I’ll introduce the evil Dragon of the Habbie/Wilber conspiracy with excerpts from the following article. I will follow up in the comments with more excerpts from various sources showing how the Da’s (no)view is not the relativist bugaboo of integral nightmares but actually leads to a postmetaphysical undermining of hegemonic political enactment, including some aspects of the integral movement itself via Ken’s intepretation. As always, the blog merely introduces the topic via the appetizer and the meat and potatoes lies within the dialogical comments.
No Views is Good Views: A Comparative Study of Nagarjuna’s Sunyata and Derrida’s Différance by Lara Braitstein, McGill UniversityÂÂ
Consciousness, Literature and the Arts, Archive, Volume 5 Number 2, August 2004, Special Issue: Jacques Derrida’s Indian Philosophical Subtext
http://www.aber.ac.uk/cla/archive/braitstein.html
To recapitulate, there do appear to be numerous obvious points of comparison between Derrida and Nagarjuna: sunyata and différance; pratitya-samutpada and the ‘weave of differences’; the method of reducing all views to absurdity; and the intention of undermining the dualities which underlie all kind of debate or argumentation – which underlie, in fact, all views.
Something else that Nagarjuna and Derrida share, is the desire, the intent, of putting forward no view. Both are grappling with the slippery issue of trying to put into words the end of discursive thought, and both take as their method not only the destruction of the views of their opponents, but also the rereading of those thinkers who may be said to be on the ‘same side’ (other Buddhists trying to understand emptiness, for Nagarjuna; and thinkers like Heidegger and Freud for Derrida). By demonstrating how all views, just by virtue of their being views, necessarily contradict the ‘truth’ of sunyata /différance, both Nagarjuna and Derrida understand that a reader taking their work as a solid view will have made a grave error in understanding.
To hold emptiness as a view – to reify it or think of it as the essence of things – is to misunderstand it entirely. As the goal of the MMK is to show how absurd it is to hold any view whatsoever, one may with confidence conflate sunyata with Nagarjuna’s position. Therefore, whoever takes Nagarjuna’s work as proposing a view has done something wrong. Derrida writes with more words and less drama:ÂÂ
“What differs? Who differs? What is différance?  If we answered these questions before examining them as questions, before turning them back on themselves, and before suspecting their very form, including what seems most natural and necessary about them, we would immediately fall back into what we just disengaged ourselves from. In effect, if we accepted the form of the question, in its meaning and its syntax (“what is?†“who is?†“who is it that?â€Â), we would have to conclude that différance has been derived, has happened, is to be mastered and governed on the basis of the point a present being…a what, or a present being as a subject, a who.â€Â (Derrida 14-15)ÂÂ
In other words, asking questions of différance as though it were a concept or view like any other, immediately situates the query in precisely the conceptual context différance is meant to undermine. Put simply, “différance,†writes Derrida, “is not†(Derrida 21); “It governs nothing, reigns over nothing, and nowhere exercises any authority†(Derrida 22)[i][v] .
Same article, a little further down:
“This police force is NOT allowed to tell people what level of consciousness they should be at; it is NOT allowed to govern what individuals do in the privacy of their own homes or dwellings; it is NOT allowed to coerce or intimidate people who are not at the average level of social development. It is, however, allowed to prevent (or punish) those whose public behavior stems from a less-than-worldcentric stance. For example, in the privacy of my own home, if I wish to think about burning at the stake all people who do not accept Jesus as their personal savior, that is my right. However, if I actually shoot you because you do not believe in Jesus, then the Stateâ€â€in this case, the World Federationâ€â€can arrest and incarcerate me.”
(http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/misc/iraq.cfm)
Yes, Ken is speaking in highly abstract and idealistic terms here, but this also isn’t supposed to be the thought police. I think that when he talks about preventing other memes from dominating, exploiting, etc, he is thinking specifically about the negative tendencies inherent in each level, and preventing those from within a clearly deliniated legal system.
It is not only the unhealthy aspects of lower memes whose behavior must be prevented by law but also the healthy aspects of their behavior. For example, he said it might be perfectly natural for a red meme to physically dominate, like for a male to rape a woman, but the law prevents it. Yes rape is an unhealthy expression from a higher level but it’s a healthy expression from a lower level, i.e., rape is common in nature. The same applies to a healthy expression of business at the egoic-rational level; wage slavery is a normal behavior at this level but it is pathologic and criminal from a higher level and is to be outlawed.
So this is what I’m talking about with hegemony; not preventing thoughts appropriate to one’s development but preventing those actions that lead to dominance over another. And if an integral level is to prevent dominant behavior it seems consistent that such dominance would be eliminated (as much as possible) from its interior thought models as well, as surely the later (co)create the laws that prevent the former behavior.
And of course this applies on a micro organizational scale as well, with autocracy being an actual political practice stemming from a lower level interior that promotes a healthy hegemony at that level. But surely an integral institute and university is not an autocracy, either in thought or deed, is it?
To me this is the implicit and explicit value of postmetaphysical thinking, feeling and being. If we are to go postmetaphysical let’s go all the way and get the job done better, not leave it half finished with traditional metaphysical power structures of dominant “enlightenment” behaviors still in place.
I can’t say that I agree with you on your first example- rape is never good, even if your too immature (red?) to know any better. Physical domination has to be trained or conditioned into you if your a human.
In my last post I was alluding to the fact that control of food, sex, institutionals all happen- having a full “spectrum” of people is not only impossible to avoid, but healthy as well. They have to interact healthfully, and depending on your position in life you may have to bring one or more “colors to bear” as necessary.
If some guys try to rape or kill you, you need “red” anger and rage to survive. If you run a medical institute, you need to maintain control of salary and spending or you will close, people will not get care, and they will die. Spent your life creating a social/philosophical movement? You need to make the best calls you can with regard to control and letting go.
I think that this is one of the main reasons that Pomo thought is viewed as relativistic- its just so easy to ignore so many of the nuanced complexities on the road to the utopia. You will always have your “fighting spirit” to protect your body and mind. People will always have to sacrafice others to do what’s right sometimes, and in the end each of us alone will have to make the call when it is our turn to do so.
On the question of rape – the notion of its legitimacy is based on differing views of sexuality. In Greco-Roman culture emphasis was placed on the rights of the penetrator, the vir. The vir had a right to penetrate certain classes of people without consent, slaves (male and female, boy and girl), lower class, wives, and of course, enemies. In such a system the use of violent force takes on a different meaning because generally those who could be pentrated knew their position and direct force was not always needed. However, in the Roman world the vir was expected to exercise a degree of brutality to prove their virility. Many of the events at the coliseum included raping captured women.
The idea that anyone had a right to consent arose with the modernist idea of the individual. Until that time sex was often seen as a right of a husband and marriage was often arranged under various social rules. The idea that a wife or a slave could deny the ‘master’ sex was absurd.
In other words, the meaning of sex was different. This has both an individual and social developmental component.
Which is of course my point, that from different developmental perspectives rape is acceptable. And that legal governance takes the highest perspective and imposes its behavioral patterns on the lower. All are free to be what they are but not to act out as they normally would. Like sports allows us to express our lower memes in a higher context but this used to act out in its natural (and healthy, from its historically appropriate context) expression as killing, raping and pillaging. E.g., the marital arts is full of historical killing in the name of…you name it: honor, tribe, family, etc. Now we have tournaments with rules, etc.
I am not taking Ken serious on the practical side anymore, only his theories (and I like those, although I not always agree). Look at his latest blog entry “looking for a CEO”. Perhaps Americans look different at this kind of terminology, but for me these kind of sentences are from somebody completely in a Narcissistic trip. From his blog http://www.kenwilber.com/blog/post/199?page=1
“You might be holding one of the most significant positions on the planet today.”
Like he is looking for the next president of the US
Perhaps it is his manic side Ray talked about that comes up in this posting, but it sure sounds like he could use a good dosis of realism, otherwise he is going to end up like Icarus.
I agree Marco in that the theory far outweighs the practical application so far. This is part of what I’m talking about with Ken and I-I, that it’s still into conventional business organization and marketing methods, i.e., enacting lower meme structures with their concomittant dose of narcissistic individualism. (No, this doesn’t mean destroying autonomy, just balancing it.) And part of the narcissism comes from all this “traditional” spiritual hierarchy and metaphsyical altitude stuff. Yes, I know, my “level” must be lower because I point it out. Wrong!
“This is part of what I’m talking about with Ken and I-I, that it’s still into conventional business organization and marketing methods, i.e., enacting lower meme structures with their concomittant dose of narcissistic individualism.”
I am owning a consultancy and training business myself and I don’t think it is natural that when you go into the business world you need to apply authotarian structures. There are much more sophisticated organisation structures out there. And I certainly don’t agree with marketing being the same as saying you are the best, the greatest, the only etc., like Wilber is doing. That is a very simplistic, undeveloped, unrefined form of marketing. So the fact that he has a busniess and is using marketing is not the problem, the narcissistic way he is doing it is.
“And part of the narcissism comes from all this “traditional†spiritual hierarchy and metaphsyical altitude stuff. ”
No, the spiritual hierarchy and the metaphysical altitude stuff is just used by the narcissistic personality. He would do the same if he would write about tennis. Ultimately narcissism is always a sign of incomplete self-realisation. Someone who is selfrealised would see degrees of development but never attach a value system to it, like Wilber is showing f.i. with his I only want second tiers in the I-I.
Have you guys considered that maybe he’s just enthusiastic? Maybe trying to inspire others to take what would be a big risk? In my experience large organizations do need leaders and managers- people to be held accountable for specific tasks if nothing else. That’s what Ken is looking for, it sounds like.
Actually, it sounds like Ken is recognizing his limitations, and looking for a likeminded and interested management specialist for his organization… I say kudos to him for getting off his butt and trying to make the world a better place. If that makes him a hyper-individualistic narcissist, then maybe you guys should reexamine your definition of what that means to you.
If he doesn’t try all out, he won’t achieve anything- give him a break.
Hi Matthew, enthousiastic would mean he would use words like that: “I am thrilled to announce”, “we are very excited about our institute” etc. What I am pointing to here is this distorted representation of reality, about I-I being the most important, most developed, most unique place on this planet etc. And it is not only in this posting, also in his book Integral Spirituality. I call that grandiosity, not just enthousiasm.
And the main reasons why I am not giving him a break about that is because I happen to care about his integral theories and I think this narcissistic attitude will have a distorting and thus negative effect on him and thus on his theories.
Besides I have seen some very distructive things in movements that say they are going to change the world and are led by a narcissistic leader. This is a dangerous combination. Usually it ends up with group dynamics like ‘we are the chosen’ ‘we are better than them’ and ‘they (meaning the world) are against us’. I already see the beginning of that, f.i. in the Wyatt Earp blog.
When you are part of a intersubjective environment like that development becomes very hard because adjustment is usually the prime necessary behaviour. If you want to see a nice example of how that works, go and read this website about the inner group mentality of Andrew Cohen; http://essentialwhatenlightenment.blogspot.com/
or for instance “The God that failed” by Hugh Milne about the group under Rajneesh. From those perpectives I see every reason to raise my voice about his narcissistic statements.
Honestly, Ken seems to be making a tung-in-cheek joke about the fact that he didn’t have tons of money to pay a huge salary.
I haven’t been convinced Kens the next Rajneesh- he has made it clear that he isn’t interested in being a guru. Ken has specifically stayed out of the spotlight for the last, what, twenty-odd years or something, has no personal students… you are entitled to your opinion, of course, but in this case I can’t agree.
I didn’t think IS was any more grandious than anything else coming out of the Philosophical and SocAnth. worlds. It was incredibly tame by new-age standards. I say that if we care about integral theory, we wait and see what he’s got before writing him off.
Let’s hope you are right.
Marko, Matthew: See the following link for some background on “the most important job on the planet”:
http://garystamper.blogspot.com/
Thanks Edward for the relevant link, you seem to know everything on the net
. I remember now the e-mail from Steve where he said “I donated a million, how much do you give?”, which I thought was quite tasteless. But if he is out (and the question is ‘with or without his million?’), there probably will have been some major problems around lately.
Definitly strange, hopefully someone clarifies that one. The comment about the switch to the term “ILP” seemed wierd as well- But thanks Edward, if you hear more I definitely want to know too!
I went back and checked One Taste, IS and A Theory of Everything. Seems that Ken used ITP as a very generic term for creating an all quadrent practice in AToE. However he also does mention the idea of creating an “integral practice” on (at least) pages 320-321 of One Taste. One Taste published-1999. A Theory of Everything published- 2000. Sounds like IS is stating things accurately enough, unless there are label politics I don’t know about.