The New Subjective Body, #2–Modernity and Postmodernity: Two Types of Nihilism.

By Otto Paans

Yasujiro Ozu’s gravestone, bearing only the single character mu

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This essay will be published in six installments.

PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT:

#1: Introduction

The BIBLIOGRAPHY will be included in the sixth installment.

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II. Modernity and Postmodernity: Two Types of Nihilism

The postmodern commitment to rejecting any notion of “grand récits,” essentially robbed the western subjectivity from any clear anchoring points in the past. Simultaneously, it removed any clear direction for the future. Its emphasis on unconstrained polyvocality, hybridity, metaphysical difference, and its associated proliferation of identities, opened the floodgates for a deep and pervasive existential and sociocultural nihilism.

If there are no universal truths, or positions from which these truths can be grasped, Truth is made unassailable. Even worse, it condemns one to mapping and describing individual positions, without ever approaching the point from where points can be connected into a coherent whole: a bigger picture that provides a meaningful background for existence itself. Coupled to an all-pervasive, advanced capitalist consumer culture that is fuelled by non-stop media channels, and firmly grounded on the doctrine of instrumental reason, the resulting postmodern “self” suffers copious amounts of enjoyment, a never-ending tapestry of customized experiences that stretches away in all directions, but that also evaporates past, present, and future in an endless, disorienting, and ultimately rootless flux.

In its emphasis on fluidity and development coupled to technology, especially digital technology, postmodern culture radicalizes and further implements the core tenets of high modernity (Scott, 1998). High modernity is the “space of Man,” where Man (with a capital M) is the measure of all things. It is characterized by “cold reason,” universality, and the scientific worldview, as well as a relentlessly steadfast belief in the technological malleability of society (Paans, 2022). The engineer represents the core character of high modernity, nowadays in the guise of the cult of digital technology, with centres like Silicon Valley as the modern-day, secular equivalent of Mount Athos or Valaam Monastery. The modern city, organized on three-dimensional grids traversed by vehicles and currency streams of all sorts; glass towers that reflect the sunrise and that are made from serially produced components; precise calculations on consumer behaviour, the spread of diseases, traffic intensity, individual preferences: this is the space of Man being realized at an ever-growing speed. Le Corbusier held that a city of speed was made for success. But a subject of speed — just what is he, she, or they really made for? Success?

Postmodernity provided an answer to this question: the modern subject is made for self-customization. Enabled by the developing neoliberal economy of the internet, the subject was thereby also doomed to self-commodification. Even confessing allegiance to one group, sexual orientation, political preference, or dietary preference, is an act of self-commodification and self-presentation. It amounts to presenting the virtual world at large with an image of, or “position statement” about, oneself.

However, this performative, self-presenting gesture actually achieves also the exact opposite: it excludes everything that one is not a card-carrying member of. It negatively creates an identity by cutting out a small piece of reality and then publicly confessing allegiance to it, holding it up as a glittering fragment of uniqueness.

The very act of self-customization is a direct reflection of implicit and ubiquitous censorship: some positions and preferences are almost universally deemed outdated, unfashionable, or downright immoral. Adhering to traditions is in the postmodern world is both a trope and also an anachronism. On the one hand, traditions are marked as authentic and unique experiences that must be had; but on the other hand, and in different contexts, they are portrayed as sordid remnants of a past that was under the spell of grand, unifying narratives, but that cannot possibly have any relevance, let alone any moral value nowadays. Instead, such traditions are seen as basic obstacles, roadblocks preventing the increasing yet inevitable fluidity and moral progress of the world at large.

Thus, the very gesture that could, in other circumstances, be a quite normal process of gradually forming a cultural identity — say, joining this or that group, expressing this or that preference, being steeped in this or that set of customs — is fundamentally deformed in the virtual space of postmodern self-customization. Every identity-forming decision is made subject to a process of self-commodification and collective, social-media driven influence. And so, in the end, individuals start to believe that their identities are truly products. This is why self-commodification is the ultimate form of alienation: it creates a schizophrenic split in every subject, spurred on by the death drive of ceaseless and non-stop production. It divorces the postmodern subject from a deep and stable identity, replacing it with an artificial tapestry of shining fragments, a shallow and ever-changing, marketable identity that at one moment seems solid, but then melts into air.

Coupled to the suspicious attitude of postmodernity with its obsessive focus on “uncovering power structures,” the Derridean deconstruction of key philosophical concepts, and the Marxist critique of ideology, the process of identity construction takes a self-destructive, insular turn: not only is one compelled to create and customize an identity, but one is also compelled to criticize and attune it in accordance with the prevailing cultural opinion. This results in nothing less than “conversion stories” of people who claimed to be racist, sexist, etc. and then stage a public spectacle in order to signal the rest of the virtuous virtual world how they have had their “consciousness raised,” thereby becoming ultimately “woke” and maturing into the supposedly universally tolerant, relativist subject of the early 21st century.

No wonder, then, that the combination of moral relativism, shallow identity-formation, and hyper-productivity in the virtual, societal and personal spheres leads to a pervasive nihilism in postmodern art and expression that’s characteristically signalled by ironic distancing, deconstructive gestures, collage, and pastiche. However, the very ironic stance that refuses to engage is but a thin veneer that cannot hold back the existential, rootless abyss that is papered over by ideological distraction strategies. If the figure of the engineer is the paradigmatic character of modernity, the figure of The Hipster is the insufferable incarnation of postmodernity: entitled, fashionable, wearing an iconic-ironic T-shirt, ostentatiously living a “green lifestyle,” and self-consciously “spreading the word” of the newest distraction strategy. The postmodern motto is a distortion of the enlightenment-lite credo attributed by Kant to Frederick the Great, “argue as much as you like about whatever you like, but obey!,” only now it is “argue as much as you like about whatever, but disengage!” Yet, even this disengagement is superficial: above all, hipster ideology hinges on a fanatic adherence to a few dogmas: egalitarianism, the duty of a green lifestyle, and supposedly tolerant relativism in the moral sphere, coupled to the rejection of any form of conservatism or opinions that upset the fragile balance of shallow feel-good tolerance.

But the more obvious the cracks in the postmodern cultural veneer become, and the more its meaninglessness and nihilism emerge, the more fanatical the postmodern subject becomes, until he, she, or they reproduce the worst dictatorial tendencies of high modernity. The coercive moralist and indeed downright vindictive political correctness that characterizes recent decades is the direct result of a pervasive void that cannot be shaken off, but that is relentlessly warded off. The cycle of non-stop advanced capitalist production promises to provide distractions, solutions and purposes, but all it does is to reproduce the anxiety in an ever more frantic tempo.

This nihilistic influence is so pervasive that it seems inescapable and entrenched in all spheres of cultural and public life. The bombardment of contrary (moral) imperatives with which the postmodern subject is confronted, is, to put it with great mildness, not very helpful. Basically, it comes down to realizing that one is stuck in a consumer culture, but also one is required to consume responsibly, despite cascades of exhortations to enjoy finally what is yours. One must carefully maintain a green lifestyle, support the climate strikes, and use only fair-trade coffee from Colombia, but one must also take this once-in-a-lifetime trip to a faraway destination, where some sort of liberating experience is to be had. One must be careful about one’s diet and lifestyle choices, but there is an ever-growing variety of choice in all kinds of sumptuous restaurants and services. One must fully enjoy all the things that consumer society has to offer, yet also anxiously recognize our global ecological “footprint.”

And, on top of all this, one must broadcast and curate how fabulous one’s life is, becoming little propaganda machines for advanced capitalism. All these oppositions tear the postmodern subject apart from the inside out. Q: Where does the nihilism come from? A: It is simply the only possible outcome of an all-embracing process of cultural alienation and ultimately powerlessness. When one is stuck with 8 billion consumers on a single planet, one’s efforts to live sustainably feel insignificant, to say the least. And the never-ending barrage of natural disasters, environmental scandals, and shallow celebrity newsbits, fully reinforce the image of one’s own insignificance.

In turn, this nihilism erupts in different forms. It took on two main guises in the contexts of high modernity and later on during the emergence of postmodernism. The first form is Existentialist nihilism, a position that we find powerfully articulated in the philosophies of J.-P. Sartre, Gabriel Marcel, Karl Jaspers, and Albert Camus. Essentially, the idea is that the modern, broadly scientific worldview has superseded any form of religious meaning-making, rendering such a strategy mute and irrelevant, or at the very least calls for fundamental reassessment of it. As a consequence, humankind finds itself tethered to the unbearable burden of its own existence, a predicament that is in equal measures absurd and anxious. Moreover, the increasing mechanization of the world dehumanizes humankind itself, as the concept of freedom is either undermined or dictated by mechanical imperatives. Later in the essay, we will see how thinkers like Nishitani deal with this type of nihilism.

The second type of nihilism is relativistic. Meaninglessness and nothingness enter here not via the examination of life’s meaning in a Godless, silent universe, but instead it springs directly from the Sartrean imperative to construct meaning for ourselves. If the universe provides no meaning for us, we must necessarily be the authors of our fates and create our own meaning. However, the question is whether we actually can create any norms that are sufficiently robust as to generate our true purpose in life. After all, Existentialist nihilism declared that the universe was meaningless, so the assignment to “go forth and create meaning from scratch” seems daunting at the very least. It amounts to a creatio ex nihilo that is usually only reserved for deities. Moreover, in the absence of grand récits, any position whatsoever must be able to support meaning-creation, so we end up in a universe of relentless self-customization and relativism, yet one that is strangely and indeed tragically devoid of any firm normative ground. Later on, we will see how this basic issue has been handled by figures like Gregory of Palamas and Meister Eckhart.

This immersive cultural-moral predicament inevitably leads up to the moment that an existential stand must be taken, and a fundamental choice must be made:

One can remain in the hyper-productive world of postmodern culture. One could try to engage with it on critical terms, trying to remain distanced-while-still-engaged. However, for the reasons spelled out above, this seems an untenable option. The very unfulfillment and nihilism prevalent in postmodern culture excludes not-partaking, and as such constitutes a form of violence towards one’s integrity.
One could withdraw from the world of postmodern hyperproduction. However, to withdraw seems no solution, as the reach of culture and technology, and especially digital culture and technology, is so effective that any withdrawal, apart from becoming a hermit, seems impossible or at least ineffective. Moreover, it is quietist because it amounts to a degree of defeatism. It deals with the world by withdrawing in a gesture of silent resignation. The subjective space in which one manoeuvres oneself by quietist withdrawal is derivative in the worst sense: it defines itself as everything that the postmodern world is not. But as such, it is crucially dependent for its continued existence on the very world it rejects, thereby allowing the pervasive nihilism that underlies it in via the backdoor.

Creating a new critical position from which to regard the productive system from the outside may be a third option. Instead of withdrawing oneself, one could critically engage, and repeat the Marxist strategy of critiquing the prevailing ideology, or of developing new modes of communal life. However, the problem that directly emerges here is the possessive potential and protean character of advanced capitalist production: everything that is authentic is quickly detected, marketed, sold, and ultimately turned into a commodity. We can see this in a myriad of ways, even just focusing on something as everyday as beer. Once-obscure beer breweries often produced only regionally. Their products were authentic works of local craftsmanship. However, once the trend for craft beers started to take shape, large corporations bought these smaller breweries and marketed their local, unique flavour. So, as soon as a new position, lifestyle, product, or way of looking at the world becomes popular, it appears on the radar of advanced capitalist production and is immediately mass-produced and mass-marketed. And once that happens, it is fully absorbed into the system of advanced capitalism, never to return to its authentic origins.

So, anyone who sets out to find a new subjective space, or existential pro-attitude, is fighting a losing battle, it seems. How can we escape the cycle of commodification and the demands of advanced capitalist production? Various groups and movements have tried to emancipate themselves from sociocultural or sociopolitical circumstances that were oppressing them. We can cite here, as cases-in-point, civil rights movements, worker’s unions, or women’s liberation movements. But nowadays, the vey ideas of “consciousness raising” and “emancipation” are themselves commodities, and very marketable ones at that. It chimes in well with the postmodern, multicultural narrative of “always being on the side of the oppressed.” In turn, every form of emancipation is sooner or later detected and then fully integrated into the cultural hyper-productivity of the early 21st century.

So, the question with which I started this essay emerges once again: Is shaping a new subjective space really possible, and if so, how? I claim that it is really possible, but defeatism, resignation, or withdrawal in the quietist sense will not suffice. Instead, we must turn towards tradition and towards appropriating tradition in a way that is relevant for our times. And in the remainder of this essay, I will attempt to do so.

One further remark in this connection, before advancing: in its current, fully professionalized and academicized guise, it is more than merely unlikely that our current methods of philosophizing will provide us with what we need in order to liberate ourselves from our cultural cul de sac. Instead, we must flip background into foreground and observe that the very cultural cul de sac we are criticizing was itself instrumental in shaping our current modes of professional academic philosophizing. Quite a lot of critical material has been published on the deterioration of professional academic philosophy (see, e.g., Hanna, 2022), so there is no need for me to engage in a comprehensive critical analysis here. However, I want to distill two main points from this line of criticism. First, that the institutionalization of philosophy as professional academic philosophy inevitably reproduces rather then challenging and overcoming prevailing cultural trends, preferences, and assumptions, by virtue of its essential complicity with advanced capitalist production: produce (publications, high teaching evaluations, university service or administration, conferences attended, fellowships garnered, scholarly citations yielded, etc., etc.) or perish! Second, the quality of philosophical work inevitably suffers once its presentational format is subjected to strict homogenizing rules in order to enhance “clarity,” “rigor,” “sound argumentation,” etc. No one need object to clarity, rigor, or soundness as such, but one must reject “the spirit of the beehive” in which these demands are made, in order to impose conciseness, a fixed jargon, and linearity on argumentation and thinking as such, so that it can be closely and ubiquitously monitored, minutely measured, and rigorously policed, so that it all conforms to “the highest scholarly standards,” i.e., so that it can become acceptably and utterly anodyne, fully marketable within the professional academy itself, and also profoundly irrelevant to the real world outside the professional academy.