text/Wilber-TheIntegralVision-OriginsAndApplications-Pt3.txt

Do you think that elements like democracy, United Nations and human rights are born thanks to the pluralistic point of view?  And the other question is, if you think that we can go beyond the universalistic discourse of these elements that have an evident Western ethnocentric essence?  Well, yes, I do think that in large measure, things like the United Nations and various attempts at sort of a world federation are driven by this leading edge postmodern thinking.  And this actually reflects a bit of a shift.  Originally, things like the United Nations were brought into being by the modern universalistic.  Level of development.  And the idea was that all men and women are equal.  And therefore, all states and nations need to be considered on an equal footing.  And so that began as a modern and world centric approach.  But as postmodern edge started to develop.  Then a lot of.  These structures, including the United Nations, essentially began to shift from modern to postmodern modes.  Now, what that did is increase the awareness that the universalistic mode that was in place was still biased.  It still had some Western or Eurocentric modes.  And therefore, there is a very, very.  Sharp criticism of modernity by postmodernity.  And there was this was sort of good news and bad news, because the good news was that it was actually sort of completing the project of modernity, which was an attempt to create all men and women equal to treat them equally.  And so postmodernity just came in and said, oh, yes, but you forgot to include gays and you really have not included women, even though you say you want to.  And you've not included views from all these other cultures from Africa to India.  And so even though you say you're world centric, you're really not.  And so let's get with the program.  And so postmodernity gave a very sharp criticism of modernity.  The bad news is that many, many people are not yet up to the level of modernity.  They're actually pre-modern and pre-rational.  Magic and mythic.  And the levels of development go from egocentric to ethnocentric to world centric.  And then what I call cosmocentric, which is a correspondence to the integral levels.  But the first world centric level of development was modernity.  Modernity was the first to move out of purely ethnocentric modes.  So prior to the Western Enlightenment, there was only these traditional modes.  And then there was the modernist, ethnocentric structures of society.  And they were usually all bound up with a particular religious form.  So to disagree with the state was to commit both a political crime and a religious crime.  With modernity, these value spheres of art, morals, and science were differentiated.  And that was a very positive aspect of modernity.  And modernity was a very positive aspect of modernity.  And modernity was a very positive aspect of modernity.  And modernity was the first to then extend rights to all human beings.  And so it began by extending rights to all males, and then all black males, and all women, and then even to children.  And in a 100-year period, the modern structure eradicated slavery from the face of the planet.  All previous modes.  All modes of society, including foraging, and horticultural, and agrarian, had some degree of slavery.  But only the industrial mode, the modern, rational industrial mode, in a 100-year period, eradicated slavery from every industrialized nation on the planet.  So all of that was good news.  It was a first attempt to treat everybody fairly.  Equally.  The difficulty then with post-modernity is that in attacking modernity, it did so entirely.  It attacked all of modernity.  It basically said the entire Enlightenment project is wrong.  And instead of supplementing it with truths that needed to be added, it merely deconstructed the Western Enlightenment entirely.  It said everything about it is wrong.  Now the problem with that...  ...is that 70% of the world's population is not yet up to the level of modernity.  And that means they're in either egocentric or ethnocentric modes.  And whether that's a fundamentalist Muslim acting as a terrorist, or whether it's a Southern Baptist in the United States blowing up abortion clinics,  or whether it's a Sikh separatist, or whether it's Buddhists putting sarin gas in the toilet,  or whether it's a Sikh guy in the Tokyo subway system,  these are all ethnocentric modes of action.  And as long as individuals are at ethnocentric or lower levels,  there will be some type of value warfare.  As I said, 70% of the world's population are at ethnocentric or lower.  They haven't gotten up to the modern rational stage of development.  And so when the post-modernists...  completely throw out modernity, trash modernity.  They're actually trashing the stage necessary to get to post-modernity.  Actually, it's a suicidal move to completely throw out the Western Enlightenment.  And so that's the good news, bad news of post-modernity.  And because of the way that post-modernity has developed,  and it involves largely what I also call a pre-post fallacy,  post-modernity confuses pre and trans, confuses pre and post,  confuses pre-conventional and post-conventional,  and then basically attacks the modern and supports the pre-modern  because it confuses pre-modern with post-modern.  Be that as it may, because post-modernity,  has developed with this rather deep confusion in it,  that I think the only way that these political organizations,  such as the United Nations, are going to begin to be truly inclusive  is when the integral stages themselves start to inhabit these organizations.  And just as they basically shifted from,  modern to post-modern in the last 20 years,  so I believe in the next 10 or 20 years,  they're going to begin essentially to shift from post-modern to integral.  And then integral inherently includes the truths of post-modern,  but it also includes the very important truths of modernity,  as well as the important truths of pre-modernity.  So I think it's only now, as we see shifts,  from this pluralistic mode into more integral modes,  that we're going to get out of this flatland approach  that doesn't recognize interior stages  and also get out of this approach that attacks modernity  and wants to throw it out entirely, wants to deconstruct all of it,  and has managed now to deconstruct all meaning.  So there's what the downside of post-modernity is that  there are no beliefs left that anybody can,  publicly, voice.  So nobody's really,  there's no post-modernist that really takes any belief seriously.  Because they're all just social constructs,  they're all the product of history,  there's nothing enduring about them,  there's nothing universal about them.  And so all post-modernity has is criticism of what exists.  And once it runs out of criticizing everything,  once it deconstructs everything,  which it's done in the last 20 years,  everything has been deconstructed,  then post-modernity is just left with its own narcissism and its own nihilism.  And that's very, very much a part of what's happened.  So the short answer to your question is  that I do believe that structures like the United Nations  do have a, and are largely driven by, pluralistic mode today,  which attempts to treat all individuals equally  and attempts to treat all beliefs equally.  But it doesn't fully succeed  because it's not a pluralistic mode.  It absolutely hates modern values,  and it absolutely hates integrative values.  So it's not being inclusive.  And because of that,  a true inclusive culture  and a true inclusive World Federation  or truly inclusive United Nations  is going to happen when a large number,  20, 30, 40, 50 percent of those bodies  are made up of individuals  who have moved into an integral level of development.  And I believe that's in the process of slowly happening right now.  And that's why people that become aware of the integral approach,  but mine or any of us, there are several approaches.  There are many approaches out there  that are attempting to be more integral.  There's an excitement about it.  There's a sense that something is in the air,  that something really important is happening,  that something really fundamental is starting to change,  that of the five or six major transformations  that the world has seen,  the world has seen historically,  going from archaic to magic to mythic  to rational to pluralistic,  going from foraging to horticultural  to agrarian to industrial to informational,  that we're now on the verge of a next major transformation,  again, of which there have only been about five or six  in the entire history of humankind.  We are about to go through another one.  And it appears to be,  it appears to be extremely profound  because it's the first transformation  that moves people into a stage  that is inclusive of all previous stages.  And that's why it's sometimes called second tier  because it's a leap from first tier structures,  each of which believes that they have the only correct approach,  to second tier or integral,  which is the first structure to believe that all of them  have important truths.  And that everybody develops through the entire spectrum.  Everybody's born at square one  and goes through archaic period, magic period,  mythic period, rational period, pluralistic.  And integral stages are the first to intuitively understand that.  And therefore, it's the first to actually make room  for all of these approaches.  And that's a transformation  that we've never seen before in history, ever.  And since this appears,  it appears to be a transformation  that's not just based on ideas,  like let's say deconstruction,  which is something you have to learn.  It's based on an actual stage of human growth  so that individuals actually go through this stage  in an internal fashion.  It's a territory that they develop into.  It's not something they have to learn  any more than an oak has to learn how to have leaves.  But it's an inherent part of human nature.  And it's one that's starting to unfold at this time.  And that's why there's a sense of excitement  in the air about this transformation.  And Ken, how will the people that achieve  that integral approach confront the gap  that will exist between them and the rest  that have not achieved that stage?  That is the $64,000 question.  Yes.  That is the question of all questions.  And there are several aspects to it,  but I'll just give you the quick answer first,  which is that in terms of how to help people transform,  that remains something of a mystery.  Developmental psychology knows an awful lot  about the actual phenomenology of development.  In other words, it knows that at this stage,  there's primarily archaic instincts,  and then at this stage, there's magical cognition,  and where there's,  where there's a lot of,  where there's a lot of,  where there's a lot of,  where there's a lot of,  where there's a lot of,  words are not differentiated  from the objects they represent very well.  So to manipulate the word is to actually change the object.  So you get voodoo type of rituals.  And then from there, moving into mythic,  and moves from egocentric to an ethnocentric,  fundamentalistic approach,  and starts to conceive of universal truth,  but only in its own version,  and it's a mythic version.  So it's associated usually with a single god or goddess,  and that god's prophet and one book,  and that one book is the eternal truth forever.  Very absolutistic type of thinking.  And then from there,  into rational,  which adds a third person approach,  and that gives it a universal,  or post-conventional view of human beings.  But the universal view tends to be fixed,  and somewhat colored by the culture that it's in.  So for scientific,  scientific approaches to humans,  that meant it was zero-centric.  And then from there, into integral.  There's a good understanding of those stages,  when they occur.  What we don't know is how they occur,  and why they occur.  Some people seem to develop through them fairly quickly.  Others seem to develop not well at all.  And there are certain exercises that we can do  that seem to facilitate this vertical growth.  One of them is having individuals  who are not necessarily human beings,  be put in situations where they have to take the role of other,  where they have to take other perspectives.  Because what is true with each of these higher stages of development,  is that they have more perspectives  that can be taken into account.  So you go from a magic,  a pre-conventional level,  which is only first person oriented,  and therefore is often described as a drive for power,  the need for power,  or a narcissistic orientation.  It just takes its own view,  into account,  and doesn't take others into account.  And then when you move from there into the mythic conformist,  that actually adds a second person perspective.  So you can actually take the role of other,  but you're usually captured by that,  so you can become very conformist to what others think.  And virtually all developmentalists have some stage  that's very, very conformist,  and very conventional,  and very rigid,  very dogmatic,  very absolutistic.  And then,  a third person perspective is added,  when you move into the modern rational egoic mode.  And that's why various forms of science tend to emerge.  That's why the value systems of art,  morals,  and science,  or the good,  the true,  and the beautiful become differentiated,  and each is allowed to pursue its own path.  That's because you have a third person,  universalist perspective that can be added.  And then the pluralistic stage,  as a fourth person perspective,  that actually differentiates that universalist perspective  of the modern stage.  And you end up then with a multicultural view of reality.  The downside of that is you have no idea  how to fit them together.  So you're stuck with a fragmented,  broken world with deconstruction.  And then the integral stage is add a fifth person perspective.  And these are things that have actually measured.  Jane Lovinger uses first, second, third, fourth,  and fifth person perspectives.  As markers of her stages of growth.  And that's why one's capacity for care and love grows  with each stage of development.  And when it goes from egocentric,  where I could only love myself,  to ethnocentric,  I love my group,  I love my tribe,  I love my family,  I love my nation,  to world-centric,  I love all human beings,  regardless of race,  color,  sex, or creed.  And so there's an expansion,  there's an expansion,  there's an expansion,  there's an expansion of consciousness and awareness  and emotions.  But again, how that happens  is a very, very mysterious event.  So people that are at second tier,  fundamentally, it's an ambivalent position to be in.  Because it's very good on the one hand,  because with its fifth person perspective,  it intuitively realizes that all the previous levels  are important.  So it intuitively understands  that everybody is coming from  a position that's partially true.  And so it becomes a very, very inclusive,  embracing structure with the capacity  for an enormous amount of love and care and concern.  And that translates into a concern for social good,  for doing the right thing,  sociopolitically.  But then when it confronts individuals at first tier,  it runs into a problem.  Because individuals at first tier don't agree  with the integral approach.  They either agree with their traditionalist,  fundamentalist approach,  or they are stuck in their scientific materialist approach.  And scientific materialism doesn't want anything  to do with interiors.  So all of those, all the left-hand quadrants,  as we say, are tossed out by scientific materialism.  And then the pluralist includes interiors.  But doesn't include any commonalities  between the multicultural fragments that it sees.  So it sees no way that you can have any good universals.  And it's caught in what's called a Performative  Contradiction.  because it's claiming its own truths are true universally.  And people from Jürgen Obermas  to Charles Taylor have pointed out  the fundamental contradictions of the postmodernist stance. 美味  That's one of the reasons postmodernism is kind of ground to an end.  But what an integral person does is whenever they try to explain a more integral approach  to somebody at a traditional modern or postmodern stage,  they're sort of met with anything from a kind of a blank stare to kind of open hostility.  And so people that are at the integral stage are often what I call closeted.  It's like we say homosexuals are closeted because they're hiding the fact that they're gay  because there's so much societal disapproval of it.  Well, it's the same with people at integral stage.  Every time they sort of try to explain this more expansive view,  they're met again with either blank stares or irritation or boredom or anger.  So what we're waiting to see is integral.  It tends to do the following, which is it will tend to take people at the integral stage,  tend to take an integral view and translate it in the terms of people at different stages.  So they will translate an integral view into traditional view.  They'll just use traditional language and they'll just speak in absolutistic terms,  but they'll try to expand the person's view within that level.  And they'll do the same with somebody at modernity.  They'll just use modern terms.  They fall into the same sort of language.  They translate the integral view downward and speak in modern terms, scientific terms, objective terms,  but try to expand that view as much as possible within that level.  And the same with the postmodernist.  Using the postmodernism attempts to be integral.  It attempts to be inclusive by watching out for the marginalized aspects of society.  But it's not fully integral because it hates modernity  and claims everything on modernity doesn't include any of modernity's values.  And it hates post-postmodernity.  It hates the next stage above it.  It hates integral.  And so it's not really being inclusive.  And so that's sort of gently pointed out.  But it remains a real issue on how integral can actually talk to non-integral stages.  And, of course, the main thing is it does translate.  It doesn't translate it into their terms.  And so it will talk principles to somebody traditional.  It'll talk profit to somebody modern.  It'll talk persons to somebody at pluralistic.  And particularly, it looks for individuals that are at pluralistic that are ready to move to integral.  And about a third of the individuals at the pluralistic stage are called pluralistic exit.  In other words, they've been at the pluralistic stage for 10 or 20 years.  They've sort of tasted it fully.  They begin to run into the contradictions of being at that stage.  So it's no longer comfortable being pluralistic.  They intuit something's a little bit off about it.  Something's not right.  Something is contradictory.  Something inherently is wrong.  And they are ready to move to an integral stage.  And so somebody at an integral stage...  Talking with somebody at a pluralistic exit can often be a change agent for them.  It can actually help them to transform.  And I believe that's actually what's happening now.  Because there are a fair number of leaders, of political leaders,  that are fully aware of the integral approach.  And, as a matter of fact, both Bill Clinton and Al Gore have publicly endorsed  this specific approach.  And so that's how it happens is slowly leaders that are at the integral stages themselves  start to advocate that approach.  And that will have its own impact on these other stages in specific ways.  But particularly it can help people at the pluralistic exit stage  who are ready to move to integral.  And I believe that's a large number of people now.  Because everywhere from the United Nations,  to NGOs have been operating on pluralistic values now for, you know, two decades or more.  And they've gotten the good out of it that they can,  but they're starting to run into the contradictions.  And the fact that postmodern pluralism,  after it includes the marginalized sectors,  because it doesn't know how to fit them together,  ends up giving us a bunch of free subcultures  that are actually fractional.  And they're fragmented from each other,  have no way to talk to each other,  are their own isolated orbits.  And those orbits tend to regress to ethnocentric,  tend to regress to the fundamentalist level.  And that's what's happened now.  So we have a great deal of regression  to every isolated subculture in the world  that thinks that it has absolute rights.  And that's a bit of a disaster.  But in terms of transformation, hopefully it's just leaders like that,  starting to publicly support a more integral approach.  And I think that we're seeing more and more of that.  And that's what's also very exciting.  That's what gives us sort of an exciting edge  to the integral revolution.