@excecutive Beautiful challenge that I’m not sure most of us understand how to do. I’m fairly certain that each of us, myself included, tells themselves “but I’m doing that, they just can’t/won’t/refuse to get it”.
The Republican platform is not complex at all. I would caution that nitpicking each and claiming “but we’ve debunked this already” doesn’t matter in politics, in peoples lives.
- 2016 - Make America Great Again
- By Americans, For Americans first and foremost - This speaks primarily to those that
- Move the US and it’s Citizens back into a position of global leadership.
- Take care of US Citizens through economic opportunities, so they can each live lives that they choose
- This was entirely devoid of race, gender preference, sexual preference, religion - all you had to do was be an American and/or be in America
- 2020 - Keep Making America Great Again
- 2nd Term - do more of it
- Expand to providing leadership globally - lift others up from a position of strength
-2022 - Make America Great Again, first and foremost for Americans - secondarily for everyone else
- Crush Identity Politics and remove all form of racism, X’ism from US systems
- Dismantle the Administrative State
- Re-strengthen our Liberal Democracy as best we can through separation of powers - Congress, Judicial, Administrative as well as State/Federal.
I know many are likely to “see Red” (cookie for the first person that mentions “that guy”), then cascade into character assassination slurs like xenophobia, racism, anti-LGBTQ++++, white supremacy, uncaring, uncompassionate, or the even better the philosophical jargon slurs that a truck might not understand in detail, but none the less would be offended. It’s these activities that do define the Left as religious zealots, whether the specific denomination is Atheism, Agnosticism, Wokeism, Communism, Collectivism, Authoritarianism, Anti-Christianityism, Anti-Americaism, Anti-Americanism, Anti-Republicanism, Anti-Conservatism.
Regardless of agreement or understanding, what is the Integral Community going to do to sustain itself through the seemingly long trough of weakness Leftism is projected to see? At a minimum the Leftist agenda at the Federal level dies in 2022 and is unlikely to regain any moment into 2024.
I’m kind of sad about Integral. Ken’s early works changed my life - SES, Everything, Spirituality, etc - even as a conservative, hardworking, red/white/blue American devout Christian. You have made several posts (even Robb’s cameo reading) that allude to at least a softening, if not an outright pivot from the previous trajectory.
Collectivism/Authoritarianism at all costs is headed into a very long and deep trough. Think Reagan Era tectonic shift.
Rather than discussing politics … would we do better discussing the underlying topic of dishonesty or propaganda? Could we acknowledge this wherever we see it? Is it more prevalent on one side than the other, of course we all may disagree, does that make it irrelevant on the other?
I would suggest it’s more effective pointing it out on your own side of the isle to validate your credibility. Rather than chasing the tail of the topic why not try and find the center point of the topic and find consensus?
I know we all attempt to do that but how about we all be more flexible ignoring the biases in others like we do with ourselves?
Here I am, trying to emphasize organizational hygiene, and yet I posted this to the wrong thread. Too many tabs open at once. Whoopsie!
Here’s the challenge as I see it.
Running a multiperspectival community requires members who are themselves capable of taking multiperspectival views. People who are either unwilling or unable to take multiperspectival views (such as an ability to criticize one’s own preferred political allegiances, for example) are unable to contribute to the multiperspectial space, because their contributons tend to cause the discussion to collapse into monoperspectival belief systems.
Case in point — the Wang Huning thread ended up being disrupted once a member diverted the discussion to a hypothetical future impeachment of Joe Biden. And that immediately collapsed the breadth and depth and richness of the discussion where everyone could find some point of agreement, back to a basic fact-checking “one of these perspectives is true, the other isn’t” discussion. And I participated with this — I should have caught the diversion sooner than I did, and then redirected the conversation to a more appropriate thread.
But it’s one example of how a monoperspectival comment was able to throw an entire conversation off track.
This is one reason why I emphasize 3rd-person verifiable evidence as much as I do. Because that is the minimal number of perspectives required to get a meaningful discussion off the ground. Ideally we get into 4th-person and 5th-person perspectives as well, but 3rd-person seems to be a minimum. It’s not enough to base an integral conversation off of assumptions, stereotypes, or low-resolution caricatures of your perceived opponents.
So what does “multiperspectival” mean? Doesn’t it mean “everyone is right”, and therefore “everyone is invited”?
Well, yes and no. It means that everyone has a piece of the truth — but some pieces are bigger, better, and more true than others. However, to “transcend and include” is simultaneously to “negate to preserve” — which means, integral needs to be able to carefully discern fact from fiction, and negate the fictions by grounding the discussion in verifiable 3rd, 4th, and 5th person perspectives.
In other words, the only way to maintain a mulltiperspectival “community of the adequate”, is to negate people’s monoperspectival views. It is an inherent tension, maybe even contradiction, of integral enactment itself, I think.
Now, my impulse is generally not to negate the entire person — you’ll notice I have never banned anyone from this community. But I will do my own ongoing diligence to negate the views that simply cannot fit within a larger integral framing, while doing my best to include the underlying values that animate those views in the first place. There is almost always a place where we can find agreement. But we have to be willing to dig deeper, and contact the source of those views in the first place.
I cannot enfold with the view that 2+2=5. There is simply no way to reconcile that with the rest of the integral math. However, we can talk about the sorts of conditions that generate views like “2+2=5” in the first place, and then try to address that.
Similarly, I cannot enfold with the view that the 2020 election was stolen, without a strong body of objective, falsifiable evidence to support that case. I support people’s right to demand that evidence, I support the right of a political party to challenge and verify election results, and to use our court systems in order to verify the evidence. However, if the evidence falls short, if the court systems reject the evidence because it does not fulfill the minimum 3rd-person standards of proof, then we need to be willing and able to rethink our views and let go of the ones that are simply not supported. THAT is an example of a multi-perspectival perspective, the capacity to rethink our view when either new evidence comes along, or when old evidence is critically debunked.
So, when I dig deeper, the only way I am able to really enfold with people who continue to believe without evidence that the election was stolen, is to shift the conversation away from election results, and toward the topic of “trust” and “legitimacy”. Because where I can truly resonate is in my own shared view that our institutions —media, political, economic, medical, etc. — have failed to rise to the challenge of our current cultural and social selection pressures, and have therefore squandered whatever goodwill we collectively placed in them. I understand why people have fallen into total distrust, and even cynicism. Because that trust has been battered and bruised, especially over the last decade, which is causing a collapse of legitimacy in many of the institutions our society continues to depend on. Which is exactly how we arrived at things like Qanon, and the first non-peaceful transfer of power in modern American history, which I experience as a very deep wound in our national character and identity that will fester for years to come.
And finally, let me say, that even when we disagree (and we should always feel like it is okay to disagree!) it’s important to remember to come from a field of genuine care in our engagements. I love and respect every one of you, even and especially the ones who disagree with me the most. I learn a lot from all of these exchanges — sometimes it causes me to rethink my view, other times it prompts me to sharpen my blades and better define my own views. Either way, it is always beneficial to me, and all of the heat from the friction gets immediately converted into creative juice for my ongoing programs on the site. So please remember that I love you all deeply, even when your views are just so obviously and frustratingly wrong 
@excecutive Thank you for interjecting here.
On the surface, it may seem as stated here:
My own perspective is - I have already accepted that I will never convince anyone of anything they don’t already want to understand, and I’m curious to observe how the Integral community handles this, and if it is more effective or less effective than how I work with it. Then I ask myself if any of these are scalable to 350 million Americans. So far, I do not see that it is. I see a lot of time wasted trying to find commonality with a group who increasingly wants to find separation and conflict.
I’m comfortable with conflict. I’m aware that I have to track myself that I don’t enjoy it too much. It isn’t “conflict” that is bad per se, but our internal state during that conflict. As an example, I can intervene physically in a conflict and still have compassion. The clearest example of this was placing mental patients in restraints. They are kicking, screaming, cursing and spitting - and restraining them is often necessary for their own safety and the safety of others. Between that extreme and a self actualized human being in second tier, there are several hundred million people in this country at all levels.
I’m open to all kinds of ideas and methods to work with people at varying degrees of insanity and cognitive collapse, but I reject outright that conflict and confrontation is “bad”.
For me @FermentedAgave and @steljarkos are more or less test subjects, and I’m not so interested in them as how Integral people react to them, and how the results differ from my methods.
However, I sometimes do interject messaging “between the lines” of the huge mess of the surface debate. Today I’ll just note there seems to be a lot of suppressed homoerotic urges in @FermentedAgave, @steljarkos and any other man who subscribes to the “bromance” theme. In addition to the homoerotic urges, there is the shadow of romance through conflict. The concept being that fighting leads to romance and all the unhealthy manifestations of that in our rape culture. I’ll just say here that this isn’t a “suppressed”, “closeted” or “shadow” from my side. I don’t think anyone wants me to actually describe my experience interacting with and acting out closeted male (and female) fetishes, lol. Let’s just say I observe it and find it funny.
Back to what method is most effective to bring society to second tier? I’ve already accepted that unfortunately the quickest and fastest way to recovery is to hit rock bottom. If the United States needs to plunge to the depths or even die in order to transform or be “reborn” - then so be it.
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and joyfully dance through whatever music the DJ plays next.
Well thanks, I think 
If we rearranged our communication objectives to understanding everyone completely it would become pretty clear who or what is credible. I for one like to know what’s true.
This worked for centuries when we lived in communities and collectively knew who the liars were, “They are the lying family … they’re really good in sports but not in honesty.” We still accepted them and associated with them and everyone knew them as the liars.
Since the Internet has separated us into our tribal corners there is no longer a community consensus. Our communities now are monolithic in divided camps or hostiles. Now we protect the liars and deceivers because we agree politically.
I was hoping this integral spiritual community of thinkers and planners would surface consus. Sadly I have found that here too everyone is trying to tear things down. I guess that’s why we’re failing at building something positive and genuine here.
If anyone has a place where everyone is open and agreeable to understanding and supporting one another, even the liars and exaggerators accepting them too, please send me the link.
For now I leave you intellects to continue to spar and jostle for relevance. ~ Peace
This isn’t my experience at all.
Again, not my experience in communities I participate actively in
This seems a bit strange given your previous paragraph
The whole thing about accepting people outside of our tribe is that we will have to accept that there may never be consensus, and to expect consensus invites conflict.
As we moved into a global society economically at the end of the 20th century, there was at the same time a great resistance to accept diversity. Attempts to maintain a monolithic community in a global society were domed to fail. This means not only are attempts to keep America as America was in 1950’s or 1980’s was doomed to fail (MAGA), but also Attempts to enforce monolithic Political Correctness was also doomed to fail.
The only way forward is to accept that diversity of opinions will happen and that there will be disagreement. Then, when conflict arises because a group or individual wants to enforce monolithic culture, we have to accept that conflict was inevitable and deal with it realistically.
At the same time, outright lies and disingenuous arguments need to be confronted. Liars and cheats need to be called liars and cheats. Criminal activity has to be punished and the judgement of the courts accepted as Just and part of the necessary rule of law. In 2016 I kept asking what specific law did Hillary Clinton break and then in 2017- 2020 why wasn’t she charged by a Republican controlled Executive Branch, and at the same time I point out the dozen or so people charged and or convicted for real crimes in the current Republican leadership.
So while I accept differing opinions, I also have to take a deliberate stand against support of illegal activity, liars and those who support them because that is the absolute requirement for a civil society.
@excecutive You have brought amazing insight and wisdom to myself and I think and hope others here as well. While perhaps not all sunshine and rose petals, this thread you started is by far the longest running on Integral Life. That is something we might want to spend a few minutes pondering as we delve into discussions on monoperspectival and polyperspectival thinking. Would not a 6 month dialog spanning many domains be anything if not a polyperspectival dialog?
Thank you @excecutive for starting this discussion so many months ago!
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It’s definitely been a very rich thread. One reason, I’m guessing, is that this is one of the core life conditions that is itself calling for a more integral response to emerge — how to deal with the rapid decentralization of information in the LR quadrant, and how to deal with the extreme fragmentation and epistemic breakdowns that result from that shift. I know this epic thread has sharpened my thinking in many important ways!
From Mitch McConnell. I think he really wants his party to be free from Trump’s influence.
“It was a violent insurrection with the purpose of trying to prevent a peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election. … That’s what it was,” McConnell said.
On the Information Warfare category:
When you read this story between the lines, it’s plain that “Information War” has reached a completely different level.
“Online Sleuths” who are skilled with facial recognition software and other advanced IT skill sets such bots, crawlers and algorithms are conducting a massive volunteer operation where they are identifying every individual who participated in the Jan 6 Insurrection, then working to link that to a real identity before turning this data over to the FBI.
This is a step up in the culture and information wars, basically “calling their bluff”. Yes, go ahead and 1 - spread misinformation to your followers and 2 - encourage them and incite them to do illegal activity. Basically “Go ahead and try it” - the IT nerds (who are identified as cultural enemies of the right) have the technical ability to identify and track down many of the participants and hand the information over to law enforcement. the result will be 3 - an increasing percentage of felons on the right (who are ineligible to vote or hold political office). Side note - the left learned this decades ago, which is why the hoodie and black clothing is commonly identified with “antifa”.
So yeah, as the Civil War accelerates, the stakes also increase. Let’s see how many more on the right want to have their right to vote or hold office or even get a government job or even any kind of professional license permanently taken away.
Ah yes, speaking of “LOCK THEM UP”, hypocrisy and people exposing themselves to criminal liability due to gross stupidity, we have this:
This isn’t an either / or position. Nobody is saying “either let all liberal criminals out of prison or let all conservative criminals out of prison”. Nor is anyone saying “only charge one party who commits crimes but do charge the other” Ahhhhh, but that IS what YOU are saying. That’s the whole problem. Yourself and others who are eager to support anything police do against your political rivals, but completely unwilling to bring people to accountability when they fall into your chosen tribal political group.
This is absurdly not based in any kind of reality. If you push an officer and impede their carrying out of their duties, that is a crime and you can be arrested for that. Even just lying on the pavement and impeding an officer often legitimizes use of deadly force or at least chemical irritants. If it escalates and the officer fears for his life, yes, you can be charged with attempted murder. That is the law and that is how it is enforced.
Again, there cannot be two separate set of rules based on political affiliation, and the courts do not recognize that just because a person is Republican they can violate the law and jeopardize the safety of law enforcement.
And that is why we have over 600 insurgents facing federal charges. They don’t get off free just because they wear a MAGA hat instead of a hoodie.
This is exclusively the world YOU live in. It’s actually your life’s work. I am saying place criminals in jail. Nothing to do with if they are oppressed - you break the law, you go to jail. Now, if you want to now change the law and apply those changes evenly across all society and curtail the power of law enforcement across the board and restrict their power against all citizens - we can have that discussion.
But no, we (at least I, and I suspect others in here as well) are not going to engage in YOUR “my oppression is worse than your oppression” debate. That is exclusively your position.
Again, again again - a repeat of the whole 2016 “Lock her up” and why Trump never actually did so: who actually did what? Give a name of a person who violated election laws and specifically what they did. Give the law they violated, and specific facts about who did what and how that is a violation of a specific law. I can list a dozen or so Republican voters who have actually been arrested and charged. Not a significant number and I’m satisfied they have been charged, but it is ironic that this seems to be something Republicans do more than Democrats.
blah blah blah
This post is a beautiful example of rationalization.
rationalization
/raʃ(ə)n(ə)lʌɪˈzeɪʃ(ə)n/
- the action of attempting to explain or justify behaviour or an attitude with logical reasons, even if these are not appropriate.
“most people are prone to self-deceptive rationalization”
At first glance, there would appear to be little difference between rationalization and reason. But upon closer scrutiny, as demonstrated herein, we can more specifically identify some of its elements. Rationalization is characterized principally by:
- Confirmation bias: You cite only the examples that fit within your schema, and reject the rest;
- Wishful thinking: Rationalization is projection of how you want to see the world. The people you love to hate take on the form of caricature, providing you with easy targets to drool over in your fantasy of blowing them away;
- Strawmen galore: Trotting out strawman arguments is, after all, a more deliberate, dishonest variation of confirmation bias.
Contrast this with reason, which strives to overcome confirmation bias, and which outs those who allow their subjective motivations to cloud objective judgement. Someone with good reasoning skills can disassemble strawman arguments with ease.
I said it before and I’ll say it again. I cannot prove election fraud. I just know it. You either see the big picture, with all its interconnections, or you don’t. Corey’s manner of dealing with it, requiring evidence to prove it, is fair enough… and a respectable position to take. But it is often the case that one cannot prove what one knows with certainty. That’s how it is. Maybe Time will prove me right. Maybe not. I don’t care. I’m entitled to my opinion, and Corey (and you) is entitled to his, to require proof. Let Time by the final judge… or not, depending on whether the world’s terminal spiraling into an apocalyptic hell-hole precedes Time’s judgement.
I’m not sure why you keep lumping me in with Republicans, they are authoritarian cowards. [see above, the topic of rationalization relates]
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Ok, I’ll ease up. You recognized it’s opinion. And yes, you are entitled to have an opinion. Although, expressing an opinion in a public space does entitle responses, and the more controversial the opinion, the stronger you can expect the responses to be. Like if Jordan Peterson gives an unpopular opinion in a University Campus, he should not be surprised when there is a strong response.
In the spirit of “easing up” - I’ll just ignore this. It’s clear you are rationalizing and trying to reconcile why what you “know” (aka opinion) is so divergent from actual facts. You are struggling with this and obviously want to see me as rationalizing, when it’s what you are doing.
I don’t think I did. I said “Republicans do X”, and “There cannot be a separate set of rules for Republicans and Democrats” - and the rest is you yourself identifying with them and lumping yourself in with them.
Whether you are Republican or Democrat or Green or Libertarian or Communist, a sane and rational person would agree that there cannot be one set of rules for one party then completely the opposite set of rules for the other party when they get in power. That’s just insanity however you self identify politically.
Note I said “they”, not “you”, lol
I don’t think I inferred you committed any crimes.
And now, let’s see … propaganda or fact.
Homeland Security has elevated the threat level to national security due to concerns over these very same false and misleading narratives (among them that the election was stolen)
Key factors contributing to the current heightened threat environment include:
[…]
- Continued calls for violence directed at U.S. critical infrastructure; soft targets and mass gatherings; faith-based institutions, such as churches, synagogues, and mosques; institutions of higher education; racial and religious minorities; government facilities and personnel, including law enforcement and the military; the media; and perceived ideological opponents:
- Foreign terrorist organizations and domestic threat actors continue to amplify pre-existing false or misleading narratives online to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions. Some of these actors do so to encourage unrest, which could lead to acts of violence against the facilities, individuals, institutions, and organizations cited above.
- Violent extremists inspired by a range of grievances and ideologies continue to target crowded venues traditionally perceived to be soft targets, such as commercial and publicly accessible facilities, public gatherings, certain government and state facilities, and houses of worship.
- The recent attack on a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas highlights the continuing threat of violence based upon racial or religious motivations, as well as threats against faith-based organizations.
- Threats directed at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other colleges and universities, Jewish facilities, and churches cause concern and may inspire extremist threat actors to mobilize to violence.
- As COVID-19 restrictions continue to decrease nationwide, increased access to commercial and government facilities and the rising number of mass gatherings could provide increased opportunities for individuals looking to commit acts of violence to do so, often with little or no warning. Meanwhile, COVID-19 mitigation measures—particularly COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates—have been used by domestic violent extremists to justify violence since 2020 and could continue to inspire these extremists to target government, healthcare, and academic institutions that they associate with those measures.
- Domestic violent extremists have also viewed attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure as a means to create chaos and advance ideological goals, and have recently aspired to disrupt U.S. electric and communications critical infrastructure, including by spreading false or misleading narratives about 5G cellular technology.
- Some domestic violent extremists have continued to advocate for violence in response to false or misleading narratives about unsubstantiated election fraud. The months preceding the upcoming 2022 midterm elections could provide additional opportunities for these extremists and other individuals to call for violence directed at democratic institutions, political candidates, party offices, election events, and election workers.
- A small number of threat actors are attempting to use the evacuation and resettlement of Afghan nationals following the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan last year as a means to exacerbate long-standing grievances and justify attacks against immigrants.
So … don’t anyone be surprised at all if you somehow get put on some kind of secret list (like happened after 9-11), but this time due to expressing false and misleading information that is being spread and used to incite violence and domestic terrorism. Facebook and other social media have such lists - and you can be guaranteed that DHS is updated on those lists daily.
So again, if this is where supporters of the insurrection want to go, and continue to spread dangerous disinformation that is completely debunked by the facts … there may vbery well be consequences you are completely unaware of that have already been put into place.
Just if you notice you are taken aside for a little bit more scrutiny by TSA, expressing certain opinions publicly may have consequences.
https://www.dhs.gov/ntas/advisory/national-terrorism-advisory-system-bulletin-february-07-2022
Been there, done that. No news here. Hence my choice to call Europe home.
Haha. Me, too. I’m not sure if it was due to a heated craigslist debate, working for a foreign government, or having an acquaintance from Saudi Arabia I met in England in 1998 but who had the same exact name and kinda looked similar to one of the 12 most wanted. Maybe all three. Coincidentally I haven’t been patted down since 2008 when Obama cleared that list out.