Psychologists have long studied and quite successfully described stages of psychological growth, of adult development. As life unfolds, so may we, as human beings, as personalities.
But can culture evolve? The stages of cultural development have been approached many times but never been comprehensively, coherently, and convincingly captured.
The failures of developmental social theory have left authors like David Graeber and David Wengrow able to claim that stages of evolution of society do not meaningfully exist at all – that the very notion is a delusion of Western bias.
Until now.
The critics of the idea of evolution could not be more wrong. What has been lacking is only a sufficiently deep, abstract understanding of the great patterns of patterns, of the patterns that connect. This is what is captured by the notion of metamemes: the focus of this course. It’s the DNA of history.
It’s not Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. It’s not from bands to tribes to chiefdoms to states.
Hanzi Freinacht – this time mostly in the guise of Emil – presents a redefined theory of historical evolution, one that at a surface level may look similar to well-known models like Spiral Dynamics, but that at a closer look has become something entirely different, and one that meshes with the specific skills and knowledge of a trained historian.
The metamemes follow an inherent and elegant logic, and this logic is unearthed in a manner that reveals how all of the leading thinkers have been groping the elephant from different angles.
This course invites you to a behind-the-scenes look at Hanzi Freinacht’s redefinition of all hitherto prevalent models of cultural development. And once you see the models, all of history looks differently.
History as you know it, is history.
Tickets can be purchased here.
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Sessions take place on Saturdays and Sundays in November, 19:00-21:00 CET. All sessions will be recorded and made available shortly thereafter. Here’s the program:
Weekend One: The 6 Hidden Patterns of History (and why they’ve been so difficult to spot)
The metamemes have been missed by all the world’s leading thinkers. Why? There is an explanation, and once you see it, it becomes readily apparent not only how the past has developed, but also how the seeds of the future look from today’s perspective.
Saturday November 2:
- What is a metameme?
- How the “skewed” development of the metamemes makes them so hard to identify (but impossible to unsee once you’ve learned how to spot them)
- Why art always comes first (and why ethics, sadly, always comes last)
Sunday November 3:
- The hidden rhythm of history
- Why some stages of development are “hard” and others are “soft”
- Why postmodernism cannot beat capitalism (despite wanting it so badly)
Weekend Two: Where are we headed? Empirical pessimism, theoretical optimism
In the second weekend we’ll look at the future and Emil will show you where the attractors seem to be taking us. These sessions aren’t for the faint of heart, so brace thyself. You’ll get a sweeping overview of the wild torrents we’re going through and hopefully get a better idea about where to position yourself so as to make it through these crazy times that are coming.
Saturday November 9:
- How to “outcompete” capitalism
- The new emerging class structure in late modernity and beyond (and where you fit in)
Sunday November 10:
- Why metamodernism might be the last stage of development before the singularity
- Why we’re approaching a “postmodern dark age”, not a listening society
Weekend Three: History Freestyle with Emil
During the third weekend it’s time to jam. Hanzi’s got a massive unpublished material on history and socio-cultural development that Emil can present. Participants can send in proposals to historical and societal topics they would like him to talk about. No woo-woo stuff though, Emil is tired of that.
Saturday November 16 & Sunday November 17: You decide!
Want to hear a metamodern perspective on the French Revolution? You got it. Want to understand the rise, and fall, of patriarchy? No problem. Globalization and colonization? Would love to. The Axial Age and the rise of universal moral religions and philosophies? Unless you want to hold hands and meditate, certainly, Emil can deliver a razor sharp analysis to expand your consciousness on that one, too. And he can even talk for countless hours about how kick-ass our animist ancestors were, and what we can learn from the present ones without things going off rails woo-woo.
Bonus sessions with Johan Ranefors and Daniel Görtz
Finally, after the main course you are welcome to participate in a couple of bonus sessions with Johan Ranefors and Daniel Görtz. Johan is a meta-theorist associated with the Archdisciplinary Research Center (ARC) who has further developed Michael Commons Model of Hierarchical Complexity, and Daniel is Emil’s long-term partner in crime and the “other half” of Hanzi.
Saturday November 23: Johan Ranefors (a rare species of computer science-based metatheorist)
- How the hidden rhythm of the metamemes fits with the Model of Hierarchical Complexity
- How the Model of Hierarchical Complexity can help us make sense of socio-cultural evolution
Sunday November 24: Daniel Görtz
- Epistemic corruption and why we can’t move on before we’ve seized the means of communication
- Why transnationalizing the internet platform monopolies is a historical attractor point (and why Bezos and Zuckerberg don’t stand a chance in the long run)
Note that this course is the first and only place in which Johan’s metatheory is presented thus far (and this is almost true of Daniel’s presentation as well).
Pricing
Low income: 1650 DKK (c. € 220)
Standard: 2000 DKK (c. € 270)
Abundant: 2500 DKK (c. € 335)
Tickets can be purchased here.
Your host
Emil Ejner Friis (b. 1981) is a theory artist and a teacher of metamodernism, he is a co-founder of Metamoderna and one of the writers behind Hanzi Freinacht. He has spent the last ten years trying to figure out how to create a listening society, a kinder and more developed society that deeply cares for the happiness and emotional needs of every citizen.
He has tried and failed at creating a metamodern political party, he has tried and failed at creating a metamodern IT company, and he has just plainly failed at ever finishing his not-so-metamodern university studies by being drawn to all kinds of adventures to try and save the world instead. Until recently he was living on a remote tropical island where he was swimming with dogs every day. He just moved back to his old university town Lund to pursue an academic career. We’ll see how long that lasts.
When he’s not writing and theorizing, he’s conspiring with other metamodernly inclined hackers, hipsters, and hippies to outcompete modern society. To pay the rent he sells words, all the best words.
Emil is a skilled and experienced speaker with a reputation of being entertaining and good at making complex ideas easier to digest.
