One hundred years ago this month TS Eliot’s poem The Waste Land had its first US printing. This landmark poem, which among other lit from that time marks the advent of the modern era, both in literature and throughout the greater culture, is at this historical moment particularly relevant. A number of peculiar similarities mark the writing of The Waste Land and our own point in history, among them an era ending pandemic, the nadir of an economic system, and an emergent shift in values.

If the work of Eliot and his peers marked the entry into the modern period, that period was somewhat short lived, at least in its primacy as the dominant mode of thought. While in some sense we can claim to still embody the values of this period (which are broadly a belief in a progressive society made possible by science, medicine, and collective action), that mode went out of vogue in the 60s and 70s with the advent of post-modern thought. And while in many ways we are still living now in that post-modern era, as well as among the vestiges of the modern era, many believe that values of post-modern thought (which are broadly a denial of the beliefs of modernity and an acceptance of moral agnosticism, skepticism, ironic detachment, and so on) are in turn falling out of favor in a turn toward what some are calling a “metamodern” mode of thought a generational synthesis which recognizes the value of modernity’s reverence toward some greater progressive ideal, while maintaining the ironic posture of post-modernity.

A great in depth discussion of these shifts can be found in the following 8 video series (worth watching through it its conclusion):

What appears to me as so striking is how historically these shifts mark changes in the economic development of the United States, and just how cyclical this development has turned out to be, eventually turning, like a gear on a wheel, a full revolution in roughly a century. Or, so that is if indeed the critique put forth by metamodern theorists isn’t itself one predicated upon a cyclical narrative.

The progressive era of the US economy (roughly 1930-1980) rose from the ashes of the liberal era(roughly 1870 to 1930) and roughly correlates to the dominant age of Modernism. In turn the the neoliberal age of the US economy (roughly 1980 to Now?–depending on who you ask) correlates to the dominant age of Post-Modernism. Indeed many see post-modernism as an expression of the values of late (neoliberal) capitalism and not merely a correlation. If indeed the twenty-teens, and twenty-twenties are marking that shift a cycle emerges, while also a kind of Hegelian synthesis.

That is, if postmodern thought is indeed the practical antithesis of modern thought, which a good case is made for elsewhere including in the above video series, then it would follow, that we are due for a synthesis of these forms following the very convincing structure of history laid out by Hegel, Marx/Engels, etc. Indeed other correlations emerge from that 100 year period. Following the ravages of WWI and the Spanish Flu the excesses of the liberal era gain momentum during the roaring 20s. Likewise, the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated inequality in the US, but we have yet to embrace a broadly socialist program as existed during and beyond the interwar period.