Is Integral Life forums the new Drudge Report?

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Where I am coming from is a recognition that conflict avoidance doesn’t work in all cases. When it doesn’t work against a certain strategy, that strategy then multiplies.

A case in point is Stephen Jarosek, who essentially makes money by attacking feminism and like Jordan Peterson, they can make a very sound academic and logical presentation. Men who have had their egos injured by feminism can read him and think “Gee, that guy makes a lot of sense.” (I imagine Bill Burr’s ironic dufus voice here).
Then we have executive who has a kind of ideology where conflict and disagreement is wrong and I judge he wants to gain a following … and directly in opposition to that is my comfort and ease with conflict. Me making a public spectacle of conflict triggers his need to get involved and be the peacemaker, and show me the error of my ways. I suspect the majority in Integral share his views that open displays of conflict is bad. And the foul pottymouth language … oh! … please don’t infringe on their entitled lifestyles where they do not have to deal with such unpleasantness.

I’m starting to realize that making peace and finding the middle ground is not working. When you find middle ground with extremist unhealthy or lets just say it - idiotic premises, the middle ground increasingly edges towards the idiotic with each compromise. That’s not fear of a slippery slope - it’s what has already happened.

Up until recently I’ve always been big on consent - that I want to see a person is overtly expresses a willingness to participate before I go rooting around and pulling out their shadows. I’m also very familiar with the hallowed markers of academic dialogue and generally adhere to those rules.
Honestly I don’t think society can afford to be so reasonable anymore. Civil behavior is on the ropes and if trends continue its only a matter of time before things get very very impolite in ways that will not be possible to avoid. At that point coming together and compromise will be impossible. I’m sure during the various communist revolutions the bourgeoisie were entirely willing to find a middle ground as they were being dragged into the streets by the proletariat. But at that point it was to late.

I am starting to see some posts that make me think the Integral Community isn’t without hope.
Hawaiian Ryan’s and Heidi’s post about using debate, Corey’s post about passive aggression, and your recent reply to my mental immunity post.

I think where I am at now is that yes, empathy, reasonableness and finding a common solution will work with some people, but we are watching the population steadily grow of people who are completely derisive of these approaches. Given enough time and effort, yes they can be turned around but I don;t think we have enough Coreys to spend so much time and devote so much effort with every fermentedagave, for example. I think at some point we do have to drag certain people’s shadows out of their positions of security and into the streets against their will and flog them in the city square. With love. Always public floggings with love.

I’ll try to research more into the concepts presented by yourself, heidi and hawaiianryan, but until then I might continue to unskillfully drag impolite concepts out into the public square as they appear before me. Foul language, inappropriate language are part of that tool chest and create a spectacle while provoking varied gut emotional responses when sprinkled in. If I find better tools as they bcome available I’ll replace the old ones.
My geographic location prevents me from participating in most real-time zoom events, though.

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FYI … I don’t think it’s wrong at all … But

I leave sword fighting to those who see the world as one big fight.
I’m the polar opposite that’s what gets you uptight.
When I ask you to defend yourself you shuffle dance and spite.
I still love you @raybennett I hope that that’s alright? :slight_smile:

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It’s up to you. Both that bit and the other bit are both between you and yourself. Don’t let me get in the way of how you want to perceive things.

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Hi Ray,
That was a skillfully-written post in response to mine, and I appreciate your explanations of where you’re coming from. Perhaps there will be more that I can say in response to your points, but I wanted to start with speech/language, since I have made a bit of a stink about it, and I wanted to let you know where I’m coming from with that. It’s a “big story,” technical and esoteric, but I will try to make it as simple and exoteric as I can.

The “big story” part–there are different ways of perceiving the creation of the universe, and one of those ways is how creation manifests vibrationally, through sound. There is an allusion in physics’ Big Bang theory to creation through vibration/sound, but in the Indian philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism, with which I relate, it is spoken of in detail through the concept of “matrika shakti.” Matrika shakti refers to how creation manifests vibrationally and through sound and is supported and transformed through the power of speech. (The Bible too, I would add, alludes to this: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”)

The “technical and esoteric”–Shakti in this system is considered the primordial Creative Energy of the universe, the “Divine’s” intention/will, or as sometimes described, the “will power of God.” (And God in this case is Consciousness.) Shakti is depicted as Goddess; Consciousness is depicted in this system as God or Shiva. So Shiva and Shakti, or Consciousness and Energy, are the primordial “parents” of the universe. While they can be understood separately, in essence, they are always intertwined. (And to do justice to this philosophy, there are Parashiva and Parashakti, “God/dess” unmanifest.)

The philosophy goes that Shakti manifested creation first as just sound vibration, and then through successive stages of sound: from pure vibration to phonemes or letters of the alphabet to words to sentences…essentially, to speech. The word “matrika” in Sanskrit means “mother” (because ‘out of the womb of matrika springs the created universe’). It sometimes also means “little mothers” (referring to the literal smallness and relative insignificance of the letters/phonemes). It sometimes also is interpreted as “uncomprehended mother” (because we fail to understand the power of matrika shakti in our lives.)

Each letter/phoneme/word is seen as being a “power” or force or energy emanating from the One Energy in the universe. (Which is one way of understanding the power of mantra in mantra meditation.)

The “simple and exoteric”–Actually this matrika shakti concept is quite complex, involving understanding of the chakras and our three bodies (gross, subtle, causal), and Maya (delusion) and more…but I’ve focused on a simple explanation. I should add that through these successive stages of sound (pure vibration, letters/phonemes, words, sentences, full speech), more and more meaning is created/realized, and more fruit is “borne.” And you can test this for yourself, by thinking about, say (an example commonly used to illustrate) the word FOOL. The letter F has less meaning and bears less fruit than the word ‘fool’ and the word ‘fool’ has less meaning and bears less fruit than the phrase “You fool” which has less meaning/bears less fruit than the sentence “You are a fool.” Matrika shakti is said to keep us fixed in ignorance and to foster delusion until we begin to reverse these aspects through at least being on the road to recognition of what some would call God/dess or Oneness or Unity, etc.

So this is where I’m coming from when I address hostile or mean speech or excessive swearing. It’s not that I am trying to be “saintly” (I can say those curse words, and sometimes do, usually privately or among friends). It’s that I really do believe that we partially create the world and its “vibe” through speech–both through the content of the meaning of our words and their sound vibrations. I doubt there is anyone on this site that would see things this way, and it is perhaps bringing my spiritual orientation too much into the conversation, but it is how I see it, and that’s why I spoke up.

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We see how it starts. As per my earlier post where I show that Antifa fit the typical fascist profile, with the insight that perhaps the majority of fascists start out as true-believers. They believe that their truth is the truth, and the truth justifies the means.

I love true-believers, but when they fail to disengage the ego, they cause problems. History is destined to repeat, sad to say.

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I love this! The wisdom in this sentence can also be boiled down to one word “babble” from the biblical allegories in Genesis. Without the personal attainment of each of these deeper foundational concept the confusion only grows.

This becomes more and more evident as the complexity grows through integral conversations. When you’re off the acceptance train more words equal more confusion.

Thanks @LaWanna for sharing this cultural wisdom. :slight_smile:

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I made a comment earlier about not really liking foul language. As so often nowadays, I seek guidance from my son who tends to get some things better than me.
As regards the foul language, he says that his age group may or may not use it, but when they do it’s mostly as emphasis and has no foulness about it. He tells me he rarely even notices its use nowadays, it’s that redundant.

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I actually did want the foulness to come out. I’m from a generation that fully engaged the foulness of foul language.
What I find discouraging is when people are offended by arguing per se and would rather let foul ideas take root in their community unchallenged because challenging the people who present foul ideas disturbs them.
Here, I’ll give you a little hint of the foul ideas I’m referring to:
The edifice of feminist theory stands on the myth of patriarchal oppression. In dispensing with this myth, Stephen Jarosek shows that feminism is a bankrupt ideology that has never been substantiated. He factors in emerging developments in the life and cognitive sciences, to show that women never were the helpless victims as promulgated in the feminist narrative.
So, I don’t really have much to say if me telling a man “Fuck off” is more offensive than giving movements like this safe harbor to spread unchallenged.
I think I’ve been on here long enough and seen enough similar responses to see that this community prefers to keep concepts academic, distant and above all clean and agreeable. But also completely impotent to actually take any kind of action and astoundingly inefficient. Since I disagree with this approach from the depths of my being, I guess “good luck Integral”?
Also @LaWanna

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A well placed expiative can be powerful at communicating … although it rarely works in your favor. My Dad told me when you swear you risk undermining and degrading yourself with others. Those who don’t swear will take note but it rarely leaves a positive impression.

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I think Corey is working hard to get Integral Theory to be a practical tool we can use to have better and more effective lives. But for me, it’s hard to take the learning and apply on day to day life. And for others too. In our little group in the UK, we are continuously asking ourselves and each other “how can we make a difference with this?”
But it is so easy to have a clean consensual discussion where we can agree to disagree and our lives go on unaffected.
So I ask myself, where in all my discussions on the community website have I come across something that has changed a part of my day to day life? The most immediate thing that comes to mind is the idea that violence is dealt with by the saner use of greater violence. Taking it metaphorically, I have used it in my family work to deal with “bad red” parents. I will use the power of the courts to force certain behaviour rather than trying to discuss and educate a parent who doesn’t want to listen.

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My opinion is that in the US we are losing this, or have already lost it. Just the antivax decisions alone affect the community. Even if we ignore the suffering part as “whelp, they should have gotten vaccinated, serves them right” - Hospital expenses and therefore insurance premiums across the board are going to go through the roof.

Indeed. Cheers.

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Ray,
Let me clarify a few things if some of your statements are intended for me. First, on the whole, I am not “offended” by arguing or disagreement or conflict openly addressed, or even foul language. While I did have a flare of anger as I mentioned in my first post, and yes, felt temporarily annoyed but moreso, saddened, by the quality of communication, I also took time (was forced to!) to examine my emotional response and my impulse to “dress the community down.” As I mentioned, the posts on this thread were sort of a “last straw” for me, as during the past couple of months, imo, there has been an ongoing atmosphere of hostilities–antagonism, malicious attacks on people rather than ideas, including name-calling, a lot of snark and snipe, all of which has had cumulative effects, at least on me. I’ve been at this site for three years, and have never seen anything like what I’ve seen these past few months. Does that mean that I’m demanding anyone of you on this site change behavior to meet my preferences? No, not at all. Do as you will. And I will do as I will: speak up on the topics I want to, when and in the way that I choose, including the overall quality and tone of conversations… As I understand it, there is no one public moderator for this site; the community apparently expected to moderate itself, so I feel I have the right to speak when something seems, to me anyway, off or not right in some way. In that regard, you and I are not that different. We just speak about different things, in different ways.

As for the “foul idea” you referenced, about Jarosek’s views on feminism—what can I say? The subject of feminism makes me a little tired, along with wokeness and cancel culture and MAGA and Antifa and all the rest at the heart of the culture wars. Which doesn’t mean I don’t have views on them, or won’t express those views. But to engage in verbal warfare around them is not my usual forte or, at least at this point, my cup of tea. I do have a background in which at one time I was not just “very active” but played a major role in the feminist movement in a large city. That was only for a few years, during my “green” period, and what can I say, I outgrew it–the social activism that is, not my support for a society in which men and women have equal opportunities and neither sex subjects the other to abuse or oppression.

As for Jarosek’s (and I don’t even know who this person is) “myth of patriarchal oppression,” there is both some truth and falsehood with that, imo. Some feminists have written about labor divisions between the sexes during certain periods of history being responsible for women being cast into the private (domestic) sphere while men ran the public sphere (and once in public power, men not wanting to give that power up). Wilber too has spoken of this, and Corey. For instance, the story goes, during the horticultural period, women shared the field labor as they were capable of using the digging stick. Matriarchy and European Goddess cultures were present to some extent during this period of perhaps greater social equality. When agrarian methods came in, with the introduction of the plow, women did not have the upper body strength to use the plow, and that kind of labor also threatened pregnancies, so women were driven “inside the home” and had less cultural power in the public sphere.

I can follow this line of thought, and agree with it mostly, but it has never explained fully, for me at least, male sexual and other violence towards women (and children), which is also a cornerstone of feminist activism, particularly since the beginning of the 2nd wave of feminism in the 70s into the 80s. (And that focus continues).

As for Jarosek’s statement you quoted of feminism being a “bankrupt ideology” as it is based on patriarchy, I don’t buy that. All you have to do is look at Afghanistan; if some of that oppression of women and girls is not patriarchy (based on religion), then I don’t know what is.

While I don’t mind responding when asked directly about feminism, and will occasionally address something related on my own, no one should assume that just because I’m female, I’m here to take that up as my “cause,” because I’m not.

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Yes, @Andrew_Baines, I find things too through Integral that assist in my work and life. For instance, listening this summer to the Ken Sho episodes on Love–one of them spoke about the ‘wound of love’ and how the Divine shatters us through these wounds, something I very much relate to. The very next day after that particular episode, one of my clients I had scheduled for the first time was a man whose son had been recently killed in a car wreck. Talk about shattered! My just using that word and that phrase opened him up and immediately established trust. So even just borrowing a few words here and there from Integral thought and podcasts are really useful to me.

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It’s unfortunate you felt I was doing that. I didn’t make up his main thesis and that I found the ideas in his books destructive and more offensive than my language only after you joined the discussion.
I concluded that a couple of people find foul language more offensive than those ideas, and this is probably generally a shared point of view by many here.
If you don’t find the idea foul that women as a group were never victims … ok. I do find it more foul than a few curse words.

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Ray Ray Ray, read my post carefully please. I spoke to the victim-ness of women, with the examples of both religion-based patriarchy and through sexual and other violence which I said is a cornerstone of feminism, and that sexual violence against women is not explained by labor-division theories… I said I do not buy Jarosek’s statement about feminism being a "bankrupt ideology.’’ I said that while I am no longer involved in social activism, I do support the foundational goals that feminism stands for.

What more do you want me to say? I do find the idea that “women as a group have never been victims,” both foul and ignorant. As I said in the post, look at what’s happening in Afghanistan…

We are somehow miscommunicating here. That’s not my intention. I want to be as clear as possible. But your next-to-last sentence is teetering on the border of jumping to conclusions about me, making some assumptions based on no facts. Had you asked a direct question: “LaWanna, do you find the idea that women as a group were never victims more foul than a few curse words?” I would have answered directly: “It’s actually comparing apples and oranges–foul ideas and foul language–and I’m not fond of either. But in this particular circumstance, the idea that women have never been victimized is more foul than someone using the words fuck and cunt.”

We good now?:slightly_smiling_face:

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Yep. Thank you. :wink:

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The real oppressors of women are those striving to keep women believing that they’re disempowered, in a permanent state of victimhood.
:rofl:

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Agreed
And you and your ilk do the same thing with men. Poor victims of feminism. boo hoo hoo.

Show me on the doll where feminism touched you.

show-me-on-the-doll-where-he-touched-you
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