has been replaced by 30+ different versions of physicalism. Some are metaphysical interpretations of QM and some are physicalist theories of consciousness, none command a consensus, and very few even attempt to integrate these two things. Those that do (e.g. Von Neumann/Wigner/Stapp or Penrose/Hameroff) are fiercely rejected by the mainstream. Our cosmological theories likewise lack integration with QM or consciousness, and the standard model is itself engulfed in a complex and deepening existential crisis, even before attempting to integrate with anything else.
Opposed to these physicalisms are several families of alternatives such as panpsychisms, idealisms and dualisms, none of which adequately account for consciousness, neuroscience and all other relevant empirical evidence. Add to this mix the fractured remains of Christianity (and Islam, the less said the better), plus postmodernism’s galaxy of mini-epistemologies, and we have a menu of hundreds of fragmentary, mutually-conflicting models of reality and knowledge. And AI now lets anybody who can type design their own personal pseudoscientific theory of everything. Have we reached Peak Nonsense yet?
The old paradigm is the whole epistemic situation: an ever-expanding menu of worldviews, none of which even comes close to a coherent model of the whole of reality. All of them either leave essential things out, contain unresolvable internal contradictions, or contradict indisputable empirical evidence (especially neuroscience). Nothing on the menu can assemble a consensus, and every new addition takes us further from that end. The normalisation of this incoherence and fragmentation is the root cause of the Meaning Crisis. The old paradigm is epistemic anarchy : deep confusion about what is real or true, and how to decide what matters, leading to ideological paralysis. I call it “the Age of Disjunction.”
The New Paradigm
Once we have a clear idea of the old paradigm, we can get a clearer idea of the shape of the new one, because it must conclusively displace the old one. This cannot be done by “completing postmodernism”, because adding anything to postmodernism produces nothing but more postmodernism. Moreover, nobody except postmodernists has ever accepted anti-realism as a legitimate “stage” and that won’t change, not least because anti-realist identity politics has been socio-politically defeated in the culture wars.
The only way a new paradigm can actually become a reality is by making most of the current menu obsolete, at least at the most fundamental level of epistemology, metaphysics and science. It must offer an elegant, parsimonious, integrated solution to the whole problem. There will always still be some sort of menu, but in the new paradigm there must be a shared metaphysical-scientific foundation, and the menu must be restricted to whatever is compatible with that foundation, and is left open by the epistemology it implies.
That means that in addition to the core goals listed above, the new paradigm must:
(a) complete the quantum revolution by resolving the Measurement Problem with a new metaphysical interpretation that finally makes sense of QM, and can therefore command a consensus.
(b) provide a solid foundation for a new science of consciousness, integrating a clarified concept of consciousness with empirical science and analytical philosophy.
(c) offer a conclusive resolution to the crisis in cosmology.
(d) enable a reconciliation of analytical and Continental philosophy: analytically adequate (no contradictions or conflicts with evidence), while also doing justice to subjective experience (which is what Continental philosophy does best, and science can’t do at all).
(e) provide a basis for cultural renewal across Western society.
And it must be one basic answer, not an ad-hoc mosaic of different ideas: a single, elegant, parsimonious, holistic theory, necessarily including metaphysical, cosmological, and human components, that cleanly and efficiently delivers all of these things.
This is a very tall order indeed. No ordinary theory can do this, and the probability of two such theories emerging as rivals is close to zero. There cannot be two new metaphysical-scientific paradigms capable of resolving all these problems together, for the same reason that there cannot be two solutions to a jigsaw puzzle (unless the puzzle was very carefully designed to have two solutions, which would in this case imply the existence of a designer God who intends to mislead us).
Is 2R looking for such a theory?
Of course not – this is just about the last thing 2R is looking for, because 2R is built on an implicit assumption that we are nowhere near finding the new paradigm, and there’s no point in actively looking for it. The hope is that it will somehow just “out itself” at some point in the distant future, which assumes there is no motive for anybody to suppress it. However, it is entirely predictable what would happen if such a theory were to actually be presented to 2R, because it would necessarily be incompatible with most of the items on the current menu, and therefore violate the radical epistemic pluralism that holds 2R together. Accepting it would require many individuals to acknowledge the reasons why their own current belief systems can’t sustain the paradigm shift, and require 2R as a whole to start moving towards a very different epistemological situation: an actual new paradigm. It would demand 2R finally move on from postmodern relativism and start behaving like Stormian metamodernists instead. Judging by my experiences on this forum and elsewhere, this is functionally equivalent of asking scientific materialists to admit physicalism is wrong: nearly all of them will just say no, because they have no intention whatsoever of rethinking their own beliefs. Everybody assumes that their own current worldview isn’t part of the problem, and there is a collective agreement to retain this internal incoherence.
So 2R’s response to any genuine contender for the new paradigm is almost certain to be:
(a) ignore it, and hope it goes away.
(b) ban anybody who keeps talking about it after being asked nicely to shut up.
(c) show no interest in it, make no effort to understand it, raise weak or invalid objections to justify not engaging with it, and mis-categorise it as just another inadequate item on the menu, so it can be permanently ignored, the full menu retained, and Postmodern Business As Usual can continue in the Big Tent.
Second Renaissance was set up for reasons that could not be more important: to blaze a trail out of the Meaning Crisis, Polycrisis, and Metacrisis, avoid civilisational collapse, and lay foundations for a better kind of Western civilisation. 2R attempts to offer leadership in the paradigm shift to come. But the current strategy is doomed to fail, because it is systematically committed to retaining the very thing that defines the old paradigm: the perpetual absence of a coherent, holistic theory of reality which is correct and complete at the foundational level. 2R is searching for the new paradigm inside one part of the old one.
The Big Tent Paradox
There is a fundamental contradiction at the core of everything 2R is trying to be and do. The “Big Tent” – where everyone can come together to search for the way out of an extreme civilisational crisis, but without any individual or collective obligation to search for objective truth – makes it logically impossible for 2R to succeed. The tent can provide a permanent home for almost any worldview except a genuine candidate for the new paradigm 2R claims to be searching for. It can tolerate every wrong or incomplete answer indefinitely, but a correct and complete (at the foundational level) answer means that 2R must accept that the tent itself is unsustainable in its current form, because the movement has to actually start moving.
If Second Renaissance is truly a vehicle for civilisational renewal, and not just a permanent hospice for the postmodern mind, the Big Tent Paradox must be overcome. This requires a a collective commitment to move beyond “finding better ways to disagree” and finally accept the need for conclusive movement towards agreement on what is true, and what isn’t.
Step 1: Is the Old Paradigm accurately defined as Epistemic Anarchy (The Age of Disjunction)? If you disagree, what is your coherent definition of the old paradigm that accounts for the current fragmentation of science, philosophy, and meaning?
Step 2: Are criteria (a) through (e) the correct baseline for a New Paradigm? If a new paradigm does not need to reconcile QM, consciousness, cosmology, and the split between analytical and continental thought, then what are your objective criteria for a worldview capable of ending the Meaning Crisis?
