Consistency is Key: Metamodernism as a Guidepost for Building Transformative Movements

Rooted in a thoroughgoing theory of liberationist radicalism, social movements for progressive political and economic change can be oriented teleologically towards morally motivated ends, and undertaken in a manner consistent with those ethical stakes. Any philosophy of social transformation will grapple with what means are necessary to achieve the radical ends it seeks; in this article, Leo Tolstoy and Leon Trotsky serve as contemporaries who promote diametrically opposed means towards similar radical ends. Using Nikolai Berdyaev’s critiques as a bridge, I argue that neither is a thoroughgoing radical, since the means they undertake to transform the world are fundamentally inconsistent with their envisioned teloi. In contrast, Section II focuses on Jason Storm’s ethical philosophy as outlined in Metamodernism: The Future of Theory, which I posit as a consistently radical, comprehensive, and compassionate theoretical basis for future social movements hoping to avoid the kinds of mistakes exemplified by those earlier thinkers.