An interview with Hanzi Frienacht - metamodernist

 When I finally track author and thinker Hanzi Freinacht down to a luxury alpine hideaway high up in the chocolate-box mountains of Switzerland, I learn he’s already been there, isolated, for over a year, working. Later he’ll tell me about his daily routine: meditation in the morning, a few hours of concentrated writing during the day and some reading in the evenings when the snow glows on the summits. To fuel his work he consumes, he says, an entirely vegan diet. 

This may make Freinacht sound like some kind of lifestyle guru or quack but, in his mind, he’s spent the last few years focused on a somewhat more social and political goal: how to “save a million lives”. This is because the ‘great’ (his words) Hanzi Freinacht is one of the key players in an ongoing philosophical debate about where we are, as humans, in life. 

‘What can we call this particular period of history?’ is the question. What unites and defines it? How is different from other periods of history?

From up on the mountain, Freinacht and others like Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akkerhave separated our time from modernism and post-modernism and coined and defined metamodernism as the name of this new age. The word itself was first mentioned as far back as 1975 but it is only in the last few decades that is has come to be defined as a kind of synthesis of the best parts of what has gone before. But there is truth in the definitions, echoes in our society. There is a return to a longing for love and an ideal world – something which post-modernism and possibly even modernism was supposed to have put an end too. 

Freinacht came to prominence with The Listening Society: A Metamodern Guide to Politics in 2014.  In The Listening Society, Freinacht attempts to describe how relationships between memetics (or units of culture), epistemology, and developmental psychology are integral to comparative politics and a metamodern lifestyle in general. In terms of political ideology, Freinacht advocates for government policy that emphasizes environmental sustainability, economic liberalism, and substantial spending on social programs, which are detailed in his second book: Nordic Ideology.

The Listening Society has been translated into English, German and, recently, Portuguese. So, I wondered, why not Spanish? With this in mind – and many more questions – I took myself up the mountain and disturbed Freinacht’s peace.

After much negotiation and cajoling, I teased our man down from his retreat and finally spoke to him in the warm, sedate confines of his publisher’s office in Geneva, the lake glittering outside the window like Hansi’s famous blue eyes. 

In person he’s a startlingly life-like replica of his shadowy internet images: the clean, sculptured head, the long, bristling beard, and all the coiled energy of a mind which wants to change the world.

TMR: Good morning, Mr Freinacht. Staying for so long alone in the Alps might strike many as a bit extreme. Why did you withdraw from the world like that?

HF: I don’t think that’s an important question, but sure, let’s go with it, if you want. The question I suppose implies ‘why don’t you work at an academic institution?’ Well, that’s because funded research targets small questions rather than shifts in the overall paradigm… and that’s the business I’m in, paradigm shift. 

I guess you could say I’m an academic outcast. Frankly, the disdain is mutual. Universities are good for first steps in education and for specialized empirical research but for any philosopher worth their salt, they’re little more than prisons.

University life rewards the conformist mind; even if people conform to critical sociology. 

After spending years in that world, I can only conclude that academia is not a place for changing the world but for keeping your job and building a career.

TMR: But don’t you feel like you’re cutting yourself off from the reality you’re attempting to describe in your books?

HF: Perhaps you find it a strange notion that people devoting themselves to philosophical theories should be less involved in reality than others, but the reality is that, on the contrary, a life well lived is one which interchanges periods of engagement with periods of withdrawal. This has been a thing since the ancient Greeks and it’s backed up by modern science. And it’s stupid idea that people in mountain areas don’t have experiences.

My philosophy wants to punch a hole through society, and to write relevant things, you need to concentrate. People these days seem to have forgotten the value of truly committing time and effort to thinking and writing, what medieval scholastics called the via contemplativa, the contemplative path. The thing is, quoting a friend of mine, that “never in the history of human scholarship has so much been written by so many to the benefit of so few.” And that’s because people think they have much too important things to do than to withdraw to mountains.”

TMR: Does this method of yours related to a few of the more personal notes you mention in your books?

HF: Oh, yes, there’s that too. I just have a general sense of tragedy around how everyday life functions and being here in the mountains lets me clear my head and philosophise. Of course this doesn’t come without a price.

My wife, for instance, went insane, or almost did. She suffered from severe mental illness and was later diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. 

I feel that we need to address the central concern of how modern human beings develop socially and psychologically. If we don’t at least provisionally resolve these issues, we cannot hope to solve the great global challenges ahead. So, yes, I came here because I needed some peace and quiet after all the hassles of life. Some time to think. You know you can write more brutally honest philosophy if you’re talking to a wall of majestic mountains.

Then there’s my general background. Modern life is often a kind of luxurious suffering; a great repetition of the Buddha’s ‘pleasure palace’: you know the thing where you wake up rich, with concubines, wives and servants and all the wine you can drink and go ‘yuuck!’ with disgust and angst. 

Even among people of working-class backgrounds such as my own, this holds true. Two of my stepbrothers died young, even if they had everything they needed, superficially speaking. But they had poor habits: smoking and drinking. They were both left by their mother when they were very young.

I had the opportunity to come here because a billionaire physicist-banker agreed to lend me his house. Benefactors are rare these days. I’m grateful I found my Medici, prepared to support an eccentric. He has provided all I need. So I’m having a good time, after all. This book is my magnum opus, thoughts I have worked on many years. I am confident it will change the world.

TMR: So after it changes the world, you’ll have finished?

HF: Oh, no, I’m not done yet. This book is the first in a series of books my publishers have decided to call Metamodern Guides. I’m currently working on several independent books on various topics: politics, history, economics, ethics and law. When this is complete, in a number of years, I believe my main work as a philosopher will have reached its conclusion. From then on, it’s up to other people what they want to do with my body of work.

TMR: What is it that drives you?

HF: Two things. One: I see much unnecessary suffering. Two: I see solutions. Hence, I cannot refrain from acting. My own happiness, comfort and wellbeing are a small price to pay. I have no family, for instance, but I’m doing okay. You might even say I’m happy. 

I see myself as a postmodern, non-violent Lenin. Or a metamodern Lenin, more precisely. 

I think we need to grab the steering wheel of society and revolutionize it in a kindlier direction. Lenin was a precursor for a postcapitalist society but he lacked a proper understanding of how societies actually develop, which had catastrophic consequences. But his violent example doesn’t discredit all future attempts at profoundly changing the workings of society. It just taught us some of the pitfalls.

We must, in these new times, again deal with the spectre of totalitarianism. To see society as a whole, to be holistic, is to be totalitarian. There can be no question that people today are being more controlled in more delicate manners than ever before. Just think about it, the most well-functioning societies in the world with the highest standards of living are simultaneously the most regulated ones, such as the Nordic ones, while the most dysfunctional societies are those who interfere the least in people’s everyday lives, as is the case in many African countries. The question is only how good are the checks and balances we have to counter this control and to stop it from becoming oppressive: can this increasing control of minds, bodies and relations be brought into public consciousness and be made truly democratic?”

TMR: In your books you seem to argue we should politicize some of the most intimate aspects of people’s lives, that which we commonly think of as belonging to the private domain?

HF: Yes, that’s right, if we can control the inner workings of ourselves and one another, we can change how life is lived; a terrifying thought but a necessary one. The point is that we shouldn’t pretend that this massive control is not ongoing - through education, care, social work, policing, information campaigns and so forth - but we should admit it, make it transparent and take charge of it. 

The idea is simply that a kindlier society is a more powerful one. 

The aim is to change the games of everyday life, to shift them towards cooperation. Such societies will coordinate the actions of people more efficiently and steer attention towards greater goals and higher aspirations. These forces will bring industrial capitalism to its knees, not because it's nicer, but because it beats capitalism at its own game. Which is to coordinate human actions in a rational manner on a global scale.”

TMR: Is that what you see currently going on in the Nordic countries which you repeatedly use as an example?

HF: I'm not saying that the Nordic countries are exemplary. I'm just saying that these have many of the prerequisites for beginning to create the next layer of welfare - one that includes the psychological needs of people. Kids should grow up secure, feel seen and heard, and the institutions must be geared towards this end. This is what I call ‘the listening society’, which is also the title of my first book, of course.

In a philosophical sense, the aim is to serve all sentient beings. I wake up every morning feeling that millions of lives are at stake.

Also, I love philosophy. But that is truly secondary. Curiosity is nice, but this is not about fun. I want to stop the ongoing mass-mutilation of humanity and the animals.”

TMR: Ok, I’ll grant you that humans and animals are suffering in great numbers, but saving a million lives by improving the emotional and psychological well-being of people in rich countries? Is it really appropriate to talk about such issues when poverty and war are causing so much more harm globally?”

HF: Look, the suffering of common people in affluent, modern societies is what we need to address first of all. That is the key. Your suffering. That is what this is about. Your failed love life. Yourcontrolling, distant dad. Your inner insecurities. The way youthink you’re a little fat. The way people don’t respect you and listen to you the way they should.”

TMR: And addressing this would make them more concerned world citizens, would it?

HF: Exactly. Issues like these are holding us back from making important contributions to the world. Being unhappy in one's marriage takes up energy that could be used productively elsewhere. Obsessing about weight loss gives you less time to be concerned about world hunger. Feeling insignificant makes you less convinced that you can make a positive difference in the world.

TMR: So what you mean is that if people in rich countries were emotionally more balanced and feeling better, then they would be more likely to use their privileges and resources to make the life of the less fortunate better?

HF: Yes. And as such, a million lives is a conservative figure.

Basically, I want to revolutionize the welfare system and I can show you the political way to do it. The aim of this is to make people develop psychologically. We’ll be nicer and more intelligent, if done correctly. This approach is supported by ample research, as shown in the book.

Once people become much more psychologically developed, society itself changes: less violence, less stress, anxiety, disease, less social costs - and more constructive behaviours, more cooperation and creativity. People become less cognitively biased, which makes it easier to solve major problems such as sustainability and global poverty. So yes, millions of lives.

In this sense, freedom is a collective good, not an individual one. It flows from the social and psychological commons that are our values, norms, habits, institutions and interactions. I am freed by the fact that you can afford to treat me with kindness and respect, that you wish me well.”

TMR: Yes, but how?

HF: “Read the damn book - and its sequel. Don’t be lazy. That’s all I’ll say.

TMR: You know I have! But for those who haven’t yet: what are you writing about, in short?

HF: About how to do politics in a much more intelligent manner - one that outcompetes all of the existing parties and their ideologies. About how to change schools and welfare systems. About how to reshape the market forces, even outcompete the capitalist system in the information age. The key to all of this is developmental psychology. If you don’t know your way around developmental psychology, you are not part of the solution. I’m sorry.

The inner development of humans - supported by happiness research, positive psychology, diet, exercise, meditation, emotional intelligence training - is the missing piece of the puzzle on the progressive left. Economic equality and an expansive welfare system to satisfy people’s most basic needs, such as health care, education, unemployment funds and so on, as we find in the Nordic countries, can get only get us that far, but alone it can’t take society to the next level. 

If we want to move beyond the capitalist society, and solve its many maladies, we’ll have to think in terms beyond the materialist conditions of human life. Only if we address the psychological and emotional conditions of life, and do so in a developmental manner, will we be able to resolve much of the suffering that permeates people’s lives in modern societies.

TMR: What would be your reply if I said that you seem to overemphasize emotional issues at the cost of issues of poverty and inequality?

HF: That you’re correct. However, we need to remember that the ultimate consequences of economic poverty and excessive inequality are still of the social and emotional kinds. They make people suffer. And in affluent societies people suffer less from starvation and more from the social and emotional issues attached to inequality.

In addition, the issue of economic distribution and matters of inequality will be thoroughly addressed in the sequel to The Listening Society, Nordic Ideology, and Outcompeting Capitalism. In Nordic Ideology, you get the six dimensions of inequality, of which economic is only one and not necessarily the most fundamental one. I have purposely chosen not to make material economics the point of departure of my analysis, but changing the economic dynamics of the world is certainly the destination of my work.

TMR: So you’re not some kind of New Age prophet who considers material conditions irrelevant, but simply that there are largely overlooked inner dimensions that need to be brought to the centre stage of politics?

HF: That’s right.

TMR: With that said, are you left or right?

HF: Yes. Sometimes it is okay to answer ‘yes’ to an either-or question. 

However, the both-and-perspective starts from a kind of green left-libertarianism but then goes on to incorporate many conservative and libertarian insights. This is the ideology of the creative class and the growing precariat that characterizes the digitalized post-industrial society. I’m fractal.

I’m sure there will be a left and right here as well, but for now, we just need to set up the first battle line: how metamodern politics is different from, and under the current circumstances superior to, modern and even postmodern politics.

All of the existing political parties have sprung up as results of the modern industrial society. We are now crafting the tools for politics on the next stage. It’s complex, but the possibilities here are huge. The main agent I would like to see emerge is a metamodern party - one which works for the creation of a listening society, but does so by focusing on the process. The key to political success in the future is not a matter of having ‘the right opinions,’ but rather to better understand the political process: how values are formed in people’s minds, how decisions are made amidst complex social processes of different opinions and conflicting interests and how to see the perspectives of others--especially those you don’t agree with. This can also be termed “empathy”, a most powerful psychological capacity. The future belongs to those who know the most perspectives, and how to put them together for the greatest utility.

Whoever has the most perspective when they die, wins. That’s how the world runs these days and increasingly will in the future. And that largely explains why humanities majors are making it big within tech startups. We must employ social technologies to create a much more rational and inclusive discourse. We must focus on the process. The metamodern party must be transnational and process oriented. It must hold opinions loosely and principles firmly.”

TMR: So that’s what’s implied by the term ‘the listening society’?

HF: Yes. A society where everyone is seen and heard, which in terms empowers us to take on more and deeper perspectives. But of course, if taking perspectives was easy this wouldn’t be an issue. The thing is it’s hard. You know there’s this part of the Quran where the Prophet is asked about what the highest form of Jihad is, and he replies that it’s ‘to speak out against an unjust ruler’ or something similar. Well, to the metamodern agent of change listening to the words of a stranger is the highest form of Jihad, the greatest struggle, inner and out there in the world.

TMR: Ok, so what you’re saying that it’s always both left and right, but also sometimes either or?

HF: That’s right, you got it. It’s both, both/and andeither/or. Sometimes one position is in fact more correct than another. Understanding a perspective and acknowledging it truthfulness and beauty isn’t the same as saying that one perspective can’t be more true or beautiful than another. And in politics we often have to make a choice, sometimes it is either or, left or right. Both/and is more spacious than either/or, it contains either/or but not the other way around.”

TMR: This is also a key component of metamodern philosophy, right?

HF: Yes, thinking this way is really necessary to get anywhere in today’s world with regard to the major issues. I mean if we’re going to understand ISIS we need to listen and learn with no judgments passed, and still keep a distance to them and be forcefully opposed. There’s really no way around the both/and, and it always contains either/ors. It’s central to my thinking, to metamodern thinking. Most people cannot do it; they get stuck in either/ors and waste a lifetime trying to prove that the US or economic growth or communism is either good or bad. It’s a tragic waste of human lifetimes. We need metamodern thinking.

TMR: What’s the importance of ‘sincere irony’ in metamodern thinking?

HF: Yes, there is a seriousness in the struggle. But the seriousness, if we are to be successful, must be playful. Hence the metamodern creed: the marriage of irony and sincerity. Both/and.

The struggle goes on because, if you look at it soberly, even the best societies in the world are full of unnecessary suffering and misery. Society reproduces itself from year to year with frightening precision: each country has an average suicide rate, a depression rate, a domestic violence rate, a broken hearts rate, a cynicism rate, a shattered dreams rate. And if you tolerate this, then your children will be next.

TMR: That could appear as if you’ve adopted an existing term and are trying to make it fit your own philosophy?

HF: Yes. But that someone was there first doesn’t mean they have a better claim to it. What a stupid idea that is. Whoever can save a million lives using the term should get to use it. Sometimes it takes a charlatan to tell the truth.

TMR: Now you’re quoting yourself again!

HF: Yes, I am. I read through the book a few times. You might need a refresher too, perhaps.

TMR: Sometimes you read a bit like someone on the alt right - always provoking, provoking, provoking. And of course, there was the whole use of the ‘alt-left’ signifier…yet then, on a good day, you read like a Hegelian, always trying to synthesize Left and Right, Old and New, this perspective and that perspective. What do you make of each of these comparisons?

HF: If we’re doing heart surgery on society, there is little room for sentimentality. And yet we must deal with increasingly emotional, existential and subtle aspects of life.

Ultimately, politics must be more about the subtle issues in life, our deep psychologies and our psychological development. Most people are, I am afraid, not sufficiently psychologically developed to be truly productive citizens of the emerging global internet society. For instance, why is it that people in affluent countries aren’t more concerned with the environmental crises, global poverty or the fact that countless beings, human as well as non-human, are getting physically and emotionally mutilated every day? Is it because their level of material consumption is too low, even among the less affluent people in developed nations? Or is it perhaps because they are too preoccupied with a number of emotional issues, stress, depression, low self-esteem, loneliness etc. that are taking up too much of their time and attention. I believe it’s obvious, when we look at it this way, that the reason people aren’t taking the global responsibility their economic means make them capable of is the circumstance that their psychological and emotional development is holding them back. 

To remedy this things like meditation, contemplation and counselling, for instance, must become part and parcel of the organization of society. When effectively applied, such things can spur inner growth, which in effect can assist the development of society in a more benevolent direction.”

TMR: I understand but this isn’t anything really new, is it? I mean, societal progress has always depended on the psychological development of individuals. Can you tell me why it is more important now?

HF: I must stress the urgency of the matter. If population grows together with productivity and we gain access to extremely powerful technologies such as AI, robotics, bioengineering, 3D-printers and nanotech, we are very likely to see terrible side-effects of these. The population must grow towards much more universalistic values. There is no way around it.

Just like nuclear technologies would have had catastrophic consequences in the hands of the Vikings or Genghis Khan, so will superhuman AI, bioengineering of the human genome and advanced robots prove disastrous in the hands of governments and private agents still subscribing to the values and narrow self-interests of the current stage of societal development.

Oh, and did I mention the consequences of not having people with a deep-felt concern for the climate changes that are currently taking place?

We live in an age where it is of utmost urgency to develop the psychology of people in a more global and emphatic direction. We have no time to lose!

TMR: Can you say a little more about what you mean by ‘develop psychologically’?

HF: As you know from reading the book, I describe four fundamentally different forms of human growth and development. One is how complex thought structures you have, how abstractly and generally you’re able to think. This has been shown to develop in stages, in animals, children and adult human beings alike.  Another is which ‘cultural code’ you have available, which means, how your thoughts form a part of a general system of ideas within your larger society. Here you have codes systems of traditional religion, modern life, postmodern critique and metamodern synthesis. I guess you could say that Hegel is a precursor of metamodern thinking. Nietzsche is too.

Third, there is one’s inner state, one’s subjective experience of every moment. Some people have lighter and vaster inner lives than others. And that of course makes a difference. And the fourth dimension has to do with a person’s inner depth, the quality of her general relationship to life and existence.

If you put these four dimensions together, you get an overall picture of a person’s political psychology. It is this psychology that we must develop.

TMR: And all this gives you the liberty to refer to yourself as the ‘great’ Hanzi Freinacht, does it?

HF: I do take the liberty to tease the reader a bit. Hey, they’re always free to put down the book and stop reading. Ultimately, I’m just dead letters on a piece of paper. But there’s new stuff there, no doubt about it. Besides, humility is too often an excuse for slave morality.

TMR: Has your upbringing in a troubled working-class family and your experiences with mental disease in your marriage shaped your philosophy and political views?

HF:  You know what? That’s enough. Get out of here! The meeting is over!

And with that Hansi leaves and I see him, framed against the gorgeous midday mountains and lake, stalking away, blowing out breaths of cold white air. Back up the mountain he will go while I will fly once again to Madrid.

Some details and names of Hanzi’s life and the location have been changed to protect his privacy as a condition of the interview.