Can and should we expect a ‘spiritual’ revolution any time soon ?

Introducing the distinction between ‘hard’ vs ‘soft’ metamemes, and between coordination engines and purification generators

Let me first of all welcome a wave of new readers from the Deepcode substack, thanks for your interest!

We start with a quote:

"First we have the emergence of a new way of production and governance, a new “hard” Coordination Engine … — and then we have a critique of the new hard facts of life, which brings about a cultural revolution of sorts, the cultural superstructure or so-called “purification generator”, that manages to make life more tolerable, more fair, and a little less brutal, but without replacing the productive and governmental foundation of society."

• Hanzi Freinacht

This article is about what we can expect in the ongoing transition that seems to have accelerated recently, with major global disruptions of supply chains in the works, a result of the Trump administration’s attempt to re-industrialize the United States through higher tariffs.

But what can we expect as a cultural, moral and spiritual reaction to such disruptive events ?

Should we expect a kind of spiritual revolution, like the Christian revolution that swept the western Roman Empire, the hegemony of Zen replacing pure land Buddhism after the victory of the Shogun in Japan, or the fast growth of Buddhism in China after the crisis of the Han empire (in the ‘period of Disunion’ between the 3rd and 6th centuries)? Or will that not happen as yet ? I find this an important topic to understand to mitigate our expectations about what is coming.

It is indeed important to understand that important societal transitions are very often value transitions as well, i.e. not just the replacement of a regime or a societal system, but a deep rejection of the values of the previously failed system, often in reaction to it. This is well described by Pitirim Sorokin in his masterwork , “Social and Cultural Dynamics”. Sorokin distinguishes Sensate from Ideate epochs in human history, succeeding each other in a kind of pendulum swing; when one swing has reached a saturation point, it creates a contrary reaction. Ideates are swinging away from materiality, empiricism and rationalism, in favour of adherences to core spiritual ideas, while Sensate societies move back to materialism, empiricism, and rationalism.

This is how Carlos Mallmann and Guillermo Lemarchand explain the ‘saturation hypothesis’ explaining such macro-historical swings in collective preferences:

“This sort of evolving macro-psychological system or order parameter expresses the origin, growth, diffusion, saturation, exhaustion, and decline of collective ideas in diverse domains, namely: political, military, religious, scientific, technological, economic, social, artistic, etc.

We could find in these ideas the roots that will allow us to develop a theory capable of connecting the individual psycho-social-motivational rhythms with the collective ones.

The individual members of the society contribute through their cultural and economical activities to the generation of a general ‘‘field’’ of societies with cultural, political, religious, social, and economic components. This collective field determines the socio-political atmosphere and the cultural and economic standard of the society and may be considered as an order parameter of the system characterizing the ‘‘rhythm’’ in which the society exists.

Reversely, the collective field strongly influences the attitudes and rhythms of individuals in the society by orienting their motivations, activities, by activating or de-activating their latent positive and negative qualities and capabilities, and by extending or narrowing their scope of thinking and action. One of the features of this sort of cyclic coupling of causes and effects is that self-accelerating as well as self-saturating processes result and can be measured. Our mathematical model explains the reasons for the oscillatory behavior.”

(https://www.academia.edu/13103863/Generational_Explanation_of_Long_Term_Billow_Like_Dynamics_of_Societal_Processes)

A good example is the value change that occurred through Christianity in Western Europe. Classical Greece and Rome were systems in which slavery played a large part. For the Greeks and the Romans, work was mostly done by slaves. The free men, with the liberty to pay attention to the requirements of being a good citizen, did not have to work. ​In classical Greece, the term banausos (βάναυσος) was used pejoratively to describe manual laborers and artisans—such as blacksmiths, potters, and carpenters—whose work involved practical, mechanical tasks. These categories were not physically enslaved, but morally enslaved through their need to constantly work for a living and for others. In other words, the hegemonic idea for centuries was that work was unworthy.

Altogether different was the point of view of the Christians, originally a ‘proletarian’ movement of which the monastics were the important early part. Their point of view and moral requirement was ‘ora et labora’, we have to work and pray. This elevates work to spiritual activity of the highest order. Pray connects with the divine world through the revelation of the scriptures, while work improves the natural world, inspired by the very same divine ordering, the ‘Book of Nature’. This started with the Benedictines who restored Italy’s food supply but was radicalized by the Cisterenziers in the 11th century, who were not just farmers but also elaborate craftsmen. The reasoning of founder St. Bernard was, that since they owed everything to God, they had to pray as much as they could, and to achieve this and be self-sufficient, they also had to work effectively. Thus the rather funny concept of ‘prayer-maximizing enterprises’, that also invented, according to some authors, the productivity and time-keeping that would eventually lead to bourgeois and industrial society. Basically, in this reading, the Reformation, which laid the groundwork for the industrial mentality, only occurred because the closure of the monasteries allowed this disciplined outlook to permeate the whole society, starting with the bourgeoisie. Furthermore, rather than the hate of the body that was the counterpart to the hedonistic ruling class in late Antiquity, the Christians introduced the countervailing notion of the resurrection of the body, which had originated in the Hebrew village communes, and which meant that matter was as sacred as the spirit and that labor was a salvific and ordering activity. That is what is meant by a value revolution. For the sociologically oriented monotheisms in particular, a believer is meant to collaborate to the divine ordering of a chaotic world. This is why the christian monks initiated a ‘communism of production’ (following the guidlines of the Acts of the Apostles), rather than the mere ‘communism of consumption’ of their eastern Buddhist counterparts.

It is here that I want to introduce a very important new idea to assess what a value revolution really is, and it turns out we can distinguish more ‘material’ value revolutions, from more ‘spiritual’ value revolutions.

This distinction is made by Hanzi Freinacht (a pseudonym for Daniel Görtz and Emil Ejner Friis), one of the more in vogue metamodern authors. For those readers who have not yet heard of the concept, metamodernism (or meta-modernity), is what comes after postmodernism (or post-modernity). So these are epochs that are marked by a deep philosophical, or perhaps even ‘spiritual’ change, marked by a specific set of interrelated ideas. A jump from one level of complexity, to another, as it were. Postmodernism is what comes after modernism, or what challenges it, meta-modernism in contrast, as the ‘meta’ modifier indicates, is a step further, it is ‘beyond’ modernity. In other words, it does not merely critique modernity, but creates something that replaces or augments it.

Think of it this way: there is a material reality, i.e. climate, geography, technology; there is a sociological reality, the way society is organized by class or caste; but there is also a peculiar way of seeing the world and valuing what is in it, determined by our ‘state of consciousness’. Obviously what we see or don’t see, depending on our framing, will also determine how we organize our society and see the material reality.

Unfortunately, defining metamodernism is a very complex matter, so I hope you can read our entry on it in the P2P Foundation’s wiki, which presents various interpretations of what it means: https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Metamodernism .

I have to introduce it because I am going to quote Hanzi Freinacht at length, and his particular conceptual innovation:

• the difference between hard and soft metamemes

and how this affects our vision of not just the emerging Metamodern epoch, but also of the transitions that human societies already went through in its previous history.

A metameme, is a network of ideas that fit together, and that forms a more or less coherence framework to view reality and thus, to organize or respond to the world.

Think of how a indigenous person may differ in basic outlook from a member of a organized religion, or how the latter may differ from a militant rationalistic or atheistic activist, and yet again from a contemporary ‘integrative’ and post-secular personality that seeks to understand the truths of both spirituality AND rationality. These are entirely different lifeworlds, based on entirely different frames of understanding the world. Such people may live in the same objective physical space, but their subjective experience of it is entirely different, because the ‘read’ reality in a very different way. To take a perhaps crude example, Stalinists and National-Socialists may be very opposed to each other, but may also share some underlying value framings, leading to different yet also similar authoritarian social orders.

Brendan Graham Dempsey explains metamemes as follows:

"Collective intelligence shapes meme networks — called “Metamemes” — which individual self-conscious minds “download” to better navigate their environment. Such metamemes serve to justify, legitimate, and explain human behavior and natural phenomena in their unique contexts—making them effectively equivalent to what we have been calling worldviews."

According to Hanzi Freinacht, before the emergence of Metamodernism, we can distinguish the following ‘Metamemetic Epochs’:

(Note how each epoch is distinguished by a particular set of ways of envisaging society)

“The Animistic metameme

Beginning with the “revolution of the upper Paleolithic” around 50 000 years ago. Characterized by animistic beliefs, totemism, shamanism, and ancestor cults that bind together larger bands of hunter-gatherers. This is also the metameme that gives rise to the first early art works.

The Faustian metameme

From the beginning of the agricultural revolution 12 000 years ago, blossoming with the great agrarian civilizations from around 4000 BCE. Characterized by notions of power gods, monumental architecture, and increased social stratification with privileged rulers on top with considerable means of organized violence. This is the metameme where we see the rise of powerful individuals.

The Postfaustian metameme

Beginning shortly before the axial age c. 800 BCE, in some aspects as early as 2000 BCE, but to its fullest extent only to blossom after 500 CE with the consolidation of the great moral religions such as Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. Characterized by transcendental ideas of salvation, literary traditions on ethics, and social critique. This is the metameme that gives rise to the so-called “righteous rebels”.

The Modern metameme

Beginning around 1500 CE, but in some aspects found in its proto-variant as early as 500 BCE. Blossoming only in the 19th and 20th century. Still the most prevailing metameme today. Characterized by rationalistic and scientific thought, notions of progress and material growth, and emancipation from arbitrary religious and political control.

The Postmodern metameme

Only to emerge in the 20th century, though some aspects appeared in the late 18th century. Yet to fully blossom. Characterized by a critique of rationalistic thought, established power relations and a greater concern with environmental and social issues.”

So far Hanzi Freinacht. And this does make sense to me and is broadly aligned to other integrative approaches.

So, to understand the difference between hard and soft metamemes, we have to understand the difference between coordination engines and purification generators.

Essentially, a hard metameme creates a fundamentally new way of creating and distributing value. Think of hunter-gathering, of agriculture, or industrial modes of production, they are fundamentally different. They extract different things, are organized very differently, and are marked by different elites.

A coordination engine is a way to create and distribute value, a way of extraction. Hunter-gathering differs from agriculture, which in turn differs from industrial modes of production. Each of these modalities also has different coordination elites, or ruling castes and classes. Not all agricultural societies are the same, yet they do share commonalities when contrasted to hunter-gathering societies.

Note how the concept of animism differs from the concept of hunter-gathering though.

Hunter-gathering preceded animism by hundreds of thousands of years, in what was called the Archaic epoch, before art was a thing. Animism is a cultural system which gives collective meaning to the hunter-gathering lifestyle. Civilization creates agriculture as a new mode of production, with a new ruling class, but the Axial religions demand higher ethical standards and create a new equilibrium between priests and warriors, for the potential benefit of the people which are now seen as part of the same religious community. For example, in China, Confucianism puts the intellectual mandarins in charge of society and democratizes ritual and knowledge to do so.

So a purification engine, such as the Postfaustian or Postmodern metamemes, are cultural re-organizations of a particular mode of extraction, but they do not reinvent the mode of extraction itself. Animism gives new meanings to collective life under hunter-gathering conditions; the Axial religions give new meaning to agricultural civilizations, and postmodern challenges the values of the industrial-capitalism mode of production but does not fundamentally change it. At least, that is the proposal of Hanzi Freinacht, and mine, as I find this approach very illuminating.

Here are Hanzi’s own definitions:

"The coordination engine is the underlying pattern of how people coordinate their actions with one another and the material flows around them, through space and time. This means that they can coordinate via hunting-gathering and camp-fire talks, by seasonal work efforts to sow crops, through labor markets and state regulation and national currency, and so on. It’s about the economy in a wide sense: about how human activities link up with one another. Think about it: “an economy” is basically a pattern of coordination of human agency over space and time."

"First we have the emergence of a new way of production and governance, a new “hard” Coordination Engine … — and then we have a critique of the new hard facts of life, which brings about a cultural revolution of sorts, the cultural superstructure or so-called “purification generator”, that manages to make life more tolerable, more fair, and a little less brutal, but without replacing the productive and governmental foundation of society."

(https://medium.com/@hanzifreinacht/the-6-hidden-patterns-chapter-1-4ed7bec011f3)

So the following quote makes perfect sense:

• “Archaic is a hard metameme, because it forms the basis of hunter-gatherer tech.

• Animism is a soft metameme, as it builds on the already-existent hunter-gatherer tech and generates the mythologies, stories, and spiritual and artistic animation of the natural world associated with the thousands of unique expressions of Animist cultures across the world.

• Faustianism is a hard metameme, as it’s associated with some technological advancement (typically, but not necessarily, agriculture, as we shall discuss later) that allows for larger populations to co-exist as one culture or social unit, one civilization.

• Postfaustianism is a soft metameme as it builds on the emergence of civilization, challenging and rearranging its social relations and ethical expression.

• Modernity is a hard metameme as it revolutionizes the economy and the sources of available power.

• Postmodernism is a soft metameme, because it critiques and remedies the injustices and inconsistencies of modern life, always seeking to establish that “another world is possible”.

• Metamodernism is a hard metameme, as it emerges only in fully post-industrial forms of life that are based around the Internet and its unique life conditions and social games."

(https://medium.com/@hanzifreinacht/the-6-hidden-patterns-chapter-1-4ed7bec011f3)

Essentially, I feel this last paragraph clears some of the confusion I feel about changes in spirituality.

Yes, some intellectuals are converting back to Christianity and other traditional religions that were born in the Axial Age. I think of Jonathan Pageau and how he brings Orthodoxy to life in a way that is entirely understandable to any educated lay person in our age; I see the attempts at a Neoplatonic revival by authors such as John Vervaeke; and I see the remarkable work to converge material and spiritual evolution by someone as Graham Brendan Dempsey. Definitely, something is brewing at the intellectual level. But is it a mass movement that gives ‘juice’ to a massive social transformation. It doesn’t seem so.

So if the regeneration of the traditional religions does not generate a straightforward fundamental change, does a return to mass political parties or political movements ? It doesn’t seem that any mass movement is really about creating a new world, as the working class of Russia may have done in 1917, or the peasant army of Mao in China. One could say Trump’s MAGA movement is a last gap of such a political revolution, but it has a strong retro-romantic feel to it, and it is hardly certain that it will succeed. It could be seen as the last gasp of a belief in political movements.

What does generate buzz in my opinion are the constructive networks that are already creating new ways of creating and distributing value. I think this is where you feel authentically dynamic and non-revanchist creative mentalities. Of course, these people do have political and spiritual values, but they are not uniform but pluralist, these are not in fact, spiritual movements, or spirit-centric movements. They are in effect people attempting to reinvent how we produce value, in different ways, whether they are urban commoners, rural permaculturists, or neo-nomadic crypto nomads. What binds them together is the construction of new forms of production, and organizing production and value exchange, in regenerative ways, to find a new equilibrium between the human and the natural world they are embedded in, connected with and interdependent with. It they have a religion, it would be the religion of life, a common understanding that the natural world, and its limitations, needs to be respected.

They are in effect, constructing a new ‘physical’ value modality. So, in that context, we are at the cusp of a hard metameme, as Freinacht suggests.

So let’s get to work and not wait for a spiritual revolution. The spiritual revolution will occur when we have substantially reorganized our material production.

Furthermore, I would argue that we need commons-centric production modalities to actually evolve a new spirituality. I see some evidence that this is the case. When we invented the internet, then democratized it with the browser and the web in 1993, we effectively reintroduced shared knowledge commons. The internet thus became a new way of considering value production. When people meet around shared goals and shared objects to be constructed in common, i.e. in a context of a object-oriented sociality, they already start seeing the world in a different way. The social object that we are constructing, creates a common goal and feeling, and a need to organize in new ways. When peers that originally do not pay each other, they do not create a hierarchical dependency based on payment for labor, but share an ideal, have to work together, and that necessities new modalities of cooperation, and coordination through social signals, called stigmergy.

My own take is that “What market pricing is to capitalism and planning is to state-based production, mutual coordination (i.e. Stigmergy) is to commons-based peer production!

When the digital generations that had learned to cooperate and gather online, faced the ‘physical crisis’ of 2008, they moved on to create urban and rural commons projects that were also a cultural expression of what they had learned in terms of cooperative behavior online. We now have flowering regenerative and bioregional communities, downstream from the new modality of value creation.

Of course it is more complicated than that, but here is a streamlined interpretation of a transitional process:

• A crisis occurs in the older dominant paradigm, its integrative capacity weakens and its institutions lose trust

• This creates fragmentation, and inevitably, polarization, as each person seeks affinity and solidarity in a context of individual atomization; in our epoch, it drives the Culture War rather than religious reformation or new political mass movements.

• Pioneers with anticipatory consciousness already understand there is no solution within the dying paradigm nor within the unproductive struggle between the tribes of the old world: they undertake an early exit to experiment with new forms that exhibit the post-crisis solutions, and create and sustain new seed forms

• As the disintegration accelerates, and the pioneers consolidate new productive and organizational forms, while the mass seeks survival solutions, new mentalities have to spread, and people have to be trained, to increase the adaptability of the massive new wave of migrants to the new solutions, and what they require as new human capacities.

If you follow my drift, you can see how the premises of a massive spiritual revolution has taken root; as the values which were incipient in the early pioneers, have to become the new hegemonic reality to align to the new mode of value creation and distribution. That modality, as Freinacht suggests, will also already exhibit its own negative results and excesses, eventually needing a purification generator. If this is true, it means today is not the moment to expect a full scale spiritual revolution, though the conditions of it are clearly in motion.

Such a conclusion vibes well with the thesis of Spengler that civilizational endings create a new religiosity as coping mechanism to deal with the crises, but are not yet that form of spirituality that is needed to rejig towards a new civilizational form.