Moral Transformation Cycle

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* Book. The River and the Star. Book One of the Moral Transformation Cycle series. By David Loye.

URL = http://benjaminfranklinpress.com/papers/moral.pdf

"is it possible to radically accelerate moral evolution, if not indeed launch moral revolution?" [1]


Content

The River and the Star

"The River and the Star: The Lost Story of the Great Explorers of the Better World

In this first book for the Cycle, Loye provides a startling new look at the lives, times, and work of a comparative handful of men—and later, women—who, although from diverse, indeed radically different backgrounds, shared a single passion.

Generation after generation, against opposition from authoritarian religions, governments, and social systems—and despite the massive indifference of much of the social science they helped create—over 200 years they fought to expand the ability of our species to build better lives and the better world for ourselves. Immanuel Kant, Marx and Engels, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Erich Fromm, Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol Gilligan—we follow these and other famous social scientific explorers as bit by bit they uncover the “two worlds” of morality and a firm first foundation for moral evolution.

On the surface we know the deeper reality of the “river” and the “star” as the drive for freedom and equality. But now for the first time we can see the deep primacy of this evolutionary partnership for moral evolution—and revolution; not only in politics, but in gender relations, child-raising, economics, religion, science, education, and all other regards."

(http://benjaminfranklinpress.com/papers/moral.pdf)


The Glacier and the Flame I: Rediscovering Goodness

Are we by nature good? Or bad? Or are we only some kind of organic putty for shaping in whatever way over-riding control or blind chance drives us?

In this first of the core triad of books for his Moral Transformation Cycle Loye applies the neglected power of progressive science to the question of what makes us good with these stunning results:

A basic finding that by evolution we’re pre-programmed good. The uncovering of six foundations for moral evolution. Translation of the six into a new six point Global Ethic.

And in a pioneering tour de force: Corroboration of this compelling statement for progressive science by thousands of years of the codes and beliefs of a similarly neglected and embattled progressive religion.


The Glacier and the Flame II: Redefining Evil

Are we bad as a matter of “innate evil”? Is ours the root problem of a basically bestial human nature we can only hope to improve by relentless control?

Or is ours the astonishing case of the massive rise and global proliferation of much of what we know as evil imposed upon us by a specific time of bloody conquest in the supposedly unknowable distant past of our species?

The pioneering work of archeologist Marija Gimbutas and evolution theorist Riane Eisler—along with by now scores of other social scientists revealing both an earlier era and later pockets of comparative global peace and plenty—has in many places been written off as “just a feminist fantasy.” For the first time this book provides the powerful corroboration of generation after generation of male thinkers considered among the leading scholars and scientists of their time. What emerges is an extraordinary uncovering of the shaping impact on our history and human evolution of the “two worlds” of dominator morality and partnership morality.

The wasteful, dysfunctional and heart-rending barriers erected against human evolution by the dominator morality are revealed with haunting precision. Likewise, the dynamics of how—in radically different ways—we construct the conscience, sexual morality, and economic, political, and environmental morality.


The Glacier and the Flame III: A Fragment of the Vision

The first two books of the triad for The Glacier and the Flame explore the supporting science and religion for only the first two of the six foundations that Loye identifies in GF I.

Forced by advancing age and the lack of a market for his original purpose of a book for each of them, into this final book for the triad Loye collapsed fragments earlier written to flesh out the scientific support for the following six foundations:

Foundation I: The Expectation of Goodness.

Foundation II: Perception of the Two Worlds of Partnership and Dominator Morality.

Foundation III: The Cosmic and Political Drive of Freedom and Equality.

Foundation IV: The Immanent and Transcendent Power of Love.

Foundation V: The Guidance System of Higher Mind.

Foundation VI: Earth and the Action Imperative


The Science of Evil: What Makes Us Good or Bad?

“This book is about the immensely engaging, periodically rewarding, and often delightful adventure of battling evil through changes in our understanding of what evil is, and what we can do about it,” David Loye tells us in his Prologue.

“Over many millennia we humans have grappled with evil with the tools of mind perfected through the cumulating experience of billions of us and the insight of great thinkers gathered into three great bodies of organized knowledge.”

First, over many thousands of years, came the rich, ritualistic attempt by religion. Next, over only three to four thousand years, came the lofty bookish probe by philosophy. Last, over barely more than 300 years, has come the attempt to ground our search for understanding in genetics, behavior, environment, and other multifaceted explorations of science."


Moral Sensitizing: A Guide to a New Method of Learning and Therapy for Teachers, Counselors, and Self-Healers

How are we to find for ourselves and teach and counsel others in the arts and sciences of goodness?

Though to ourselves we may seem alone in wondering this, actually worldwide millions of us are beginning to ask this question because of our perception of how environmental devastation and a new escalation in violence, wars and nuclear proliferation is increasingly linked to the question of species if not indeed even planetary survival.

Drawing on the accumulated wisdom of the five earlier books for his Moral Transformation Cycle, as well as his revolutionary six book Darwin Anniversary Cycle, in this final book Dr.Loye provides everything one needs to get underway with the approach of Moral Sensitivity Learning (MSL) or Moral Sensitivity Healing (MSH).

“These approaches are designed to work for groups with an organizer (or organizers, for having co-facilitators is the ideal), or for the person who for reasons of convenience or privacy wants to experience this process by themselves. Because of the greater complexities involved, the emphasis here will be mainly on group process. But throughout these pages I also will be speaking to the self-healer.”

Discussion

David Loye (interviewed by David Loye):

"I’ve written about this in a book of mine called the River and the Star, which is actually the first book for my seven book “Moral Transformation Cycle.” The first book is River and the Star: The Lost Story of the Great Explorers of the Better World. It’s possibly the best thing I’ve ever written. It’s out there with all the online booksellers worldwide. I write about Piaget, for example. Today, we’ve focused on the cognitive development he wrote about and forgotten about the moral development work that came earlier, but it was the most brilliant of all.


Russ: Interesting. So Piaget is another example of someone who has written about moral development—not just Darwin—and that portion of their work is being ignored.


David: Yes, and that’s what I’m addressing in the River and the Star. I start with Immanuel Kant. Who really pays any attention to him except for dull philosophers these days? But he was a fireball! I move on to Herbert Spencer. Everyone writes him off as this rightwing ideologue. Well, he had some very important things to say about moral development. Marx and Engels—they’re the demons, you know—but they significantly advanced our understanding of moral development. I go into Freud and Emile Durkheim, who is one of the towering figures in the study of moral development, then on to Piaget and into the work of many people who I’ve worked with or knew, like Ashley Montague and Milton Rokeach. I used to work with Milton and it’s a magnificent story. And I include all of that work, except for the most recent, Carol Gilligan’s, because she’s still living and tied to the Women’s Movement. Hardly anybody pays any attention to it anymore so I’m determined to shove it at them.

In the seven books of my “Moral Transformation Cycle,” most particularly in the “Glacier and the Flame” trilogy. There I differentiate dominator moral insensitivity and dominator morality from partnership moral sensitivity and partnership morality in relation to Riane Eisler's fundamental work on domination and partnership systems. That is what we have to get across. Today, we live in this hybrid world where we’re hit with both versions; we’re muddled and mixed up. You go to church on Sunday, you tithe and go there on the holidays. But in the meantime, the other six days of the week, the orientation is screw your neighbor. Instead of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” it has become, “Do unto others before they can do it unto you.” That’s the regressive dominator morality."

(http://integral-review.org/issues/vol_4_no_2_volckmann_interview_with_loye.pdf)


More information

* Action research and human evolution: David Loye's lifelong exploration of moral sensitivity. By Riane Eisler. World Futures. The Journal of New Paradigm Research, Volume 49, 1997 - Issue 1-2Pages 89-101, 1996 doi; Special Issue: The Dialatic of Evolution: Essays in Honor of David Loye

URL = https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02604027.1997.9972624

This article summarizes the scientific contribution of David Loye in terms of early writings and research; prediction, brain, gender, political, and chaos theoretical studies; and studies of moral sensitivity and development of moral transformation theory.