If we want to define a Neo-Modernist (or what I like to call post-postmodernist orientation), we’ll need shared terms for epistemological fatigue, spiritual data hoarding, authenticity glitches, narrative refusal, and meta-compassion fatigue. To this end I started the Ineffable Index, as I develop terms to help me anchor some concepts in name which are otherwise difficult to speak about at length otherwise.

But in addition to creating a new lexicon, we’ll also have to rework the way we speak about:

• Value (without virtue-signaling or flattening into monetization)
  
• Self (as both interface and resistance)
  
• Truth (fractured, but not disowned)
  
• Creation (not as expression, but as orientation)
  

I’ve decided to mark these major subjects as the Big Four—as scaffolding for essays, definitions, and future thought. Let’s break these down further.

Value

• Core Tensions: Earned vs. inherited meaning; intrinsic vs. assigned; quantifiable vs. intangible
  
• Key Axes: Cultural currency, affirmation, utility, memory
  
• Potential Questions: What gives anything worth in an age of infinite duplication?
  

Self

• Core Tensions: Interface vs. essence; narrative vs. being; authenticity vs. coherence
  
• Key Axes: Identity performance, autonomy, fragmentation, self-mythology
  
• Potential Questions: How does one remain whole without being static?
  

Truth

• Core Tensions: Relativity vs. resonance; fact vs. pattern; presence vs. belief
  
• Key Axes: Sincerity, perception, myth, proof
  
• Potential Questions: Can we build a truth that doesn’t collapse under scrutiny but welcomes it?
  

Creation

• Core Tensions: Expression vs. orientation; output vs. presence; artifact vs. axis
  
• Key Axes: Generativity, imagination, influence, pattern-recognition
  
• Potential Questions: What does it mean to live as a creative act, not just perform one?
  

Lots to think about here. In addition to our categorical pillars of Criticism, Rhetoric, Aesthetics, and Philosophy, we will try to work in one or more of these subjects into our cornerstone content at Obscure Curiosities. Not every one of our deep dives will go into any of these four directly, but they will help guide our future studies.