Is it possible that object-oriented ontology and speculative realism are popular for no other reason than that they lift the modern prohibition on metaphysics? That finally, there is a credible school of thought that isn’t entirely hostile to transcendence, so one can breathe a little beyondness without being sneered at?

Sure, it’s an imagined beyond, an immanent image that is entirely a product of self — but maybe it is a baby step toward relationship with beyond-as-such? (Or is it a defense against beyondness?)

In this it is similar to identitarianism which acknowledges an “other”, but one which is a figment of one’s own conceptualizing mind, a bit of one’s own self standing in for the real. But maybe it is a baby step toward real relationship with alterity? (Or is it a defense against alterity?)

Is an idol a baby step toward God? Or is it a defense against God? Is fundamentalism a baby step toward real religion? Or is it a defense against real religion?

These are just paraphrasings of the same question: fundamentalism is ideo-idolatry. Identitarianism is ideo-alterity. And OOO might fit in this series as ideo-realism. But my notion of OOO is likely only my own ideo-OOO, so I’m probably wrong about it.