Socio-Cultural Contexts of the Lives of Integral Thinkers such as Steiner, Gebser, and Wilber
Discussion
Jennifer Gidley:
"I will briefly comment, for hermeneutic transparency, on the cultural context of each. A notable fact is that neither Steiner nor Gebser is still alive, whereas Wilber is a contemporary, like myself. I may have cultural biases in this regard and in due course will attempt to make those explicit. Interestingly, both Steiner and Gebser were central Europeans who moved to Western Europe. In spite of the somewhat unique flavors of these stimulating European cultures where they lived, they both participated intellectually and spiritually—though without contact with each other—in the major cultural flourishing that took place in the early 20th century.
This included a new openness to Eastern, particularly Indian, spirituality and culture. Gebser himself referred to this extraordinary cultural-scientific-philosophical-artistic flourishing as demonstration of the breaking through of the new integral consciousness structure. They also both witnessed Europe being torn apart by war. Steiner was born in Croatia, spent his childhood in Austria, then lived and worked mainly in Germany, until escaping to Switzerland after the 1st World War, where he remained living and working until his death. However, from the turn of the 20th century, when he began his more active spiritual-scientific work, he traveled extensively in western and central Europe and the UK, to lecture and collaborate with other academics and professionals. Steiner referred to the approach that he took with his work as spiritual science, or Anthroposophy.
Gebser was born in Poland, but spent much of his adult life in Italy, Spain and France being friends with Spanish artists and poets, such as Pablo Picasso, and Federico García Lorca. Gebser, like Steiner, also had to escape to neutral Switzerland, being fortunate to leave Paris just prior to the German invasion and enter Switzerland only hours before the borders were closed. He referred to the kind of research he undertook as cultural philosophy (Gebser, 1996a). Gebser obviously also took part in the further cultural-philosophical developments of his times as he lived, for another forty-eight years after Steiner. By comparison with Steiner and Gebser, Wilber’s external cultural context—mid-20th century North American—would appear somewhat bland. In his childhood he would have imbibed— either explicitly or implicitly—the mid-western American early television culture of Cowboys and Indians.
Later in his adolescence and early adulthood he would have been enculturated— even if unconsciously—by American scientism, politico-global hegemony, economism and the reduced versions of modern and postmodern philosophy that seem to have arisen out of this broader hybridization of science-politics-economics for which 20th century USA has been notorious.
On the other hand, the waves of new consciousness that swept the Western world in the sixties and seventies originated in the USA and have contributed a powerful shaping influence on the worldviews of people growing up in those times. Additionally, Wilber, as an adult, clearly took his own enculturation and inner development in hand during the 70’s and beyond with his immersion in Eastern spiritual traditions and western philosophy and psychology and his extensive self-education in many fields of study.
In summary, it is my interpretation that some contextual biases arise from this material.
• Gender bias: all three are male and also mostly use the masculine gender when speaking about human beings;
• Eurocentrism: all three are of European descent and there is evidence of Eurocentrism at times in all of their work;
• Indo-Euro-centrism: there is also evidence of an Indo-European cultural and spiritual heritage in all three, though Gebser demonstrates more cultural breadth than the other two in some of his examples;
• All three are biased in favor of progressive and developmental notions of individual and socio-cultural evolution, however they also in different ways problematize such concepts in terms of how they have been used previously. Nuances between them will be uncovered throughout the text.
• Spiritual orientation: all three are critical of the materialist worldview and promote spiritual perspectives. Although none of them are fundamentalist or even sectarian, Steiner and Gebser demonstrate a stronger Christian bias, perhaps related to their cultural contexts. Wilber by contrast demonstrates a bias toward Eastern spiritualities, especially Buddhism;
• Aesthetic orientation: Steiner and Gebser are both strongly oriented towards the aesthetic dimension in the emergent consciousness they characterize, while Wilber is more cognitively oriented;
• Additionally, Wilber appears to be both Anglophone and somewhat American-centric in his orientation."