I haven’t seen this, but it totally sounds like my jam! I will check this out for sure. I’m a bit of a sci-fi junkie, and love getting turned on to new stuff. Thanks for the suggestion!
What I see in this conversation and the world conversation, is a lack of skill for handling the “stress” people are feeling.
I think this is an important insight. In my recent talk with Stefan Schultz (which I keep mentioning, because it was such a great discussion!) he talked about exactly this as an essential form of “integral journalism”. By “stressing the conflicts”, our media is creating more stress and more conflict. Stefan’s suggestion is for journalists to train skills in polyvagal theory, in order to lower stress, make our defenses and identities less opaque, and create more opportunities for genuine authenticity. In a recent email to me, he says:
“I’d postulate that this might have a lot to do with our Autonomous Nervous System that just blocks part of our brain and tends to release stress hormons - thus initiating this level-down crash. I’m therefore so eager to include Polyvagal theory tecniques into journalistic interview and moderation techniques. As this might help the interviewees to publicly be the best version of themself, thus being a shining example for hundreds of thousands of readers.”
Though of course, sometimes the stress can actually bring more authenticity, at least in certain cases! Are you familiar with the Hot Ones interviews? If not, a brief description — it’s a series of celebrity interviews that take place while eating increasingly-hot chicken wings. And what it’s doing is actually kind of fascinating — by deliberately creating physical stress on the body (those wings get insanely hot!) they are actually eliciting altered states of consciousness, which forces the celebrity to temporarily drop their public persona, allowing us to get a glimpse of the actual human being underneath. Such a brilliant way to use stress and state-changes to create a more compelling, and more authentic interview
I mean, that’s the “utopian” part of “utopian wishlist”. I sometimes like to live in two worlds — the ideal, and the real. A world where I like to imagine actual 2nd-tier governance across the world and what that might look like, and a world where I most likely will not see that in my own lifetime. So I like to live in both of these worlds, so that I can devote my life’s work to closing the distance between them.
Should we cut 33% of the military budget before or after China completes the 450 ICBM silos to launch 100 warhead missiles that can hit any coordinate on planet earth?
Or perhaps we cut the budget right after we stroke the pen on the Iran nuclear deal that Russia is negotiating for us? That’s sure to yield amazing peace dividends.
We currently dwarf Chinese military spending and capability. In fact we have a bigger budget than the top 10 highest spending nations combined. But sure, let’s bring it down to 25% cuts instead, just to be safe. Our allies — all united by our common modern orange-to-green worldview and governing systems — are starting to beef up their spending, after all.
Anyway, my point is that $1T to essentially indoctrinate every young adult into whatever ideology the curriculum dictates
Oh, you’d love the dictated curriculum. Rah rah America stuff. Gun training for all Americans. Hell, they can even keep the gun! Real-life practical skill development. Opportunities to travel and see our beautiful country.
The progressives would love it too. Humanitarian efforts, going places and actually helping people who are suffering from extreme poverty, natural disasters, climate change consequences, etc. Putting their progressive skin in the game, bringing some more walk to their talk.
Of course each side would have plenty to hate about it too. Hey, that often means it’s a good idea!
Should we also look at global context?
Sure! Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Switzerland are all doing it, and they’re doing pretty swell. Oh look, 4 out of 5 of countries with the highest quality of life on the planet all have mandatory service. Neat!
What would the ACLU have to say about mandatory service?
Meh, we’ll just tell them we’re extending mandatory education two more years or something. We’ll work out the details.
Besides, this all takes place in that ideal world, decades in the future. Exactly one year after all the Supreme Court justices took their trip on SpaceX to the Trump Hotel parked in geosynchronous orbit, and while looking out the window were all suddenly struck by the Overview Effect and instantly saw how precious and small we all are on this floating speck in an empty ocean that is infinitely larger more mysterious than we can possible comprehend. And then each of them were swept by a warm flow of love and gratitude and recognition of our radical not-two-ness, and why it is so critical for us to take care of our selves, our communities, our species, our ecosystem, and our world.
After that they decided to reinterpret the second amendment to mean all Americans can only have free access to firearms if they are trained by a well-regulated militia, for which every state was responsible for providing. This became too financially burdensome for states with the lowest per-capita GDP, many of whom were simultaneously the most impacted by rising oceans and climate change effects and most in need of national-level relief efforts, so the left and right came together to quickly pass a new Constitutional Amendment to make it a federal responsibility.
@corey-devos
The Nation is one of the most arbitrary groups of people I can imagine. Magic lines are painted on the ground because of some battle fought hundreds of years ago, and now as a result somehow I’m a fellow countryman of @FermentedAgave. What a nonsensical completely random way to form large communities.
Communities make sense when there is some kind of shared purpose. Religions make sense in that all members of a particular religion (in theory) share the same values and vision of what is a “good life”. Communities based on geography also make sense. Cities, States and so on. Communities based on profit such as corporations make sense.
Language and culture also make sense, but if that’s the case then the land between San Francisco and the Mexican border would be a different Nation that speaks half Spanish half English.
But this thing called The United States only made sense so long as the vast majority shared the same values, which more or less derived from various grandiose ideas like manifest destiny, policeman of the world, champion of democracy and freedom, protector of the weak, and many similar myths.
These are no longer the shared vision or concept of 90% of the population. Maybe just under half if we are lucky, but probably not that much.
Looking at it another way, National borders perpetuate inequality where one nation uses various underhanded means to gain an advantage and even wring the very life out of the nation just across the river. Or, within the country one group seeks to use laws to gain advantage over or take something from an opposing faction. That’s what this whole Democrat vs Republican thing is all about. One group wants to have power over and take something from the other group.
If anyone was to ever plan out how we would organize the planet, the Nation would be the first thing to go because it makes no sense.
I think all of these ideas have real potential, but we can’t even look at them, let alone try to really incubate anything in the current environment. What to do about this “stuckness” has been what I have tried to focus on.
Lately I have been working with and thinking about the way the subtle body is interacting with each stage. Development is a death and rebirth cycle. There is a lot of grief in development. Modern culture limits our interactions with the subtle and has subsequently kept us in such an immature relationship with it. Even practices like yoga or mediation that can get you more in touch are reduced to acquiring a yoga butt or optimizing potential. I sort of see this space the world is in as the result of massive unprocessed grief.
I can watch it in myself, the more I feel overwhelmed by the planetary grief that comes from Green the more I just want to solve problems. Not that there are not problems to solve, but the unprocessed embodied grief creates a kind of desperation that gets in the way of enactment. My guess is there is a specific grief to each stage that needs to be worked through in the subtle body.
Grief is an interesting emotion that I believe goes along two possible paths.
One path grief leads to is despair, and the origin of this is in fear. The fear of loss. I had it and lost it, I might lose it, I might never get it, and so on. This kind of fear, yes - often leads to paralysis among other things.
The other path of grief leads to joy, and it’s origin is in acceptance and celebration. The grief of loss knowing your child will never be a baby again, but at the same time accepting they are moving into adulthood, then losing them further into marriage, until one day your little baby is a grown adult hopefully more capable that you are and able to move onto bigger ang greater things than you could. That is the ultimate grief turned to joy. With the planet, it’s necessary to take a radical acceptance that humanity is following it’s chosen path, much like a child. You may approve or disapprove of it’s path, but accepting the path it choses whatever it is - leads to liberation, celebration of humanity, and that same grief-joy. On an individual level, accepting life’s various setbacks as part of the joy of living gives you power and freedom to live a life of joy whatever your circumstances.
I recently listened to Nick Santonastasso speak. He’s one of those speakers who inspire gratitude and a completely different frame of reference no matter what one’s circumstances.
Lots to unpack here @Michelle
Like it or not, the foundation of the US and all of the Western countries is an iterative relationship between post Mycenaean development of the Greek Republic/Democracy and then transformation of the Roman Empire by Christianity. We also have benefited greatly in being predominately a Protestant nation in foundation here in the US, primarily free from dominance from the Catholic Church of the day. This has given us a highly pragmatic/rational secularism while also honoring our religious faiths. Net-net is we were and are blessed from these amazing gifts that most of the world didn’t have the opportunity to embrace.
Since you’ve both critiqued as well as directed what conservationism “should” do, I’ll juxtaposition with where it appears conservatives are in fact going to take our society and nation over the next decade. This is wholly distinct from an Integral / Leftist “vision” of what “should” be, but more a baseline reality check. And in this refocus, redirection, we DO HONOR the influence the Left has had both recently and since immigration of the Hegelian/Marxist philosophers escaping Nazi German at WWII.
That’s all background, and we can basically shelve as we look at the current situation.
We’ve essentially seen the most Far Left majority government the the US has ever experienced make a mess of things quite intentionally through both policy and selective enforcement of policy. We all know the talking points of both sides so let’s not rat-hole on “they don’t like this so it means their Red or Umber”, but simply at the impact of the policies and administration of policies.
So what will we see this fall?
We will see a massive swing of voters across all demographics - black, latino, native, foreign born, young, old - swing away from the non-Liberal Leftists and their agendas. The Leftist media will essentially be “up for sale” for pennies on the $ as this trend continues, with only a pivot to what the population cares about as an opportunity for them to survive. Whether it’s new ownership, new leadership, or likely both.
Leftists will lose in the Federal government majority control of both the House and Senate in 2022. Sweeping investigations into Leftist corruption will ensue up to and including Impeachment proceedings against Biden, Harris, SecHomeland Mayorkis, SecState Blinken, SecDec Austin, AG Garland. This will be actual beginning of “draining the Swamp”, or reaffirmation of our Constitutional government.
With the stress of Impeachment depositions none of these elected or appointed officials will be in a position to further their agenda.
Also we should note that this “awakening” really isn’t a surprise since the non-Leftists have been trending to significant State legislature losses for several years. Leftists have majority control in 17 State legislatures with non-Leftists having secure majority in 33 legislatures. Note 75% of State legislatures can call a Constitutional Convention and Amend the Constitution.
Corey brings up an excellent point here. Whilst the operating systems, identities discussion is interesting, we can simply call this the awakening of the non-Leftists. Previously, we had essentially two ends of a spectrum - those that spent significant energy/lives operating in the political domain, and people that might vote, but didn’t want to spend the time and energy to “be political”.
The Leftists out of the Academy’s soft science’ish disciplines have long been studying how to infiltrate administrative institutions and they have been incredibly successful in doing so. That’s where the training of the classic Marxist/NeoMarxists like Marcuse, Gramsci, Chomsky were so useful during the post WWII era. So successful actually that it’s very apparent to all. No better example is the Left selectively using academic science’ism as key marketing points.
Now most on the Left think all of this is simply a matter of “we’re not getting our message out”, “these Umber knuckledraggers are too stupid to get it” when the alternative reality is the population IS getting the message. They’re living it, feeling it, they’re Awake to it.
Corey exemplifies the hubris of the Left and disdain for any that don’t validate much better than I can.
So I’ll try and wrap up a point or two:
So what does the US population “get” out of all this. They understand that working together with the Left looks sadly like “doing what I want, saying what I want you to say, and putting me in charge of $T budgets”. Very much a religious orthodoxy.
What is highly positive in all this is the non-Leftists actually are Liberal Democrat adherents by and large, contrary to the dispersions being cast. If the decidedly non-Liberal Leftists can stop the fear mongering, they might just find that they can get most of what they want, as long as they learn to respect what the rest of humanity needs.
But this won’t happen “collaboratively” until the self-righteous Far Left own their own desire for power and domination over others.
The Far Left can caterwaul their “YOU only want power and control, I’m here to SAVE YOU” mantras. Moving forward their financially and intellectually bankrupt media establishments and exceedingly declining political influence will relegate them to obscurity.
@FermentedAgave
Time and again I’ve pointed out to you that the “Left” has mostly moved on and is no longer the same Left that you are describing. You are about 20 years behind, describing what the Left used to be, not what it is.
What you describe as the Left is no just out of date, but also a projection:
Substitute “Right” and basically we have the same thing - which is why Trump was not re-elected - he did 1000 times over what you accuse of the Left.
Similarly, here - add Right to Left and we get very close to the truth.
Funny how this describe your post, lol.
“Catterwaul” describes your thousands of posts on here, lol.
THE SOLUTIUON TO EXTREMISM IS NOT THE OPPOSITE EXTREME
Thank you. I do appreciate your view. My goal in all of this was to better understand the situation. You have such a wonderful grasp of why you believe what you believe. It’s really been helpful.
I do think my desire for collaboration is just a childish fantasy. It’s like we live in two different realities. I do not know what is real, but time will show us.
It’s a dynamic world we live in. Ross Perot and then the Tea Party shook up the RNC. Both movements influenced the RNC but were incorporated.
The DEI Industrial Complex is shaking up the Democratic Party. Parts will be incorporated into mainstream DNC or they will start a new party based along racial or sexual lines. And that’s great for a Liberal Democracy.
Hopefully the Leftists will self reflect on having “won it all” only to drive more and more Americans away. If not, they will continue spiraling into their self created abyss. Just know that NO ONE is forcing them to do this. It’s by their own choice.
For sure it is. I just dont think this type of collaboration is interesting or produces well designed outcomes. It is collaboration, it’s just immature IMO. It will evolve at some point in the future, hopefully, or maybe not. Maybe politics will always be integral to this stage. Other stages will find expression elsewhere. If this were a marriage, I would be getting a divorce
It’s the same thing in 90% of your 2,000 + posts.
Right good Left bad - to such an extreme degree that you rarely say anything else. You either have no other interests or for some reason don’t want to discuss them.
I have no idea what you are like outside of this website - but your posts in here are extreme both in sheer number as well as point of view. You use inflammatory rhetoric like “self righteous”, “caterwaul”, “religious orthodoxy”, “fear mongering”, “bankrupt media establishments”, “mantras”, “relegate to obscurity”, and so on. One or two of these might be reasonable - every once in a while, but they are so pervasive and ever present in your posts that a reasonable neutral and educated reader would judge you to have a very clear and pervasive bias that you use to make your arguments more extreme.
That specific post was just more of the same thing - the left is bad and scary and that’s why the right has to attack them.
I see this as the early-orange “debate” mode of engagement, where we compare the most idealized version of our own views to the most exaggerated version of our opponent’s views, where the goal is a zero-sum “win/lose” dynamic. Not a lot of dialogue, discourse, or the sorts of enfoldment-based engagement we would expect in a community like this.
And debate is fine, we can inhabit those stages if we want to/need to. As I say, later stages can inhabit the earlier stages, but early stages cannot demonstrate the capacities of later stages. Which means, if this is the only stage a person is willing or able to engage from, it might tell us something about who we are taking about, as much as what we are talking about.
I had an interesting exposure to the far left on Sunday. I stopped by my friends house to check on some things for him. In his living room was a white board one of his renters left there, with her group’s brainstorming session notes of on it. Really far left terminology on it. Native plant species, sustainability, organic, sunrise shack, and so on. I’ve spoken with her before, and apparently someone has given her a couple hundred acres to manage, and they are working out their plan for it.
Nothing at all on that board had any word at like “Republican”, “Democrat”, or frankly any other political term. The Farthest Extreme of the Left is completely unconcerned with all that rubbish. Everyone knows those are just words to divide, and when they meet it is the last thing they want to discuss.
Now - some people with a certain political orientation will absolutely not be able to “hang” with groups who refuse to talk in the language of separation. They are not excluded form these groups, but they tend exclude themselves and make up all kinds of stories. We see a lot of those stories in here. Nobody attending these Far Left gatherings requires anybody to be anything or hold any belief. The interesting thing is how people who cannot stand freedom of expression or want to always see reason to divide choose to exclude themselves.
People on the Far Left are far to busy living their own lives and planning their own futures outside of political structures to bother with wanting to “rule over” … whomever.
What I see in here describing the “Far Left” may have been the Far Left 20 to 40 years ago. I don’t know, I was more conservative in those years and I probably am more 1990’s Conservative than anything else. But it surely is not the Far Left in 2022.
Sorry. Wasn’t looking for a debate, just laying out the most likely scenario for Leftists in the up coming decade.
If you or I judge as good or bad, higher altitude or lower, progessive or regressive, against our personal/tribal utopian or dystopian visions is somewhat irrelevant given our influence levels.
But I do hear your point about “that’s just where he is” developmentally. Same can be said for every post and every discussion really.
What’s interesting is this thread, with the cast of characters has produced the most and arguably some of the best dialog on Integral Life.
No - not “best”. Not by a long shot.
Drama is not best. Longest is not best. Repetitive is not best. Saying in 2000 posts what was already said in the first 100 posts is not best.
I’m curious how you define “best” because I have a much higher standard for best.
This I quite apropos as several of us are “branching out”, trying “put down roots”. Lol. I don’t drink much tequila, but do raise and propagate agave, cacti, and other desert adapted plants - fig, citrus, pomegranate, herbs…
It’s funny one of our teammates worked up a presentation with premise of the presentation to promote a dystopian cataclysmic apocolyptic racist future to justify zero carbon, zero chemical, zero energy, and putting in your own compost pile. And everyone is already doing zero carbon, zero energy, no pesticide gardening and landscaping. But virtue signal noted.
