I guess people feel part of a group if that group is protecting their safety. If a nation state can protect people, those people identify with their nation. But if people feel the group is not protecting them, they can move up to global (UN?) or down to myth-membership (blue, religion, etc.)
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I’m flicking through Ken’s Trump and a Post-Truth World, as I never got round to reading it.
On the topic of the politics and labelling huge swathes of Americans “deplorables” — green attacking amber — Ken says:
For such an individual, our appropriate response is to feel not a gloating moral superiority, but a truly deep compassion for someone living within the unbelievably constricting, suffocating, and suffering-inducing stages that these are-and from an integral view, compassion is the only judgmental attitude we’re allowed—the only one.
It’s echoed by some intellectuals on X/Twitter today, who are noting that they see the various intellectuals around them, in fields of human behaviour, claiming that Trump won because people are stupid, xenophobic, don’t understand democracy, and want a fascist in charge.
And if Integral Theory is to do its magic, it needs to come with care. I mean, I like the ego-boost and sense of knowing some amazing insight, which it can provide, when internalised, and how easily that might slip into superiority, but hopefully that feeling peaks with green, and then gives way to a more interpersonal care…
compassion is the only judgmental attitude we’re allowed—the only one
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Yes - Trump DID win because at least some portion of the population is stupid, is xenophobic, don’t understand Democracy and want a fascist in charge. That which used to be quiet is now being spoken out loud for there to be no question about what MAGA wants, and it isn’t intellectual inclusivism. In 2020 Trump got 72 million votes and in 2024 he gained 2 million to get 74 million.
More importantly - not enough people bothered to show up to counter this 74 million. 13 million people who voted for Biden in 2020 decided to just stay home in 2024.
This is the more significant number. At the end of the day 13 million people realized that Trump was not good for the country but just could not vote for a strong, capable black woman who put a spoiled rich boy in his place when they faced off in a debate.
While the dangers of MAGA are obvious and plain to see, the dangers of a portion of Democrats are more insidious and hidden.
Any analysis of the election has to address these 13 million “Missing in Action” who voted for Biden but not Kamala.
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Regarding Compassion
There are several aspects of compassion, not all of which are a good idea.
GOOGLE: Pity and concern for the suffering and misfotunes of others
Mirriam Webster: Sympathetic concsiousness of others’ distress with a desire to alleviate it.
Merriam further addds: What is the difference between empathy and compassion?
Compassion and empathy both refer to a caring response to someone else’s distress. While empathy refers to an active sharing in the emotional experience of the other person, compassion adds to that emotional experience a desire to alleviate the person’s distress.
Here is where the person and groups desiring to see themselves as compassionate step on their own feet. Generally people desiring to be compassionate fall into two categories:
1 - The appeasing rescuer. Here the unhealthy compassionate asks the disadvantaged what they need and bend over backwards to try and give them that. This is a bad idea. The person or groups in crisis are the least qualified to know the best way out of their predicament. If you listen to an addict and just give them money, they will spend it on their addiction and fall deeper down the hole of their addiction.
2 - The “Sympathetic Do Nothing”. This is the person who sees you with a broken down car on the side of the road and feels bad for you, but keeps driving on, not wanting to get involved or inconvenience themselves. This type may also be called the “bypasser”, as in spiritual bypassing. They feel bad about poverty, hunger and homelessness and ironically get a good feeling about themselves by feeling bad, but do nothing.
There is also the group that is not compassionate at all.
Finally, there is a rare form of compassion that is out of favor the past 50 years. People who advocate for this third path of compassion are seen as unfeeling and less spiritually advanced than those who “care”. Yet it is the way that works. With addicts, you have to allow them to descend up to the point where they understand the need for change and are ready to take the steps necessary to change. Any action before this point only prolongs the time in the descent to rock bottom.
MAGA is a symptom of America’s many addictions. The most significant is addiction to unhealthy conspicuous conscumption and a consumption based economy. For 50 years the Political Left has offered compassion based policies of the “rescuer” variety. The Populist branch of the Right is stuck in “woe is me” - describing the problem but offering no real solutions. MAGA provides a target for them, much as you might train an attack dog with stimulus-response. This target is affirmative action (DEI), feminism and “Woke”. The Right has successfully established this in the minds of the Populist Right as the cause of all their pain and suffering. This has been successful because the Left has been more interestied in being morally superior rescuers than actually looking how to solve the problems of America’s addiction. One major reason for this is that the Political Left has the very same addictions to consumption but are financially well off enough to afford it. This is how “Avocado Toast” among others became a hated meme of the Populist right.
In order to get out of this plight the United States has landed in, more of the same is not going to fix it.
As I’ve been saying for years - COVID was only a dress rehearsal for what is to come. The “crisis” phase of the “Fourth Turning” is only beginning. We will not get out of the Global Crisis by doubling down on the failed Global Left policies of the appeasing rescuer who got us into it.
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I agree it is critically important to know who (generically) the 13 million people who voted for Biden in 2020 and not for Harris in 2024. Not inspired, repelled, confused, apathetic? The democrats need to fearlessly find out.
Just one thing to add … the 13 million people who voted for Biden but not Harris may also include people who this time voted for Trump, as well as those who stayed home. I would very interested to know why people in this group switched their votes - I think that might be a really clear view as to some of the reasoning of why the country at large switched from Biden in 2020 to Trump in 2024.
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I think for me the internet has vastly changed the picture. But not its negative side, which is often complained about—that the algorithm creates echo chambers and all the fascists can now find each other—no, I mean, it has that current, but at the same time, it also floods everyone with vast amounts of information, and it inevitably exposes people to alternative voices. Let me give two examples:
Years ago, Ken did an interview with Michael Crichton, and a topic they did was that global warming was basically a hoax. As I recall they went into the reasons why, and it seemed a credible position to take.
And for another, almost random example, just today, Richard Dawkins is posting that whilst he thinks Trump is “evil” and “stupid”, Richard thinks that Elon Musk “has the welfare of the world at heart”.
Also, during the pandemic, a whole bunch of professionals, and social media people, who on the surface have little in common, seem to have linked up over their perception that something very wrong was going on with the principles of democracy.
And I think maybe what’s happening is that, the flood of information—almost everyone is online in some regions, and it was already a billion globally 20 years ago—this flood of info has laid waste to the superficial narratives which used to be popular.
It reminds me of what is said about the levels—that you don’t judge by the surface forms, you look at the underlying core structure—and people at large, with access to more information from more sources, are now being faced with seeing and recognising the underlying structures more, rather than what the traditional media would have them believe.
And maybe that means that contextualised truths are making a comeback?
Dawkins’ tweet, that an evil man has partnered with a man who has mankind’s welfare at heart, makes no friggen sense—if you read it at face value. And it probably causes any normal person to then go, well, there’s obviously more going on here, and the mind then grows its ability for discernment.
And how can any genuine fan of Ken Wilber, also make sense of Ken being a “science denier and shill for big oil”? It makes no sense. There must be more to it. So… a little more discernment.
And along the way, discerning healthy green from unhealthy green, discerning healthy orange from unhealthy orange, and healthy amber from unhealthy amber, and healthy red from unhealthy red, and so on.
Maybe that’s why people “switch sides”. Maybe that’s how people “vote for a fascist”. And how people realise the discernment between healthy compassion and idiot compassion.
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Insightful. I 100% agree with the “conspicuous consumption” commentary.
There is so much to unpack with this election. I’m going to try to re-read Ken’s Post-Truth book.
Curious: what is your take on disinformation in all of this–from an integral perspective?
Hi, well, if the world community is hopefully heading towards some sort of healthy orange as an average, as the next great step, then I’ll take the orange notion that, nobody is infallible, nobody has absolute truth, and science only works if it is allowed to self-test and self-correct. So the answer to bad information is just keeping an open mind and letting the ideas flow freely and be debated freely out in the open. It doesn’t matter how wrong the ideas are, the only remedy is debate and engagement with better ideas, and we can’t know in advance which are the better ideas, except by ongoing debate and testing. And that’s why people say that the answer to misinformation is not censorship or deplatforming, but open engagement and letting people learn for themselves which ideas are better.
Besides, there’s also the problem of propaganda, which we’ve had since forever. There’s billions spent with public relations firms, to manipulate public perceptions and beliefs. Lately they seem to be using “misinformation” and “disinformation” as accusations, in their marketing, public relations, and propaganda messages.
If we are to transcend the selfish nation state, start to become a global community, start to remedy the selfish incentives of polluting mega corporations, start to let go of the treadmill of production and consumption, and so on, then the usual messaging we get from governments, corporations, the media, NGOs, and even the UN, are going to have to come under a brighter light of questioning and debate. I’m sceptical of anyone accusing others of “disinformation”.