I sympathized with some of what that Remodernist Manifesto was saying, but I thought it was too narrow to be
the successor to postmodernism. Personally I'm an atheist. Although I respect spirituality and religion and think they have
a place in post-postmodernism, I don't think they're required.
The modernism rejected by postmodernism has its origins in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The main ideas of these movements were humanism and reason.
Postmodernism adheres to the idea that there are some areas of understanding that can't be probed by reason. In fact the foundations of all knowledge lie within these regions, so no knowledge can be founded on reason alone.
In modernism, truth is based on reason.
In postmodernism, there is no truth.
I suggest that in post-postmodernism, we allow for truth that is not based on reason. It can be based on the heart, the soul, divine inspiration. Not only one but any of these things are valid. Unlike reason, these are subjective.
The idea is to keep the humanism, but diminish the emphasis on reason. Humanism is in some sense a competitor to religion, but it is not really contradictory with it. The idea is that some truths can come from within our humanity. This is essentially what I mean by "from the heart".
This in particular rubbed me the wrong way:
Remodernism embodies spiritual depth and meaning and brings to an end an age of scientific materialism, nihilism and spiritual bankruptcy.
Scientific materialism has taken us a long way. We shouldn't throw it out. There are objective scientific truths based on a materialistic conception. I'd even say we should take this as far as we can go with it, and explain as much as we can with scientific materialism. But it doesn't have to be the only source of truth.
Hmm. I don't think sincerity and irony are mutually exclusive.
Irony doesn't imply a lack of sincerity, IMO. Irony isn't solely sarcasm.
Irony has various forms, but what's common among them is the juxtaposition of an idea and its contradiction. I think what's meant by sincerity, here, is a clear and committed choice between the two.
You can have a sincere belief that an idea can coexist with its contradiction, but this is kind of a meta-sincerity.
Apologies if I have hijacked the thread again. I also don't have my own literary movement. I don't consider myself a literary writer. I just write what's in my heart. I'm sure I'm influenced by the times and culture I live in, and it might turn out that I'm in a movement after all. I don't think most people know what movement they're part of. Such categories are defined after the fact.