P2P Foundation:Sandbox

In the sandbox you can play with wiki syntax and more.

It is always great when you feel that you have discovered a 'soul brother', someone whom you feel has a similar understanding of the world, even though of course many details may differ. One such person is Rich Carlson, who is an integral/integrative thinker who went through Aurobindo's school of Integral Yoga http://www.sciy.org/, but has processed his tradition in his own way. I discovered him through a critique of Wilber's theory http://www.sciy.org/blog/_archives/2008/4/11/3633725.html, which echoes my own http://www.kheper.net/topics/Wilber/SDi_critique.html.

Peer to peer theory is very indebted to integral/integrative approaches, because only a non-reductionist (inter) subjective-objective understanding can do justice to the manyfold emergence of peer to peer, which is 'at the same time', a way of being, a way of knowing, a technology but also a 'way of life'. I have tried to explain my own methodology in the launch essay of the Integral Review http://integral-review.org/documents/Integral%20Review%20and%20Its%20Editors%201,%202005.pdf (see page 14 and following), which sadly refused the excellent essay by Rich Carlson I will discuss next.

The sad truth is indeed that most of what passes for integral theory is a front for system-confirming ideological approaches, sometimes aligned with the neo-conservative war party that has dominated the last US administration.

Rich Carlson has finally tackled this aspect in a systematic way, and his essay is now published http://www.integralworld.net/carlson.html in Integral World, the excellent site maintained by Frank Visser.

Here is how Rich Carlson introduces his work:

"This paper explores the relationship between integral theory and ideology. I have identified three ideologies specific to a variety of integral theories and practices. Using categories which most easily demonstrates how these ideologies correspond to those which drive world events, I refer to them as fundamentalist, neo-liberal, and neo-conservative.

My hope is to provide an in depth analysis of how particular integral theories and practices lend themselves to the three ideological orientations under review. Any attempt to understand the reasons that these ideologies have crept into specific integral theories or practices requires tracing their genealogy. In tracing genealogies I wish to show that the ideological sources particular to specific integral theories and practices are not only to be found in historical figures or events but are to be located through an excavation of their very organizing ideas.

The importance of this study is two-fold. The first of course is to uncover any ideological drivers integral theory brings with it to the table in its socio-political analysis."

One remark imposes itself: what about the non-ideological approaches to integral theory, and specifically the participatory approaches? This aspect is not treated by Rich but doesn't diminish the quality of his analysis.

Here are some interesting insights.

First of all, Rich Carlson shows that the evolutionary point of view of Wilber (so-called Recapitulation Theory), is not a necessary aspect of integral theory, and he shows how Gebser himself (sometimes seen as the founder of modern integral theory, while Gebser himself acknowledged Aurobindo), did not adhere to it:

"Perhaps more importantly Gebser's thought is incommeasurable with certain key beliefs of Modernism, that he attributed to the “mental mutation”, such as the progressive values it assigns biological/cultural evolution. Gebser asserted that evolution was not continuous or progressive. Rather, Gebser viewed evolution as discontinuous, characterized by epochs with periodic ruptures and bifurcations in which new mutations of consciousness emerge. In speaking of Teilhard De Chardin, whose work he contrasts with his own because “Teilhard's discussion is centered more on development of mankind then on consciousness itself. “(Gebser 1984 p103) he approvingly notes: “even a thinker who is indebted to the teleological principle of evolution, ultimately takes recourse to the concept of discontinuous occurrence that is mutation to explain the decisive events”. (Gebser 1984 p40)

Gebser's conclusion that concepts such as progress are proper to the mental rather than the integral structure of consciousness are interesting in that other integral theories and practices are undergirded by ideas of progressive evolution. Sri Aurobindo's integral yoga grafts itself to the Modernist idea of progressive evolution. Although Sri Aurobindo, who was also attempting to reconcile the cyclic view of Yugas in Indian mythology with Darwinian evolution, referred to progress as curiously circular not linear. More recently, Ken Wilber has also voiced acceptance of a directional ordering of evolution. Although he claims its basic building block the holon exerts influence in either direction, the unfolding of evolution follows an arrow of time which is viewed as progressive."

After considering the objections to the progressive interpretations of history, Rich then tackles the ideological assumptions, in three different rubrics.

1) Fundamentalism

"The specific population I wish to consider under the rubric of fundamentalism are Westerners who adopt Eastern spiritual practices. The fundamentalist tendency can present itself when one adopts a religion or spiritual teacher from the East yet, lacks a sufficient understanding of the broader cultural or political disposition which constitute the “nomos” (2a) (Bourdieu 1977) of its indigenous followers.

What appears to happen to some Westerners who adopt Eastern spiritual practices is that they also assimilate the unstated ideological assumptions which define the socio-political belief systems of some of their indigenous followers. These indigenous followers however, are themselves a sub-group situated within a larger cultural field. Because the new Western followers are reliant on the subgroup for knowledge of the larger cultural field in which the subgroup is located, they become dependent on the subgroups interpretations of the norms of the greater culture."

Example: "It is in fact the transference of Hindu religious practices on to Integral Yoga which has facilitated a fascination of some of his followers with the fundamentalist rhetoric of todays militant Hindu nationalism (Hinduvta). "

2) Neo-liberalism

For this, Rich uses Zizek's critique of eastern thought and the new age, as used in the West:

"What Zizek is stating is that these “new age” practices, many of which can be called “integral” practices, facilitate the conditioning of a neo-liberalist subject no longer concerned with matters of social justice but with simply feeling good and gaining a competitive edge."

Example: "For example at M.I.T's Society for Organizational Learning when Otto Scharmer and Peter Senge teach the theory of presencing or U theory to their corporate audiences, to my knowledge they do not first try to discern the executives emotional intelligence to determine their commitment to social responsibility nor, do they first perform environmental impact studies on their respective corporation's global footprints in an effort to understand how their instruction will be applied. Rather these programs are offered to one and all regardless if the participants are representatives of non-profits, executives of major multinational companies, or major defense contractors interested in more efficient ways to wage neo-cortical warfare through advance applications of technology . "

3) Neo-conservatism

Rich Carslon here tackles specifically the role of Don Beck's Spiral Dynamics (which may be unfair to Chris Cowan's branch) and Ken Wilber's Integral Institute. I will quote extensively from this section separately in a next entry.

The colonial aspects of psychological recapitulation theory

He concludes: "The ideological blind spots of recent integral theories and practices explored here are three fold. The first, or fundamentalism, is melded to religion, the second, neo-liberalism, is appropriated by the power structures of free market economics, the third, which I refer to as neo-conservatism, is not so much a consequence of hegemonic desire as it is a consequence of its ordering (systemization) strategies."

One of these ordering mechanisms is the psychological recapitulation theory, i.e. that a child's development recapitulates the stages of human culture.

Rich Carlson drives heavily on Gould to make his point:

"Drawing an equivalence between the child and the primitive is couched with hidden dangers:

“For anyone who wishes to affirm the innate inequality of races, few biological arguments can have more appeal than recapitulation, with its insistence that children of higher races (invariably one's own) are passing through and beyond the permanent conditions of adults in lower races. If adults of lower races are like white children, then they may be treated as such—subdued, disciplined, and managed (or, in the paternalistic tradition, educated but equally subdued). The "primitive-as-child" argument stood second to none in the arsenal of racist arguments supplied by science to justify slavery and imperialism. I do not think that most scientists who upheld the primitive-as- child argument consciously intended to promote racism. They merely expressed their allegiance to the prevailing views of white intellectuals and leaders of European society. Still, the arguments were used by politicians and I can find no evidence that any recapitulationist ever objected.(Gould 1977 p126) “

and

“Criminal anthropology and racist ideology used the primitive-as- child argument to reinforce their claims about adults-atavistic deviants or members of lower races, respectively. But the argument could be reversed, usually with more benevolence, to ask what comparative anatomy and evolutionary history had to say about the nature of children. Recapitulation supplied an obvious general answer: we understand children only when we recognize that their behavior replays a phyletic past. (Gould 1977 p135)

In drawing comparison between children and indigenous peoples it is no surprise that Recapitulation Theory has also been a justification for colonialist intent.

That this danger is not just theoretical but can have real political consequences is shown by the Wilber/Beck interpretation of the invasion of Iraq.

Rich Carlson:

"Placing Tony Blair at the top of an ascending order of world leaders in the run up to the Iraq war, the cynical dismissal of anti-war demonstrators protesting an illegal unprovoked war as a consequence of the green meme, the christening of Generals Schwartzkopf and Powell as spiral masters in their prosecution of a war which gave tacit approval to the use of the term collateral damage as a way to dehumanize civilian casualties, the claim that George W Bush transcended the lower memetic stages of bipartison politics, the stereotyping of whole aboriginal and indigenous populations as constituting the lower rungs of the evolutionary ladder, are all unfortunate consequences of ranking individuals and groups with reference to theories that measure values on scales whose graduations progress from lower to higher, less to more inclusive."

Given all these problems with Wilber's integral theory, Carlson then aims to find a root cause, by drawing on Gebser himself, and his distinction of mental and integral structures:

"Ed Mahood Jr. who has given an excellent overview of Jean Gebser's work summarizes; “abstraction becomes a key word to describe mental activity and we find man using his mind to overcome and "master" the world around him. With abstraction comes philosophizing, hence the philosopheme is the primary form of expression....

He then links perspective, which is perhaps Gebser's most powerful trope for distinguishing cultural mutations with time perception which is abstract in the mental structure.

“Perspective has come to be a major part and aspect of our mental functioning. Perspective is the life blood of reasoning and the Rational structure of consciousness, which Gebser considers to be only a deficient form of the Mental structure. We should remember, however, that this is also the time of philosophy. The mental ordering and systematization of thought becomes the real dominant mode of expression.” (Mahood Jr para 31 -37) Also ... time itself was conceptualized (spatialized) as an "arrow" that points from the past to the future by way of the present.” (Feuerstein in Mahood Jr para 31-37)

Spatial, perspectival, representational thinking with an arrow of time pointing from the past to present to future is characteristic of Wilber's AQALS model."

This inquiry leads to interesting conclusions:

"Although Ken Wilber is a brilliant theorist his entire opus is an attempt to create a systematic philosophy which attempts to represent and order all forms of individual, social, biological, and universal reality into a spatial model in which evolution moves progressively according to the arrows of time. It is just this manner of philosophizing that Gebser refers to as proper to the “mental” mutation.

The AQALS is a dense system of multi-dimensional quadrants, grids, waves, streams, states, structures, spirals; a Glass Bead Game (Hesse 1943/2002) for “Spiral Masters” who play at perfecting a simularca of Enlightenment. Given its implicit infinite series of holonic signifiers, its constant deferral of meaning to a multiplicity of cross references and notes, it is a perfect hyper-text theory. In the intensification of space of a model which attempts to represents literally everything the phenomenology of lived experience collapses into a complex simulation or reality.

Such a theory seems well suited to an era in which we must constantly sort and order multiple streams of information, in which space and time have been compressed into the ten thousand executable commands of code that discloses the world to us through desk top metaphors and hyper-text links. Rather than an integral theory Ken Wilber's efforts would perhaps better be referred to as hyper-mental or hyper-modern. If true, his philosophy would be well suited for our times.

What we are witnessing today is the extreme manifestation of the rational-mental structure operating in what Gebser referred to as a "deficient phase." In this phase, rationality takes center stage, disallowing all other structures of consciousness from coming into awareness. In a sense, rationality becomes hyper-rational, deficient, and imbalanced, its mentality proliferates into collective consciousness, dividing and segmenting the world to such a degree that the result is fragmentation, anomie, and a decline in meaning. In effect, the rational-mental structure has imploded in on itself—not into a mutation, not into aperspectival consciousness, but into a hyper-extension of the perspectival world.

Hyper-perspectivism, in conjunction with cyberspace, has created a new epistemic order based on non-referentiality or depthlessness, collapsing the distinction between signified and signifier. The result is a cultural fascination with surfaces, images, and a restless energy intent on gratifying arbitrary and ephemeral desires. "