Ethics & AI

Norway's Generasjonspartiet: A Metamodernist Experiment in a Bounded Direct Democracy

“Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Recently, I met Gyda Oddekalv, leader of Generasjonspartiet, at an event on AI and Robotics. Founded in 2020, Generasjonspartiet is a relatively new political movement in Norway. After reading their 2025 party program, I chose to analyze two philosophical strands that shape their approach:

  1. A metamodern political synthesis
  2. A Rousseauian direct democracy

This article focuses on the first: Metamodernism, a 21st‑century cultural framework that helps explain why Generasjonspartiet feels new and relevant in Norwegian politics—whether or not its members consciously identify with the term.

Metamodernism: The Both/And (Både/Og) — or Both/Neither — Political Philosophy?

“Vi er et både og parti.” — Generasjonspartiet program

What is Metamodernism?
Metamodernism, as described by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker (2010), is a cultural sensibility that reacts to postmodernism. While postmodernism emphasized nihilism, skepticism, and the deconstruction of grand narratives, metamodernism oscillates between modernist sincerity and postmodern irony.

As Turner (2015) puts it, our era is marked by a movement between:

Gyda’s remark — “the perfect is the enemy of the good” — captures this oscillation well.

Political Metamodernism in Practice

Generasjonspartiet’s rejection of the left–right axis is a clear metamodern gesture. Their program calls traditional political categories:

“Outdated frameworks designed for 19th‑century industrial‑era problems.”

Their core values reflect a structured oscillation between opposing poles:

Their concept of Development resembles the German Bildung: the cultivation of self and society through education and experience.

Dialectical Synthesis, Not Centrism

20th‑century politics revolved around binaries:
Labor vs. Capital, State vs. Market, Tradition vs. Progress.

Generasjonspartiet does not merely reject these binaries—they attempt a kind of vertical integration, evaluating policies through core values rather than ideological loyalty.

Examples

Economic policy:

Environmental policy:

A traditional analyst might call this incoherent. A metamodernist sees Hegelian sublation:
a synthesis that preserves and transforms both thesis and antithesis.

Illustrations of Sublation

Tensions as Features, Not Bugs

Generasjonspartiet’s program contains deliberate contradictions:

Each policy area is treated as its own problem space, unified not by ideology but by:

This approach may fail—contradictions can fracture coalitions or stall policy. But it may also signal a shift toward adaptive, context‑sensitive governance.

Conclusion

Is Generasjonspartiet a metamodernist party?

In many ways, yes.
Even if they don’t explicitly identify with metamodernism, their program reflects its sensibilities.

Their platform is not “consistent” in the 20th‑century ideological sense. A socialist would reject their tax policy; a free‑market advocate would oppose their national self‑sufficiency measures. But this inconsistency appears intentional.

They treat politics as an operating system, not a doctrine—updatable, modular, and open to multiple philosophical libraries.

In an era of climate change, technological disruption, and geopolitical instability, rigid ideologies may be obsolete. Metamodernism’s ability to hold opposing truths—market and state, individual and collective, tradition and innovation—may be precisely what governance now requires.

Generasjonspartiet offers a real‑world test case for whether this cultural theory can become political practice. The stakes are high, but the conversation they’ve sparked about democracy and governance in the 21st century is one Norway needs.

P.S.

If you haven’t already, download Demokrati‑Appen from the App Store or Google Play. More information is available on Generasjonspartiet’s website. You may not want to remain a spectator—you might prefer to be a player.

References