#integral philosophy

At the super-integral level, perception no longer filters reality through allegiance. Vision widens beyond affiliation, beyond the need to defend a worldview or elevate one tradition over another. What becomes visible is not a synthesis manufactured by intellect, but a recognition born of depth: each religion, philosophy, system, culture, and tradition is responding to the same mystery from a…

The Ever-Expanding Heart Love that requires no condition, no reflection, no return; this is the highest state of consciousness. Universal Love is not sentimental or selective. It does not operate within the confines of personality, preference, or perception. It sees through every distinction and recognizes only itself. This is love as total awareness. It loves because there is nothing else to…

— Ken Wilber

http://turri.me/Data/IncreasedCapacity_EP2_Full.mp3

  Episode 2 of Increased Capacity is here! Dan and I are back talking about all things that have to do with beauty, truth and goodness.

In this episode we talk about cilantro, quantum theory, and web comics (among other things…). Enjoy!

This week’s picks:

Jesse’s Beauty pick Jesse’s Truth pick Jesse’s Goodness pick

Dan’s Beauty pick Dan’s Truth pick Dan’s Goodness pick

Join the conversation! Get in touch with us:

Jesse designs stuff and blogs here, Twitter, Instagram

Dan on Facebook

“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;”” John 11:25

Good Friday is the day Christians commemorate the crucifixion and death of Jesus. There are a few theories out there regarding why Good Friday is called “Good Friday.” The one I like the most is the one most historians and linguists prefer, that the word “Good” in Good Friday could be substituted with the word “Holy” (read: sacred). But why would a day where Jesus dies be considered Holy or good? Obviously, the stories about the events of Good Friday have numerous layers of meaning and interpretive possibility; the idea that Jesus did not just die, but was murdered/executed for sedition has huge political significance for instance. But one thing that most people can agree on is that death, as something looming which we all must face, comes to the forefront on Good Friday.

Along these lines, one aspect of Good Friday that has become increasingly popular to isolate is the notion that atheism and the “death of God” is implied/embedded in the crucifixion events of Good Friday. I’m thinking of some of the concepts found in radical death of God theologies in particular here, which might be found to be espoused by folks like Nietzsche, Altizer, Žižek, and even Bonehoeffer. To be sure, I like a lot of what these thinkers have to say; some of these radical theological concepts can be great tools, psychologically speaking, for helping people who are addicted to transcendent “escape plan” types of theologies for instance. But one thing that has bothered me for a while is that I do feel some radical death of God thinkers fetishize death by isolating it and, essentially, end up doing a great disservice to it by over emphasizing it and making such a big, scary, existential/angsty deal out of it. Death, strictly speaking (I’m not talking about untimely, unjust death or murder here), is not new, or profound, or shocking, or dreadful, or bad.

Perhaps, instead of thinking of death in unhelpful ways, as being extreme, severe, harsh, extraordinary or radical, we can think of death again in generative terms, as being natural, creative, sacred, holy, and yes, even good.

For a while now, instead of thinking about the polarity of birth and death in positive-negative terms, I’ve really become adamant about training myself to think of birth and death as a positive-positive polarity. That is, birth and death are permanently-recurring dichotomies that shouldn’t be resisted but accepted as being both natural and creative at every level of reality. Evolutionary eco-theologian, Michael Dowd, has been really inspiring to me in this regard. The idea that, from a larger, cosmic perspective, “my sense of “self” does not stop with my skin” is so deeply insightful. Dowd writes:

“Earth is my larger Self. The Universe is my even larger Self: my Great Self. So, yes, “I” (in this expanded sense) will continue to exist even after “I” (this particular body-mind) comes to a natural end. There is deep comfort in knowing that my larger Self will live on. More, I am powerfully motivated to be in action today precisely because I do not ignore or deny the inevitability of death. My small self has but a brief window of opportunity to delight in, and contribute to, the ongoing evolution of the body of life.”

The torturous method, injustice, and untimeliness aside, Jesus’s actual death on the cross (the permanent halting of his vital biological processes) was not perverse, weird or unnatural. No. It was ordinary, just like ours is going to be. Evolution of complex life depends on differential death; for life to be seen as natural, death must be naturalized. And that’s, in part, why this Friday is called good.

“No matter how politically successful either the left or the right becomes, our democracy will always have some version of the other side.” –Steve McIntosh

I’ve been reading a lot of lengthy, in-depth write-ups lately claiming to have diagnosed the Trump phenomenon. Two of the better ones I’ve read were written by Amanda Taub, at Vox, and Max Ehrenfreund, at the Washington Post. The gist of Taub’s article, in which she cites research from numerous political scientists, is that there is a certain subset of American’s who hold authoritarian tendencies/ideologies, and “prioritize social order and hierarchies, which bring a sense of control to a chaotic world. Challenges to that order — diversity, influx of outsiders, breakdown of the old order — are experienced as personally threatening because they risk upending the status quo order they equate with basic security.” This theory is similar to the one that my friend Tad Delay (coming from a critical theory and psychoanalytic background) has been kicking around.

Ehrenfreund’s article contains some other insights, from psychologists who supposedly analyzed Trump supporters, that are probably just as accurate in their own way. He claims that the people who like Trump like him mainly for three reasons (which are essentially fundamental, universal and uncomfortable facts about the human mind): 1) we like big talkers 2) we like people who tell us that our problems are simple and easy to solve, even when they aren’t, and 3) we don’t like people who don’t look like us.

What’s really interesting to me is that both of these articles, if they’re taken together, make up what integral theorists have been saying for quite a while with regard politics, values, and worldviews; namely, that distinct cultural worldview systems exist for people as well as groups of people (cultures and sub-cultures). According to the Institute for Cultural Evolution (ICE), “Here in America, the worldviews of traditionalism, modernism, and postmodernism each vie for allegiance of the population, with modernists comprising a majority of approximately fifty-percent, and the rest about evenly divided between traditionalism and postmodernism.” I am personally skeptical about traditionalism and postmodernism being evenly divided; my feeling is that traditionalism makes up a much larger percentage than postmodernism does here in the U.S. Anyway, regardless, the Integral insight that’s so important here, which Ehrenfreund’s article seems to also imply, is that if we take seriously this idea that distinct cultural worldviews/value systems exist, we should also seriously consider the notion that these are stages of psycho-social development which all people and all cultures go through in one form or another, therefore each stage is always with us in some fundamental way. This additional piece can add another level of explanatory power to the Trump phenomenon, I feel.

I’ve heard integral thinkers like Jeff Salzman describe Trump as speaking primarily from a red center of gravity. This “warrior” mentality comes through loud and clear in Trump. The way I hear people talk about Trump is similar to the way they might talk about someone like Rambo, the archetypal strong man who heroically emerges to save the day from our enemies. There is no guilt associated with saying exactly what you think or taking what you want for the red warrior mind-set. The world is their oyster. Power is exercised as domination and this stage of development is, for better or worse, ethnocentric and action oriented.

If we’re to believe that over fifty percent of the U.S. is at some form of Modernist development, then it shouldn’t be a surprise that Trump’s Red warrior rhetoric speaks stronger to Modernist and Traditionalist mentalities than it does to Postmodern or later stages of development. After all, the Orange Modernist stage is only twice removed from the Red Warrior stage, and only one step away from the Amber Traditionalist stage. The primal, fundamental fear driven topics of war, terrorism, immigration, and ordering the chaotic economy that Trump hits on over and over again easily speak to and, as Taub points out in her article, “activate” certain authoritarian tendencies, which is indeed a Red warrior characteristic that we probably all harbor to some degree or another (e.g. take away the civilized, industrial niceties provided by Modernity ((and the stages before it)) and we might see how fast progressive Postmoderns revert back to their tribal, Red warrior tendencies and demand strong leaders to keep them safe…((The Walking Dead does a great job exploring these sorts of themes, by the way))).

The two articles I cited above give great analyses of some dimensions of the Trump phenomenon, but they ultimately fail on providing any sort of perspective on how to overcome or deal with the situation. The WaPo article comes the closet to any kind of satisfying conclusion, indicating that what draws people to Trump are proclivities that are potentially in all humans. This would be the integral claim as well. Each stage of development contains within it the previous stage of development, both it’s dignities and disparities (and yes, each stage has pros and cons and it seems coherent to say that we couldn’t have “Postmodernism” without “Modernism”). Although I am by no means confident or certain that it is the best approach, integral philosophers like Steve McIntosh are putting forth proposals for ways to get past this perceived log jam in psycho-social development. Their solution is essentially that we should attempt to convince people that polarities are natural occurrences and that they don’t necessarily need to be positive-negative; we can, and maybe should, conceive of our current political polarization as a positive-positive type of polarity, a “form of permanently recurring opposition wherein the best of both sides are worthy of preservation.”

The solution McIntosh and ICE put forth is, admittedly, “unusually inclusive,” and I tend to agree that championing the growth of both sides can be warranted because, “the improvement of one is ultimately contingent on the improvement of the other.” McIntosh writes, “No matter how politically successful either the left or the right becomes, our democracy will always have some version of the other side. Therefore, instead of alienating or vilifying close to half of America, I think we stand a much greater chance of making things meaningfully better by actually helping both sides evolve into more mature and responsible versions of themselves.”

Again, I’m not overly convinced of the integral solution to this mess. They could be completely wrong about everything, but I do give them credit for at least attempting to put forth a constructive plan to help move things along. However, It’s easy to say that we all need to just help each other grow and mature and tease apart dignities from disparities, but this is really hard to put into action when white supremacists are congregating in large numbers at Trump rallies and spewing hatred. Maybe there are other solutions to this mess. If so, I’m all ears.

“These statistics definitely do not prove that animus or madness has ended. No decent person would deny that violence is still much too high everywhere…Still, the big picture of postwar history shows significant improvements in nearly all indicators of lived human experience. The average life span of humans is today longer than it has ever been. A smaller proportion of women die in childbirth than ever before. Child malnutrition is at its lowest level ever, while literacy rates worldwide have never been higher. Most impressive has been the recent reduction in severe poverty — the reduction in the percentage of humans living each day on what a tall Starbucks coffee costs in America. During a recent 20-year stretch the mainstream estimate is that the percentage of the developing world living in such extreme poverty shrank by more than half, from 43 to 21 percent.

The real trick to understanding our world is to see it with both eyes at once. The world now is a thoroughly awful place — compared with what it should be. But not compared with what it was. Keeping both eyes open gives depth to our perception of our own time in history, and makes us better able to see where paths to more progress may be open.

…

Humanity does learn, painfully and often only after thousands or even millions have died — like a giant starfish hurrying over a jagged reef, with only primitive vision, slicing off spines on its way, yet regenerating as it grows and slowly adapting its motion. The currents are pushing the starfish faster, the reefs ahead are sharper — humanity must become sharper, too. Mainly, humanity learns as identities alter to become less aggressive and more open, so that networks can connect individual capacities more effectively and join our resources together.

Many people are still beyond ruthless in pursuing their own interests, yet interests are now more pacific than they once were. Most people around you now do not want to kill you to get your phone, torture you until you profess their religion, or prey on your credulity until you join a racist gang. Some may — but not many. If these profound changes for the better remain unseen, it is likely because of what we now take for granted.

What we take for granted frames the size of our concerns.”

The above passages come from an honest but hopeful article in the NYT, written by philosopher Leif Wenar, about humanity and progress. I really appreciated the piece. Wenar is even-handed in writing about this subject, I think. He acknowledges that our world today is in bad shape, that we are not where we should be/could be, but also acknowledges that we do take a lot for granted. This integral philosophical approach is instructive for me. As Wenar writes, “The real trick to understanding our world is to see it with both eyes at once. The world now is a thoroughly awful place — compared with what it should be. But not compared with what it was. Keeping both eyes open gives depth to our perception of our own time in history, and makes us better able to see where paths to more progress may be open.”

More on the connection between progress and pathology here and here.

…

Stained glass sculpture above by Thomas Medicus

Two students from the DMBA used Integral Phylosophy to reinvision a system of governance. This is their Declaration of Unity. 

THE POWER IN ME

I

I am

I am conscious and present

I am I

I am who I am, I am the essence of all

I am humanity

I am the face of all humanity

I call forth

Fore I create

I create the essence

I am the essence

The essence is I

THE POWER IN US

I am life

I am life force

life force is all

life force is infinite

I am

I am life force

I must act with life force

Life force is the will

I am the will

I am the life force as will

I will the life force

The future is the life force

THE INTEGRITY OF WE

I am not alone; I have never been alone

I am the life force

I see the life force act

you are the the force

the life force moves in you

the life force moves in neighbor

My neighbor is myself in a different guise.

the life force moves in us

The life force can only move in me when I allow it to move in you

When life force move in us

We move with the life force

The life force makes us one

The life force makes us all

THE VALUE OF US

When we are one, we are good

We are the life force at its most infinite

I and you make three

The life forces is greater when we work together

The life force is interconnected

when we are interconnected the life force becomes moves deeper in us

The present is constant

The past is with us

We are the future-present-past in one

we connect the life force in one another

PURPOSE

There are no frontiers I cannot cross,

For I, the person, am my own challenge.

Every moment is a rebirth into a new dimension of being human;

My duty is to guide the rebirth;

I and I alone guide the rebirth.

I walk in humility in the presence of the person;

I can afford to be humble; I am not afraid; I am adequate.

Every moment of my life I evolve,

For perpetual evolution is my destiny.

We have in us everything we need to evolve;