richard,
I greatly appreciate the time and effort you put into your excellent response.
There are clearly "healthy" and "unhealthy" forms of post-modernism (the "green meme" to use Spiral Dynamics terms).
I would guess that you are an "exiting" green, and are quite ready to make the jump to "transcendant rationalism", or integralism.
The integral memes "transcend, but include" earlier memes, so there is no need to feel loss of the healthy form of green, just as there is no need to feel loss of "orange" modernism, or blue "universalism", etc.
They are all needed for the continual reinvention of human consciousness called the "great spiral" (a modification of the "great chain of being" in perennial philosophy).
While it would be obvious to you and me and a fair number of Baha'is and people of similar inclination that God the Universal Sovereign Father created evolution, such a notion isn't present, at least on an obvious level, in the scriptures of the Great Traditions. It would have been pointless for Jesus or Mohammed, praise be upon Their luminous Souls, to speak of evolutionary science (in "modern" terms) to the peoples of their times.
Nevertheless, traditionalists tend to not accept evolution "because it isn't in scripture". This obviously presents huge dilemmas for social stability in a changing world.
(btw, Baha'i theology also includes mystical images of the Divine Feminine {the "Maid of Heaven"}, which represents both the most ancient spiritual forms of fertility goddesses and the image of a "post-modern", nurturing, embracing, intimate Godess).
Anyways, apparently Maslow's later work was greatly influenced by Graves' arguments.
They are obviously pioneers in integral science (amongst many others in the 1940s/50s/60s), which at the simplest level means that they adjusted the paradigm of science/rationalism to allow for consideration of spirituality and mysticism (transcendance).
In Baha'i-speak, this is the actual working out of the "harmony of science and religion", but from an "authentic" standpoint that is actually informed by advanced scientific theory instead of superficial religious apologetics.
The first "giant" pioneer of integral science (or more correctly a holistic "integral" theory of consciousness) is probably Jean Gebser. Another was Sri Aurobindo (some of the legacy of his work is being carried out at
http://www.ciis.edu )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Gebser
excerpts:
Gebser notes that the various structures of consciousness are revealed by their relationship to space and time. For example, the mythical structure embodies time as cyclical/rhythmic and space as enclosed. Whereas the mental structure lives time as linear, directed or "progressive" and space becomes the box-like homogeneous space of geometry — a vacuum. But just as each consciousness structure erupts it also eventually becomes deficient. The deficient form of the mental structure Gebser called the 'rational' structure. Of particular significance is his realization that previous consciousness structures continue to operate. The rational structure of awareness seeks to deny the other structures with its claim that humans are exclusively rational.
. . .
The rational structure is known for its extremes as evidenced in various "nothing but..." statements. Extreme materialism claims that "everything is nothing but matter — atoms". Philosophy, the love of wisdom, is replaced with instrumental reason, the ability "to make". Contemplation — looking inward — is devalued in relation to what one "can do". "Wise men" fall out of favor and are replaced by the "man of action."
. . .
[fascism/etc.]
Some saw the cause of this despair as a lack of values or ethics. Gebser saw that it is the very consciousness structure itself which has played out to its inherent end. He saw that its metaphysical presumptions necessarily led to this ethical dead end. A "value-free" ontology like materialism leads of necessity to living "without value". Any attempt to remedy the situation by a return to "values" would ultimately fail. But it was through this very quagmire of "the decline of the West" that Gebser saw the emergence of a new structure of consciousness which he termed the integral.
. . .
Awareness is already integral. Gebser introduced the notion of presentiation which means to make something present through transparency. An aspect of integral awareness is the presentiation, or "making present", of the various structures of awareness. Rather than allowing only one (rational) structure to be valid,
[*] all structures are recognized, presented,
[*] one through the other.
This awareness of and acceptance of the various structures enables one to live through the various structures rather than to be subjected to them ("lived by" them in German).
. . .
Gebser traces the evidence for the transformations of the structure of consciousness as they are concretized in historical artifacts. He sought to avoid calling this process "evolutionary", since any such notion was illusory when applied to the "unfolding of consciousness." Biological evolution, as Gebser noted at length, was an enclosing process, that particularized a species to a limited environment. The unfolding of awareness is by contrast an opening-up. Any attempt to give a direction or goal to the unfolding of awareness is illusory in that it is based upon a limited notion of time, the mental, which is linear and hence implies "progress." To be sure, Gebser was fully aware that any notion of "human progress" was already played out. He notes that "to progress" is to move toward but is also a moving away from, and he knew that the question as to the fate of humanity is still open, that for it to become closed would be the ultimate tragedy, but that such a closure remains a possibility. Our fate is not assured by any notion of "an evolution
toward" any kind of ideal way of being.
. . .
---end---
Ken Wilber is probably today's leading integral theorists, and he has many critics, as well as supporters.
http://www.integraluniversity.org
The holistic enchilada:
http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/ ... index.cfm/
excerpt:
. . .
Integral Post-Metaphysics--and its corollary, integral methodological pluralism--is important, I believe, for many reasons. First and foremost, no system (spiritual or otherwise) that does not come to terms with modern Kantian and postmodern Heideggerian thought can hope to survive with any intellectual respectability (agree with them or disagree with them, they have to be addressed)--and that means all spirituality must be post-metaphysical in some sense. Second, as Einsteinian physics applied to objects moving slower than the speed of light collapses back into Newtonian physics, so an Integral Post-Metaphysics can generate all the essentials of premodern spiritual and metaphysical systems but without their now-discredited ontological baggage. This, to my mind, is the central contribution of an Integral Post-Metaphysics--it does not itself contain metaphysics, but it can generate metaphysics as one possible AQAL matrix configuration under the limit conditions of premodern cultures. That is, the AQAL matrix, when run using premodern parameters, collapses into the old metaphysics (as Einsteinian collapses into Newtonian, even though it itself is non-Newtonian). On the other hand, alter the holonic conditions of the matrix by adjusting it to the parameters of the postmodern world, and the metaphysics drops out entirely, even though there still remains an entire spectrum of consciousness, waves of development, evolution and involution, and a rainbow of awareness that runs unbroken from dust to Deity--but without relying on any pregiven, archetypal, or independently existing ontological structures, levels, planes, etc. In fact, the entire "great chain of being" disappears entirely from reality, but its essential features can be generated by the matrix if certain mythic-era assumptions are plugged into its parameters.
Of course, some sort of "great chain of being" has been central to spiritual traditions from time immemorial, whether it appears in the general shamanic form as the existence of higher and lower worlds, the Neoplatonic version of levels of reality (e.g., the amazing Plotinus), the Taoist version of realms of being (e.g., Lieh Tzu), the Buddhist version of a spectrum of consciousness (e.g., the 8 vijnanas), or the Kabbalah sefirot--and down to today's newer wisdom traditions, from Aurobindo to Adi Da to Hameed Almaas. All of them, without exception, postulate the existence of levels or dimensions of reality or consciousness, including higher or wider or deeper dimensions of being and knowing--some sort of rainbow of existence, whose waves, levels, or bands possess an independent reality that can be accessed by sufficiently evolved or developed souls. In other words, they all postulate the existence of metaphysical realities--which is exactly what is challenged (and thoroughly rejected) by modern and postmodern currents.
Therefore, what is required is a way to generate that essential rainbow of existence but without any metaphysical or ontological postulates. In other words, IF we can generate the essentials of a spiritual worldview without the metaphysical baggage, then we can generate a spiritual worldview that will survive in a modern and postmodern world. That, in any event, is one of the central aims of Integral Post-Metaphysics (and its practical application, called "integral methodological pluralism"), both of which will be outlined in these excerpts. If we can succeed in this endeavor, then all of those spiritual worldviews (from shamanism to Plotinus to Padmasambhava to Aurobindo) can be reanimated and utilized within a broader, non-metaphysical AQAL matrix, which can generate the same rainbow of existence but without the discredited metaphysical accoutrements, and thus one can still utilize their profound wisdom without succumbing to the devastating attacks of modern and postmodern currents.
. . .
---end---
Wilber is a Zen Buddhist, so some adjustment might be needed for people in the western traditions.
Basic stuff that explains Wilber's terminology:
http://www.integralworld.net/index.html?beck2.html
---------------------
On "politics":
http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?o ... ew&id=2289
Shambhala Sun | July 1999
Liberalism and Religion - We Should Talk
By: Ken Wilber
Liberalism's objections to mythic forms do not apply to formless awareness. Thus liberalism and authentic spirituality can walk hand in hand.There are two major dialogues in the modern world that I believe must take place, one between science and religion, and then one between religion and liberalism.
The way it is now, the modern world really is divided into two major and warring camps, science and liberalism on the one hand, and religion and conservatism on the other. And the key to getting these two camps together is first, to get religion past science, and then second, to get religion past liberalism, because both science and liberalism are deeply anti-spiritual. And it must occur in that order, because liberalism won’t even listen to spirituality unless it has first passed the scientific test. (Showing how that might happen was a major theme of my book, Sense and Soul.)
In one sense, of course, science and liberalism are right to be anti-spiritual, because most of what has historically served as spirituality is now prerational, magic or mythic, implicitly ethnocentric, fundamentalist dogma. Liberalism traditionally came into existence to fight the tyranny of prerational myth and that is one of its enduring and noble strengths (the freedom, liberty, and equality of individuals in the face of the often hostile or coercive collective). And this is why liberalism was always allied with science against fundamentalist, mythic, prerational religion (and the conservative politics that hung on to that religion).
But neither science nor liberalism is aware that in addition to prerational myth, there is transrational awareness. There are not two camps here: liberalism versus mythic religion. There are three: mythic religion, rational liberalism, and transrational spirituality.
The main strength of liberalism is its emphasis on individual human rights. The major weakness is its rabid fear of Spirit. Modern liberalism came into being, during the Enlightenment, largely as a counterforce to mythic religion, which was fine. But liberalism committed a classic pre/trans fallacy: it thought that all spirituality was nothing but prerational myth, and thus it tossed any and all transrational spirituality as well, which was absolutely catastrophic. (As Ronald Reagan would say, it tossed the baby with the dishes.)
[*] Liberalism attempted to kill God and replace
[*] transpersonal Spirit with egoic humanism,
[*] and as much as I am a liberal in many of
[*] my social values, that is its sorry downside,
[*] this horror of all things Divine.
Liberalism can be rightfully distrustful of prerational myth, and yet still open itself to transrational awareness. Its objections to mythic forms do not apply to formless awareness, and thus liberalism and authentic spirituality can walk hand in hand into a greater tomorrow. If this can be demonstrated to them using terms they find acceptable, then we would have, I believe for the first time, the possibility of a postliberal spirituality, which combines the strengths of conservatism and liberalism but moves beyond both in a transrational, transpersonal integration. The trick is to take the best of both, individual rights plus a spiritual orientation, and to do so by finding liberal humanistic values plugged into a transrational, not prerational, Spirit. This spirituality is transliberal, evolutionary and progressive, not preliberal, reactionary and regressive. It is also political, in the very broadest sense, in that its single major motivation, compassion, is pressed into social action. However, a postconservative, postliberal spirituality is not pressed into service as public policy, transrational spirituality preserves the rational separation of church and state, as well as the liberal demand that the state will neither protect nor promote a favorite version of the good life. Those who would transform the world by having all of us embrace their new paradigm, or particular God or Goddess, or their version of Gaia, or their favorite mythology, these are all, by definition, reactionary and regressive in the worst of ways: preliberal, not transliberal, and thus their particular versions of the witch hunt are never far removed from their global agenda. A truly transliberal spirituality exists instead as a cultural encouragement, a background context that neither prevents nor coerces, but rather allows genuine spirituality to arise.
But one thing is absolutely certain: all the talk of a new spirituality in America is largely a waste of time unless those two central dialogues are engaged and answered. Unless spirituality can pass through the gate of science, then of liberalism, it will never be a significant force in the modern world, but will remain merely as the organizing power for the prerational levels of development around the world.
. . .
---end---