Another random idea- While the Integral Tipping Point hasn’t happened yet, my guess is that those involved on this site will have a major role in carrying its message.
While it is none of my business how Ken chooses to deliver this theory forward, I have always thought he could do more to promote it. I thought Kosmic Consciousnes was extraordinary but still hope for something similar to Power of Myth with Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers on PBS.
Also, why does Ken not respond back on Twitter (lol)!?
I think this site setup is awesome.
I really do hope this theory is brought up in mainstream media/politics. It would help so many make sense of why there is so much conflict.
I agree that I think there needs to be some kind of “evangelical” Integral effort to better socialize these principles and to make them accessible to the uninitiated. I think the Integral community has the potential to become an insular heterarchy without some efforts to better get the word out. Specifically, I would love to see more of a social media presence, but I also think it would be great if there was an Integral lobbying effort that dealt directly with government given that’s where a lot of the changes Integralism proposes will be most effective.
Pushing it in my work as a lawyer and mediator. The main thing I’ve learnt is that any push on any part of the spiral increases overall evolution. Occasionally I get to work at the cutting edge but mostly it’s amongst the amber and orange. Still, nudge them, they nudge someone. Media has its place but there is a danger of preaching to the converted and annoying everyone else.
Maybe the integral movements needs a cohesive sustainability model. A Union
Only if we unite the power of all quadrants we can promote a new mode of consciousness, in the same way all previous levels emerged out of being one across all quadrants.
I am at the point where I kind of want to annoy people. I think we are due.
Hmm, lots to think about there. I like to think that there is no distinct Integral movement. You take an integral perspective which provides a context for action. But the action taken as a consequence of that integral perspective is not “integral action” - any integral action that has happened, happened in the taking of the integral perspective- the action taken it is whatever it is.
For example you consider the Alabama abortion bill from an integral perspective. Taking the view from your particular level you see that a woman’s right to make decisions about her body has been removed. You choose to attend a march in support of women’s rights and opposing the law. So far so integral. Your actual attending the march however is not integral behaviour, it is a consequence of your integral behaviour.
Equally, from another integral perspective but one less sophisticated, you may take the view that the sanctity of a fertilised egg outweighs all other considerations, including the welfare of its host. Here the abortion bill, from that integral perspective, is appropriate.
The difficulty with the latter approach is not that it is not integral, because it is integral. Its problem is that it is not sufficiently sophisticated to deal with the issues it raises.
Perhaps we need a Sophistication Movement
Not sure I completely understand. I am not sure of the distinction of integral behavior and a consequence of my integral behavior. Or why a distinction needs to be made.
Taking the abortion bills, as far as I take it (as Wilber said in his Trump Post Truth book) that the Republicans are basically anti-green. There is nothing integral about that bill. It is clearly hopping on the Regress Express.
Hi Ixvythrs
I guess my understanding of integral is a little different. I believe there is a perspective that says existence is integral: i.e. existence exists in an integral manner. Looking at the Abortion Bill it has an upper left existence in the awareness of people. Take way that awareness and it no longer exists. It has an upper right existence. If there were no paper, screens, neurons etc it wouldn’t exist. Lower right. If there was no senate etc then the bill wouldn’t exist and finally, lower left, it arises within our culture; no culture, no bill.
So Mother Teresa is integral, Hitler is Integral and so on and so forth.
That is a fairly unsophisticated take on life but is necessary to provide a foundation to where we go next which is to have an integral perspective on life. Again we all have an integral perspective on life, just as we all exist integrally. What Ken’s work does is to bring that into our awareness so we can do something with it. For example, when I have a drink of beer I usually do it without any conscious integral perspective. But, thanks to Ken’s work I can do it with an integral perspective. I am aware of the beer on my tongue (upper right) am aware of the taste (upper left), am aware of the social conditioning which takes me into my group of friends to drink beer (lower right) and I’m aware of the whole beer drinking culture thing (lower left). But of itself drinking the beer is integral behaviour only at the lower end of the system i.e. something can only ever exist on an integral basis. Given the lack of differentiation at this level, it doesn’t actually do anything useful to call it integral. Its like calling someone over and saying look at that grass, its made of grass.
So my description of drinking beer is an activity or behaviour that is a consequence of my integral perspective, because what is interesting here in this context is the integral perspective that gave rise to the drinking of beer, not the drinking of beer itself.
Similarly the bill. The bill is a consequence of the perspectives of those people. Now, we can look at the bill as an integral thing, but actually, that’s not what we’re really interested in here. What we are really interested in is the perspectives of the people sponsoring the bill, those opposing the bill, the likely consequences of the bill on other aspects of the society within which it has its place and so on and so forth.
So we can look, for example, at the Governor who signed off the bill (Not sure on terminology here as I’m an English lawyer, not American). If we take apart her behaviour in signing off the bill, it is integral. And there is our interest. Who is she as a person (really interesting), how did she physically sign the bill (hmm, perhaps not so interesting), what is the social aspect of her being (really interesting), what is the cultural aspect of her being (really interesting).
My concern about some aspects of integral analysis is thus: if the analysis comes from the standpoint that if the behaviour exhibited/ choices made, do not come from what we perceive to be the right point on the various levels on lines of development, it is described as non-integral. It is integral, by definition of what integral is. It’s just not what we see as sufficiently right/moral/sophisticated etc. Or we can take an integral perspective of it and clearly state (whilst acknowledging it to be integral) that we find it as clearly hopping on the Regress Express - which, for what it’s worth, is very much my opinion.
I hope that clarifies things a little further.
(Ken and others set this out with a degree of clarity that I find hard to muster when they talk about taking second, third, fourth person perspectives.)
I guess I differ in that everything is not integral. I can see that in one regard (and I think we debated this on another thread) but if you can’t distinguish the depth of Mother Theresa vs. the depth of Hitler than that person is not taking in the range of values in the upper left.
So the governor signing the bill is from a level of development that is far below the Integral level because someone with knowledge of the levels of development can understand how this doesn’t recognize a woman’s right to choose (green level).
I think my lack of knowledge about this has come to the fore.
Am I right in understanding you as saying that Integral Behaviour comes about when the actor is acting on a level above Green? Such that behaviour is integral at all times, i.e. comes from all four quadrants but is Integral when those four quadrants are above Green? Put in an other way, second tier behaviour is Integral behaviour? Now that I put it that way, it starts to make sense to me!
That is my understanding. I also don’t think it is all the time/all lines, etc. but that it is a new level of development that can tie in all the previous levels (making it second tier).
I haven’t taken the time to read the (currently) 11 replies to this topic but wanted to pick up here because it intersects with a comment Ken has just posted about neo-liberalism. So if I can riff just a bit. If the only obvious way forward in the wicked problem understanding of where the existential world resides is a 10% tipping point I want to add my influence. If I can get up to "fighting weight ". Or maybe get down in my weight class as is more often the case in wrestling. Pick your metaphor! I definitely see the signs of liberal issues put on the forefront only to recede into the background within days or weeks- possibly months as in the case of police shootings. Gun control itself though does remain on the front burner. And still no liberal progress. But I want to point out that neoliberalism is mostly, as I see it, a fundamentally economic concern. At least politically. All political ideas must have a integral mooring but for sake of clarity all around its easier to discuss as an economic model where neoliberalism is the subject. Politics of the 60’s, or really culture, was taking a bruising. Boomers were being raised in this heaven on earth idealism that had obvious pot marks. Not the least of which was an economic model that could transcend communism and fascism. After all feudalism was pretty well relegated to the history bin- even imperialism had adapted. Liberals, Conservatives and all stripes were more than OK with capitalism. But liberals were not so ok with regressive or as you say- pre orange capitalism. It seems they rolled out this secret (intellectual) model of deep state almost privatization of government. I suppose it looked like it would put control of everything in their hands but be cleansed of anything “egalitarian” and therefore pass muster with the die hard individual freedom (libertarian) fanatics. Who quickly heaved right. Going mainstream and underground at the same time. I would be interested what this forum has to say about that in regard to the lower right or any other quadrant thats relevant. In the meantime-just as high brow and secretive the right wing itself adapted a new economic model. Except it wasn’t new; but it was very understated. Basically it was fascism. American style. Essentially fascism is an economic model. Intellectuals(mostly conservative) were never clear on the autocracy aspect that seemed to run it. So both Democrats and Republicans were trying to run an economic model behind the curtains- neither of which really works. Now Democrats are having to face up to the fact that privatization is more fascistic than liberal and Republicans moved to run their fascism like everywhere else: as a autocracy. They are in full shadow mode calling news fake and swiping moral issues as Political Correctness. In a way Democrats have a deeper shadow since they are bickering that socialism or more “social democracy” will straighten the ship - the unholy marriage of state and commerce. Republicans are flat out no PC doing autocracy and as much fascism as they can muster. And thats a lot since probably ¾ of neo-liberals are clearly fascists when it comes to economics. In the sense that government (best practices) and commerce are co joined is either just good sense or inevitable. Social democracy may save that ship - or as Ken mused - a new cultural/ spiritual / developmental paradigm, but I wonder. I am lately more envisioning a polar shift that reassembles around the empty void or eternal ground. And samsara will pick up right where it left off.
What was Ken’s comment on neoliberalism?
Well I can’t really distill it that well. But the point is how it relates to tipping point. That the way out of green relativism - the take away of neo liberalism I guess- is that tipping point into second tier by the 10 % ratio he often sites.