Cults After Doomsday

How Metamodern Communities Form out of Nihilism

Nihilism as Fate

Western science has enjoyed secular freedom for some 400 years now. After departing from the church during the Enlightenment, the twin flames of reason and logic led humanity forward through the dark and into Modernity: the grand human project whereby our minds, and not God, would lead us to salvation and a better world. Technological advances provided scientific communities around the world with the means of recording and compounding their discoveries, and inch-by-inch we began to paint the universe with understanding.

When visions of the horizon- of Nihilism– became clearer to philosophical academia, its arrival was mitigated by affecting only the few odd individuals who chose to gaze so carelessly into the void. Early expressions of the coming horror of Existential Nihilism were most famously expressed in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. But for all it was, the final conclusion of reason applied to meaning would remain a demon for intellectuals and academics alone. Existential dread was a sickness which affected only those who could afford it, whose life-meaning was not concerned with lesser works of feeding and sheltering one’s self.

This delayed fuse of two centuries reaches its conclusion now in the first quarter of the 21st century: the introduction of Nihilism into the psyche of the general populace. For this, the internet is partly to blame: where before, no other medium existed through which the layman could access all the knowledge of humankind. Only a tool such as the internet could guide anyone, regardless of aptitude for learning, to understanding the end of meaning in a single lifetime. Where before the words “God is Dead” had been graffiti inside playground equipment, now it may be used as a greeting among youths, as one would comment on the weather.

In Nihilism, there are no “problems” at all, and we exist in a sufficiently defined, sterile and indifferent universe. This has been a familiar philosophical subject for two centuries, but what has changed now is the relationship between the global human society (effectively, mankind itself) and Nihilism. The ‘human condition’ now includes the understanding of meaninglessness. This change is not for better or for worse: it simply is. However, it creates an interesting sort of puzzle: one that is of particular import because it regards the future of the only known sapience in all creation.

When the human condition has accepted Nihilism as its truth, what can be the future of humanity? An amoral foundation lacks a medium through which two individuals can agree on what they both ought to do together. To put it another way: What, if any, system of meaning allows for communities to form when there can exist no logical justification for connecting two or more individual consciousnesses within a common identity?

A Definition by Constraints

The future system must, by definition, be one that prevails. Since Nihilism is the final conclusion of logic, it is inevitable that a sufficiently advanced society will confront it. As established, a society whose individuals operate through Nihilism is not stable, and must escape Postmodernism or be destroyed. The conservative, Modernist perspective does not see a path forward through Nihilism: the solution is instead to back-track, block our ears, and deceive ourselves about the ungrounded nature of reality. We escape backward in time, to before when we understood. The Postmodernist proposes no solution at all, and simply asserts that perfect logic has led us here, and so it is ‘right’ no matter how worthless or painful everything has become for anyone to endure. The complete collapse of all societies is justified in the Postmodernist perspective because it is the logical conclusion.

Globalization via the internet has brought the party to us so quickly that timely cultural reaction at the state level is impossible. The result is a cascade of societal collapse within the solid-enough framework of the state (for now). This effect is already being felt with the wholesale rejection of social media, the disgust with all political groups, the generational exhaustion of left/right turmoil, exacerbated by the Covid pandemic. All that remains now is a transient collection of systems whose patrons have become disillusioned with identifying themselves in any creed, any leader, any group, any label.

For better or for worse, the-near future will hearken a grass-roots revolution of consciousness in abolition of all meaning, and with it all existing foundations for group identification. Very few will approach this change cognitively (in definition or label-shedding) and for the most-part this transition will simply be felt. Even today it is being felt as each individual’s growing alienation from the background of the world: from humanity, from one’s country, from one’s religious communities, from one’s family, from one’s career, from one’s future. 

It is a growing sentiment to express disdain for both sides of any argument, and it feels as though the nature of the world is to produce problems where there exist only two sides. More and more, the general population are becoming familiar with the Existentialist maxim voiced nearly a century ago by Jean-Paul Sartre: There are as many worlds as there are perspectives, and there are as many perspectives as there are consciousnesses. One is growing to feel that their world is not valued by anyone.

Well so, what of it? If there is no meaning, if there is no objective source of valuation or morality, if indeed morality simply does not exist, then what is all the fuss about? The ‘problem’ simply ceases to exist in a puff of black smoke on a backdrop of endless dark. Let us all collapse into chaos and nothingness, let the human race consume themselves to nought- it would be no good or evil thing. So says the Postmodernist.

All of this is the logical conclusion, and here lies the sub-atomic foam of a new sort of thought: an engagement in reckoning from a foundation laid in the perfect absence of hope: For if anything will prevail from here, then it will prevail from the necessity of meaninglessness. And if meaninglessness is the triumph of logic, then the only survivors of this place will be those who move on without it.

The Death of the Love of Knowledge

Here, two logically opposed requirements for a system of the future have been established: namely, a foundation in Nihilism, and the justification of group identities. These are logically inconsolable goals because Nihilism is a purely individualist ideology; paying respects to it as an uncompromising truth of reality requires an admission of arbitrariness by any other system of meaning. Just so, the Existentialist and Absurdist approach to a (somewhat) comfortable life requires making peace with meaninglessness: One must accept that any life-calling would be arbitrarily chosen without logical justification. It must simply be chosen and lived.

That approach is sufficient for the occasional intellectual who has become disillusioned with the grand meta-narratives of Modern human projects; the result is one rebel out of a few thousand who otherwise keep up the march. The rebel is a cog with worn teeth that will not produce work, but whose failure is compensated for by ample redundancy in the rest of the machine. But what happens when everyone is a rebel? How is a machine composed, whose parts can only justify a life chosen arbitrarily for only themselves and guided only by their own hearts? How can a machine exist when all components have no right over each-other? If any such “machine of the future” exists, it will somehow satisfy both of these requirements: it will be bluntly and admittedly arbitrary, and it will also be unquestionable.

Unquestionable and arbitrary is a combination of words to churn the gut of any self-respecting champion of the indomitable human spirit. No Liberal, no Marxist, no Conservative, no Christian, no Muslim, no participant in any ideology on the familiar playing-field of human morality or reason would accept such a thing onto themselves or the world as that which is both unquestionable and arbitrary. The future-ideology departs immediately from the familiar plane of all sense onto a new imaginary axis. Where the failure of Modernity demonstrated the worthlessness of faith and the human heart, the failure of Postmodernity has demonstrated the failure of the human mind. The remainder of humanity which passes through this great sieve will participate in a philosophy that is alien to all existing forms of science and faith alike.

Knowing, but defiant of knowing: the fittest human codes will embody the arbitrariness of a universe whose natural law occasionally produces consciousness. Their speech, state, and religion will be based in a fundamental rejection of logic itself: humans embracing madness together, under a flag whose symbols mean madness.

The Era of Madness

Necessarily, the new systems will value forms of altruism and dedication to others – or will at least allow for groups to form and perform tasks collectively toward a common goal. Normally, a system that justifies forming a group requires expressing that its goals are “good” or “valuable”, but the Metahuman will know what these words mean: nothing. In order for groups to form anyway (as we assume that they would, rather than humanity simply collapsing into anarchy), the group identity of Metamodernism would employ stubbornness, sarcasm, irony, or bold-faced arguments in bad faith. We would essentially play at being a society, and all projects conducted by groups would be done in the full light of their worthlessness, meaninglessness, and transience. Still, the Metahuman would participate anyway, and the acknowledgement of meaninglessness is implied by their participation.

The new world will thus be one of monuments built on whims, and whimsy will act as the engine of ‘production’ at whatever scale such united whims are capable of. It is easy to see why a world like this might not succeed in such grand projects ever again as the Tarbela Dam, the James Webb Space Telescope, or indeed the maintenance and propagation of the World Wide Web. The Metahuman mind which perceives from within the void would sooner eat, drink, and be merry; one-by-one the satellites of the old world may return from the sky, but for it Metahumanity may see the same, quiet skies as the first anatomically modern human.

The poetry of a post-logical mode of being is no mistake. It is a kind of simplicity that draws from the medical use of the word “simple”. When the average neutral state of the human psyche is introspection in the face of annihilation, then logic will be gone and only coping and compassion will remain. One would necessarily see their contemporaries as similarly-suffering, malformed and existentially stunted products of an opaque, billion-layered amalgamation of simple fundamental laws within an unobserved creation. To sacrifice the life or comfort of another by one’s own hands for the sake of some abstract, imagined future will not factor into the thoughts of the post-logical Metahuman. The future of any moment is always nothingness; it cannot ever exist.

Culture and community, then, will be born from a kind of mutual horror. Group identities will begin with the shared experience of being a transient creature which can experience pain and must seek meaning at all times within a meaningless world. Structures thereafter will grow under the pretense of play, or other admitted arbitrariness, with a mutual sincerity and understanding that “all of this” serves as a means to celebrate. For we are not alone in our suffering.

“Sacred”

Metamodern study, in attempting to consolidate the Modern and Postmodern movements, has defined the tone of Post-postmodernism as “ironic sincerity”, and supposed at the advent of a new spirituality to match. To this end, the word “Sacred” is used to describe values collected and shared in a group under such  circumstances. This word is especially apt in its communication of two qualities at once: unquestionable and arbitrary. A spiritual community today would speak this word and mean “unquestionable” where the atheist hears “arbitrary” but communities under Metamodernism will hear, and mean, both.

“Sacred” is a label that can be used now to describe systems which survive the bottleneck of structure-collapse under Postmodernism. Further, it is a means to bridge the gap between arbitrary selections of values (Sacreds) by two or more individuals. Since the future use of the word would include in its connotation the admission of meaninglessness, it contains all of the formalities required for two Nihilists to work together toward some project (assuming they agree that the proposed project is Sacred.) It is a byword which means “This might sound stupid, but I am inspired to do such-and-such a thing”. 

Under Metamodernism, there cannot exist such a thing as the worthless endeavour; one cannot be indicted for pursuing the devices of their heart since they must admit from the outset that there is no reason for doing it. There is only their Sacred, and the invitation.

I have learned to walk: since then I have run.

I have learned to fly: since then I do not have to be pushed in order to move.

Now I am nimble, now I fly, 

Now I see myself under myself, 

Now a god dances within me.

Friedrich Nietzsche – Thus Spoke Zarathustra

The personal god of the post-logic human will be the personification of all that which is Sacred to them. As the crucifix guides and reminds the pious Christian of their tenets and the mythos of their reality, so too will the Metahuman hold a reverence to one’s own heart, in the form of a greater Being than themselves: the transcendent Idol-of-the-Self. This divine, unlike those of old world, is quick to kneel and lean in for a whisper from their child, and to change its ways in compromise with a mortal self. 

A concise expression of this form of spirituality can be found, of all things, in the Bible. It is meant here as an indictment of idolatry by describing the absurdity of worshipping the work of one’s own hands. From a Modern perspective, it is an assertion of God’s sovereignty. From a Postmodern perspective, it is an ironic indictment of all religions. From a Metamodern perspective, it is a poem to the hearts of humankind:

He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire: And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god.

Isaiah 44:16-17 KJV

From the establishment of the unquestionable-but-arbitrary personal god (informed by the Sacred values of the individual), one may then seek a place of worship: a proverbial brook, cave, chasm, plain or summit where a pedestal may be built by one’s hands alone, upon which to honour the God of You. 

The sovereignty of this individual god cannot be overstated. It is the defining characteristic of Existential Nihilism, and it forms the basis for all existentialist philosophies. Sartre’s freedom, Nietzsche’s inner-god, Kierkegaard’s leap of faith, Camus’ spirit of rebellion: all are expressions of the complete and unmovable agency of the individual consciousness. For them, the fate of this agency is the permanent and inconsolable separation from all man-made societal structures. Metamodernism instead continues forward: In a world where everyone must confront the depth of their freedom, humans will still form structures amongst themselves. This collaboration between personal gods is the basis of Meta-Modernity.

The Post-Doomsday Cult

How can gods of equal standing possibly collaborate, when their reality is defined by their sovereignty above all? Consider the ancient practices of idolatry and animism: the first religions of early humans and Neanderthals. Spirituality in this form was regional, and often did not deny or even hold policy on the sovereignty of deities which existed beyond the borders of an idol’s land. In additional to a regional deity, individual families might have family idols, and even personal idols. Visitors would gift the local idol while passing through: they claimed no authority on its sovereignty in the place where it rested. In this way, when two individuals seek to collaborate on a mutually Sacred goal, they engage in the formation of a cult to a jointly-defined, regional god.

These collectively-formed idols exert the same arbitrary-unquestioned sovereignty, but since the premise of such a cult is the meaninglessness of joint ventures, the authority of the god over the member is unquestioned only so long as they opt-in to the faith. In this way, all cults may dissolve and reform at the whims of its members. In the metaphor of the cult, dressings of religion convey arbitrariness and individual freedom in matters of faith. Faith oriented toward a personification of group values is not unfamiliar, and on a foundation of Nihilism, all collaboration is an act of faith.

Today, such opt-in systems are mimicked by online communities: particularly in the distinct cultures that arise on social media sites. The phrase “Tumblr User” carries with it a similar tone as “Follower of the Cult of Tumblr”. Such a denizen has chosen to follow Tumblr-Sacred as unquestionable-and-arbitrary. So it is with the Cult of 4Chan, the Cult of Reddit, the Cult of Twitter, and so on. Like sojourners in idolatrous lands, internet citizens compare their Sacred against each community they explore. If the values are not shared, they are free to move along. They would not consider the morality or right of the cult to exist (or they do so, albeit fruitlessly). No judgement can exist toward the religion except “not mine”.

Gods with the names of corporations may cease to exist in the global disillusionment, but already the shapes of lesser communal-gods are forming in the zeitgeist of the information superhighway. Since the transition is one of identity, it is seen as group identity-seeking and growing dissatisfaction with labels. Gender identity is one such structure of group-labeling which has begun to collapse in on itself: identity niches so numerous and granular that the line of sincerity has been lost. Gender-labeling practice has collided with a subset of the same maxim established prior: there are as many genders as there are people. Here in the realm of self-parody, however, there can now arise the gender-cult whose members have seen and understand the collapse of the meaning which they uphold in defiance.

Gender-identity is a small part of the greater identity revolution. It is focused on today by the general populace as a result of its conflict with common law. The general public’s disillusionment with assertions by any group that the issues of sexuality, race, and gender have or will be solved by their platform is another expression of the revolution of identity. This is the result of a system’s inability to cater to the Sacred individual: Modern societal structure takes itself seriously, and will never yield to meaninglessness lest it be destroyed. However, identity acceleration caused by the internet is beginning to pull all of these structures into the void, where the memories of them may begin to form cults.

At the Borders of the Gods

To travel and sojourn in lands abroad, and meet the gods therein, is to participate in the religion of the new world. The cults one meets, or founds, will rise from a mutual understanding of the Sacred between its members, and together they purport to honour their gods in art, or play, or sport. Every cult has its own rites of entry or apostasy, but via the Nihilist rejection of authority, all must respect the sovereignty of the individual to choose their own gods.

Interaction between cults of this structure form the basis for trade and industry, and it is quite unlike our own. The old-world corporate identity which was unified in the arbitrary valuation of capital is replaced by the worker-owned profession-cult whose members practice their trade in a mutual reverence for their goddess, a personification of excellence in their craft. An example might be the trade-cult of an arboreal goddess, staffed by members whose hearts have made Sacred the pursuit of excellence in the craft of woodworking. Outside of their service in the professional cult, each member has a personal collection of minor gods they follow, with other social circles. Where there are ‘work friends’ and ‘pub friends’, there will instead be the Holy Works, and daily evening festivals to the local God of Whiskey.

By nature of its foundation in Nihilism, the world will have been relieved of value systems which cultivate competition for resources. Requirements for sustaining life exist beneath the level of the cult: no individual would be perceived as “other”, even if they have never been seen before. Nihilistic compassion dictates mutual survival, and communal distribution of resources will exist in the form of sharing by individuals, with potential for distributary cults to arise. (Again, a perspective of compassion out of Nihilism would be selected for, or otherwise no communities would form out of Postmodernism).

Similarly, cults of altruism, healing, and service will arise from the Sacred valuation of such things which naturally arise in the human heart. Guided by the pre-existing evolutionary pressure toward communalism, the participation in the cult of medicine is as simple as donning the colors. In the way that a pendant of Saint Francis conveys one’s dedication to the welfare and comfort of animals today, one takes up the idol of a creed at their whim, or readily adopts the god of an existing cult with which they identify.

The expression of what one finds Sacred may be displayed outwardly, or the agreed-upon dressings of one’s primary cult may be modified further with personal touches. It would be most common to communicate individual beliefs while also participating in a group identity in an additive fashion. Similarity and agreement on the meaning of symbols over large distances need not apply, as a requirement for participation in any belief system does not necessitate literal forms of identification. However, with the abolition of all sources of conformity or shame it can be expected that the individual will take up a fashion that is entirely their own. The significance of expression in fashion will increase greatly, as it is today in certain counter-culture movements like punk, otaku or convention culture. Visible expressions of conformity, such as the ‘uniform’ of a cult, will necessarily be qualified by irony and always opt-in.

Another analogy of this cult system is the contemporary formation of a music band, but in this case all groups for all purposes would be formed in the same way: Unlike bands today, there will exist no prospect of wealth or status from the creation of the group: only the celebration of having found similar people with similar taste, whose hearts also yearn to create art in a shared medium of music. Likewise the band of carpenters share a passion for their art, the hospice-cult agree in one voice that the woeful sobs of their fellow man will not prevail in their meaningless-but-shared lives.

As performance on a stage invites criticism from all, so is any form of living in Metamodernism: because no individual will have any reason to hide their hearts from others. This might be a frightening prospect, but it underscores the necessity of the foundation of Nihilism: everyone is aware that none of this matters, that your beliefs are silly, and also that their beliefs are silly. In the way that self-deprecating comedy is critic-proof, so will the neutral mode of living be purely expressive compassion combined with the admission of the absurdity of caring.

The Language of Meaningless Love

Without the alienation of a global structure asserting the same meaning onto all people, idolaters are freed from the fear of exclusion and craving of acceptance. Cult-to-cult interactions amount to groups sharing a space while “letting their freak flags fly”. The blunt display of irony required for expressing each group’s Sacred allows them to perform openly but remain free from the effect of criticism. In fact, the language of Metamodernism may come to resemble teasing as a means of discussing ideas. Common phrases used today to illustrate a break-down in the logic of an argument will be common parlance, since all collaboration is based in logical fallacy.

“Because I said so”, “Because I felt like it”, “Because I have nothing better to do”, “I like it”, “Why not?”, “That’s the way it is”, “It is what it is”.

In the world beyond logic, all of reality will be a matter of taste. Expressing differences between your Sacred and that of another amounts to insulting subjective preference, understanding the absurdity of fighting subjectivity. Compare today playfully insulting the preferred music genres of your friends, knowing full well that your taste is also arbitrary and may be equally indicted by them. So it will be in all things, all creeds, all matters. One’s choice of profession, the causes one serves, the art that captures one’s heart, the vistas and places that bring one peace: all these must be accepted as a matter of taste. Never free from teasing, but forever-after free from all authority, divine or mortal alike.

A particular subculture today exemplifies this arbitrary donning-of-colors and tradition of playful inter-cult interaction. Its denizens understand the absurdity of participation in each identity, but also consider the choice of one’s cults as a demonstration of their individual Sacred values. It is personal, and silly. It invites discourse between ideals, but no blood may ever be drawn. It is the archetype for the play-fighting structure of post-logic Metamodernist idolatry. It is called “The Waifu War”.

The Forever Waifu War

The waifu is a tradition of anime fandom which was coined in the early 2000s, but has existed since the development of Japanese animation. Waifuism is characterized by a loose ritual which borders on a coming-of-age rite: a young person in the fandom selects a character in anime with which they most identify. Thereafter, they are expected to remain loyal to the character, and participate whenever prompted in The Waifu Wars: recreational satirical debates wherein the participants attack the character of each-other’s chosen waifu.

The layers of absurdity in the Waifu War mirror the ironic sincerity expressed in Metamodernism: the shameful nature of being an anime fan (less-so taboo today as in the early internet) is heightened by forming a meaningful personal relationship with a character (rather than a human being in the form of traditional courtship), and then satirized a final time by the ironic play-acting that such a thing is the single most important, defining characteristic of one’s entire identity: defending the honor of a cartoon drawing against slander by strangers on the internet.

One who has a chuckle at the introduction of The Waifu War into this discussion has had a glimpse of the irony and abandon that will pervade the post-logic world. The word “ridiculous” will be used in a positive light; the nature of all ideology will be “worthy of ridicule”. Metamodernism justifies sincere expression and removes the mystique of “being serious”. Nothing is serious, but everything is personal. To choose to be an artist or an engineer is as absurd as choosing a favorite anime character and defending her to the death.

A waifu can be thought of as a prototype cult-goddess. Her character and the tropes of her “legend” create a transcendent, personified ideation which forms the mission-statement of a cult. From there, an individual may compare their own Sacred to hers, and then choose whether to follow her. This process is similar to the current-day personal identification and veneration of the catholic saints, but all cult-archetypes will necessarily be presented as fiction (via the foundation of Nihilism). Real individuals may also be the archetype for a cult, but the lack of their inherent worth will be well conveyed. 

Consider a cult formed around a particular (likely Kierkegaardian or entirely secular) perspective of Jesus: interaction with such a group would be based on how one feels about the phrase “Jesus is my waifu”. This would be an ironically sincere expression of that group’s collective Sacred values, but unlike Christianity today, all reverence and sanctity in worship has been uprooted and replanted in self-awareness. Under Metamodern cultism, loving Jesus is first personal, and must admit the lack of foundation in that choice.

The value in deifying a complex archetype, such as Jesus or a waifu, is in the lack of a single author for the archetype (excluding the authority of the Catholic church, a sentiment that will have died long ago). This allows for individuals to follow this archetype-god, and identify with other followers, while holding a personal relationship with the deity. 

As all cults are opt-in, differences in perspective and forms of worship are solved simply by a schism and the creation of a new cult. In this way, exceptionally divisive archetypes or mission-statements may result in a single cult per individual, which brings us back to the natural state of Postmodernism: one world per consciousness, and all community thereafter is formed by willful departure from logic.

A Pantheon of Mad Gods

When reason provides no answers as to the value of the Other, all forms of community are a departure from reason. When technology brings all people to this conclusion of reason, the lies which founded all previous human projects will not do. At the absence of justification, progress will continue all the same. But now we move forward with understanding at the cost of reason.

Projects of the human spirit rise from the abyss, brought aloft by a multitude of hands altogether, whose waking eyes see all-around the nothingness of what they are. When the just measure and the perfect instrument report to them the transience and worthlessness of their work, they will reply in one voice “I know”. Laughter at the success of such meaningless efforts will mirror laughter in awe of their collapse, and all through time this ocean of human expression will churn forth curious, beautiful shapes and then will be no more.

If a future for humanity exists beyond Postmodernism and the death of meaning, it will be to consolidate the unshackled agency of the individual consciousness, and the dreams we have of things that no single body can create. To this end, we must rise together in defiance of the need for a reason why. To work beneath a transcendent idea while understanding of the nature of meaninglessness is to swear fealty to a mad god.

The many-thousand flags which rise from the void will display the colors of the individuals who each contributed a patch to their design. The marching steps and hollering voices beneath them will rise to shake the firmament, in a way that pure sincerity could never have managed. For to shout aloud and sing in vibrato to the things that one adores is easier, and best, when it is funny to do so. And if such things are done to celebrate the love in one’s heart with others, then all the better. The pantheon of mad gods sets a stage for the individual, and an open invitation to create something more, in spite of it all. The Nihilist beyond our borders believes in all the same as us, and by all right creates lonesome works of equal value to ours. But his worthless things will be colder and smaller than our worthless things; for we are many, and he is alone.