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July 2009 
The Power of Worldviews: Part One
Posted on Nov 23rd, 2007
by 
Julian
Julian
The Power of Worldviews
This is Part One - Here is Part Two!
There is a very illuminating body of work formed by the nexus of Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory and the social psychology research of Clare Graves popularized by Don Beck and Chris Cowan in their book Spiral Dynamics. The work describes a series of evolutionary stages that societal worldviews go through that is somewhat analogous to:
* developmental stages as seen in cognitive development a la Piaget,
* moral development a la Kohlberg
* and the worldview stages mapped out by Gebser.
Wilber has taken the substantial similarities of data from these different fields of research and come up with the idea of "altitude," as expressed in this introductory summary.
However, my interactions with the ideas in the community of people familiar with this body of work and claiming fluency in it both online and in-person have proven to be a little disappointing for reasons that will hopefully become obvious as we proceed.
The ubiquitous misinterpretation of both integral Theory and Spiral Dynamics by the popular Pluralistic (see below) - or more precisely it's very common shadow form - the extreme relativist and regressive magical-thinking worldview make me want to do some writing on the power of worldviews that addresses these somewhat pervasive mistakes. This will be Part One - with a more direct exploration of the misinterpretations to follow soon.
The conundrum I am faced with lies here:
1. People unfamiliar with the Integral ideas of altitude or the Spiral Dynamics concepts that prefigure them will tend to either (understandably)
a) Find the whole thing confusing, jargon-laden and hard to follow or
b) Find the whole thing suspiciously linear, elitist and biased.
2. Many people already familiar with the Integral ideas of altitude or the Spiral Dynamics concepts that prefigure them tend to substantially misinterpret them as a vehicle for extreme relativism and a tool toward realizing a kind of utopian spiritual vision of "non-judgment" in which critical thinking and the recognition of interior depth have been ejected and all opinions are equally valid and true.
045 integral spiral dynamics
So the challenge is:
to talk about something that may -
* either 1 a) sound too jargon-filled and incomprehensible to new readers
* or 1 b) may provoke suspicion around stage-based models and their inevitable hierarchical nature
* or 2) is a body of work that many already think they understand but are filtering through a worldview that actually distorts the work!
Of course there is a real similarity between positions 1b) and 2) because both are rooted in the ubiquitous unhealthy or shadow version of the Pluralistic Postmodern worldview (or Green meme as described in the Altitude document linked above.)
However, I am going to make a point to NOT going to use excessive color coded jargon here, because I want to side-step problem 1a) - which I think turns a lot of people away from a very powerful set of observations about the world we live in and how it is interpreted.
So this will be an attempt to talk about dominant worldviews and their distortions without resorting to in-group jargon - I will have to come up with succinct ways to refer to specific stages that are accessible to all readers.
Those of you already familiar with this work and on board with the interpretation I am giving will fairly immediately be able to follow along in Wilberese - please refer your friends who you want to turn on to the SDi map to this article and/or let me know what you think about it as an introductory piece.
Stages of Development
The simple truth is that stages of development are a fact. The voluminous research is clear from multiple disciplines: everything goes through stages of development that each build on what came before.
This is of course most fascinating in the realm of interior depth. But what do we mean by "interior depth?" Well, we say that an adult has more interior depth than a child because adults have the capacity to hold in our consciousness and understand ideas and feelings that are too complex or "deep" for a child to comprehend. The child will, ideally, develop those structures and abilities as it continues to grow. Not sure about this? Try teaching algebra or explaining the concept of a poetic metaphor to a 6 year old. It's impossible. Piaget, the greatest and most prolific researcher into cognitive development showed that it is not until around 11 years old that children develop the cognitive abilities that make up what he called "Formal Operations" that make this kind of abstract thought possible. See here for a brief description of Piaget's Four Stages.
In the same way you will find that if you ask this famous moral dilemma question from Kohlberg's work:
Heinz Steals the Drug
In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctor’s thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $ 1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug-for his wife. Should the husband have done that? (Kohlberg, 1963, p. 19)
You will find that there are three to six different types of answers that people will give based on where they are at in a set of stages of moral development. See here for a description of Kohlberg's Six Stages.
What many don't realize is that the "Integral" in Integral Theory as well as the stagewise progression at the heart of the idea of Altitude comes from philosopher of the evolution of consciousness, Jean Gebser. See here for Gebser's five worldviews or stages of consciousness development.
So, from the perspective of Integral Theory - which means from the perspective of a theory that is taking multiple fields of research into account and cross-referencing them, stages of development are considered a given - they are no longer up for serious debate. I would suggest that contained within the recognition of stagewise development are a few important guiding corolloraries:
i) It is not possible to skip stages.
ii) Pathology is possible at any stage and will be continued into the stages that follow.
iii) Trauma, existential conflict or a loss of orientation may derail development and will force one back into earlier developmental structures.
iv) Whatever the centre of gravity is for an age group or culture, behavior that is demonstrably beneath that norm can be understood as pathological (or unhealthy).
Let's use a few simple examples to illustrate these points.
i) One cannot go from childhood to adulthood without passing through adolescence,
just as one cannot learn algebra without first understanding basic arithmetic
or interpret poetry in a language in which one does not have the necessary vocabulary and grammatical understanding. Stages cannot be skipped.
ii) A failure to correctly learn addition, subtraction, multiplication and division will show up later as one attempts to layer in the next stage of development represented by algebraic abstraction.
iii) The devastation of a culture by economic collapse or war will result in the necessary collective adoption of a way of life that is more representative of stages prior to the one held before the devastation. In a related way, individuals who experience severe trauma are understood clinically to often "regress" into earlier stages of emotional development.
iv) When a child literally behaves like an infant, an adolescent behaves like a child, or an adult behaves like an adolescent in the way they think, feel or act - especially if this is pronounced and consistent, we know that something is wrong - there is some kind of pathology at play.
It is slightly more complex and controversial but nonetheless accurate to say the same about cultures and nations. For example, the consensus among developed nations is that genocidal behavior is pathological, unacceptable and to be discouraged and even punished by the group of countries holding the current center of gravity. This is not an arbitrary, relative perspective; it is a reflection of humanistic values at the high end of a developmental scale that recognizes the brutality of both some of the entirely "healthy" earlier stage features as well as their pathologies.
So, from a more developed perspective we can see not only the pathological distortions of earlier stages, but also the pathology inherent to that stage and the more adequate, healthier version that has since evolved to take it's place. This is a powerful and tricky level of awareness forwhich to take responsibility! Nonetheless, for those of us arriving at a certain stage of development it is essential that we take this responsibility - daunting as it is, (in full awareness of the pitfalls) and as tempting as an extreme relativist abdication of that responsibility may be...
Simple example: Americans see that the Middle Eastern practice of chopping off the hands of thieves or stoning adulterers to death is a more primitive way of both thinking about and acting on moral reasoning, while Scandinavians may see the American practice of killing murderers by lethal injection as being only slightly less barbaric.
*Litmus Test
Attention: If you have been reading along and countering every point with a phrase that goes something like "this sounds too linear" or "that's oppressive and elitist" or "but isn't this all relative?" you have fallen prey to one of the worldview distortions that I am about to describe. Don't feel bad though - it's a very common mistake and is particularly ubiquitous amongst well-meaning spiritual folk who are horrified at the idea of being judged by or judging anyone else and so tend to back off from all kinds of statements of value or hierarchy - thinking that all such things must be inherently oppressive.
Not so.
The Current Big Three Worldviews
Although I will make reference to two additional worldviews, one that preceeds and one that superceeeds what follows, we can look at the central ideas and beliefs that most people hold on the planet today as belonging broadly to three specific worldviews:
Traditional Mythic
Scientific Rational
Pluralistic Postmodern
The Traditional Mythic (Traditional for short) worldview emphasizes family values, belief in an Abrahamic-style (Judaeo-Christian and Islamic) God, conventional morality based in strong law and order and crime and punishment policies, discipline/moral fiber, faith combined with hard work is the key to success and happiness. The upside of the Traditional worldview is an emphasis on family and community cohesion, conscientious behavior, good citizenship and a common morality based in shared religious faith.
WhyJesusDied r1 c1
The shadow side of the Traditional worldview is religious fundamentalism, ethnic or cultural oppression, political dogmatism, morally righteous demonization of the enemy, belief that the God of our cultural in-group is the one true God and is on our side against the evil unbelievers.
The Scientific Rational (Scientific for short) worldview emphasizes reason and scientific method, the wonder of the natural world, discovery of truth via observation, experimentation and logical deduction rather than faith, superstition and religious belief, a recognition of the equality of all and the underlying humanity common to people of different cultural backgrounds, a call to end religious and racial oppression, an entrepreneurial relationship to work and success, and using reason to make sense of moral dilemmas and ethical principles. The upside of the Scientific worldview is it's humanistic desire to trust in the senses and their extensions via the scientific method, it is grounded in rationality and interested in the real world and it's genuine wonders - this creates the possibility of a moral code based in something other than faith in an unseen world or god as well as a spirituality based in an awareness and exploration of reality.
aristotle-darwin-spencer
The shadow side of the Scientific worldview is reductionism, denial of any aspects of experience that cannot be empirically proven, obsession with technology and progress and a kind of cold-hearted futurism that imagines humans evolving into machines or bits of computer code and denies the dangers of our destruction of the natural world via toxic technologies. In short, science will solve all our problems and there is no value in anything that cannot be empirically proven.
The Pluralistic Postmodern (Pluralistic for short) worldview is the first that is able to step back and look at other worldviews without a knee-jerk oppostion. There is a powerful leap forward in awareness that enables those at the pluralistic level to see the developmental process that has been unfolding and have a kind of respect and compassion toward the previous stages. We start to see that there are common underlying features to all cultures and all human beings and it is no longer possible to demonize the other - and so there is a passionate demand for equal rights to all, and the elimination of oppression based on any factors, be they race, culture, gender, or sexual orientation. At this stage we begin to deconstruct the cultural and ideological grand narratives that have dominated the previous worldviews. We begin to evolve a postmodern awareness of what it means to be a human being - an awareness that recognizes the relative nature of all the various iterations of cultural conditioning, societal norms, personal belief systems, political systems etc... It's quite dizzying and quite profound.
ist2 576390 global kids
The shadow side of the Pluralistic worldview can be the ironic deconstruction and suspicion of even the very stage of development that allows the above described awareness to arise! What does that mean? Well, those in the passionate throes of Pluralistic awakening can become so caught up in the liberating process of deconstruction that they arrive at a kind of extreme relativism and nihilistic narcissism. This results in a failure to recognize and take responsibility for the unique stage of development they find themselves at - out of a magnified fear of oppressing any of the previous stages by over-valuing little things like reason, advanced moral development, and the recognition of healthy hierarchy.
This devolves into a denial of the importance of the very pluralistic awareness they are using - awareness that the previous worldviews do not have access to - with the ironic result that they may say, for example, that judging the Nazi's worldview is a very unspiritual thing to do, because after alll, from their point of view it was a perfectly legitimate position that was true for them, and who are we to judge? Hopefully the reader can see the problem with this line of thought!
If one is caught in the extreme relativist version of Pluralism, one also tends to elevate early forms of spirituality - so that rather than embracing a kind of deep (healthy Pluralistic) analysis of the difference between surface and depth in the various spiritual traditions and appropriately deconstructing the cultural baggage and outmoded superstitions in order to arrive at the essential core of practice and philosophy that remains relevant at this new stage of awareness, one becomes convinced that all forms of spirituality are somehow equally valid and that the giant leap forward made by the rational enlightenment that ushered in the Scientific rational worldview was in fact a terrible travesty! Somehow we reach the conclusion that we need to go backwards. This is the Retro-romantic confusion.
Hence the New Age pluralistic lack of the all-importan discerning distinctions between Zen meditation and alien trance channels, Hatha Yoga and astrology, Integral Theory and What the Bleep, rational interpretations of myth a la Joseph Campbell and literalist belief in ancient Hindu deities on L.A.'s 21st Century Westside!
The shadow form of Pluralism in other words is ripe for a particular version what Integral Theorist Ken Wilber calls the Pre/Trans Fallacy, an error in thinking in which pre-scientic or pre-rational ideas are mispercieved as post-scientific or trans-rational ideas...(Those familiar with these ideas will know that the shadow form of Scientific Rational makes one prone to a different form of the Pre/Trans Fallacy - one that goes in precisely the opposite direction!)
To help with this fairly simple but mind-blowing piece of understanding, bear in mind that (as I said above), there is a level prior to the Traditional, which we could call the Primal Magical stage and a stage beyond the Pluralistic Postmodern which we could call the Existential Humanist stage.
Those caught in Pluralitis then would commit the Pre/Trans Fallacy and mispercieve the Magic and Myth of pre-rational (or pre-scientific) worldviews as some kind of higher form of spirituality appropriate to their stage and the Existential Human stage and beyond. (There is another stage beyond the Existential Humanist, but let's save that for later - hardly anyone is there, though confused Pluralists whole-heartedly imagine that they are!)
So the sequence goes:
Primal Magic
Traditional Mythic
Scientific Rational
Pluralistic Postmodern
Existential Humanist
So, to be clear - in the above examples Zen meditation, Hatha Yoga, Integral Theory and Joseph Campbell can all represent rational spirituality that under the right conditions may provide a doorway into trans-rational spirituality - (Postmodern, Existential Humanist and beyond.)
However, alien trance channels, astrology, "what the bleep" style pseudoscience (prone to a kind of category error) and literalist belief in Hindu deities all represent forms of Traditional Mythic spiritual and even earlier Primal Magical spirituality (spirits, spells, thought-magic, superstition, number-magic etc.) that is a form of unhealthy regression at this time in the society we live in.
More to come in Part Two about how the very model I just described can be distorted by the problems of the shadow side of Pluralistic Postmodernism.
For now I want to acknowledge that the shadow side of Traditional Mythic results in the horrifying relationship between religion and war that has been part of human history and continues to threaten our very existence as a species. Other examples include the intrusion of religious fundamentalism into the American legislature on issues like abortion and stem cell research and the need that politicians feel to take religious stances as part of their campaigns to appease belief-holding voters.
Of course the shadow side of the Scientific Rationalist worldview has brought us to the brink of completely destroying the planet's eco-system and continues to deny the value of the non-empirically verifiable realms - like oh, say meaning, psychology, moral principles, spiritual practice, compassion, altered states of consciousness, and love for example - which in fact have their own forms of scientific inquiry and can be engaged from a rational scientific platform - as discussed by Wilber in his three strands of science idea.
More to come....in Part Two: Spiritual Kitsch, Paranoid Process and Relativist Nihilism.
Access: Public
Thanks Julian,
Great post!
I'll link to this on my blog because I think you spell out some of the integral issues in a way that makes good sense, and is accesssible to the lay reader.
Peace,
Bill
Thanks Julian,
Great post!
I'll link to this on my blog because I think you spell out some of the integral issues in a way that makes good sense, and is accesssible to the lay reader.
Peace,
Bill
that's what i was hoping you'd say WH - a million thanks!
I tend to be unable to take anyone who uses the color codes very seriously. Anything that has its own jargon undergoes many stages itself, as the lexicon is progressively synthesized, simplified and popularized in other writings. We might consider the ideas 'obsolete' (as in wide-spread) when they're being used liberally in the collective unconscious, or at least the Oprah Book Club, various TV shows, and movies.
So yes, I am staunchly in support of any effort to simplify complex work. Remember too that a clearly communicated paragraph (leave the phrases to the poets) can substitute an entire page of explanation. The more pragmatic the idea becomes, the easier it is to try it out a few times, and it picks up adoption in this way quite rapidly. People can understand it without the volumes of intellectual jargon.
Don't get me wrong, I love my intellectual jargon, but as a maturing writer, I feel that the presentation of an idea fails as soon as its audience can't keep up. So, you create certain separate pieces for a Wilberese audience, a university educated audience, a highschool audience, a zaadz audience (sorry guys, you suck), and children. Children love stories and absorb things so fast you barely need to explain it to them.
If something is too lofty in its jargon, I don't usually bother with it. Creating a new language is not generally necessary for understanding, it only gets in the way.
If you want some help, Julian, contact me and we can go over it together over an instant messenger. I'm phenomenal at pretending to be stupid for the sake of increasing the clarity of others' work.
More pictures and you could find some funny 'comics' … maybe Calvin and Hobbes, Farside, or whatever's out there… as some textbooks do. If they're accessible and stimulating enough they are a great break from the reading, especially on the internet in the case of someone staring at their monitor.
Also for internet writing, beware of all paragraphs longer than 4 or 5 sentences or 5 or 6 lines. If you can break it down, all the better. Inserting the hyperlinks to condense versions of the different theories is an exceptionally good tool, though I'd find something more concise (or write something yourself) for for a description of Kohlberg's Six Stages as its too long but probably quite key to that part of what you're presenting.
I'm only assuming this is the kind of input you're looking for. I think, obviously, these concepts can be simplified enough to be accessible, but the question is: at what stage does the individual and/or society give a shit about them in the first place?
that's the spirit james - come out swinging!
Great service, though extreme relativists are notoriously hard to persuade with any amount of reasoning or even plain evidence, and they are the only ones that have a hard time with “vertical” stages. It should be emphasized that most people tend to shift between worldviews under different types of stress, and also depending on situations that challenge their uneven psychograph (one may be modern in work, traditional in sex, postmodern in aesthetics etc). Such complexity need not be lost when making this stuff “simple but not too simple”. But you will surely take a look at these issues in future episodes.
Plus, I wouldn't use “primal” with magic, since the archaic stage, i.e. instinctual, preceedes the magical, being the better candidate for “primal”. You could instead use “primitive”, also because there are other, more complex and elevated, notions of magic (though rarely true, I know, but still). Just a thought.
Keep it up,
Hokai
excellent observations hokai - yes i keeep wondering about how to bring in lines at this stage and yes i went to primal instead of primitive because of the pejorative connotation - especially with relativists! so i'll take your pointer and perhaps think of a better word…
just curious james - are these ideas tou are already familiar with and have rejected, or are they new to you?
Julian> I'm familiar wih them, and I don't mean to sound like I've directly rejected anything. The question isnt clear to me, but I'll explain a little where I'm situated at, maybe I'll be helpful.
I grew up as my mother was completing her PhD in sociology. Her main studies were childhood development, education, family, so to an extent I've grown up around the ideas, I've read a lot, done a lot, talked a lot, so yeah nothing here is unfamiliar to me. I know where you're coming from and don't need to accept nor reject any of that stuff up there.
I wouldn't deign to classify myself, nor anyone else. I see this body of work as tremendously useful to a self-motivated and focused individual who really wants to dig into themselves and find out more. The problem with it is that it is proposed as a solution to something, but the practical aspects of that solution are often omitted.
I will write and speak with tone, energy and opinion, argue and debate, simply because that's what makes good writing. I don't necessarily agree with everything I say, nor do I feel an overwhelming urge to be consistent, but rather aim to engage others for the sheer sake of discourse.
got it james. (mostly - except the part about not agreeing with yourself… huh?)
well did you know that chris cowan and don beck have taken the spiral dynamics theory all over the world and applied it to situations in which multiple worldviews were competing for power. for example they visited post apartheid south africa something like 60 times organizing and facilitating dialog based in SD principles…
but beyond the practicalities of effecting mass change, what about the self-motivated individual who learns to see themselves and the world very differently by being exposed to this research?
Not agreeing with everything I say is just something Marshall McLuhan once said: “I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.” I'm certain that SD principles are quite effective in the right hands. It's just you seem to be trying to flesh out a concise, practical version for the good people here on Zaadz. I know for myself its quite useful, but the questions remain I suppose:
Who exactly is the audience you want to communicate this knowledge to?
What are the impediments to this knowledge being understood?
At what stage of development is it possible to even begin to understand what use SD principles have?
Let's locate the audience, address the resistance, then find a way to make SD digestable and useful to the other 99.9% of people who may never have heard of Wilber, Piaget or any of 'em.
Julian, I believe James has just delivered three crucial questions in this and all similar attempts. But I happen to believe these three questions have been answered (or perhaps are being answered as we speak). This Part One contributes elegantly to answering them, though Ken Wilber and WIE magazine to a wider audience - among others - have spelled those answers quite eloquently. Yet that audience is not so homogenous at all. And then, “the other 99.9% of people” will never hear of Wilber, nor of our little discussion here. And that’s ok.
Hokai
Hokai> Sure, 'that's ok'. Although, I don't think it is okay at all, if the intention is to reach people in areas of the world or in the various stages who have limited exposure to such education. If the stated objective is to help expand it in a more accessible direction, it is not okay at all if those efforts are wasted. If the people identified as an audience are not reached, for one reason or another, the communication is an utter failure. And in terms of the goal, that is not okay.
If your audience has been reached, and you meant to reach those people, then it is okay. My interpretation of Julian's post was that he was attempting to find an audience that has not yet been exposed to the topic in a way in which they can understand and use it… so who are those people and how will we do it?
If they are being answered as 'we' speak, who is we, because I don't see any concrete answers in terms of 'we' in this thread. I guess I'll wait and watch the thread. Looking forward to part 2, and eager to see where you go with this, Julian, as I am with all the work I've seen from you so far.
thanks james and hokai - i am out at a friends and cannot respond too much right now..
i am first of all writing for the groups i mentioned in the post itself:
those who are interested but put off by the jargon, those who have been exposed in a limited way to the ideas and have an argument with stage models, and lastly those who are fluent in the jargon but are mis-applying it in the extreme relativist way.
beyond that i will have to get back to you later….
Can we find the most frequent arguments, mistakes or mis-applications …or perhaps compose a Frequently Asked Questions? Would that be worth while?
Interesting discussion – thanks Julian.
As far as SD is concerned, Beck doesn't really give a damn about how many people know about and use the theory. Right now, he and Elza Maalouf are working in the Middle East, on the ground with the people can possibly create a change. For Beck, SD is an applied tool, not something that needs a lot of discussion. That being said, he is continually teaching new people how to use the theory in practice, where it matters.
James' three questions are the ones that haunt me as I try to use and spread integral theory. As much as possible, I am moving away from integral jargon and trying to present the ideas in ways that don't push people's buttons, especially since I am generally relating to people who are uncomfortable with most forms of hierarchy.
James – I think Julian is trying to construct a kind of FAQ with this post, and the other posts that I am sure will follow.
Hokai – I actually think that KW's efforts in WIE? have been detrimental in some ways, mostly having to do with Andrew Cohen's intense egoism and the fact that Wilber never confronts him on it. Cohen comes across as quite offensive to a lot of people, so they then feel that KW must not have much discernment, so how he can be right?
I don't know what the answers are to all these issues, but I think that efforts such as Julian's here and elsewhere are HUGE step in the right direction.
Peace,
Bill
I'm not familiar with Cohen's intense egoism. Why do people take offense? Is he deliberately antagonistic? Hypocritical? What's the scoop… when I consider what WIE's audience might be, I'm rather intrigued that someone might cause offense because my experience is that there is a sect of politically correct post-modernists who are illiterate to irony, and many other subtle forms of humor.
What's he done that would affect Spiral Dynamics? Sold his Ferrari? (j/k seriously, what's the big deal, I don't know his work at all)
Cohen has good intentions, I think, but he comes across in the Guru and Pandit series that he and Wilber do as highly egocentric. It doesn't harm SD, but I think it's guilt by association with Wilber. There are web sites devoted to former followers of Cohen.
I don't think it's an inability to get irony on the part of his readers, I think he's just enmeshed in the Guru archetype, and thus unable to be a truly enlightened teacher. Again, I think he has good intentions.
You'd have to read a few issues of WIE? to get a sense of what I'm getting at. But all of this is really off-topic.
Peace,
Bill
I have read a few issues of WIE, I'm familiar with the name but… I've recently (over the past year) grown off guru-types and averted 'becoming' a guru myself. Some of the things they say I'll adapt for my own purposes and once in a while something truly poetic will resonate.
I'm looking through it, he's quite charismatic. I'll take a look at the web sites, since I'm somewhat idle tonight. It's off topic sure, on the other hand, we can just delete this part of the commentary later, so as to not detract from Julian's thread… but thanks for the link. It's always a good idea to know which players are which in the guru game.
(edit: Ah, I've seen this before, when a discussion about Amadon was brought up last month. It's a testament to just how sick our community-building minds are in this age, as I'd imagine Cohen has been only one current amongst many in his own community, if the most recognizeably flesh-and-blood. I keep saying it, the best thing by far that's come out of Wilber, as far back as Spectrum of Consciousness, and definitely the ILP kit is the SHADOW investigations. Staring directly at the Light can be so blinding.)
i am enjoying the relevant tangents guys - not at all off-topic to me!
would love to hear more form anyone with any experience of cohen and his organization…. are you out there?
also any on-topic comments are of course still more than welcome!
Just got back in town, glad to see you again!I recently subscribed to WIE, but haven't received a copy yet…After chores, I will read all, and add anything if I can.
best…
Hi William, the Guru/Pandit was not everyone's cup of tea, I agree, but I hope we can avoid that discussion here (by that, I mean the discussion of whether Andrew Cohen is this or that, done this or that etc.). Just enmeshed in Guru archetype? C'mon… There must be something he's doing much better than anyone else and I suspect we both know what that is. But let's not go down that road here, even if Julian would want us to.:-) Anyway, I'm sure you know from my blog that I've been critical of Cohen's style of argumentation and the tendency to limit all considerations to his own set of concepts. But the vast majority of teachers do that, haven't you noticed, only they don't go so much public. When I mentioned WIE, I was only refering to there general role in presenting this set of ideas and practices to a wider public. Do you know of some other magazine doing the same thing equally well, or even better?
James, your points on “the audience” are all well, except this is a Zaadz-based blog writen by Julian Walker, and we - and I mean we, the half dozen of us and a couple-dozen of our readers - are having this conversation in whispers, so to say. But I'm not saying this sort of talk does not resonate. However, if you want someone to reach all those other folks (and you seem to draw a much bigger circle than Julian), think of Deepak Chopra, who's been doing that reaching thing quite elegantly so far.
Godspeed,
Hokai
if i may self-servingly toot my own horn for a second i would also point out that my critical review of the secret has been looked at almost 15000 times and many of my other posts on related subjects to this one have been looked at between 3 and 9 thousand times and get linked to from all over the world - so there are folks who are interested in this conversation!
that's exciting to me and i think it's one of the ways that mass worldviews can slowly shift - by deepening and expanding the conversation…
Hey Hokai,
Yes, WIE? has probably done more than even Wilber's own books to get integral theory to a wider audience, which is very commendable. And I appreciate that they also push Spiral Dynamics. I would like to see them spend some time on Robert Kegan and Susan Cook-Grueter among others, but I am happy with what they are doing.
Cohen might be a good test case for worldviews. I've read some of his books, and he has clearly had some high state experiences. Plus, he is an inspiring writer. I'd guess he is also a charismatic teacher.
He seems very comfortable discussing the fine points of integral theory. But intellect is necessary and not sufficient for stage growth. He has had intense state experiences, but I wonder about his developmental stage. His psychograph would be very interesting, I think.
Julian,
It's great that your posts here are getting so much attention. I hope that some of those people have taken enough interest to do their own reading from all the availbale sources.
Peace,
Bill
julian, enjoyed reading your new post. i'm one who has difficulty with the jargon, so i appreciate your efforts in bringing this work to people like me. it seems more digestable. keep it up =0)
I've really grown into nourishing the seeds, finding ways to speak to individuals, slipping into niches… never just one seed, never just one individual or one niche, but the cumulative effect (especially of my old, more anonymous work) is quite rewarding. I don't think I appeal to a larger group of people than Julian, as I've seen some of his posts just take on a mammoth size and he handles himself and conducts the space wonderfully.
What I see him trying to do here is bring something relatively obscure into the popular focus of some of his 'greats'… the 9/11 one, the Secret, the Matrix etc… and if he presents it to the popular audience he's gathered in a way they can understand and take part in, he has indeed succeeded in an awesome endeavor.
But this thread is about another, future thread, that has yet to exist. That's the vibe I get from it. It is about a future worldview that has not yet come into focus for anyone! Writers do this kind of simplification and popularization most of all, and perhaps somewhat unconsciously, for their own benefit too! It ends up helping no one more than the author him or herself.
Julian,
One thing I have noticed, as I am sure many of us do, is that we are all looking at our perspective of worldview from our experience, which is to put it lightly, our ego’s point of view. Its very easy for us to align to people who have similar perspectives, and still very difficult to align to people against our perspective.
I think Robert Kegan explained stages best for me, in his book ‘in over our heads’. The only problem was, it is quite academic and thorough! He was actually quite weak with examples, and I have spent all this time finding ways to express the following ‘formula’ in a more engaging way.
Stage Development is a maturing process of the mind:
What our subjective experience (unconscious/reactive/threat/revulsion) ‘matures toward and becomes’ an objective experience (conscious/responsive/curious/engaged).
Kegan defined the process of child development very well, but shone the light on the problem of the adolescent to adult shift (adults wanting the adolescents to ‘hurry up and grow up’), and the adolescents problem with the pressure to ‘conform’ or ‘rebel’.
This brings me to ‘my perspective’ of that part of your inquiry. How do we engage the others? How do we find the rebels? How do we entice the not-so-happy-conformists?
Two things I feel are extremely relevant.
The people who want to ‘rebel’ are already heading in the right direction, it’s only a matter of time, and their persistence. (e.g. What is The Matrix?)
There is no real way to motivate the entrenched. (e.g. Cypher)
That being the case, its not so much ‘who’ to help inspire, but ‘how’. By just creating a dialogue, and being conscientious and persistant ourselves in our own mission. Its more a ‘build it and they will find it’ approach.
For example, I have been through a lot in life, and yet a major piece in the puzzle came about after reading your piece on The Secret. It wasn’t 'Julians piece' in and off itself, but it was the last piece I needed: A great exploration of debunk by critical thinking. And as Genpo Roshi would say ‘I jumped the tracks’. As an INFP, critical thinking is my tertiary function (just to throw some Jungian jargon in there!),
So as much as the theory if stage development is critical knowledge, it’s not easy to digest without a few examples of the need for persistence and curiousity. And maybe those examples are the new Myths that Joseph Campbell talked about that our society needed. Its the NEXT initiation.??
yes i hope so too bill - i think with all the references and links i provide, the opportunity is there to dig into the source material if they chooose…
i also agree bill that time spent in WIE? on kegan's and cooke-greuter's work would be fantastic!
and yes james that is true - i am doing a lot of this work for my own benefit as well - in terms of organizing the information and practicing communicating it - while continuing to think about and integrate it further myself!
oy vey hokai - didya have to bring up deepak?
he's only a very, very small distance from the secret, what the bleep and all of that schtuff…. :O)
really nice observations sanjuro!
really nice observations sanjuro!
Julian, you can't take away our color coded gummy bears! I love my amber-jesus gummy;and well, your liable to start a revolution if you try and take away the all new and improved were the most special turquoise gummy!
seriously though, i find s.d. to be extremely accurate in mapping the values of differing cultures and how they have developed over time (lr.quad)….but it's my opinion that the map is much less accurate in gauging the upper-left dimensions of consciousness simply because 'spirit' is counter-intuitive as it is experienced thru the human body-mind. Perhaps that's why parables such as the 'the first shall be last and the last shall be first' are so difficult to understand…………………………Nevertheless, i find it hard to believe that spirit is experienced in such a smooth linear way by humans……Also, i'm glad you pointed out that rats and mice may have very strong opinions about the scientific-rational world-view! Oh, if we could only talk to the animals………
Hey man, do you know if there are any studies being done with people that claim that their chakra systems are 100% open and functioning? I've heard it said the yogananda's body didn't suffer from disintegration; nor did saint john of the cross….if this was because of the full-flow of kundalini, i would think that the living saints would have a vested interest in having their fully 'energized' bodies studied by the best institutions in the world. Or i'm i just way off the mark here in thinking that any living saint would be interested in having science study this phenomenon?
Julian, bringing up Deepak is inevitable when the 99.9% of people are being discussed. Even if we limit our considerations to “Zaadz community”, Deepak and Coelho prove to be more accessible, palatable, or whatever the expression is. But, hey, Ken Wilber is still among the most beloved authors… Sorry, won't do that again.:-) On the other hand, having a technical jargon is not a result of wanting to be incomprehensible. Medicine and mechanics, semiology and theology, all have their own languages, as does every cultural movement in modern societies. Yes, things can be pre-digested somewhat (a la Deepak), but not without taking away from the benefit of one's own chewing. That was my point, in short.
all interesting and astute points hokai.
andrew! always fun to read your comments.
Julian,
Great work! I got a lot from reading your post!
I want to express my deep gratitude for you having introduced me to Ken Wilber’s work and for inspiring me to further explore depth psychology and the workings of the psyche.
The post has introduced me to some new ideas and has made other ideas I had previously been exposed to more clear. I’m with Annie when it comes to understanding the jargon, so I appreciate your effort and success in sending the ideas across. That is not to say that I don’t enjoy the jargon as I certainly put effort into better understanding them (dictionary, research…) and usually end up sharpening and stimulating my mind… helps me to develop my level of communication and development…
The juicy contents of your post left me inspired and more curious… looking forward to reading part 2.
that's great to hear bruna! thanks..
in terms of depth psychology - did you check out my pan's labyrinth review?
**** new readers - may i suggest reading twice?
first time:
read through just the text on the page and then go away for a day or two and let it digest.
second time:
read it again and follow the red links to get a little more depth and context…
Aside from the polemics of interpretations, I've always been frustrated at how to integrate what I understand about integral theory into daily life or it really doesn't hold much weight. What I mean by that is we can pretty much read and read and read and get it, but to truly create any type of transformation takes work and a great deal of understanding how to integrate knowledge to what we do and how we speak about it.
On a personal note, do you feel that having an internet presence and persona will pave the way for someone who “doesn't get it”? Are you aiming for world domination?
:-)
world domination? mwah ha haha…… actually, no. :O)
1) this is about accurate interpretation of powerful research and elegant theory - in and of itself i find that immensely worthwhile and meaningful. good excercise in contemplation and expression.
2) yes, as with all writing and teaching there will be some people who hear the right thing at the right time and “pop” to a new level of awareness. that is so exciting! we are working a lot out together here….. (in terms of the internet presence/persona - well i have been teaching for about 13 years in the real world but the number of people i am able to reach with these posts in about 1/10th of that time is exponentially vaster! it's really an amazing medium.)
3) as you rightly point out - having a dedicated integral life practice in an invaluable synergistic element that brings all the theory to life!
I haven’t yet… Will definately check it out.
1) yes. I agree accurate interpretations is meaningful if it's going to be applied to one's life as well as for contemplative purposes which would eventually lead to another meme in the spiral.
Why not world domination? If Deepak can do it so can you, maybe even better. Personally I like more rationality in my spirituality than just blanketed assumptions.
In terms of internet presence/persona, if you can take the mass marketing of Tila Tequila you might just hit the jackpot. But I don't know your blogs on the 3 strands of science per Ken Wilber which he got from Thomas Kuhn just might not be that sexy to attract a mass audience. I can see it now “A Shot at Enlightenment with Julian”. That would be a hot reality show. Ok, maybe not.
hahaha! deepak style world domination almost requires blanket assumptions & feel-good buzzwords…. as for tila tequila style - i don't think i quite have the t&a to pull that off!
Really. Marketing is an art itself. As the saying goes you can attract more bees with more honey (the sweet stuff). some people are stuck in the visceral element of spirituality rather then the more reflective aspects. historically, images of angels, demons, etc told stories and people connected to them emotionally. of course back then illiteracy was almost 100%. these days marketing of spirituality requires a little more incentive.
such as certain rewards real or unreal. and still based on visceral experiences and emotions as well as stories. not that emotions are bad! in fact emotions become more complex as the contemplation gets more indepth. my feeling is people turn away if they don't get some type of emotional award from contemplating “power of world views”, even some type of fun or joy. certainly the appeal of the secret has lots of emotional appeal. it's already in the name. anyways, I digress.
Please continue to post though on “power of world views” and the debating. fun stuff.
all true lucidity AND i think that the shadow side of that kind of spiritual marekting is that you end up perpetuating a superfical kitschy childish way of thinking about life's biggest questions - and that is a big problem in the “spiritual marketplace” because mostly people are being sold very, very bad software and trying to run their actual life experience, psyche, and thought process off of sub-standard fluffy nonsense that certainly feels good for a minute - like a handful of m&m's - but doesn't actually allow for the deepening, opening, genuine healing, integrating and awakening that our deper appetites long for…
when marketing dominates everything (healtchcare, politics, spirituality, art) the results at best are harmless kitsch, at worst are tragic…
Forgive me, for this may seem to be a ignorant question. My background is is in anti-psych sociology, Weberian theory, economics, participatory action research, ethnomethodology, and much more. However, my schooling never touched the integral topic. Is is a form of conflict theory or more a managerial perspective? What does integral theory posit? What methodologies are used to “prove” its validity. Is integral theory spiritually based?
One more question, if its ok. What is Wiber's perception of Existentialism and universal subjectivity?
Sincerely seeking understanding,
Paul
One more question, if its ok. What is Wiber's perception of Existentialism and universal subjectivity?
Sincerely seeking understanding,
Paul
Integral Theory is just a trojan horse for smuggling the esoteric doctrines of cult leader Da Free John into modern Western academic discourse.
Bruce, I like that one,:-) but wasn't it a trojan horse for smuggling the general humanities - i.e. development psychology and religious sociology specifically - into the spiritual discourse? And then it turned into something much, much more dangerous. Right?
whoa bruce you are the second person i have heard saying that - are you kidding or have you had a turn of mind a change of heart a new revelation you'd like to share - i think this is fascinating!
Aye, Hokai, that Wilber is a crafty Janus-headed trojan, he is.
Julian, I was just having fun … :-) Seriously, I like what you're doing here and I look forward to your subsequent parts. You're giving a straightforward breakdown of essential Integral perspectives. I just wanted to add a wavy perspective to the mix, a partial truth that is startling when stated so absolutely….
i thought as much - though i know wilber was very influneced by da's way of conceptualizing stages - i think he has done the work of filling in the research and practice based details/fesh on da's intuitively brilliant (with a twist of the psycho-sociopathic) skeleton…
I think we have enough to worry about from the oil-robbing blood barons than a little wee Ken Wilber influence, or influence of Ken Wilber influences. I don't want to sound baselessly harsh, but can I honestly say I don't care for who Da Free John is, I don't know and I'm clever enough to figure things out for myself, use multiplesources and always read critically. Is that not taught in school anymore?
It was a joke, James Stratton-Crawley. Lighten up!
My critical thinking skills are intact. Maybe it's my funny bone that needs a bit more work… :-)
yee ha!
Well said, well said, Bruce.:-)