ISSUE 63, Table of Contents
- SDi (1): Reactions to the Issue 61 editorial
- SDi (2): John Heron on Wilber's tangled lines
- SDi (3): Wilber's use of the Spiral Dynamics Model
- SDi (4): A critique of Boomeritis
- SDi (5): A rhetorical critique of Ken Wilber
- SDi (6): Relativising the Integral Approach
- SDi (7): Stripping the Guru's, new e-Book
- SDi (8): Reprint of the issue 61 editorial, what's wrong with Wilber's SDi
- SDi (9): Conclusion: Why Wilber can be bad for you?
- Miscellaneous
P/I: PLURALITIES/INTEGRATION
A newsletter about participation in
multiple worlds, multiple visions, but one humanity ; a monitor of P2P
developments
Compiler:
Michel Bauwens, michel@noosphere.cc;
P/I is an emanation of the hitherto still virtual FOUNDATION FOR PEER TO PEER
ALTERNATIVES
ISSUE 63: April 10, 2005: Why this
newsletter? Why the title?
The title refers to the enduring tension between a multitude
of worldviews, and their eventual integration. For a full explanation of the
rationale behind the newsletter, see issues 1 and 2. An alternative name could
be “P2P and Empire” because in practice I mostly focus on a
analysis of the crisis of the current system on the one hand, and the emergence
of a more participative worldview, which I call “peer to peer”, on
the other.
Preferred themes: the networked society, cognitive capitalism, Empire
and its discontents,emancipatory processes among the ‘multitudes’
and the possible emergence of a peer to peer civilization, truth-building as a
collective and ‘dialogical’ effort, the challenges posed to
traditional religions and humanism by spiritual P2P experiencing and
technological transhumanism.
If you like this
project, please suggest any interesting links! We would be very happy to
list you as a contributor. Thanks to John Dermaut, Christophe Lestavel, John L.
Petersen, George Dafermos, Jim Hightower, David Spillane, Larry Penslinger, Nik
Baerten, Maurice Nsabimana, Tattoo Mabonzo, and the Multitudes mailing list for
regular suggestions.
How to subscribe: Write to compiler Michel Bauwens at michel@noosphere.cc or at
michelsub2003@yahoo.com.
IMPORTANT NEWS
Ask me for the latest version of my
P2P-related essay; "Peer to Peer and Human Evolution".
Microsoft is getting on the peer to
peer bandwagon in a big way, by acquiring the Groove collaborative platform, at
http://www.groove.net/home/index.cfm
QUOTES
Alain Rayner on Inclusionality:
"Inclusionality is an awareness that space, far from passively
surrounding and isolating discrete massy objects, is a vital, dynamic inclusion
within, around and permeating natural form across all scales of organization,
allowing diverse possibilities for movement and communication. Correspondingly,
boundaries are not fixed limits - smooth, space-excluding, Euclidean lines or
planes - but rather are pivotal places comprising complex, dynamic arrays of
voids and relief that both emerge from and pattern the co-creative togetherness
of inner and outer domains, as in the banks of a river."
CONTENTS
Two weeks ago, I featured a negative
critique of the P2P essay, one which in my opinion did not reflect any decent
reading of the material itself, but was centered on labeling the author with
'inferior' colour-coding schemes from the Spiral Dynamics system. The strategy
is essentially to label oneself 'integral' (yellow, turqoise, coral, …),
and to label anything that reeks of a socially progressive tradition as
'green', green being used in a derogatory manner. Since this rhetorical
strategy has become the hallmark of the Wilber-Beck version of integral theory,
it prompted me to write last week's editorial piece. It was written with a
certain kind of anger, since I felt it was a betrayal of the early emancipatory
promise of integral theory, as one that integrated spiritual concerns with
political and social ones.
My rebuttal was counterproductive since
the debate in 2 lists was essentially centered on further personal attacks. I
have found it to be a very painful experience, since with very few exceptions,
there could not be any discussion of the contents of 1) the findings of the
essay; 2) my critique of Sdi, formulated last week. One exception was a
specific argument of Don Beck as to the scientific basis of the rival account
of the Mean Greem Meme by the Cowan group. Unfortunately, it also generally
disqualified any debate by calling 'green advocates' to be nitpickers and
'ankle-biters', which should give you an idea of the idea of feeling of
superioty that could generate such remarks. This general atmosphere of
intellectual intimidation (the interventions in the 2 lists I was witness to
centered on the assumption that I must be a hateful person since I critique
Wilber), plus the reception of private emails with further attacks and requests
to be open-minded about the rationale for the intervention in Iraq, made me
decide to avoid these environments in the future. (for the record: I can accept
pro-intervention stances, but not their identification with integralism, or the
assumption that those who oppose it are shallow and closed-minded thinkers).
Let me state emphatically that not all
lists that call themselves integral operate in such a manner. I have seen
interesting and friendly forums (for example the young people discussing at the
IntegralNaked forum, where even if they do use the colour coding to label
people, it is done in a acceptable and friendly way). SDi still attracts
idealistic young people, who see the integral as a emancipatory tradition and
who are unaware of the drift of the SDi leadership. So, my decision is to
publish one more special issue with informative and argued critiques of some
aspects of the SDi (Spiral Dynamics - Integral) tradition, for the sake of the
documentary record, then to let the whole issue rest for a very long time.
Again, it is fine to be neoconservative, my gripe is that SDi cloaks this
partisan approach hiding behind a purported science. My editorial was harsh,
but was not meant as a personal attack against individuals, but rather to function
as a clearly-stated indictment of the evolution of the movement. As it is, my
further experience has in my opinion rather strengthened the earlier
editorial's conclusions, including that of growing cultic tendencies which
close off critical debate.
How can spiritual development, defined as the result
of a meditative/contemplative individual journey through states of
consciousness -- psychic-subtle-causal-nondual in Wilber's description -- lead
to abusive individuals such as Da Free John and Andrew Cohen, which Wilber has
consistently promoted. I had concluded my own study of many years of Wilber,
and of mystical traditions generally, enriched by various personal
experimentation, by concluding that it was nothing else than a technical
ability, and no guarantee by itself of any truly human moral development. In my
view, Wilber's own edifice crumbles entirely, when the individuals he chooses
to exemplify the highest achievements, turn out to be spiritual abusers.
Spirituality must therefore be located elsewhere, not in individual pursuit of
technical states of consciouness, but in co-evolving interpersonal
relationships, where we can demonstrate our spiritual maturity through our
ability to express love. This view is much better explained in John Heron's
critique of Wilber's tangled lines of development.
A tangle of lines and levels: a critique of Wilber’s
integral psychology
John Heron October 2003, updated March 2005
"Wilber has given an account of human spirituality in
terms of lines and levels of development (Wilber: 2000a, 2000b, 2002). The
lines are relatively independent kinds of human development, and the levels are
stages of development through which the lines proceed. So the different lines
all go through the same levels. Wilber defines spirituality in five different
ways, but two of them are key ones in his system: spirituality as the highest
levels of any line, and spirituality as a separate line itself. He thinks these
two definitions are mutually compatible components of his integral psychology.
But in the way that he deploys
them, they lead to very serious difficulties. Wilber needs spirituality as a
separate line, to explain how it is that people can be spiritually lop-sided.
The various human lines he mentions include psychosexuality, socio-emotional
capacity, communicative competence, creativity – and many more. The
independent spiritual line is primarily contemplative/meditative. Wilber
acknowledges that someone can be highly developed on this line, that is,
competent at subtle, causal and nondual awareness and still be spiritually
undeveloped in other crucial lines of development, including
‘psychosexual, emotional or interpersonal skills’. This imbalance
he characterizes as ‘One Taste sufficiency that leaves schmucks as it
finds them’ (One Taste refers to the nondual state).
Wilber evaluates the nondual
state as ‘the highest estate imaginable’. Yet at the same he
believes it can co-exist with a complete absence of spirituality at the top end
of the interpersonal line, and of other lines absolutely central to human
development. This admission
immediately dethrones the nondual state from the supremacy he claims for it,
and makes it appear as dissociated and quasi-pathological. This dethroning also
means that the highest estate imaginable is really the integration of all the
different facets of human spirituality to be found at the top end of all the
relatively independent lines. Furthermore, it cannot be the business of just
one of those independent lines to define in advance by what stages all the
other lines will reach their top ends. But Wilber tries to promote just that
kind of business.
In his system, the separate
contemplative line, which can become so dissociated from the development of other
lines, is at the same time the sole source for deriving the higher
transpersonal levels (psychic, subtle, causal, nondual) through which all the
other lines must proceed. But how can a contemplative line, which by definition
is independent of the other lines, be a valid source for categories which
prescribe the higher levels of these lines in which it has no competence? Indeed the relative independence, or
dissociation, of the contemplative line calls in question the validity of the
levels it claims to establish, and whether indeed the levels are spiritual,
when they are the product of such a non-integral, separate line. The claims
this line makes improperly and prematurely assume that the nature of the
spiritual can finally be determined by the exercise of the skills of separatist
contemplation, when the potential for developing spiritual skills on
other relatively independent lines has not so far been fully explored
by the human race.
Thus Wilber tries to argue that
the basic categories for integrating all the lines in higher unfoldment have
been uncovered on a single line that has no experience whatsoever of such
multi-line integration. The way out of this tangle is gently to propose that
the contemplative line is not a spirituality line, that spirituality is not
about states, however remarkable and extraordinary, that people get into by a
lifetime of individual meditation.
A more convincing account of
spirituality is that it is about multi-line integral development explored by
persons in relation. This is because many basic developmental lines - e.g.
those to do with gender, psychosexuality, emotional and interpersonal skills,
communicative competence, morality, to name but a few - unfold through
engagement with other people. A person cannot develop these lines on their own,
but through mutual co-inquiry. The spirituality that is the highest development
of these lines can only be achieved through relational forms of practice that
unveil the spirituality implicit in them.
In short, the spirituality of
persons is developed and revealed primarily in the spirituality of their
relations with other persons. If you regard spirituality primarily as the fruit
of individual meditative attainment, then you can have the gross anomaly of a
“spiritual” person who is an interpersonal oppressor, and the
possibility of
“spiritual” traditions that are oppression-prone (Heron,
1998; Kramer and Alstad, 1993; Trimondi and Trimondi, 2003) .
Certainly there are important
individualistic developmental lines that do not necessarily directly involve
engagement with other people, such as contemplative development, and physical
fitness. But these are secondary and supportive of those that do, and are in
turn enhanced by co-inquiry with others.
On this overall view,
spirituality is located in the interpersonal heart of the human condition where
people co-operate to explore meaning, build relationship and manifest
creativity through collaborative action inquiry into multi-line integration and
consummation. Such collegial applied spirituality has at least six
distinguishing characteristics. (1) It is holistic, involving diverse major
lines of human development, in which prime value is put on relational lines,
supported by the individualistic; (2) it is focussed on worthwhile practical
purposes; (3) it embraces peer-to-peer relations and participatory forms of
decision-making; (4) it includes many ways of knowing; (5) it honours the
gradual emergence of developmental form; and (6) it acknowledges the role of
both initiating and spontaneously surfacing hierarchy in such emergence.
It is notable that
Wilber’s account of levels (also called waves, and, by co-option from the
work of Beck and Cowan, “memes”) has no clear place for relational
forms of spiritual practice. The
green meme bypasses the depths of the sacred realm of the Between and
superficially reduces the relational self to the worldview of pluralistic
relativism (Ferrer, 2002: 223-5). The second-tier thinking of the yellow and
turquoise memes is strong on systemic and holistic rhetoric about the
interweaving of multiple levels, but is curiously devoid of any sense of
interpersonal or political reality – at any rate in Wilber’s
account (2000a: 52). Once human rights have been relegated to the inferior
green meme, and second-tier thinking affirms ‘natural degrees of
excellence’ and ‘knowledge and competency’superseding lesser
claims, one wonders whether philosopher-kings are being invited to stroll onto
the world stage in their yellow and turquoise robes.
Ferrer, J. N. (2002) Revisioning Transpersonal Psychology: A Participatory Vision of Human
Spirituality, Albany: State University of New York Press.
Heron, J. (1998) Sacred Science: Person-centred Inquiry into the Spiritual and the
Subtle, Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.
Kramer, J. and Alstad, D. (1993) The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian
Power, Berkeley:
Frog Ltd.
Trimondi, V. and
Trimondi, V. (2003) The
Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism, http://www.trimondi.de
Wilber, K. (2000a) Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit,
Psychology, Therapy, Boston:
Shambhala.
Wilber, K. (2000b) One Taste: Daily Reflections on Integral
Spirituality, Boston: Shambhala.
Wilber, K. (2002) “An outline of integral psychology”,
Shambhala website.
http://www.spiraldynamics.org/learning/faq.htm#Wilber
Chris Cowan, of Spiral Dynamics "dot.org"
and the former colleague of Don Beck, disagrees with Beck and Wilber's usage of
the psychological system developed by Clare Graves.
What about
Ken Wilber's use of SD and Graves?
"We appreciate the fact
that many fine, intelligent people have first met SD and emergent, cyclical
theory through Ken Wilber's writings and welcome them. We extend our sincere
thanks for the publicity his writing has given to Dr. Graves's work. We have
enjoyed his musings since the 1970's, some of which have been brilliant. As a philosophical
assimilator/compiler he's hard to beat, and he has done some important original
philosophical work. We don't doubt his overall positive intentions. However, at
this website we have no direct connection with Mr. Wilber; we do not
necessarily support nor have we been consulted about much of what he has chosen
to write of Spiral Dynamics® and Dr. Graves's theory in context
of his work. To be blunt, we find some of it to be simply awful and do not
count him among the experts on this theory, though his interest in exploiting
it is obvious.
Too much of Wilber's writing
distorts the model. Documents like the "Boomeritis" excerpts on his
website, the book, Boomeritis, and
recent recordings twist the theory and contain glib over-simplifications and
biases, perhaps gleaned from his choice of sources or his own life experiences,
which reflect neither the nuances nor the intent of this theory. [review of Boomeritis] There is frequent
confusion of values with Value Systems. He also seems to have trouble
differentiating the levels of psychological existence from personality traits -
always a difficult task - and grossly misunderstands and overplays the
"tier" notion; shuts down the open-ended aspect in favor of a target
end state; crams in his spiritual and political views as if they were inherent
in SD or the Gravesian theory; and frequently confuses the eight hypothetical
nodal states with the transitional conditions, as well as with each other.
Simply, he doesn't seem to understand what's Orange (E-R), Green (F-S), and Yellow (G-T)
very well, so readers are cautioned to rely on his representations with care.
Wilber and his followers tend to claim good stuff as "Integral" or
Second Tier and narrowly attribute the bad to "mean Green" or
Red.
Frankly, it appears that Wilber
is trying to force SD into his model of the world and political views, and in
the process he pollutes and constrains it. And we do wish he could learn the
difference between memes and vMemes (behavioral traits with the
reasoning behind them) when citing SD and stop confusing readers with sloppy
terminology. (See comments on "Mean Green Meme")
Much of the material demonstrates a very limited grasp of the underlying
theory; and although he's not always wrong in his use of SD, he's wrong far
more often than there's any excuse for. Thus, the supposed SD foundation on
which he builds so many arguments is fundamentally, fatally flawed; and those
who parrot it without going back to Graves,
start off with some erroneous assumptions and waste time that could be spent on
developing the theory rather than rehashing, rediscovering, or reducing
it.
It should be clear by now that
the way Mr. Wilber has used the SD material has been without our involvement or
approval and even, in some cases, despite our strong objections. He throws in
nonsense and his own hypotheses which he falsely depicts as Gravesian/SD theorems. While
he might have had our former partner's collaboration in this, he has not sought
nor accepted ours, nor has he had our permission to lift large pieces of text
from the 1996 Spiral Dynamics book,
or to use the trademarked name as he has. We buy his books after release; we
are not given the opportunity to preview them or comment in
advance. Despite what has been claimed elsewhere, it has been entirely the
choice of Mr. Wilber and his advisors to take this approach.
Some have argued that
complaints like this are just sour grapes; we suggest otherwise. It's both
questioning the ethics of the process and recognizing that his approach
introduces great confusion to novice readers that impacts our work negatively
because, in so many places, he is putting out impressive-sounding junk and
nonsense that must be undone if the integrity of the model is to be protected.
There's no excuse for it. Clearly, for Wilber and his publisher,
"integral" does not include checking with both co-authors/owners of
intellectual property before playing so fast and loose with it, or consulting
with the person who originally wrote a great many of the passages he reproduces
so extensively. Readers should note that some of the materials he has copied
essentially verbatim would not even be included were the SD book being redone
today, especially some examples for the levels, because a great deal more has
been learned about the theory since that writing in 1994-5.
Wilber force-fits SD into his
spirituality/theology/philosophy and then suggests the quasi-religion that
produces was inherent in the model, all along. This is not the Church of the
Spiral, nor the Brotherhood of the Second Tier. Had he chosen to be
collaborative, or at least done a decent job with the materials, we could rejoice
rather than cringe at the release of his publications because the promotion is
undeniably valuable. As it is, we suggest that readers be skeptical about
what Mr.Wilber and his followers suggest Spiral Dynamics says about politics,
society, culture, philosophy and spirituality, to look out for his personal
opinions being projected as if they were part of the theory. He largely ignores
the essence of the point of view, concentrating on the 8 nodal states, on which
he is not clear, and then uses them as a typology in which to wrap conjectures
and projections. As to the rest of his philosophical/social commentary, we
always appreciate his expansive syntheses and scope of his exploration and
assimilations, and will leave any critiques of those to others more
qualified.
Obviously, we are troubled by
the wholly non-'integral' approach to incorporating Spiral Dynamics®
materials into the Wilberian oeuvre, and believe it reflects poorly on Ken
Wilber and his associates. Our abiding concern is that SD will prove to have
been assimilated, bastardized, and then tossed aside as a passing gimmick to be
replaced by something else, like a once-favored toy in a child's toy box that
is relegated to abuse, broken and neglected when it has become tiresome and the
child moves on to some new interest that gets her attention. Given Mr. Wilber's
established intellectual abilities and the approach he is promoting, his
overviews of SD/Graves theory could, and should, have been much better. We
wish we could heartily recommend his summations as a sound introduction to SD;
alas, we cannot.
http://www.spiraldynamics.org/reviews/boomeritis_or_bust.html
I agree with the
opinion below: it's a truly awful book, this Boomeritis
novel, which I quit reading after about 50 pages, and which to me demonstrated
the immaturity of its author, rather than of the people it purports to
describe, i.e. the boomers. Be that as it may, here is a critique by Chris
Cowan.
"
Toward the end he actually claims he's written a bad book intentionally. OK,
that's an understatement. Actually, it is awful. In a smirking self-exculpatory
way, Wilber suggests that it was all meant to be pretentious, repetitive and
shallow as an illustration of the ills that have come into the world since
Derrida (rather than Pandora) opened the postmodern box of evil uncertainties.
His apologia proposes that it was planned to be a mess of inept prose,
egocentric and shallow dialogue, misapplication and sloppy interpretation of
others' work, annoying and puerile
sexual fantasies set off in Homer Simpson "D'oh!" boldface, and
everything else that is, in his view, wrong with ‘postmodernism.’
On those fronts he succeeds admirably.
Wilber,
by imagineering a sound-alike pack of authoritarian stage-bound teachers,
obviously wanted Boomeritis to be
instructive for the Gen X/Y crowd. He would have done well to get more feedback
from them and listen to it before allowing this embarrassment to go to print.
Editors, where art thou? Shambhala legal department, where art thou? Friends of
Ken, where were you? Much of it reads like the fantasies of a preachy refugee
from Pleasantville enroute through beatnik to hippie to the consciousness
confessional, but not much in tune with the far more complex-thinking and
problems of young people today. But wait. Of course. That, too, was part of his
grand plan to reach down for the coolness of absolute mediocrity all along. How
utterly with it!
The dialogue is forced and the character development -
what character development? - is flatlander as a pancake - and cliché,
to boot. It repeats over-used materials time and again. Of course, that
repetitive redundancy illustrates another point about Boomeritis and
postmodernism, doesn't it? Thus, what we have here is what Wilber seems most
comfortable with - self-reflexive meditations on the mirrored ceiling of his
consciousness - and yet another protracted interview by Ken Wilber with Ken
Wilber about Ken Wilber - a portrait of the narcissist as a young man.
Besides the often annoying
style and very unWilber-like absence of either notes or responsible citation of
materials he's copied (readers are instead referred to his website for
the save-a-tree concordance), the principle reason we find Boomeritis troubling is simply this: he does a consummately lousy
job with Spiral Dynamics, again. He’s dead wrong as often as not about
the little bit of theory that he includes which is not typology, and even that
is distorted. Boomeritis is full of
revisionist theory, bias, and presumption. As far as Graves/SD is concerned,
it’s a pitiful waste of good paper and a great mind.
Because Wilber tries to apply
but doesn’t actually understand Gravesian theory, he confuses the
levels/colors like a novice. He doesn’t know Green from Orange or Yellow.
Thus, the elaborate arguments he lays out are constructed on quicksand because
he fails to recognize the essential nature of the eight nodal states, much less
the transitional phases which are actually what he’s often trying to
describe, or the forces that energize any of them. By bollixing up these
fundamentals, many of the well-reasoned and potentially useful discussions
begin with false premises, so the conclusions point to the wrong place. He's
bombing the wrong targets brilliantly. And because he sounds authoritative,
newcomers to SD will believe they're getting a valid overview of Graves/SD from
Boomeritis. Quite the contrary
– they’ll have been led down a rabbit trail into a labyrinth of all
quadrant, all level nonsense. For the people who really know the Gravesian
theory, reading it is a cringe a minute.":
http://207.44.196.94/~wilber/larsen.html
The following critique by Matthias Larsen takes issue
with the rhetorical strategy behind the Mean Green Meme theme. I disagree with
the very fact that the MGM exists, or at the very least, that it is the main
problem prohibiting human social development. But assuming MGM does exist, then
surely, the way Wilber/Beck go about it has been shown to be
counter-productive, so argues Mr. Larsen.
Ken Wilber has diagnosed a
large part of modern academia with boomeritis. He has outlined the symptoms and
prescribed a cure for the ailment, but the problem is that the patient does not
care. The established academia is not concerned with what Wilber and
like-minded think and thus the crucial problems that he is trying to debate are
not acknowledged by the very people who are suffering from them. Ken Wilber does not reach the audience
he should be reaching; those who need to be convinced the most are exactly the
ones who are most offended by his ideologies and critique of `mean green memeด
values. The problem discussed here is not Wilberดs theories but rather
how they are conveyed and how this results in fruitless communication.
Wilber has outlined (based on
Don Beck's Spiral Dynamics) how the green meme does not acknowledge the values
of the yellow meme. Because the green meme lacks the insight in recognising the
holistic nature of yellowดs ranking, it is merely perceived as oppressive
and reactionary. The reason for this is—according to Wilber—a
symptom of oneดs own boomeritis, since the depth and inclusive nature of
yellow cannot be perceived by first tier memes and is consequently interpreted
in a limited way: “there is a simple rule about this: whenever green
looks at yellow, it thinks it is seeing red” says Wilber. He continues:
Green hates anything second tier […] Yellow, for example, honors
and embraces nested hierarchies, ranked values, universal flow systems, and
strong individualism. Green looks at all of those terms—universals,
ranking hierarchies, individualism—and screams “oppression!
domination! marginalization! elitism! arrogance!” And so on.
This also means that he will
not debate seriously with a lot of his critics because he believes that they
lack depth and are unable to comprehend the second tier values. Of course Wilber
invites debate and discussion, but only using the terms and theories which he
employs, which makes a lot of criticism hard since the basic consensus which
Wilber demands of his readers is so extensive that he may already lose the
scepticsด interest in his initial arguments. If you do not acknowledge
the validity of Spiral Dynamics, The AQAL model, spirituality etc. there is no
way that you can meet with Wilber. This lack of consensus is not necessarily a
problem per se, but it becomes an obstacle because of the integral ambition of
Wilberดs theories. If
the
dominant meme in modern academia (i.e. green) cannot be integrated—or at
least participate in a frutiful debate—then the discussion or promotion
of an integral movement is useless. The tone between the green and the yellow
meme appears to be so aggressive that both parties take more extreme viewpoints
than is becoming. This is a rhetorical problem and thereby an essential problem
since Wilberดs quest in many ways is communicative. Don Beck explains:
"The whole idea of the “Mean Green Meme” is a
rhetorical strategy. Ken and I asked: How do we uncap GREEN? How do we keep it
moving? Because so much of it has become a stagnant pond, in our view. So we
said, letดs invent the Mean Green Meme: Letดs shame it a bit. Letดs
hold up a mirror and show it what itดs doing, with the hope that it will
separate the Mean Green Meme from legitimate healthy GREEN. Letดs expose
enough people to the duplicity and artificiality and self-serving nature of
their own belief systems around political correctness to finally get the word
out that thereดs something beyond that. It is a drastic measure, a
rhetorical strategy to create a symbol that will hopefully give people an
understanding that what they are doing is actually destroying the very thing
they want to accomplish. "
From this, it is apparent that
a very conscious rhetorical strategy lies behind Wilber's work (and especially
his texts dealing with boomeritis (e.g. SES to Boomeritis). It thereby becomes
crucial to investigate whether this strategy succeeds. Using basic rhetorical
theory, there is the notion of a rhetorical situation which is to say a
circumstance which demands an effort of communication. One of the major
problems that Wilber wishes to address (i.e. rhetorical situations) is that
many people are stuck in a pathological version of the green meme which
inhibits the worldดs further development. But Wilberดs solution has
often been to write a discourse which estranges its target audience since he uses
so many terms and ideas that affront the very people he tries to inspire into
change (i.e. the pathological version of green). The people who will not take
offence or disagree are the ones who already share his ideas. Thus, if a book
like Boomeritis succeeds rhetorically, which is to say does it convince its
readers, it only does so because it resonates well with people who—to use
Spiral Dynamics terms—have a memetic dominance in the exiting phase of
green or are well established in yellow or turquoise. Wilberดs
communicative strategy is therefore one of communicating to those who already
agree and provoking those who do not.."
http://noosphere.cc/P2P2bi.htm
In the introduction to the P2P essay, I explain my
uses of an integral approach, as one of the four main scientific approaches
that one can take when examining reality. Thus, it is a relativising of
integralism, not as the last word, but as a particular methodology.
I use as heuristic device, and
as such device only, the four quadrant system developed by Ken Wilber (Wilber,
2001). This does not mean I share the conclusions of his ‘Theory of
Everything’, which I think are seriously flawed. But as a method for
assembling, presenting and understanding my data, I find it to be extremely
useful. The four quadrant system organizes reality in ‘four
aspects’, which encompass the subjective (evolution of self and
subjectivity), the materiality of the single organism (objectivity), the
intersubjective (the interaction of groups of subjectivities and the worldviews
and cultures they so create), and the behavior of groups of objects, i.e. the
interobjective perspective of systems. The integral theory tradition tries to construct
a narrative of the unfolding cosmic processes, in explanatory frameworks that
enfolds them all. It also does this historically, trying to make sense of an
evolutionary logic, trying to enfold the different historical phases into a
unified human understanding. Apart from the 'neoconservative' Wilberian version
of integral theory, I have equally been influenced by the 'critical integral
theory', or anti-systemic 'materialist-subjectivist' account of Toni Negri
(Negri, 2001)
If you’d place explanatory
theories about the evolution of matter/life/consciousness into 2 axis define by
the ‘relative attention given to either the parts or to the whole’,
and another one ‘relative attention given to difference or to
similarities’, integral theory would be that kind of hermeneutical system
that pays most attention to the whole, and to structural similarities, rather
than to the parts and to difference. In doing this it runs counter to the
general tendency of modern objective science to focus on parts (to be analytical),
of postmodernism to focus on difference, and hence to reject integrative
narratives, and to systems theories and its follow-ups, which ignore
subjectivity. It is this distinction from dominant epistemologies, which makes
it particularly interesting to uncover new insights, missed by the other
approaches. A key advantage of the integral framework is that it integrates
both subjective and objective aspects of realities, refusing to reduce one to
the other.
To conclude, generally
speaking, an integral approach is one
that:
-
respects the
relative autonomy of the different fields, and
-
looks for field
specific laws
-
affirms that new levels of complexity causes the emergence of new
properties and thus
-
rejects reductionisms that try to explain the highly complex from the
less complex
-
always relates the objective and subjective aspects, refusing to see
any one aspect as a mere epiphenomena of the other
-
in general, attempts to correlate explanations emanating from the
various fields, in order to arrive at an integrative understanding
My modified form of the four-quadrant system starts with the
‘exterior-individual’, i.e. single objects in space and time, i.e.
the evolution of the material basis of the universe, life, and mind (the
evolution from atoms to molecules to cells etc..), but in my personal
modification, this quadrant includes technological evolution, as I (and others
such as McLuhan, 1994) can legitimately see technology as an extension of the
human body. Second, we will look at the systems (exterior-collective) quadrant:
the evolution of natural, political, economic, social and organizational
systems. Third, we will look at the exterior-collective quadrant: human
culture, spiritualities, philosophies, worldviews. In the fourth quadrant we will
be discussing the interior-individual aspects, and we look at changes occurring
within the sphere of the self. However, in practice, despite my stated
intention, I have found it difficult to separate individual and collective
aspects of subjectivity and they are provisionally treated in one section. That
this is so is not surprising, since one of the aspects of peer to peer is it
participative nature, which sees the individual always-already embedded in
social processes.
Figure 1: Typology of scientific approaches (ways of looking at the world)
|
|
Parts
|
Whole
|
Includes
|
|
|
Postmodern approaches
|
Integral Approaches
|
Subjects and Objects
|
|
Similarity
|
Analytical Sciences
|
Systemic Sciences
|
Objects Only
|
Figure 2: An integral framework for understanding P2P
|
|
Individual Aspects
|
Collective Aspects
|
|
Interior
Aspects
|
Subjective field
The subject / the self
|
Intersubjective
field
Spirituality / Worldviews
|
|
Exterior
Aspects
|
Objective field
Technological artifacts as extensions of the body
|
Interobjective
field
Natural Systems / Political, economic, organizational
systems
|
The combined use of the four quadrants also has important
advantages in avoiding various kinds of
reductionisms:
1)
the analytical-materialist reductionism (scientism), which attempts to
totally explain the world of life and culture by the properties and processes
of matter
2)
the biological/Darwinistic reductionism, which attempts to totally
explain the life of culture by the animalistic processes of survival of the
fittest.
3)
The 'wholistic' reductionism of the system sciences, which do not take
into account the agency of the subject
4)
The linguistic reductionism of some postmodernists, which tend to
totally bypass materiality and reduce everything to language games
In conclusion: the integral approach allows us to use these
various partial perspectives and to use them as heuristic devices, so that we
can obtain a fuller picture combining them. What distinguishes an 'integral
approach' from the other approaches is its use of a subjective-objective
explanatory framework.
http://www.strippingthegurus.com/stgsamplechapters/wilber.asp
The following eBook is a rather sharp-edged critique
of Wilber, which returns the tables of his way of erroneously interpreting his
sources. This is indeed one of the main problems with his approach: his method
of 'orienting generalisations', of synthesing a field almost never works, as he
takes a minority opinion he endorses, to be the consensus of the field. In this chapter, Wilber's
mistaken interpretations on Bohm, on evolution, Carl Jung, and quite a few other
issues and authors are dissected. . One particularly interesting aspect is the
investigation into the less-than-savoury aspects of the guru's that Wilber
recommends: Da Free John, Aurobindo, Shri Maharshi, the Mother, Chogyam
Trungpa, Vivekananda, Muktananda. After reading it, you will have to agree with
the rather harsh conclusions put here:
"Put another way: If
you’re going to be an arrogant know-it-all, trashing other people’s
ideas while claiming that it’s for their own spiritual benefit, it
behooves you to get it right.
Screwing up on basic, high-school-level ideas, while grossly misrepresenting
the genuinely brilliant work of your primary competitor, is bad enough. (Bohm
was a near guru-figure to the New Age movement in the 1980s, for the
application of his implicate order to the “physics and
consciousness” arena. Wilber has enjoyed a similar position in the
related area of transpersonal/integral psychology during and since the same
period. Thus, the designation of “primary competitor” is quite
appropriate.) But when one stoops to indefensibly encouraging others to
“surrender completely” to one or another
“Jonestown”-like (kw’s comparison) figure on top of that, one
crosses a line from mere laughable ignorance into dangerous stupidity.
Correspondingly, as we have
seen abundantly by now—and as I myself again discovered only in the
process of researching and writing this—Wilber’s own work is
absurdly overrated. Indeed, it is so in direct proportion to his own inarguable
penchant for hyperbole, gross misrepresentation, and embarrassing misunderstandings
of high-school-level ideas. And, the people who thus overrate him, and whom he
in return considers to be “fine scholars” are, more often than not,
seen as nothing of the sort by established coherent thinkers.
Wilber clearly considers
himself to be an expert on all things spiritual—not to mention (2000a) on
music, movies, fashion, interior decorating, art, media, politics, ecology, etc., etc., etc. Much worse, he is, in my opinion,
dangerously ignorant about even the most obvious
dynamics of the guru-disciple relationship, and of its close cousin, the
emperor-subject relationship. If he winds up creating a full-blown personality
“cult” around himself, he will surely be the last one to know. That
is, if he manages to establish a relatively closed environment, rife with
deferential students clearly feeling “how great I must be to be among the
integral chosen people” of a great and proud “incarnation” of
one or another Buddhist god ... in a community with no tolerance for real
skepticism or demand for proof of the woolly claims being made there by the
“spiritually advanced” leaders ... and alleged attempts at
suppressing information which is uncomplimentary to the higher-ups ... um,
where to be able to “take the heat” in getting the crap beaten out
of you (verbally) is viewed as a measure of your spiritual worth ... and, um,
and an inner circle champing at the bit to discredit even mild critics of the
leaders there as being “cowards” or worse.... "
SDi (8): Reprint
of the issue 61 editorial, what's wrong with Wilber's SDi
http://www.spiraldynamics.org/documents/MGM_hyp.pdf
The following is not a critique of memetics as such,
i.e. the general idea that thoughts can spread like viruses, from head to head
as it were. In a peer to peer era determined by network-based knowledge
transfer, such a viral point of view has merit and can disclose interesting
findings. My ill-feeling has more to do with a specific school of thought:
Spiral Dynamics, and less with the theory 'in general', which I believe has
merit (see spiraldynamics.org for a good overview), than in the specific way it
is applied by a particular branch of it. In this article, I will be groping to
establish what it is precisely that makes me ill at ease, and increasingly more
so: in a crux, it is that the SD-Integral movement, as represented by Ken
Wilber and Don Beck, has been rapidly evolving to a political neoconservative
movement that uses the scientific basis of Spiral Dynamics as a cloak. The
following therefore does not apply o the branch of SD represented by Chris
Cowan, who takes great pains to avoid the kind of generalizations I'm referring
to.
In the most general terms, the ideas of Spiral Dynamics,
have a certain merit. What it says, following the research of psychologist
Clare Graves, is that individual thought patterns have a certain consistency,
they are a coherent system, and that individuals can move from one system to
another, from one level of complexity to another. They are if you like
'consciousness formations', particular constellations of values. If I
understand it correctly, it is these underlying value system which makes an
individual 'tick'. But the SD system goes further, it uses these value
constellations to explain the history of civilization. The history of
civilization is explained in terms of societies moving from one 'average value
constellation' to another. To make it easier to understand, SD has further
applied color schemes, so that people and societies can be labeled blue (divine
order, fixed good and evil), orange (strategic individualism), green
(egalitarianism), etc... A particularly important distinction made by
SD-Integral is that between first tier thinking (where you think that your
interpretation is the only valid one, and former stages are to be combated),
and second tier thinking, which accepts that humanity moves through
developmental stages, and that each have their relative value. The SD system,
pioneered by Clare Graves but developed later by Chris Cowan and Don Beck, at
some point split. Then, Don Beck and Ken Wilber at some point 'merged' their
ideas and activities, with their main focus being the struggle against the
"Mean Green Meme".
My gripe is what the
system has become: 1) it's tendency to give rise to totalizing, possibly
totalitarian, interpretations. 2) That it is used to justify 'reactionary' and
neoconservative interpretations of reality; 3) That the movement is acquiring
cult-like qualities. These arguments are not directed I think to the branch of
the movement directed by Chris Cowan, which I believe has retained an open
quality, but to the branch represented by Don Beck, and which has 'merged' with
Ken Wilber's thinking, in my opinion with disastrous results. We will also
conclude with an assessment, that even on SD's own terms and method, the whole
idea of the Mean Green Meme, is in fact a myth without basis in reality.
Totalising/totalitarian vision: Let me take 'peer to
peer' as an example. In my latest essay, I offer an interpretation of a major
shift in our societies, from hierarchical pyramidal forms of organisation, and
the attending mentalities, to networked, 'peer to peer' based organizational
forms, and their attending mentalities. By itself, it is not so different from
what you could find in SD. But a crucial difference is that I do not 'explain'
peer to peer as deriving from the new value constellation (though I hold it as
an open hypothesis that the different manifestations of P2P are the result of a
deeper ontological and epistemological shift, but in general I do not think
that monocausal explanations hold much water). I simply note, empirically, that
a new form of social exchange is spreading throughout the social field, and try
to explain it through a mix of factors. In the very first version of this
essay, written for the post-Wilber community at the Integral World site
maintained by Frank Visser, I offer a simple exercise of comparing the
empirically-derived characteristics of peer to peer, with the SD scheme. Two
problems immediately arise: P2P has elements of green, yellow and turquoise,
almost evenly divided. This shows to me that one cannot simply force any part
of reality, to conform to a totalizing vision of human evolution, a priori
derived from the investigations of individual psychology.
Neoconservative vision: What is the crucial problem
of society today? Does the destruction of the ecosphere, does the increasing
inequality between and within nations, does the turbulence of the international
order derive: 1) from the unrestrained neoliberal order which creates a world
market without a global regulatory framework; 2) from a group of extremist
postmodern academics on U.S. campuses. Incredibly, Don Beck and Ken Wilber
choose the second option, and are echoing in their writing almost word for word
the interpretations of American neoconservatives, down to their hatred of
political correctness and their justifications of an 'enligthened' American
empire. Don Beck justifies Putin, thinks of Bush as a 'great leader'; while Ken
Wilber hails Tony Blair as the ultimate representative of integral leadership,
associating himself (and hailing) with the worst contemporary spiritual
abusers: first Da Free John, now Andrew Cohen. Now, there is nothing wrong by
itself in being a neoconservative (that is, until you go about invading other
countries on false pretenses), but it becomes manipulative when you start
cloaking that particular political vision under a false scientific cloak,
feeling yourself a superior being in 'consciousness'. Doesn't sound much
different from the scientific justifications of a Leninist vanguard party, and
we all know where that led us. An interesting study done by the SpiralDynamics.org
group of Chris Cowan and his partner, actually shows an interesting finding.
The group of people who most strongly react against 'green' and its values, and
are most likely to devise a concept like the Mean Green Meme, are not yellow
second tiers thinkers, as is often implied by Wilber and Beck, but in fact
people who identify with blue and orange values. This finding is entirely
consistent with the neoconservative (blue-orange) ideology, and therefore, not
surprising at all. (see http://www.spiraldynamics.org/documents/MGM_hyp.pdf
)
Cult-like qualities. Certainly, from my point of view
as former admirer of Ken's integral theory, the encounter of Ken Wilber with
Don Beck has been an unmitigated disaster. I believe that up to a certain
point, Wilber's integralism had an emancipatory character. It also had implicit
authoritarian elements, but they had not yet come to completely dominate his
thinking. Wilber's inability to deal with critics in an open dialogue, had not
yet completely revealed itself. The Shambhala website was not yet publishing
sycophantic positive reviews and attacking those who differ with Wilber. Wilber
was a loner doing personal research, in a rather brilliant way in my opinion.
He did not yet single out baby boomers as a threat to civilization. Now as to
SD itself: if you participate for a while on some SD mailing lists, it becomes
quickly obvious that certain members are using the colour schemes to disquality
debate, see below, the second item, for an example of this. In my particular
case, this is particularly funny, since at one point Ken Wilber said I was
certainly thinking integrally (feeling unsure, I had asked him), while, when I
start developing a critique, I have suddenly become a one-dimensional green
thinker. Case closed, debate unnecessary. Colour coding has become a Stalinist
technique to silence critics, to make a debate on the merits of arguments
impossible. The reason of course is that those who agree with SD are 'integral,
second tier' thinkers, while the poor sobs who have different arguments, are
simply deluded, as-yet-undeveloped souls. People who use integralism or SD in a
critical way, such as I do because I believe it has some merits, are called
nothing less than regressive apostates. More generally, SD operates as a
business, aggressively defends its sole use of terminology (I was witness to a
threatening email exchange on this); and is marketed to business and political
leaders as a means of social manipulation. Now imagine the world vision of
someone using SD in that fashion: he moves through the world as a superior
being, seeing poor sobs around him, in need of enlightenment, knowing that only
a tiny few have the potential to become like him. Just like Ken Wilber, who has
decided a priori that the Hindu-Buddhist Advaitic non-self doctrine is the
final word in spiritual evolution, this making interreligious dialogue in fact
impossible, quite a few Beck supporters hold similar but more secular views
about the a priori superiority of their form of being in the world.
The un-scientific merits of the MGM (Mean Green Meme)
hypothesis: To recapitulate what Wilber/Beck have been saying. The
egalitarian thought system of 'green' has become pathological, because it has
merged with an aggressive 'red' element, and fiercely combats the emergence of
yellow-turquoise integralism. Because of this, it blocks the further positive
evolution of our civilization. At the same time, they claim that yellow, because
it just emerges from 'green', is vehemently opposed to the latter's
limitations. An interesting study by Dr. Natasha Todorovic, see the
URL above, has tested thes claims by using a battery of SD tests, to make out
if the hypothesis can be borne out by using the movements own scientific
method. If I understand correctly, the method is as follows: when presented
with a number of 'value-laden' phrases, people will naturally select the one's
that are closest to their 'colour-scheme' center of 'value gravity'. When green
people are tested, the study uncovers that they do not at all have a red
element, and that they do not oppose
'yellow' integral statements. This by itself invalidates the MGM
hypothesis, because they are in fact no such people, no such pathology. But the
study goes further: yellow-based 'integral' individuals do not oppose green
value statements. This second finding makes it very strange that a movement
which bills itself as consisting of
'yellow-turquoise' integral individuals are so hell-bent on combating
the MGM value constellation. Where then, could such a feeling come from, is the
third question that the study addresses. To uncover this, the various colour
constellations are then tested as how aggressively they reject green. The
result is clear: it is the blue-orange constellation which hates green values.
Thus, this gives a strong indication of which consciousness constellations the
leaders of the SD-Integral movement are coming from. It is their own dominant
blue and orange value systems (i.e. what I call neoconservatism) that is
responsible for their making a priority of denouncing MGM, and it has no
relationship with their purported 'integrality'.
"Why did I ever like Wilber? I see two good
reasons. They are also the reasons that I now reject his body of thought, along
with a third political reason.
One, because he offered me a theory that allowed me to
incorporate my spiritual search within an overall rational framework, and two,
because he integrated many competing theories which I felt to be relatively
true but seemed to contradict one another.
However, Wilber's theory of spirituality is seriously
flawed and dangerous, and leaves you unarmed against spiritual
authoritarianism.
And his integrative intellectual theory is flawed as
well because his orienting generalisations are based on gross
misinterpretations on other people's theories.
Thus, Wilber keeps you away from doing two of the most
valuable things in life: 1) he keeps you away from an authentic participative
spiritual practice, which is essentially about expressing love and solidarity
in relationships; 2) he keeps you from doing your own integrative work, i.e.
doing your own independent intellectual work, by directly encountering great
minds. Before you can integrate, you have to differentiate, and a premature
second-hand and flawed integration as that offered by Wilber will put you on
the wrong course. I wasted, in a sense, fifteen good years, which I could have
used to better effect through a direct study of philosophy and science, but to
Wilber's credit, I was not mature enough to do so, and so thought I needed him.
Third reason to reject SDi: Wilber represents a neoconservative
assault against the emancipatory tradition, this is the real significance of
the emphasis on the Mean Green Meme."
-
What Enlightenment is a blog of former members
of the Cohen cult, at http://whatenlightenment.blogspot.com/
-
On the hermeneutics of Wilber's inner circle
(incipient cultism), http://207.44.196.94/~wilber/peckinpaugh.html
-
The Adi Da files, http://lightmind.com/library/daismfiles/
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