The Future: What comes after Post-Modernism?

David Foster Wallace proposed that the next step from postmodernism would lead artists to sincerity. That at a time where people have gone so far from the meta-narratives of modernism and have deconstructed everything with a heavy dose of irony, the new form of rebellion would be to risk the eye-roll, the yawn, or the capital offense of being sentimental. This New Sincerity, though, would still have some facets of the irony and skepticism of the postmodern age, but it would either challenge the viability of those mentalities with an alternative or use the irony to underscore a sentiment. And we've been seeing that in art for quite some time, with things like Wes Anderson, Arcade Fire, The Lego Movie, Louis CK, Rick and Morty, Bojack Horseman, Don Hertzfelt, some of Charlie Kaufman's work (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for sure and arguably Adaptation.), David Foster Wallace himself, and really just any work that chooses to step away from the moral relativism and ironic disposition of postmodernism to focus on the ways in which people connect.

Here's a great video that goes further into it with cultural examples:

Oh yeah, I know about Wallace, New Sincerity and also about meta-modernism. It seems like the obvious next place to go and also alligns with thoughts I've had about this before reading about all this. However I'm not really sold because none of this seems to have happened so far, it seems more like a desire to get rid of post-modernism than a genuine shift in anything, people declaring the king dead so that they can crown a new one. I have not seen the TV series though, so maybe it's happening there.

I'm not 100 % in line with the examples of yours that I've seen. I don't think Wes Anderson ever breaks post-modernism, he's an undercurrent in post-modernism (most would probably label him quirk or hipster or whatever words people use), just think of the song choices in the Royal Tennenbaums for instance. I may be be willing to say that he is progressively becomming less and less post-modern. Likewise I find Hertzfelt incredibly post-modern with all the collages, deadpan humor and dissolving landscapes. I think Eternal Shunshine is a really good example of something that trandescends post-modernism though, Adaptation not so much. I'm not a particularly big fan of Arcade Fire but that's just me. I liked Funeral and a couple of their songs. 

In the end this is what irks me aswell, new sincerity aims to trandescend post-modernism. However traditionally new movements have gone in a different direction entirely. It feels like largely the way to break post-modernism seems to be in establishing new aestehtics, which are at the same time beautiful and sophisticated but yet honest, maybe more in line of a romantic realism, something with a grander narrative than New Sincerity. Because if it lacks a grand vision, if it's not political, it's just as absurd as post-modernism in the end. This seems to be the gigantic conundrum of our times, our most prominent artists trying to escape a grand narrative that is kind of going down the gutter right now becaus all that matters anymore are personal affairs. Of coruse they do this because of the looming totality and absurd games of politics that render everyone insignificant and there's a point to that but I think both sides need reconsiliation. Toni Erdmann managed this wonderuflly for instance.

This isn't because I dislike the notion of New Sincerity but because I feel that often stuff that you could label as that are also propped full with post-modern characteristics and that's not breaking the spell, that's solidifying it while giving it a new name. To conclude: I don't think that New Sincerity is grand enough to overtake post-modernism. It's not the huge counter-movement but more of a small tweak to post-modernism in form of a smaller movement within it.

American movies seem to have taken a shift to the personal lately (since the late 90's), that's right but is that really all that new? I mean Linklater made the first Before film in 1995, The Green Ray works with a similar technique of basing the character on the actor and it's 9 years earlier. I believe the same goes for many of Linklater's american colleauges, they're simply borrowing from the new european movements of the 50's, 60's and 70's and their films ultimately feel a lot more post-modern than the films of these guys. That's why I mentioned Interstellar and Two Days, One Night. They're unlike the older films and/or movements and they are blatantly political, yet also deeply personal.

I might be wrong though, I'm really not sure, it's a difficult topic and I'm not saying you're wrong or anything.

Anything that comes after post-modernism would automatically be better since it can't get any worse.

That said, I don't think "post-modernism" ever existed other than as a pseudo-intellectual stand on what art was. A bunch of disillusioned postwar punks decided that everything was art, which is the same as saying art is dead (its logical conclusion). This was both catchy and convenient: it required no talent on the "artist's" part. Basically a decadent intellectual fad for troubled times. But I don't know of any great writer, film director or musician who worked in the late 20th century who actually defined themselves as post-modernist. If you told Borges, García Márquez, Nabokov, Rulfo, Coppola, Scorsese, Dylan, Cohen etc. they were "post-modernist", they'd rightfully punch you in the face. Sometimes you see a great movie like "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" called post-modernist just because they offer a new take on an old genre. But there is nothing "post-anything" about works that inaugurate a new mood, like McCabe does, and its greatness has nothing to do with being referential or self-referential. (Classical painters were offering new takes on old stuff in the 1400s and they weren't exactly Andy Warhol.) Many of the great movies that get accused of being post-modernist have much more in common with actual modernism, which was (and is) a valid artistic statement. Even something crazy like "Mad Max" last year owes more to 20s futurism than to "post-modernism".

I think maybe the question is what comes after modernism since nothing has come to challenge it. It's a good question, a hard question, and probably impossible to answer. I'll get back to you in 100 years 

He wouldn't be the first to suggest that postmodernism isn't really a thing.  The movement is nearly vague enough to be considered nigh-nonexistent, or existing on a much smaller scale than usually talked about (I mean, how many artists truly fit the definition of postmodern?).  There are a gluttony of techniques considered postmodern that have been a part of art for centuries, and the works in which they are incorporated by and large do not fit with the overall postmodern philosophy that there is no single truth, everything is relative.  It is an artistic movement that aligns closely with universal skepticism, but universal skepticism is not really an issue that any artist espouses so could a work (like McCabe & Mrs. Miller) really be deemed postmodern just because it strays from convention, which is also a tenant of modernism?  It gets even more complex when one considers philosophy and the sciences, where modernist thinking still has a solid hold and postmodernism is in some parts considered a joke after incidences like the Sokal affair.

I myself do think that postmodern thought does exist (though true postmodern thinkers and artists are relatively few to come by), but do think it is a poorly defined movement and its lack of falsifiability does make it hard to take it seriously at times.

But that's the problem with Popper's damn theory, you can falsify something just as much as you can prove something, i.e. not at all. Any falsification can be wrong just like a "proof".

The divide between science and culture is real though and scary because most people don't understand it. It's one of the reasons I don't want to become a scientist, because your ideas don't enter into a narrative of progress but into a narrative of immense apathy. On the other hand you could also argue that the sciences are not socially concious, I guess the blame goes both ways.