Early Reader Orientation
What is High Resolution? Where is it going?
Dear early reader,
This publication has a road map. The design has always been to let early essays carry the weight of later ones. In this sense, the pieces we are now assembling will make fuller sense in a future context. But this may be unfair (not to mention confusing) to you, already gracing us with your time and attention so early in what may be a long journey.1
And so, this post offers some clarity and outlines the general plan for “early adopters.” This is an orientation—a map of where we’ve been and where we’re going—which puts our early essays in context.2
What is High Resolution?
High Resolution is one attempt, among many, to untangle the modern “world knot.” This knot isn’t just out there in society; it’s within the modern mind—a kind of sociocultural, imaginational cul-de-sac. Our goal is to guide culture out of this stagnation. We mean to liberate human imagination and channel it toward its higher purpose—the creation of a better world—even as this means moving against the powerful undertow of collective inertia.
We identify a deep stuckness in modern thought—one we must take the time to carefully unravel. It’s not only the pathologies, blind spots, or alienations of modern society that compel us to act. The deeper (and more disquieting) issue is that modernity lacks the means, or pathways, to move beyond itself. The free market cannot create the next economy, the modern state cannot invent the next society, and modern discourse isn’t about to “debate” its way into a paradigm shift.
Modern systems are limited by their original framing and assumptions, and these are playing themselves out toward their logical conclusions (on which we will expand in a future essay). It may or may not be possible to redirect the thrust of modernity. But even if it is impossible to change course, it is still possible to sap the momentum of this thrust, funneling energy and attention toward creating the new—the new paradigm, and the new society it implies.
The purpose of this publication is to direct the flow of these great collective processes. This may seem grandiose for a tiny, unknown, online publication in a digital landscape overcrowded with “influencers” and opinions. Nevertheless, the battleground on which the fate of the species is decided is the plane of ideas. Whatever the reach of this publication may be in the future, even if it remains marginal and inconsequential, its responsibility remains the same: victory on the plane of ideas.
The right idea, stubborn, adaptive and resourceful, can have the most disproportionate impact on the flow of history. A battlefield can be strewn with the bodies of men who died full of zeal to protect their own version of justice. How can a single soldier on the frontline hope to affect the outcome of such a chaotic, massive event? We moderns shrink into insignificance, barraged as we are by events and forces out of our control. But while a single soldier may not hope to influence a war that dwarfs them so unilaterally, the timely idea of peace can remake the situation more fundamentally than the movements of entire armies.
That being said, ideas do not act independently, but through human hands. To carry them responsibly requires strategy.
What is the “Plan?”
We set out to build something meaningful, and are committed to the slow process. But we do want to share some of the thinking and roadmap with early supporters. This publication is meant to unfold in several phases.
We’re currently in High Resolution’s first phase. Here, we aim to grapple with the totality of our current situation as a species—not comprehensively, but holistically. This means presenting new paradigms as we challenge old ones, using a transdisciplinary, generalist approach.3 We carefully separate wheat from chaff on a razor’s edge—being respectful of academia while remaining unbound by its limitations. In this first phase, we make the case for the post-postmodern paradigm shifts necessary to reorient humanity.
Phase 1
We are establishing a position grounded in our current situation as a species, yet seeing the place anew—hence, reframing. Not only do we need to see where we are in new ways, but these new ways must reveal genuinely better paths forward.
In every culture and every era, the world we inhabit is the product of its underlying paradigms (in conversation4 with Reality). Seeing as the modern paradigm is shifting, so too will the world change.
Arguably, a paradigm shift away from modernity has already occurred, as disillusionment with the modern paradigm has led to the emergence of the postmodern paradigm. But the shift from modernity to postmodernity did not result in a new world. On the contrary, postmodern disillusionment goes beyond modernity. It is a disillusionment with world-building as such. This is simultaneously a theoretical and a spiritual position.
A post-postmodern paradigm is not a linear, logical conclusion that somehow follows from postmodern disillusionment. It is the result of grappling with the implications of postmodern thought, and is invariably a dialectical response rooted in choice. This is a theoretical and existential point we argue for in our writings. The post‑postmodern turn, as we see it, recovers the genuine possibility of choice—the power to participate consciously in world‑making.
Phase 1’s goal is to establish a foothold for an Archimedean Point in service of the arguments and ideas that will follow. This publication’s ambition is to help shape the unfolding of humanity’s story into the future. In this early stage, we are merely gathering tools and laying foundations for this grand purpose.
Society moves by the sheer momentum of participation. The next society will likewise rise through a network of those inhabiting the new paradigm. But “new” does not automatically mean “better.” We must carefully distill the lessons of our past and present before attempting to change the world. This is the purpose of Phase 1. The winds of change are already blowing. We mean to redirect them away from bad ideas—the only true enemy.
By the end of this phase, we will have established a starting position from which one can think and act with power and clarity in the space between worlds. This forms a context from which we may make sense collaboratively. It should be clear to anyone engaging with these matters that this is a tall order, for various reasons. For one, the very possibility of such stability and shared context came under attack in the postmodern era. At the very least, any such stability that we may cohere around must be carefully built while taking the postmodern critique seriously.
To create such a pocket of sanity, around which we may cohere, we engaged, first, with the following topics:
Published So Far
Thinking in Color was an early exploration of the emotional valence of thought. It was a critique of the classical-modern model in which a clear-headed individual is one freed from emotion, thinking objectively like a “brain in a vat.” We argued that our rationality and general intelligence are so thoroughly entangled with our emotional life that only by developing emotional and somatic intelligence can we strive toward objectivity, rationality, and free, independent thinking.
Why start here? For one, this was a pragmatic move. Contemporary discourse—public or intellectual—is entangled with commitments, preferences, hopes, and fears. People are committed to modernity (or other ideologies and religions) with emotional strings that, lacking the capacity to recognize and work with, may play one like a marionette. The road toward independent thought passes through emotional maturity. Do people have ideas, or do ideas have people? Well, it depends. Emotional maturity is foundational to determining how one relates to ideas.
We take this to be a foundational frame for what follows. We must re-envision who we are in this light, as thinking beings, for our thinking to be free. It is a new model of the rational being—one who is nevertheless embodied and embroiled in relationships, hopes and fears, and who is inescapably emotionally invested in ideas and their real-world consequences.
Next, we discussed contingency. This was another pragmatic move. The essay gestured toward a subtle condition of the human mind, where it may be incapable of perceiving contingency. This marks the difference between an open and a closed mind. On this hinges one of the most pernicious obstacles to change.
Admittedly, like the previous essay, this one had some sting to it—only one with an open mind is capable of thinking freely. The closed mind—a mind incapable of properly recognizing contingency, for which everything is shut solid—is predictable and manipulable. Without seeing through contingency, the world is taken as an immutable given, making any change-oriented thought seem futile.
Essentially speaking, the closed mind is incapable of change. It can still be fruitful to talk to closed-minded people, as the flow of the conversation is indicative of how other closed-minded people think and talk, seeing as they think along the same predictable lines. (Resist, counter, dismiss, avoid, remain unchanged.)
On the one hand, this is a harsh statement. Incendiary, even. This rationale may even be put to use by closed-minded people to dismiss others as closed-minded. But closed-mindedness is not an irrevocable condition (especially for the young). Contingency blindness is not set at birth, and marks no one for life. We mustn’t be closed-minded about closed-mindedness. Closed-mindedness and contingency-blindness are conditioned, rather than intrinsic traits. Neither is it binary; we can all recognize this quality within ourselves at times. As such, one can always find their way back to the recognition: humans created this contingent human world; it can be remade.
Whatever the case may be, compassion is always appropriate, as the fault lies with historical decisions to design social systems that condition populations to contingency-blindness for systemic purposes—like the deliberately bred docility of domesticated sheep. While this is a harsh diagnosis, we insist that, given the feeblest spark of will, those who wish to change may do so—even those who lost faith in change itself.
Next, we tackled stories. Not fairytales, but stories in the cognitive and mythopoetic sense.
This was far from a comprehensive treatment of stories. We will continuously engage with this immense and paramount topic moving forward. In this essay, we established what stories are and investigated their powers and limitations.
Stories are foundational to the human experience of Reality, and we seem to have some power in tampering with them. By establishing stories in a dialectic with Reality—stories being simplifications of a Reality too complex to be fully known—we avoided the postmodern error of taking stories to be arbitrary and the subsequent relativism of perspectives that follows.
By avoiding both modern naivety (simplicity bias) and postmodern relativism (complexity bias), we recognized the depth of the task and responsibility posed by stories, on the middle way. This naturally brought us to the next series, our longest yet, which we will soon begin publishing in chapters.
Yet Unpublished
Value Harmonics
Stories frame our perception of Reality, and they do so directionally. There are many versions of the territory we explored in Simplicity Complicity (e.g., evolutionary arguments for why the human mind evolved to dumb down Reality). We adapted Jordan Peterson’s framing as our starting point, as it is (appropriately) mythopoetic, though we largely diverge from Peterson. In this framing, stories—Peterson’s Maps of Meaning—are directional. This makes stories value-laden.
Instead of taking for granted the orientation of stories as they are formed—consciously or unconsciously—we wished to examine what makes a story go one way and not another. This led us to explore values.
This series attempts to think values anew from a metaphysically agnostic position, taking a phenomenological approach. This agnosticism is appropriate given our postmodern condition, but it limits value discourse, and this failure reveals the next logical step.
Yet Unnamed Metaphysical Essay
In this yet-unwritten essay, we will tackle metaphysical uncertainty. We wish to, at the very least, bring modern and postmodern readers toward a healthier form of metaphysical agnosticism by problematizing the modern certainty of materialism.
With all these pieces in place, we will be able to conclude Phase 1.
The End of the World Series
This is intended to be our final series of Phase 1, where we address the metacrisis and reframe the modern situation directly, using all the pieces we collected up until this point. It is where we pivot to the second phase of the publication, by recontextualizing our situation as a species.
Closing Phase 1
Although this publication makes no sense and serves no purpose without active engagement with a larger conversation, its first phase, where we currently are, is necessary to establish where we are coming from. After postmodern critique hacked the roots of Western civilization, such clarifications became prerequisites, we would argue, for anyone who wishes to engage with the current bleeding edge of thought—post-postmodernism in its myriad forms.
Others may build upon what we presented, take it as it is, augment it, or find other ways to justify a post-postmodern position. There are kindred post-postmodern projects doing something similar (e.g., metamodernism, integral theory, and many other independent projects and thinkers), and if we were fully content with their approaches (more on this in the upcoming value series), we might not have needed the first phase.
To summarize, by the end of this phase of the publication, we will have established, in the broadest of terms, how humans make sense of Reality through stories, and toward what and why this power has been historically abused. We will have sufficiently liberated this potential from modern presuppositions and postmodern cynicism. In other words, we will have reclaimed our capacity to remake the world.
Phase 2
This is where we attempt to recenter the most important conversations on the planet (*spoiler alert*—”AI” isn’t one of them), all situated within, and designed to transmute, the metacrisis.
We have several major moves in store for this phase of the publication, which may be its main phase, and for which we will have made all the groundwork efforts of Phase 1. This is also the phase where we will move to expand readership and present these ideas to a larger audience (and, of course, critique5 and collaboration).
Not to downplay the significance of the arguments made in Phase 1, but it was only preparation. Phase 2 is where we begin, in earnest, to say our piece. We mean to reframe the big questions around which humanity must focus its attention. If in Phase 1 we attempted to answer the question “how should we think differently?”, in Phase 2 we will answer the question “what should we be thinking about?”
What should humanity be concerned about? Focused on? We mean to argue for what these things are that should be front and center in our collective attention, and will reframe these in a new, post-postmodern light.
Phase 3
We have concrete plans for Phase 2, but we must remain flexible and open when approaching Phase 3.
In general, Phase 3 intends to apply heft to culture, so to speak, to shift public discourse toward what matters. If Phase 2 aims to re-focus attention on the real issues, through a post-postmodern recontextualization, Phase 3 aims to advance these very same conversations.
Here, we will focus on concrete projects, proposals, and approaches, introducing, curating, and exploring ideas fit for the challenges ahead.
Phase 4 and Beyond?
Beyond this third phase, it would be presumptuous to plan. We have concrete plans for Phase 2, and a general idea for Phase 3. After that, we must remain light on our feet. The world is changing rapidly, with or without our participation. We only know that this publication must end at some point, having served its purpose. By then, we may explore other forms of media.
This is our working plan, which we hold loosely, remaining open to whatever may come.
We are living through the modern metacrisis. Whether or not we have cause to hope for a better future, there is only one way to live, and that is in service of this better future. We must act as if it is attainable, and as if our words and actions may tip the balance toward triumph. This way, though we may fail catastrophically, we will have at least earned a good death, with a heart free of remorse.
Modern people have it all wrong. Arguably, we were born into the most epic time in known history—the dramatic finale of millennia in the works. But we have been conditioned to be spectators instead of active participants, even though we live in times when an individual can effect change on the largest of scales (though this pressure often leads to folly). With this spirit, this publication strives to contribute to the larger project of getting humanity back on track toward a future worth having.
This is High Resolution, a publication dedicated to nothing less than reframing the world. These are our orienting principles and aspirations. This is our humble plan.
All of it, of course, depends on you, our readers. We work to untangle the confusions of our era, yet at the end of the day, this publication is just words on paper—unless those words move you, liberate and empower you, and through you are carried into the world.
We offer our deepest gratitude to you, early readers, for your time and attention.
Fortune favors the bold.
A long journey, at least, as far as online publications are concerned. For better or worse, we’re not inclined toward the immediate gratification typical of online content.
We will eventually archive this when High Resolution enters its second phase.
It is an easy case to make—we need people to assume the role of generalist. But there seems to be no place for generalists in our institutions (as opposed to experts). One of the reasons why this publication can have disproportionate force (or make grand, sweeping, “common sense” arguments) is the relative emptiness of the generalist niche. This is due to the lack of social support or prestige of generalists in modernity (armed with a holistic perspective, the generalist typically contradicts modernity).
As we explored in Simplicity Complicity.
As a generalist’s publication, High Resolution relies on the expertise and syntheses of many experts, and remains humbly open to well-meaning challenges and corrections from any field into which we trespass (which are many).