THE IMAGINATION OF METAMODERNISM: LONELINESS, HAPPINESS, AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Abstract

This article explores the phenomenon of metamodern imagination as the cultural logic of the 21st century, which shapes new approaches to understanding human rights through the lens of emotional states – particularly loneliness and happiness. In the context of metamodernism, which combines modernist faith in progress with postmodern irony, happiness ceases to be merely a private emotion and acquires the status of a social construct that actively shapes normative expectations in society. At the same time, loneliness, traditionally viewed as an individual experience, increasingly appears as a structural emotion caused by digital fragmentation, urbanization, and the breakdown of traditional forms of community. These emotional states not only affect personal well-being but also become the subject of legal regulation, necessitating a reconsideration of the conceptual foundations of human rights.

The aim of the study is to identify how the imagination of metamodernism transforms legal discourse by institutionalizing emotional states as objects of legal protection. Methodologically, the article relies on an interdisciplinary approach that combines philosophy of law, sociology of emotions, digital anthropology, and cultural hermeneutics. Particular attention is paid to analyzing how algorithmic platforms, media narratives, and welfare policies influence conceptions of happiness as a right and loneliness as a social problem. In this context, happiness increasingly emerges as a normative demand that shapes standardized images of a 'successful life,' while loneliness is seen as a social pathology requiring institutional intervention.

As a result, it has been substantiated that in the era of metamodernism, human rights require rethinking as a dynamic, affectively-rich, and culturally sensitive phenomenon. Happiness and loneliness are no longer merely psychological states – they are becoming normative categories that define new horizons of legal thought. This opens up prospects for the formation of an ethics of care, mutual vulnerability, and digital dignity as components of a contemporary human rights agenda. The Ukrainian context, particularly in conditions of war, digital transformation, and emotional turbulence, demonstrates the particular relevance of such approaches, requiring the adaptation of human rights to new forms of subjectivity and social reality.