Metamodernism and Psychosocial Technology

Psychonauts and Philosophers Unite! The bridging of ancient wisdom and modern insights in a new synthesis...

Upon seeing this email or blog post, you’re probably beset by two questions:

What the heck is metamodernism, and what the heck is “psychosocial technology”?

Both are very good questions!

Metamodernism, in a nutshell

Below is my personal definition of metamodernism.

Metamodernism is the synthesis of old and new. It is the cultural, philosophical, intellectual, ethical, and spiritual movement that accepts the value of ancient wisdom from all cultures around the globe, and transmutes it with modern insights derived from rational inquiry, scientific progress, and modern methodology.

Please keep in mind that my definition is not necessarily widely shared by the philosophy community, which IMHO, is dying a slow death because it, like a potted plant, is slowly strangling itself with its own roots. Time to move to a larger pot.

Rather than give you a dusty definition of Metamodernism with jargon-heavy terms like emergence and convergence, it’s probably better to just tell you the brief story of how we got here.

1. Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, which was an early psychosocial technology that democratized information, knowledge, and communication.

2. This psychosocial technology contributed directly to several other events: the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, and the American Revolution.

3. These movements collectively resulted in Modernism and the rise of secularism due to the three primary generator functions of cognitive dissonance, rational inquiry, and dissemination of information.

4. Ultimately, these factors created an attractor state which inevitably led to the rise of Nihilism and the current crisis we’re in.

If you want a deeper dive into all of this, check out my previous article on the topic:

If you like that article, you might also like this one:

TLDR: Metamodernism is the “next big thing”

We’re tired of grimdark narratives, the endless navel gazing of contemporary philosophy, the intellectual pedantry of postmodernism, and it’s generally just time to move on, grow up, and let the past go.

Who are my contemporaries in the Metamodernist movement? It might be helpful to put some faces and names to this whole thing.

Before I proceed, I need to caution you that many of these folks may not identify with the Metamodernist movement. Most of us have coined terms for our own movements. For instance, I talk about the Nihilistic Crisis and Radical Alignment. History, I suspect, will recall all of us as part of this broader philosophical and intellectual movement.

1. Daniel Schmachtenberger: The Metacrisis

2. John Vervaeke: The Meaning Crisis

3. Liv Boeree: Anti-Moloch

4. Probably a few more big names that I haven’t connected yet!

There are also countless more names out there, such as the folks at the Meaning Alignment Institute, who are doing critical work in this space.

If you’d like an entertaining crash course in the meaning economy and the Metamodern movement, check out Ellie’s video here:

(For some context, Ellie Hain is a founding member of the Meaning Alignment Institute, she’s awesome)

I also gave my own breakdown of the rise of the meaning economy here:

Great, so what does it actually do?

Metamodernism, as a movement, has several facets. First, there’s the sociopolitical angle, which is often referred to as Scandinavian politics (read: more socialist) wherein people recognize that the current neoliberalist trend in the West is dying out. Privatization of everything, and favoring the economic agency of big business over actual human citizens is no longer en vogue. Kids these days are all about some UBI, government services, and anti-corporate and anti-consumption narratives. You know, the generation raised on FernGully and Captain Planet actually took it to heart and we care about the environment and not scorching the earth. We prefer our air and water not to be poisoned.

Second is the artistic movement, probably most famously expressed by the film EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE. While I don’t fully agree with the breakdown in the following video, the point still stands, this movie is widely regarded as a metamodern masterpiece:

Yet another component of metamodernism is the communication style. Postmodernism in communication is characterized by self-awareness tinged by wry humor, self-flagellating white-guilt, and hyperbolic hand-wringing. One of the most egregious examples of this trend are the opening chapters of the cardinal work THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING by Graeber and Wengrow. The first thirty pages or so are chock full of proclamations of “We don’t know anything, but who can know anything anyways! And it’s all our fault because we’re white after all, woe betide us for inheriting the vestiges of colonialism!” (no, they didn’t actually write this, but I feel like this is a fair paraphrasing)

Postmodernist communication requires that certain rituals be performed before saying anything remotely intellectual. Another fine example of postmodernist writing is in Nick Bostrom’s latest book DEEP UTOPIA which actually has no thesis, no logical structure whatsoever, and just merrily skips along briefly examining ideas and moving on without taking any stances or stakes whatsoever.

The reason for this trend in postmodernism is because of its epistemic posture: there is no such thing as truth, truth is always relative, truth is a social construct, and you’re not allowed to have any original ideas anymore because it’s all been said. All you’re sharing is your personal interpretation!

This belief that there can be no facts and no truth has led to the Post Truth Era where politicians can unironically claim to be operating from a state of “alternative facts” and we, the people, are sick of it. Enter metamodernism.

Metamodernism posits that we can actually triangulate the truth in the form of an emergent worldview combined with the practice of convergence (encircling the truth)

Postmodernism says that this is the way things are, that everyone is intrinsically blind with tunnel vision, throws up its hands and says “WELL MAYBE MY VIEW IS STILL RIGHT!” Metamodernism says “Take the fucking blindfolds off and talk to each other!”

In short, metamodernism breaks down epistemic, institutional, and ontological containers. There’s been a belief, for a long time, that all specialists should remain in their own silos, never talk to each other, and should compete viciously for resources.

This is patently idiotic. Hence the embrace of multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity in metamodernism.

Yes, I’m salty about postmodernism, and you should be too.

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What is “Psychosocial Technology”?

As far as I know, I’m the one who first coined the term psychosocial technology, at least in this context. If you Google it, you get a bunch of telehealth stuff, which is not exactly what I’m talking about. Here’s what I mean by psychosocial technology:

Psychosocial technology refers to intentionally designed practices, experiences, or environments that leverage social dynamics and psychological processes to facilitate personal transformation, enhance self-awareness, and reshape interpersonal relationships. These technologies often involve immersive, structured group experiences that integrate elements of psychology, sociology, and sometimes spirituality or consciousness exploration.

Okay, great, another dry academic definition. But let’s do some examples.

Burning Man as a Psychosocial Technology

Burning Man, the annual event held in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, serves as a prime example of a large-scale psychosocial technology. By creating a temporary city and culture, replete with unique sets of social norms, Burning Man offers a transformative environment that profoundly impacts participants’ psychological states and social interactions.

At its core, Burning Man functions as a Temporary Autonomous Zone (or a “thirdspace”), creating a space that exists outside normal societal constraints, boundaries, and rules. This temporary city allows for experimentation with alternative social structures and facilitates a break from everyday reality, enhancing participants’ openness to new experiences and ways of being.

The event’s culture is shaped by Ten Principles, including Radical Self-reliance, Gifting, and Decommodification. These principles act as a framework for behavior and interaction, encouraging personal growth and challenging societal norms. By fostering a shared ethos, Burning Man influences social dynamics and creates a unique cultural environment that participants can explore and embody.

Participatory art and rituals form a crucial aspect of the Burning Man experience. Large-scale art installations, interactive performances, and communal ceremonies engage participants on multiple sensory and emotional levels. These experiences often catalyze personal insights, foster connections between individuals, and create shared memories that can have lasting impacts on participants' lives.

The harsh desert environment plays a significant role in Burning Man's function as a psychosocial technology. Extreme temperatures, dust storms, and the need for careful resource management create challenges that push participants out of their comfort zones. This physical adversity often leads to psychological growth, increased self-reliance, and a heightened sense of community as people work together to overcome environmental obstacles.

Burning Man's gift economy and emphasis on decommodification represent a radical departure from mainstream economic systems. By removing traditional monetary transactions and encouraging gifting, the event creates a unique social environment that can profoundly alter participants’ perceptions of value, community, and interpersonal relationships.

The temporary nature of Black Rock City, culminating in the burning of the Man effigy, serves as a powerful metaphor for impermanence. This aspect of the event can trigger deep psychological reflections on attachment, change, and the cyclical nature of existence.

Burning Man's radical inclusivity and emphasis on self-expression create a social environment where participants often feel free to explore different aspects of their identities. This can lead to significant personal growth, enhanced self-awareness, and the formation of new social connections that transcend typical societal boundaries.

The communal living aspect of Burning Man, with participants camping in close proximity and often sharing resources, fosters a sense of interdependence and community. This social structure can challenge and reshape participants’ understanding of privacy, personal space, and collective responsibility.

Objectively speaking, numerous other social technologies have been spawned off by Burning Man.

Subjectively, I suspect that Burning Man will be recorded by the history books as a pivotal moment and place, like Paris during the Enlightenment.

Now, the purely intellectual academically minded might examine this as a rational, cognitive, and emotional experience. But what they are missing is that this is also an embodied experience. We in the West, in particular, have forgotten that our heads are attached to our bodies. I won’t spend more time belaboring this point, but if you know, you know.

Circling as a Psychosocial Technology

Circling, also known as Interpersonal Meditation or Relational Practice, is a form of group interaction that emerged in the personal growth and human potential movement. Starting from several conversations at Burning Man and evolving over the years, it has become a significant psychosocial technology in its own right, influencing personal development practices and relational dynamics.

At its core, Circling is designed to foster present-moment awareness, authentic relating, and deepened interpersonal connections. Participants typically sit in a circle, hence the name, and engage in a guided process of sharing and witnessing each other's experiences in real-time.

The practice emphasizes several key elements that contribute to its function as a psychosocial technology:

Present Moment Awareness: Circling encourages participants to focus intently on their immediate, moment-to-moment experience. This includes physical sensations, emotions, thoughts, and relational dynamics as they unfold in real-time. This aspect of the practice can lead to heightened self-awareness and a deeper sense of embodied presence.

Authentic Expression: Participants are encouraged to share their genuine thoughts, feelings, and observations without filters or social niceties. This radical honesty can create a space for profound interpersonal connections and personal insights.

What a typical Circling session might look like

Empathic Listening: A crucial component of Circling is the practice of deep, empathic listening. Participants are asked to fully attend to others' sharing without judgment, advice-giving, or interruption. This can enhance emotional intelligence and interpersonal sensitivity.

Group Dynamics: The circle format creates a unique social environment where everyone is equally visible and involved. This can challenge typical social hierarchies and create opportunities for new relational patterns to emerge.

Non-Directive Facilitation: While often led by a facilitator, Circling aims to minimize top-down direction. Instead, it encourages organic, emergent group processes. This can foster a sense of co-creation and shared responsibility among participants.

Somatic Awareness: Many Circling practices incorporate attention to bodily sensations and non-verbal cues. This integration of physical awareness with interpersonal dynamics can lead to a more holistic understanding of oneself and others.

As a psychosocial technology, Circling aims to create several effects:

1. Enhanced self-awareness and emotional intelligence

2. Improved capacity for authentic self-expression and vulnerability

3. Deepened empathy and understanding of others

4. Increased comfort with interpersonal intimacy

5. Greater ability to navigate complex social dynamics

6. Heightened sense of connection and community

Circling has been adopted in various contexts, from personal growth workshops to corporate team-building exercises. Its influence can be seen in other relational practices and in the broader field of conscious communication.

While Circling shares some philosophical underpinnings with other group practices like T-groups or encounter groups, its specific focus on present-moment awareness and the circularity of attention (moving between self, other, and group) distinguishes it as a unique psychosocial technology.

The practice continues to evolve, with different schools and approaches emerging. Some emphasize the meditative aspects, while others focus more on the potential for psychological insight or relational healing. This diversity of approaches speaks to the adaptability of Circling as a psychosocial technology, capable of addressing a range of individual and collective needs.

The practice of Circling feels very old, like getting together with the tribe to process and integrate something. I personally feel that Circling is one of the best technologies to perform Jungian integration. If you read books like Complex PTSD by Pete Walker or The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk (and numerous others about trauma), you will eventually come across the notion that trauma and mental illness is largely considered a community disease in indigenous and traditional cultures, and healing and process likewise takes place communally. Circling, in my estimation, is the result of a systematic and rigorous (read: Western) recreation and reconstruction of this ancient indigenous wisdom. Furthermore, by operationalizing and reproducing the results, creating books, training videos, companies, and workshops, it transmutes from a cool technique to a fully realized psychosocial technology.

Psychedelic Retreats as a Psychosocial Technology

Psychedelic retreats represent a sophisticated psychosocial technology that combines ancient wisdom traditions with modern scientific understanding to create powerful, transformative experiences. These retreats have emerged as a structured approach to harnessing the potential of psychedelic substances for personal growth, healing, and spiritual exploration. It’s basically shamanic traditions combined with yoga and wellness retreats, but systematized to create reliable results: namely healing and profound spiritual experiences.

At the core of this technology is a deep respect for and learning from traditional shamanic practices. Many retreats draw heavily from Amazonian traditions surrounding Ayahuasca, as well as Central American indigenous practices involving psilocybin mushrooms and peyote. These ancient traditions have developed over thousands of years, refining methods for working with plant medicines to induce altered states of consciousness and facilitate healing, usually in a group setting.

However, what sets modern psychedelic retreats apart as a psychosocial technology is their integration of these ancient practices with Western scientific rigor and rational inquiry. This synthesis allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the physiological and psychological effects of psychedelics, as well as the development of protocols to maximize benefits and minimize risks. Rather than relying on the intuitive wisdom of tribal elders to pass on knowledge, we now write books, create training programs, and study it in universities. Reproducibility and rigor, as a form of reverence and respect, is the new way.

By combining insights from neuroscience, psychology, and anthropology with time-tested shamanic techniques, these retreats aim to reliably recreate profoundly healing, spiritual, and transformative experiences. This intersection of the ancient and the modern creates a unique space for exploration of consciousness and personal growth.

Several key components contribute to the effectiveness of psychedelic retreats as a psychosocial technology:

Music plays a crucial role in shaping the psychedelic experience. Carefully curated playlists or live music performances are often used to guide participants through different emotional and psychological states. The power of sound to influence consciousness is well understood in both traditional practices and modern neuroscience, and its application in these settings is a prime example of the synthesis of old and new knowledge.

Presence is another critical element. Trained facilitators maintain a grounded, supportive presence throughout the experience. This human connection provides a sense of safety and containment, allowing participants to surrender more fully to the psychedelic journey. The quality of presence offered by facilitators often draws from both indigenous traditions of holding space and modern therapeutic approaches.

Facilitation itself is a complex art that combines elements of traditional shamanic guidance with contemporary psychological understanding. Facilitators are trained to navigate the often intense and unpredictable terrain of psychedelic experiences, offering support, redirection, and interpretation as needed. This role requires a deep understanding of altered states of consciousness, as well as the ability to bridge between the mystical insights of the psychedelic state and the practical realities of everyday life.

Integration is perhaps one of the most crucial aspects of this psychosocial technology. Recognizing that the true value of psychedelic experiences often lies in how they are incorporated into one's life, modern retreats place significant emphasis on integration practices. These may include group sharing circles, individual counseling sessions, art therapy, journaling, and ongoing support after the retreat. The integration process draws heavily on modern psychological techniques while also incorporating traditional wisdom about the nature of healing and personal transformation.

The setting of these retreats is also carefully designed to support the psychedelic experience. Often located in natural or serene environments, the physical space is curated to minimize external stressors and maximize the potential for introspection and connection with nature. This attention to set and setting reflects both shamanic traditions of sacred spaces and modern understanding of the importance of environment in shaping consciousness.

Preparation is another key component, with participants often engaging in dietary restrictions, meditation practices, or other forms of physical and psychological preparation in the days or weeks leading up to the retreat. This preparatory phase draws on traditional concepts of purification as well as modern ideas about optimizing mental and physical states for transformative experiences.

The use of specific protocols and dosing regimens in these retreats reflects a scientific approach to working with psychedelics. While respecting the unpredictable nature of these experiences, retreat organizers often employ standardized methods based on research and accumulated experience to promote safety and optimize outcomes.

Metamodernism + Psychosocial Technology

This is the way of the future.

Metamodernism, in all its permutations and facets, is bringing us to a new age of thinking, spirituality, and orientation towards humanity and society.

Psychosocial technologies, like Burning Man and psychedelic retreats, will help cement in these lessons as society transforms. Even more importantly, they will offer transformative experiences to individuals as they bridge the gap between where they are now, and where they want to be in the future.

Metamodernism is a break from the cynical and pedantic postmodern tradition, which is locked in its head, stuck navel gazing, and not allowed to make any assertions about how the world works, or how the world ought to be. Postmodernism, as a reaction to globalism and the failure of Western empires, is afraid to make any assertions about the nature of humanity or what ought to be. We can’t even agree on basic assertions like “suffering is bad, people don’t like suffering.” Yet, scientifically we can test this. Put 100 people in a room and subject them to extreme cold, and give them a button to warm up the room. 100 people will push that button.

Psychosocial technologies, such as those elucidated here, shatter norms about what conversations can be had, who is allowed to have them, and perhaps most importantly, has zero respect for gatekeeping. Social media and the Internet, as another set of psychosocial technologies, has truly democratized the conversations around culture, psychology, mental health, and the direction we want to take humanity. The intelligentsia is no longer landed aristocrats, born of wealth and privilege. The intelligentsia is now everyone with an internet connection. Ordinary citizens become mavens and philosophers (the author of this blog being a prime example, and one of millions more).

An Invitation

I am building a new learning community called the New Era Pathfinders. This is an evolution of my personal mission. Originally, my mission was to solve AI alignment, which was perhaps a bit ambitious for one person. However, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see a few things:

1. Plenty of researchers around the world are picking up the torch of AI safety research

2. I haven’t seen any evidence that AI is difficult to align

3. Humans, on the other hand…

During my career as a public communicator, I’ve gotten a few questions regarding AI alignment and the future of humanity:

What do you align AI to?

This first question is still being worked on by every AI company and university. These six words underscore a huge question, which has forced us to raise the mirror of AI to ourselves, and ask some deeply uncomfortable questions. Who are we really? What do we really want? What do we truly value?

The advent of AI will be a forcing function that, ultimately, will force the issue of values, morality, and ethics. The conversation is coming, like it or not. It is impossible to answer the question of outer alignment without taking a good, long, hard look at humanity in the black mirror of technology.

How do you align humans?

Even once I convinced people that there are likely some universal values to which we can align AI, the next question inevitably comes: Yeah, but how do you align humanity?

This is what I’ve been working on for the last year.

My New Era Pathfinders community is for people asking these same questions, and more.

1. How will I take care of myself as we transition into an AI-based economy?

2. What will my life mean if AI takes my job or changes everything?

3. What will be changing, how, and why? And more importantly, how can I adapt and prepare myself?

You can join my learning community here: https://www.skool.com/newerapathfinders/about