Millennial Anxiety: the Dizziness of Freedom
By: Kristina Hemzacek
Tags: Personal Development, Millennials, Postmodernism, Freedom, Anxiety

In 1979, Jean-François Lyotard published his book The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, in which he defines postmodern “as incredulity toward metanarratives”.

Metanarratives are the grand stories of humanity, stories that have heroes and an aim. In the story of Enlightenment, the hero is an abstract free and rational individual, and the goal is for him to discover universal laws of the world (and the universe) using the tool of his reason.

These stories provide legitimacy to our actions and our goals, but also to the knowledge we produce about ourselves and the world. They give us comfort because they usually work to create order in our own understanding of the world.

For example, in the story of Christianity, god created the world and people. The people were bad so he banished them from his garden. The people continued to be bad and he continued to punish them. He, then, sent his son to die to redeem the bad people, but the people continued to be bad and he continued to punish them. This will keep repeating until at some point god decides he’s had enough, and there’ll be Judgement Day. The good people will be admitted into the garden again.

The story is pretty much the same in all other religions. People are bad, god punishes them, people are still bad, god punishes them again, etc. Until the good guys eventually (never in this life) get some reward.

Postmodern arises as a response to these stories. It is our incredulity to the story that makes us doubtful not only of that particular story but of all stories. Of our commonly-held understanding of the world, of our knowledge production and of knowledge itself.

The postmodern condition is, therefore, characterised by smaller stories, similar to each other, but different enough to legitimise different aims.

While knowledge in modernity could be described as a mirror, with the aim of reproducing as closely as possible what happens in material reality, postmodernity breaks the mirror. It distorts and fragments the reality which is reflected in it.

We start understanding that there is no Truth. There are only different interpretations of the world. And this knowledge that we are producing is becoming simply a commodity.

According to Lyotard: “Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorized in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange.”

Knowledge, then, ceases to be part of a grand story of humanity and becomes just another product to be sold, bought, and consumed. From the perspective of scientific knowledge, this is problematic: if there is no Truth, or more precisely if there is no mind-independent world (nothing to hold up to our own version of the story and check if it is close to reality), how can we know that what we are saying is correct?

But on the level of the individual, this realisation is both liberating (since we are no longer constrained by the story about the progress of history and the goal of humanity being universal peace) and anxiety-inducing.

On the one hand, if there is no right way to be or live, you can live and be any way you want. You can find a partner and have children. You can go to school when you’re 70. You can eschew a standard job or build a standard career.

On the other, if the metanarratives are dead, what is the point of your life? What are you living for? If there is no reward, either now or eventually, why would you do anything?