How about an occasional Integral self-diagnostic? (as if it’s not already too late)
Greetings Corey, et al.
I should think it would have been extremely important and useful for integral from the get-go, to periodically check its own pulse relative to the rest of the world, monitoring its own “relevance,” surveying folks-in-general, and not, over time, myopically just relying on Integral’s in-group reinforcement, succumbing to confirmation bias, then doubling down, etc.
With the premise that all things have a beginning, a middle and an end, I think it could still lead to important sociological revelations in tracking the “community” chatter from its inception to now. I privately suspect your inner circles have been acutely aware of Integral’s health and relevance, but denial, and side-stepping of candor/disclosure have handicapped, will continue to handicap Integral until …
I had the same thought “ is there a grownups in the house” after Covid hit. I did my research and on March 5 2020 had this thought about grownups on the whole Planet. No reconciliation from the IC till the World forced it. Robb Smith just started to come to grips. Ten years way too late. But let see what comes of it. A lot of reorientation to happen. And Ken is still very much involved with those who are meeting our challenges. I hope this space becomes a unifying process in being human and dropping all the naivety of a social orientation. Here: this is the change in depth we need.
I think that you are acknowledging some kind of “in group” for Integral. From Integral’s perspective, as I understand, we are talking about a developmental stage of consciousness wherein Levels of consciousness become intuitively comprehensible. People criticize “the Integral community”, and then the criticism is that they aren’t “the Integral community”… well, if you follow the logic, you’re right. Anyone who is at the Integral stage of consciousness is the Integral community, in real terms. Who pays Ken Wilber to lead the Integral community? Who is paying me to yell at this guy? Integral seems to diagnose itself a fair amount in general. I consider myself part of the community and I check our pulse, and I report about what I’m getting. We all do some little part of it. So, what would you have in mind? What would satisfy the criteria of the self check-up for Integral? How could we do that better? Who is paying for it? These are very pertinent questions for any grown up. But I think it’s important to separate out the proponents of a philosophical theory from the genuine leadership of culture. In my opinion, most of the Teal Level leadership in our world is coming from people who are unaware of Integral Theory. The Integral philosophical community as a whole have also made some major contributions to the Teal emergence. The real promise of it is that it can become a common language and a routing beacon for Teal values as they become more recognizable perhaps as a cultural force. For example, in terms of self-diagnosis, I’ve noticed that the popular critics of Integral Theory tend to use Integral Theory language to describe what they don’t like about it. Wilber has a pre/trans fallacy. Wilber is mean Green meme. Because those watchdogs of culture, bless them every one, know intrinsically that without using the insights of the Integral stage, whatever arguments you have against Integral Theory are easily identified as the very reactions predicted by the AQAL elements, particularly Levels.
I believe this was brought up by Zak Stein by an article on MetaManagment problem in IJ was presented on Integral Naked I believe in 2008. Made a big splash for a few weeks and then flat lined and everything went back to the mode before on the website. Using the model to talk over the tension present. Basically the normal goggles had a multicolored ability and was confused with addressing the tension. It didn’t. Then the world complexity out complexified the model. And the momentum split into many incubators. Thus incubators have produced fruit , fully available for you to find. It’s not a secret and Ken is involved. Many schools in history split. Normal part of experimentation.
