Metapolitics

= "Metapolitical practice involves questioning the very frame of “politics” itself; it is a discourse about what counts as political". [1]

Contextual Quote

"“Going meta” refers to an act that initiates a certain kind of discontinuity in the conversational continuum. This is why we need to be so careful when, where, and with whom we choose to “go meta.” In my first post on metapolitics I stated that we are now put into a position where metapolitical reflection has become necessary. This means in fact that we have to “go meta” in order to go anywhere. And yet, I also discussed the inherent danger involved with “going meta”—pointing to the arrogant power play of “going meta.”

- Zak Stein [2]

Characteristics

Zak Stein:

" I address three of the areas where metapolitical reflection is required during our historical moment:

1): the metapolitics of planetary-scale computation and measurement;

2): the metapolitics of existential risk;

3): the metapolitics of human nature.

To foreshadow:

1): Humanity has been slowly building a planetary-scale measurement meta-structure for thousands of years. Generations living today will likely witness a 1.0 version of this perennial ambition as part of the newly emergent (and largely accidental) planetary computational stack (Bratton, 2015). The first manifestations of planetary-scale computation have resulted in measurement systems that are encircling the Earth in unprecedented matrices of abstract representation. Much of what is measured remains what has always been measured, including materials, commodities, and their price. But the Internet of Things is also becoming an internet of people, who are being turned into things after being objectified through measurement. The measurement of psychological traits (including beliefs and values) has emerged as a powerful vector in the proliferation of sensors, assessments, and behavior tracking backends. I propose a framework for a metapolitics of planetary measurement, which is based on my previous work building an integral metatheory of measurement (Stein, 2015). Examples from efforts underway in the so-called Global Educational Reform Movement (GERM) serve as signals of a hyper-measured future in which no person, thing, or movement escapes measurement. I argue that the implied idealized state of totalized planetary measurement (i.e., of an omniscient measurement meta-structure through which the entire Earth is “seen and tagged”) is both absurd logically and undesirable on ethical grounds. I then propose specific metapolitical parameters that could help to ensure humane futures for planetary measurement meta-structures.

2): The essential causes of existential risk have been identified as deep structural properties of our contemporary civilization. Day-to-day “politics” is self-terminating by design (Schmachtenberger, 2018). Threats to the survival of the species as a whole and the biosphere itself are metapolitical by their very nature, as they threaten to disrupt the basic assumptions of modern “politics.” History is about to deepen as catastrophic and existential risks of planetary scale will provoke unprecedented widespread questioning of a metapolitical nature. We will see strong arguments in favor “getting over human rights,” because what rights can individuals really claim during climatic cataclysms in which choices will need to be made that amount to planetary-scale trolley problems? We will also see “political” arguments for suicide, slavery, and genocide issue from the mouths of leaders in the first world. And we will see profound acts of self-sacrifice and compassion, going viral in a metamodern planetary public sphere racked by tragedy. Metapolitical practice in this domain involves getting out in front of the cultural and political crises that seem to be simply waiting to happen (they are actually already happening in slow motion). Groups need to begin foundational metapolitical theorizing now about key scenarios involving a range of risks. This work needs to be made public as part of fostering a metapolitical consilience between key geopolitical actors. Getting beyond today’s “politics” requires creating a new and unprecedented form of planetary metapolitics from which can emerge the innumerable local innovations that must somehow be woven together into the fabric of an anti-fragile civilization.

3): As already mentioned above, specific sciences are continually breaking down the underpinnings of our most basic intuitions about humans and the universe. Modern humans have ended up dissecting themselves to death. Once psychologists put the human soul on the examining table it was only a matter of time until humanity itself was disenchanted entirely, and along with it, humanism, democracy, and other modern “political” staples. Evolution as understood by neo-Darwinians contradicts the idea of human rights point blank, as social Darwinists have been arguing since the Origin of Species was published—hence the current “political science,” which would justify human rights in terms of game-theoretical calculations. While there are evolutionary arguments about group selection that appear to support the idea of protecting certain individual rights, these arguments mostly fail. But they are beside the point anyway. In a universe that is supposedly totally meaningless matter in motion with no natural moral law or God, what are we really doing when we speak of protecting our humanity, or of “crimes against humanity?” (We are lying, Carl Schmitt would say). But even trying to reconcile Darwinism with human rights is beside the point if all human action and awareness is reducible to causal mechanisms in the nervous system. The problem of free will has also been put on the examining table thanks to recent advances in neuroscience and genetics. The point is not that some scientists will convincingly solve the problem of free will with an fMRI scanner (they won’t). The point is that some scientists will convincingly claim to have done so and this claim will reverberate throughout the lifeworld, setting off a cacophony of metapolitical reflections. At this point modernity has come so far that the “human” itself is a problematic category; modern science is displacing the abstract self-interested individual currently at the center of our modern “politics.” I propose metapolitical practices based on an explicit “return” to metaphysics in search of new frameworks for understanding humanity and the universe (Stein & Gafni, 2015; 2017)." (http://www.zakstein.org/metapolitical-practice/?)

Example

A negative example, where going 'meta' is counterproductive, by Zak Stein:

"Another example: imagine you attempt to make a constructive contribution to group discussion, but I step in to disallow this on the grounds that you are part of a particular subgroup. It could be that you are a white male attempting to help a group of female activists or that you are a black female activist attempting to be heard by a group of white male chauvinists. In either case, what you take as your right to speak is re-framed in terms of a very different set of assumptions. Your objections to being silenced only reinforce this reframing because I have “gone meta” on you by discounting your way of viewing the situation in favor of my group’s frame. I say to you on behalf of my group: “of course you would argue like that! You belong to that subgroup that is always demanding to be heard.” You are now performing your objections as set in my meta-narrative; hermetically sealed off from offering reasons that matter. Of course, you then respond by escalating your objections, perhaps eventually making equally severe condemnations of my group. We are taking up such different frames on the situation that we end up mutually undermining the legitimacy each other’s views. It is not that we disagree about a particular issue; it is that we cannot agree on how to even begin a serious discussion. “Going meta” in this case eventually destroys the possibility of discourse itself." (http://www.zakstein.org/be-careful-going-meta-metapolitical-practice-ii/)

Discussion

Zak Stein:

"The widespread and growing emergence of metapolitical practices heralds a major epochal shift in the history of consciousness and civilization. Recall the wide-ranging and radical metapolitical reflections that characterized the transition into modernity solidified during the French and American Revolutions. The constitution of the United States transformed what was a modern metapolitical conversation into a new form of real politics. The revolution that created the Soviet Union did the same only more briefly and with a different emphasis. Neoliberalism encoded new hyper-modern metapolitical assumptions into the structures and habits of post-Cold War day-to-day politics, and thus life itself was set adrift on seas of fictitious capital.

...

“Metamodern” is not a term of praise, like “integral,” but rather marks structurally identifiable aspects of current cultural evolutions occurring chronologically after the exhaustion of modernity and postmodernity. Metamodern metapolitical discussions are slightly different than the ones that preceded them. Today metapolitics is expanding out beyond the halls of rogue power elites where it has traditionally taken place (i.e., historically metapolitics has been the province of Turchin’s (2015) “counter elites”). Things have changed: counter elites used to secretly engage in metapolitical planning; now they are openly inciting widespread metapolitical reflection among the masses. Cases in point are QAnon, cryptocurrencies, and “post-truth” journalism, all of which appear to be explicitly deployed by political power players as a means to disrupt politics as usual. Metamodern political innovations are occurring in metapolitical spaces where power is wielded “outside” of normal political channels, with the explicit intention of eventually changing the nature of those channels themselves (for better and/or for worse)." (http://www.zakstein.org/metapolitical-practice/?)