The concept of the “Meta-Verse” will be alien to most. Originating out of crypto space, it is known by only a small fraction of the global population. Yet, in a matter of years it will be ingrained into the very fabric of all our lives. The Meta-Verse is more than just the digital world that Spielberg depicted in Ready Player One; more than just simply putting on a VR headset and playing a computer game. Instead, think of it as an endlessly expanding space; one where the infinite triumphs over the finite, where the heterogeneous triumphs over the homogenous, where the chains of our world are unshackled and Prometheus is set free. It is not so much a space as much as it is a revolutionary idea into which people can travel and emerse themselves in. Moreover, the implications of the “Meta-Verse” extend far beyond economics, monetary investment and talk of financial value. It will heavily impact the field of political philosophy; especially so in regard to discourses on sovereignty. It will likely overturn the Hobbesian conception of sovereignty that was given to us in the “greatest work of political philosophy ever written in the English language” — The Leviathan. The moment we transfer our tangible world into the abstract realm of the “Meta-Verse,” we will have departed from the paradigm of “modernity” and arrived at the gates of the “postmodern.”
Modernity is a term that is very poorly understood in contemporary society. This is despite the fact that we live within its very confines. To most, it simply refers to a period of time spanning from the mid-17th century to our present day within which humanity freed itself from atavistic ways of living and superstitious modes of thought that had been the hallmarks of the pre-modern era. Modernity has usually been intimately connected to progress, to scientific improvement, to technological advancement, to the revolution of 1789, to the deposition of Monarchy and the establishment of democracy. This narrative of “Modernity” in many respects is fairly accurate. It is hard to argue with the clear evidence that the living standards of the world population have exponentially increased, that the lifespan of the average person from birth has been significantly extended and that the technology we have now is far superior to that of our ancestors.
However, what I have described is the surface level of modernity; what our societal discourses have chosen to define and understand it as. Consequently, what is often overlooked is its deeply ideological nature and the negative externalities that it has brought upon human societal arrangements. At its core, “modernity” represents a certain paradigm; the paradigm of the Enlightenment Weltanschauung. It was man’s reason that led to the discovery of veritable truths not religious scripture. To deviate from the rationally deduced path would be to commit a serious error. Certain underlying objective truths exist and it is the task of humanity to unearth them. Indeed, true freedom is achieved only when that vast cosmic pattern of eternal truths is totally unveiled.
The body politic, therefore, was able to be legitimated upon certain “correct” political claims that adhered to a universalizable set of criteria. This is evident in the thought of “high liberal” thinkers like Fukuyama and Hayek. In contrast to Marx, they thought that liberal market democracy was objectively the highest stage of living that civilization could reach because it promoted negative freedom and secure property rights (Hayek: Constitution of Liberty 1960). The triumph of western style democracy literally marked the “End of History.” This model was able to be universally applied to any country and became the benchmark against which progress and development was measured.
It is in this context that we can better understand how the onset of “modernity” re-defined our conception of “sovereignty” and societal arrangements.
Hobbes’s Leviathan has been described by Oakeshott as the “greatest written work of political philosophy in the English language” (Oakeshott: Hobbes on Civil Association.) Hobbes’ work was groundbreaking because it offered a sufficient answer to a major problem his contemporaries were facing at the time: political legitimation. It sought to answer questions like: How could a societal arrangement come into being with an all-powerful sovereign (monarch) if every man in a state of nature were equal? Where does ultimate authority over bodies of men derive from? How is power legitimately wielded? Under what framework of rules should men in society be bound by?
Hobbes’ answer went something like this:
Prior to the construction of society men are born into a state of nature. In this state of nature men are able to pursue “felicity” (happiness) in an unconditional manner. There are no rules upon the conduct of men to make them do otherwise; no higher authority to direct them toward certain ends or to make them behave in a certain way. Whilst this state allows for the maximisation of freedom, it also leads to the acceleration of chaos. The life and property of all men are inherently in-secure as everybody is engaged in a state of “constant war.”
Naturally, this position of insecurity and fear of imminent death compelled men to think about ways to escape the state of nature. Hobbes’ theory was that men formed a voluntary covenant with an all powerful sovereign at its head. This societal arrangement has been described by Oakeshott as a “civil association.” Civil association is an agreement between men whereby all are confined in their actions by a certain set of specific rules. Within this association men are able to will and act freely as long as they stay within the confines of the framework of known rules laid down by the all-powerful sovereign. If men stray outside the set framework the sovereign has the legitimate power to punish them. In essence, to gain a sense of security against the prospect of imminent death, men gave up their right to pursue their “felicity” unconditionally.
Freedom was exchanged for security.
This Hobbesian discourse is so clearly an intellectual product of “modernity”. The body politic is legitimated by the meta-discourse of the sovereign and as such as the only discourse and set of laws that are legitimate are those laid down by the indivisible and all powerful authority. We, therefore, should ask ourselves whether man in “modernity” is truly free? Are the multiple discourses we wish to speak, the multiple narratives we want to follow silenced by the totalising meta-discourses.
I am not suggesting that people cannot voice their opinions against X or Y or that people cannot follow different narratives to the ones provided by the various sovereigns. But what I am saying is that the discourses or narratives that challenge a society’s foundation will always be sidelined or silenced by those in power. The very existence of a meta-narrative implies the silencing of the “other.” We are free only insofar as we move within boundaries marked and legitimated by our sovereign. To move beyond these confines would be tantamount to acting illegitimately. This leads to a major potential conflict: men have no choice but to be born into various civil associations across the world whose meta-narrative they might fundamentally disagree with.
Therefore, the political association of “modernity” since Hobbes has been legitimated by the meta-doctrines, the meta-narratives, and the meta-jurisprudence laid down by the will of the sovereign. All attacks against the rule of law and the overriding societal belief system are viewed as attempts to destabilise and de-legitimate the body politic.
“Modernity” did, indeed, wash away the dogma of the Christian meta-narrative that pervaded societies that existed prior to it. And yes, it is true we no longer live in a society similar to the 18th century confessional state. Yet, what was removed with one hand was simply put back with the other. Progressive liberalism — the meta-narrative of the “modern” west — is, and always has been, a secular version of the religious doctrines that it replaced (Cowling: Public and Private Doctrine 1993). We have witnessed as much in the 21st century. We worship the market like it is our God, we embark upon crusades in the name of Liberty and democracy and we silence those intellectual “heretics” who just so happen to follow discourses different to our own. Is this really the “open society” that us westerners really believe we inhabit? In reality, those abstract Liberal ideals of “tolerance” and “plurality” were never truly achieved because the very structures of “modernity” disallow them too.
Enter the “postmodern.” Writers like Lyotard have written extensively about the crisis of “modernity” and the prospect of entering a paradigm beyond it (Lyotard: The Postmodern condition 1979). In the “Postmodern Condition” Lyotard emphasises that the core conceptual pillars of “modernity,” (rationalism, objectivity, meta-discourses, meta-jurisprudence etc.) and the legitimacy that they confer are nothing more than a grand illusion. In a similar vein to how Enlightenment thinkers rejected the existence of a God, Lyotard is rejecting the idea that “real objective knowledge” can ever be truly known. If “real objective knowledge” cannot be acquired, then political claims can never be legitimate. This has major implications for societies situated in “modernity.”
In the paradigm of the “modern,” an overarching meta-language is subscribed to by members of each society. Philosophers grounded in “modern” thinking believe that the language games spoken by each constituent in a society have certain shared meta-prescriptives. Meta-prescriptives being those overarching norms that exist within every single language game no matter how different they appear to be. For thinkers of “modernity” this has to be the case otherwise communication would not be possible. Indeed, liberal democracy would not exist without them since their absence would render consensus-base politics impossible. Communication, according to political theorists like Habermas, enables the transformation of opinions into statements with claims to “universality.” The latter being essential for the legitimation of certain statements and their claim to possession of “real objective knowledge.” In this way, Habermas is able to legitimize certain meta-norms which everyone in society agrees upon and aligns themselves with. If certain norms stand the test of universalization then they can be used to legitimate certain types of political action and judgement.
However, the “postmodern” seeks to dissolve all attempts at totalisation and universalization. To Lyotard, meta-norms are fictional entities. “Postmodernity’’ represents an archipelago of language games. Each language game is independent from the next, each one is governed by its own unique rules and set of criteria. No meta-standard is subscribed to. You can play a multiplicity of little language games, but you can never play one overarching meta-language game. (see diagram below: multiplicity of language games with own set of rules)
What is interesting about this situation is that it suggests we have arrived at a politics of dissensus and divergence. The idea of common ground in the “postmodern” is a fiction. One cannot merge two language games together because the rules and very linguistic framework that they operate within are incommunicable to each other. It’s like trying to join the game of rugby to the game of cricket — you simply can’t. One can talk to others and think they understand what they mean, but in reality they will never know what they truly mean. The implication of this for the political realm is fascinating. Just like the language games I have been discussing, politics now does not have - indeed, never has had except through illusion — any set of meta-rules underpinning or legitimating it. (If the reader is interested in how politicians are releasing this shift/utilising it in fairly nefarious ways I would highly recommend looking into a man named Vladisav Surkov — an ex-advisor to Putin and the intellectual heavyweight behind Russia’s “sovereign democracy”.)
Politics in this regard has a similar basis to aesthetics. In both the realms of the former and latter people make universalising claims regarding a certain object or topic without any set of rules determining whether the claims are valid or not. In the world of art, people can have their own opinions on a painting but no one can ever claim to have ultimate authority in regard to defining its “true” beauty or value. Similarly politics is no longer, and perhaps has never been, a realm in which one can make judgements upon a set of fixed and universalised criteria. Just like art, politics is now concerned with how one feels when contemplating a topic. It has moved from the issue of rational judgement to “taste.” Indeed, the topic or object of the aesthetic or political feeling has no “reality,” in so far as there is no objective criteria that it can be measured by. It is only perceptions of reality that now exist.
People must be aware that the paradigm of the postmodern has arrived. Just take a look at the state of western politics, at the lack of political consensus, at the vitriol spat from each side of the political spectrum. Each political grouping speaks such a wildly differing language game to their rivals. Yet, whilst the paradigm of the postmodern and the “little narrative” is evident in the online world (think twitter echo chambers, facebook political groups, crypto project maximalists), we still remain situated in the paradigm of the “modern” in our non-digital world. Despite politics now being about “taste,” we are still confined within a civil association that prescribes to us a meta-narrative, a meta-language game and a meta-legal doctrine which all attempt to lay claim to objective truths and, thus, legitimacy.
The question we now must turn to is how do we resolve the clash between the paradigms of “modernity’” and “postmodernity?” In dialectical terms, we have our thesis and antithesis but lack a proper synthesis. How do we create a synthesis that allows the flourishing of the multiplicity of language games and the various emerging communities that are currently subordinated to the overriding meta-doctrines that govern our national civil association?
Enter the “Metaverse.” A reality beyond ours, a space with no geographical boundaries, an idea with near infinite potential. The borders of this new world are not the shores of our seas nor the edges of our atmosphere but the limits of our intellect. All areas of knowledge will be revolutionised by this new paradigm. In the realm of political philosophy it offers a chance for us to break free from the constraints of “modernity,” to surmount the rigid frameworks of our civil associations; to dissolve the meta-narratives, the meta-doctrines, the meta-laws, and the meta-currencies that dictate our daily lives and actions. In this new paradigm we can join the communities we like the most, connect with the people that speak our own language games, transact commodities with currencies which we ascribe the most value to. Whilst we cannot totally leave the associations we are born into in the real world, we have the opportunity to create new ones in the meta-verse. A multiplicity of civil associations with their own specific laws, rules and currencies can flourish. People can decide voluntarily for themselves the sovereigns (group leaders) they want to subsume themselves under or perhaps they will choose to take a risk and become one themselves.
All is possible.
“The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time for monsters” (Gramsci: Prison Notebooks 1936). The decade following 2008 saw these monsters appear. The decade following 2020 is going to be the one in which our new world is born.
