METAMODERN TRAVELS: FROM IRONY TO META-IRONY

Abstract

The metamodern attempts to supplant the postmodern. It is characterized by a special understanding of irony. It is quite different from the total rigid irony of postmodernism. Irony has always existed. However, its character, types, and objects differed significantly. Voltaire’s irony in the New Age was not total. The supreme values of Reason and Enlightenment in the modern era were not subject to ridicule. For the postmodern there were no taboos, so irony became total, and ridicule of the values of modernity became harsh and destructive. However, the purifying positive character of such irony also took place. Metamodernism wants to revive the values and metanarratives of modern. It denies the rigid irony of the postmodern, but it does not abandon irony altogether. The irony of the metamodern is connected to a new sincerity. The author’s intention along the whole path of the oscillating interpretation is now hidden, now it is sincerely revealed. Such sincerity can be called circumspect. The reader or viewer has the opportunity to travel through various versions of his interpretation, from an accurate reading to an ironic allegory, all the way to a mockery of the irony presented. Irony accompanies the new sincerity all the way through the oscillation and plays with many shades. There is the absence of irony, simple irony, post-irony, and meta-irony. In the metamodern, irony becomes a cautious instrument of sparing criticism. It is a conscious choice of cultural figures, who tend to apply certain non-rigid types of irony and dose them, combining them with cautious sincerity. The contradictory combination of irony and sincerity fits into the paradigm of oscillation. With such irony, the metamodern tries not to traumatize anyone, not to impose assessments, and to let the individual sort out his or her own experience of the images and situations depicted.