Integral Theory and Inclusivism

Thank you, Seth.  I'm glad you got something useful out of it; I had been feeling a little frustrated because I haven't had much free time for writing and had to squeeze this out in spare moments throughout the day.

I look forward to whatever conversation may unfold around these questions.

And that sunflower is gorgeous, isn't it?

Warm wishes,

B.

Thanks, Ben.  As I said, I may be updating or tweaking them a bit, as I reflect on this a bit more.  But maybe other “suggestions” will come up through our conversation here.

Nicole, I understand what you are saying.  There are a number of different Integrally influenced groups and “movements” forming, each with their own flavor, so the “hyper-rational” tone, while common, isn't the only note being struck.  One new Integral group, which is in the Bay Area and may appeal to you, is Integrative Spirituality.  I don't know how much time you have, but they have a “houseboat” where they offer meetings and events, so something may be going on there while you're here.

Best wishes,

B.

Thank you, Kela, for your instructive comments.  I think that Banerji's mis-attribution of one of the metaphors doesn't really diminish the force of the metaphor, which to me is suggestive of the concerns expressed by Carlson and others – that the inclusivist embrace of otherness is one which also effectively erases it.

Best wishes,

B.

I received a response to my blog over on another forum which I would like to include here.  I am not including the original response, but my comment-by-comment reply…

Schalk,

Thank you for your comments.  I really appreciate how you think and how you communicate.  Your “in other words approach” was helpful and clarifying for me. 

I wrote:  To mitigate the tendency towards insular, ideologically driven inclusivism, which I believe is a potential problem for any integrative model, I believe one of the first steps is simply to call attention to and bring greater awareness to these dynamics, to call attention to the potential for elephantine footprints to effectively erase the tracks of (e.g., silence) those whom we would embrace.

You responded:  The concern here is with what seems like big politico-spiritual-ideological alliances between Integral and other heavyweight groups? That is to say, by aligning with certain packs of elephants, other quieter groups will be silent and will maintain their distance?

The tendency toward politicization of the Integral vision and its marketing leads to a dialectic that drives many away?

I recognize this as a real possibility, but this is not what I was thinking of when I talked about needing to be mindful of the potential dynamics of inclusivism.  I was referring more to taking “big overview” perspectives, in which we “make a place” for everyone:  Because we often achieve this by adopting a certain level of distance and abstraction, we may fail to appreciate where the person or view thus “included” also offers the gifts (and challenges) of “difference” to whatever perspective we may currently hold.  This is the UL concern.  The LL and LR, cultural and political, concerns are that, in actually telling other people or groups, “You're included in our vision; this is how,” we may also unwittingly engage in more literal forms of “silencing.”

I think it's important to stress that I do not regard this as the inevitable result of Integralism or an Integral life well embodied; rather, I am just calling attention to it as a possibility, particularly if we lack mindfulness of certain of these dynamics.

I wrote:  Related to this, allowing the recognition of these dynamics to impregnate our communicative practices, to inspire us towards non-attachment to views and a willingness to suspend our positions in the moment of encounter with an other.

You responded:  The concern here is with being more mutually-explorative in our dialogues, rather than “always having the answers?”

Essentially, yes.  Having a big map which accounts for everything and sorts everything out, or appears to, can limit as well as enhance communication.  I'm just pointing to a type of self-assured, ideological “closing down” or “self-insulation” that can arise when we have invested ourselves in The Map and the security of the Answers it provides.  More specifically, I'm referring to something along the lines of Panikkar's diatopical hermeneutics and the imparative method, which I discussed in a previous blog entry.

I wrote:  As may be apparent by the tone and content of this blog, I am suggesting - along with Gary Hampson and others - that Integralites may do well not to hurry too quickly past postmodernism, leaving it in the dust of history; rather they should return to take fuller advantage of the insights and tools won by this fairly recent development in human thought. I believe Wilber himself is recognizing the importance of this move, judging by his emphasis on intersubjectivity and constructivism in Integral Spirituality.

You responded:  The concern here is that Integralites intellectually know the lessons of post-modernism, or at least intellectually have a sense of what it means, but in our speech and conduct we certainly show no signs of “knowing” those lessons in a profound way?

Yes, but perhaps not in such an extreme way.  I'm not suggesting that Integralites show no signs of knowing the lessons of postmodernism in a profound way, but I am saying – as I've been facing them more myself, finding where I haven't fully digested these lessons – I have also been able to spot similar signs in others on these forums with whom I've interacted.  The overall stigmatization of Green may encourage people who resonate with Integral on some level to attempt to sort of leap-frog over it, without really having engaged with it or digested it in a deep way.  I have noticed, for instance, that in some conversations on forums I've participated in, self-identified Integralites (Yellow-false-positives?) may actually be fairly quickly out-gunned by those who employ postmodern arguments, and they end up appearing out of their depth and becoming rather ideologically defensive. 

I wrote:  While AQAL is often discussed and, unfortunately, treated as a static map, I believe Integral Methodological Pluralism invites us to see it in more dynamic, enactive terms, as a sort of integrative operator. This serves to undercut adherence to the myth of the given, which has informed a number of historical inclusivist approaches. As I wrote in a recent blog, when we argue that something is real or true, we are making a claim about how a given conperception (a construct-perception) will behave across a wide range of circumstances. We are saying that we can count on it to behave in certain ways and be subject to certain kinds of confirmation within a given set of operational parameters. Within an Integral enactive paradigm, these parameters include the condition of the speaker.

You responded:  The concern here is that when we hear discussion of IMP matters and AQAL, the overriding sense one gets is that the speaker is regarding IMP/AQAL as carved in stone truth and especially we get the impression that the speaker is not alive with or informed by the integral operator in the act of speaking. You are calling for more performance that demonstrates the the very operator that is being talked about?

Yes, essentially.

I wrote:  It may be worthwhile, in the context of the concerns of this blog as well as the concerns of nondual spirituality, to take a closer look at our presuppositions about knowledge - what is its nature, how is it generated or realized? What is involved in map-based, instrumental or technological knowledge?

You responded:  The concern here is that we haven't given sufficient attention to what we think we know and how we know it? We are quite sophisticated except when it comes to being aware of just how many assumptions we make when we “pontificate” about what we know? In essence, if we truly “understood” post-modern truths, we would not be talking the way we do?

In this example, I was not intending to imply your last point, though you are probably right.  I was simply calling attention to the fact that map-based, instrumental knowledge carries its own underlying presuppositions – its own strengths and limitations – and saying it is useful to be reminded of these things.  My mention of nondual spirituality in this context is an oblique reference to the Time-Space-Knowledge analysis of model-based knowing and the presuppositions upon which that mode of cognition is founded.  Model-based knowing plays from the “score,” to a large extent; with the dawning of vision logic, I believe a more jazz-like or raga-like knowing comes increasingly to the fore.

I wrote:  IMP and the AQAL enactive paradigm take wholeness for granted, but this wholeness is an “active absence”: while dynamic multiplicity may “testify” to this wholeness, as the Bonpos say, it will never show up or present itself as an object for our inspection. This means that the contents of Integral Theory or the AQAL model should not be mistaken as the whole; rather, to shamelessly and cannibalistically appropriate one of Grof's terms, they encourage a holotropic orientation - an orientation which recognizes the “movement towards wholeness” as valuable but which does not presume to represent it as a single, given totality, since no such totality has ever been set up or established.

You responded:  The concern here is that we consistently come across as if we believe we are “putting forth” a “thing” that is whole and can be seen as whole by others?

The way you've framed this makes my comment seem more like an “accusation” than I intended it to be.  There is, of course, a wide variation within the Integral community with regard to how people relate to the AQAL map and to “the whole.”  But, yes, I do think it's important that we recognize that “the whole” is not going to be captured in this way.

I wrote:  This move encourages us to value alterity in and with the movement towards wholeness, since, as Henri Bortoft points out, the whole is found, not in opposition to or through the addition of parts, but ever uniquely in and through them.

You responded:  “Alterity” being the capacity to exchange perspectives with others, right? The concern is that we may not be advancing a movement toward wholeness at all when we engage in debate or intellectual exercises that add or subtract pieces?

No, in this case, I think debate and intellectual exercises are perfectly legitimate.  I'm just trying to suggest a view in which alterity can be honored within a view that is also integrative, that moves towards wholeness without believing it is necessary to erase difference in the process.

I wrote:  The frequently heard claim that Integral or AQAL is “without content” or a neutral operating system strikes me as problematic. I do not think this is a defensible position. Such claims can (and sometimes, in my experience, do) contribute to a tendency to treat the AQAL model as somehow given or inevitable, and this in my view can feed into the use ideologically driven inclusivist strategies, particularly in forums such as this one.

You responded:  The concern is that we posit the Integral model as the very Kosmos and this sets up a bad situation where those who can gain valuable insights do not make the attempt because they have been driven away already by their instinctive disagreement with this model of the world? I am wondering if we are mixing levels up here though. We can say an computer's operating system is without content, inasmuch as it simply allows software to run on top of it. But we can also say the OS is full of content in its own right. Linux would certainly not agree that Windows is the only way to run a computer, right? And we are driving away 10,000 Linuxes by our arrogrant position that Integral is content-free?

To the degree that we consider Integral and AQAL to be content-free, we take them as inevitable, as givens, not the enactments that they actually are.  Windows and Linux may both be downloaded, and we may debate and evaluate their effectiveness, but neither is a content-free given. Underlying the models or platforms are a whole range of presuppositions and aims related to their design – all of which, in my view, qualifies as “content.”

I wrote:  Because Integral communities, to date, tend to be rather insulated - and Integral Naked discussions tend to move in relatively narrow, self-congratulatory circles - I think the maturity of the community will be served by increased efforts to interact with others outside of this movement. More encounters with intractable, unassimilable equals will be good medicine.

You responded:  Your concern is that we are all engaged in mutual-self-congratulation sessions? We need to get out into the world and “show the plan?”

As I mentioned to Ambo, when I referred to the self-congratulatory circle of conversations on Integral Naked, I was referring generally to the audio/video content, not to these forums.  But I think it is valuable to interact with equals who hold very different perspectives.

I wrote:  While Integral has charted a powerful and compelling course beyond pluralism, I believe it is naïve to imagine that the way forward for humanity has a single horizon. The potential for multiple integral horizons, in fact, is implied by the current Integral Postmetaphysical paradigm, but in my dealings with the Integral community I have not found this to be seriously considered.

You responded:  Your concern is that we have found the truth and are now satisfied with it? We are ignoring other integral horizons? Let me ask: where do we find 5 other horizons that bring together the Kosmos in a credible and useful way?

Where are these other horizons that account for and make sense of all of the things Integral does? Where do we start?

I do not think there are many out there, though a few attempts have been made.  In Europe, there is Transdisciplinarity, for example.  I have talked about the TSK vision in relation to Integral here.  Almaas has fashioned a fairly comprehensive, integrative vision of the Kosmos.  And Aurobindo's Integral Yoga represents another integrative vision.  But even if we decide that Wilber's Integral is currently the best – and I certainly think it is one of the best; I'm here, after all, rather than on an Aurobindo forum – I still feel it is important to recognize that the Integral altitude can accommodate multiple visions of the Kosmos.  It may not yet, given its relatively recent emergence; but like other altitudes, it very likely will, in time.

You wrote:  May I add another concern - should we be concerned at all by the notion that we know the way forward for humanity? Or is there a place for positing that we do know the way forward for humanity?

While it is certainly a challenging issue, I think there is a place for positing a way forward for humanity.  I tried to suggest that in my original post, when I wrote the following:  “With pluralism, while we acknowledge that we cannot avoid imposing our own perspective-dependent presuppositions on others, we may nevertheless recognize the creative potential that such a gesture makes available, as we consciously “hold space” for alterity, for the integrity and sanctity of otherness, and therefore we may elect to value the stance of pluralism as the best of the limited options available to us (e.g., exclusivism or inclusivism).  With the Integral perspective, I believe a similar opportunity is available, but one which corrects - or has the potential to correct - for the pendulum swing of pluralism towards the extreme of otherness (which has sometimes unwittingly contributed to even further social fragmentation and segregation) and invites a more balanced recognition and honoring of sameness and difference, sameness-in-difference, and (with its emphasis on types, levels, and so on), difference-in-sameness.”

Best wishes,

Balder

Hi, Dave,

Thank you for your comments.  I hope you are enjoying your vacation!  It sounds lovely…

You wrote:  I view the biggest stumbling block to integral with regards to inclusivity is the heriarchical nature of its understanding of Spiritual development.  As long as theistic interpretations are viewed as “less developed,” a sense of intellectual superiority, albeit tolerant superiority, exists.  I said before that I believe the movement to a more matrix oriented model is a good one.

Do you think growth or development involves transcendence in any way?  If so, I don't think you can get around accepting some type of holarchical perspective.  However, when it comes to things like religious traditions or doctrines, “ranking” them can be problematic – often, the ranking itself is driven by commitment to a particular ideological or doctrinal commitment. 

In the case of Integral, I think the inclusivist strategy that it adopts with regard to Christianity is not the hierarchical one, primarily, but the horizontal or circular one – similar to Jainism's anekantavada or perspectivism.  Here, Integral Theory suggests that our understanding and experience of Spirit or the divine varies according to the perspective adopted, and that it is possible to relate to God in first-person, second-person, or third-person terms.  The idea is that contemplative traditions that find God within, in and as the seeker's own subjectivity, are taking a first-person approach to the nondual ground, while devotional traditions rely primarily on second-person perspectives to encounter and relate to this ground.  Wilber, in discussing this idea, says these different perspectives are available on all levels – and his “inclusivist” strategy is to suggest that all perspectives are essential and  necessary to have a complete relationship to the divine.

You wrote:  I found it interesting that my allusions to intellectual imperialism were met with charges of anti-intellectual imperialism in your last blog.  Who is the imperialist?  Perhaps a yin-yang model would work better, with balance between interpretation and willingness to surrender interpretation in favor or raw, unassuming experience. 

Yes, I suggested something similar – understanding and being able to use a particular “model” while simultaneously being able to suspend our positions in the moment of our encounter with others.  I think it is fine to actually maintain or assert our positions with others, but that should be balanced, in my view, with an attempt to actually surrender our position as well and attempt to stand-under the horizons of the other, to the extent that we are able.

Best wishes,

B.

Jon, I love seeing you leaping there with Lol in your avatar.  And I appreciate reading your leaps of thought as well.

Your point about the role of pathological attenuation in the clarification, refinement, healthy enactment, and evolution of our maps is well taken.  The diaphaneity of the post-pluralist map draws its light from the heart.

Warm wishes,

Balder

Jim,

Yes, I agree – that's a very helpful example of an unhealthy manifestation of  inclusivism within the “Integral Movement.”  You've highlighted two common ways this shows up:

1) Map-territory confusion leading to the belief that Integral Theory itself transcends and includes a particular path of transformation, simply because it has a “place” for it on its overall map. 

2) Map-territory confusion leading a person to believe that, because they have “downloaded” the Integral Operating System, they hold an understanding which transcends and includes all of the objects on that map.

The map does incorporate and integrate an array of perspectives and approaches which is likely greater than any individual approach, obviously, and understanding the map will allow you to situate a particular discipline in relation to others, which has its own value; but I think you are right to point out that this is different from actually having a living understanding of a particular path such that one can say he has personally “included and transcended” it in a more mature perspective.

However, when you say, “Therefore, even if Wilber can show that Grof, for example, is theoretically wrong about certain things, this has zero bearing on how much a given individual may benefit from actually engaging Holotropic Breathwork,” I think this may be too strong an assertion.  If you said, “…this has zero bearing on whether an individual may benefit from actually engaging Holotropic Breathwork,” I would agree with it.  But as it is, this statement suggests that having a coherent or accurate theoretical perspective is irrelevant to the effectiveness of any transformative practice, and I don't think that's the case – especially since one's interventions are often shaped by one's theoretical understanding.

Best wishes,

Balder

Hi, Julian,

Thanks a lot for your kind remarks.  You asked me to unpack the following statement…

Religious pluralism, emerging in the Western context out of the intersubjectivist critique of rationalist epistemology and ontology, thus serves as an important corrective to the earlier strategies of mythic exclusivism and rationalist inclusivism.

In the relatively recent history of interfaith dialogue, a religious pluralist strategy or approach has been embraced and endorsed by some participants in this movement as more adequate than the previous inclusivist strategy.  This is essentially an example of a “postmodern turn” taking place within a movement that had been dominated by individuals who had, until then, embraced either a Blue-level exclusivism or an Orange-level inclusivist universalism, neither of which had yet developed an understanding of intersubjectivity.  There are actually a number of participants in this movement who are articulating a Yellow position or beyond, but they are still a minority.

I expect that what you are interested in me clarifying is what I mean by rationalist (pre-postmodern, Orange) inclusivism.  Essentially, while it is universalist in its leaning – it wants to extend its umbrella to include others (outsiders) within it – it nevertheless starts from a place which presupposes its own view as ultimate, given, rather than recognizing the degree to which it too is culturally and historically contingent. 

Is this clear?  Let me know if it isn't – or, of course, if you have questions about it.

Best wishes,

Balder

In a related conversation on my Integral Post-metaphysical Spirituality pod, Jim linked to an article by Natasha Todorovic, who argues, as Jim wrote, “that some Wilberians who believe themselves to be at what Wilber used to call 'yellow' may in fact be 'yellow false positive.'”

I just read the article this morning – I hadn't come across it before – and I found it to be potentially quite relevant to this discussion.  I don't know if her conclusions are correct, but they do provide food for thought.  Essentially, what she says is that a faulty questionnaire that Spiral Dynamics professionals have been using to determine v-Meme affiliation sometimes falsely places Orange or Blue/Orange respondents at Yellow because of a similarity in surface values; whereas a sentence completion test reveals these individuals to actually be thinking at an Orange or Blue/Orange level.  (The main thrust of the argument in her essay is towards challenging the notion of the Mean Green Meme, which she says is a construct that is more likely to be formulated and used by individuals at Orange or Blue/Orange than by folks at Yellow.)

What is interesting about such possibilities – that there may be folks at Orange or Blue/Orange resonating wth Yellow integralism – is that the inclusivist strategy I've been describing in this post is essentially an Orange strategy.  Again, I am not saying Wilber's model is Orange; but because of the potential for folks at Orange to resonate with it, the implementation of it in the community may sometimes end up looking more like Orange inclusivism…

Hi, Mr. T,

Yes, that's an important distinction - Green with Red shadow, rather than a conscious identification or pairing between Green and Red. 

I did not reference her article because of her critique of the notion of the MGM, however; I cited it because she was describing an example of people who appear Yellow on the surface but whose actual mode of cognition is on another level.  I've been discussing this with others on the Integral Mutliplex forum, and it appears she likely was comparing the results from a Spiral Dynamics test with those from Cook-Greuter's test.  Which means, she was looking at results from tests which measure different lines of development - and therefore it is entirely conceivable that people could score at one level in ego-development, for example, and at another in values or interpersonal or whatever; in fact, that's what we should expect for most people.

B Holmes recently quoted Sean Hargens on the Integral forum:  “A lot of the people that like the integral model are not integral. There's a lot of people who have not stabilized second tier awareness in the self-identity line who love the integral model, who are proponents of the integral model. I don't think the integral community is as self-reflexive and as honest with themselves as they might benefit from. I think everyone gets that your cognitive line is higher than your self line. So, let's just say your cognitive line is turquoise, then most likely your inter-personal line would be teal and your self line would be green (your center of gravity). Because, each of those lines are usually one line above the other and that's pretty common in my experience. And so, I think more integral practitioners need to sober up to the fact that their center of gravity is probably green. There tends to be a bit of an anti-green dynamic out there which I think is problematic and I think this (knowledge) would change the dynamic and rhetoric around how we relate to green.”

I mention his quote here not to argue that most Integralites have a Green center of gravity, though many may; but just as a description of the likely uneven line development within the Integral community - a factor which would also have an impact on the issue I've been highlighting in this discussion, where someone might resonate with and intellectually grasp the Integral model, and yet apply it in their interactions with others in a way that more closely resembles pre-Green inclusivism.

Best wishes,

Balder

Hi, Dave,

Thanks.  That's clarifying for me.  I think we're using the word transcendence somewhat differently.  From your post, it seems you are using it primarily to describe a radical spiritual experience of Otherness, whereas I'm using it in a much more general way – a way that would include the form of transcendence you're describing, but which also includes more “mundane” forms as well.  I see transcendence, transcending, as part of the movement of life – a movement towards individuation, in Jung's terminology; towards increasing wholeness and fullness.  This movement, in my understanding, informs the unfolding of multiple dimensions of our lives, including the intellectual, but certainly not limited to it.

Best wishes,

Balder