The reason no one really understands what globalization is or how it works is, I would argue, because it is a naturally occurring phenomenon. No one masterminded it or dreamt it up in a laboratory or a smokey back-room. Globalization just emerged, it just happened, and it is still evolving. In what direction it goes depends almost entirely on who is participating and in what ways they are choosing to participate.

Not that I trust every naturally occurring human phenomenon, but to go way back to an old post of mine, the movement of trade between countries is the systemic arm of our collective impulse and deep-rooted move towards integration. The system must first establish structures, a path, something for the human race to walk along together.

I'm convinced that we humans are moved deeply to find a way to fit together. It's a little silly actually, from the Meta perspective, that we have so many fault lines that divide us. Clearly, sharing four limbs, a limbic system and DNA should tell us we are of the same species. But values, historical lineage streams and the odd impulse in the human animal to still cast one another into the role of 'other' conspire to keep us divided.

I'm no idealist, to be honest. This will never be a utopia. It is broken here, a concocted mess of dramatized suffering, fear and longing. It's a wonder we get by day to day. A tribute to the resilience of the species. Make no mistake though: we have the grace of gods within us, unrealized capacity to transcend circumstances.

Imagine a thousand years ago, embedded into the fabric of the universe was the intelligence to create the wonders that surround us today. What, pray tell, lay dormant in potential now, to be unravelled a thousand years hence?

I'm convinced it is some level of deep integration (implicitly mixed with the competitive edge that drives our innovative spirit) that holds the secret for our continued march through history. I see the global economy as simply a necessary means to that end, though I could be convinced that local communities with close technological/virtual ties may also do the trick. I don't really give a damn how it's done. But, as ever, if we don't find reasonable ways to hang together, surely, we shall hang apart.

The point is simply that, in principle, cross-paradigmatic judgments are possible because there is not simply one world against which paradigms compete for dominance, a kind of king-of-the-hill battle that tosses all losers on the garbage dump, because there are no losers. There is not one world over which all paradigms are fighting for supremacy, but many worlds brought forth by different paradigms, worlds that can be eye-witnessed by the same subjects if they submit to the discipline of the paradigms required to enact those worlds. And while "the" world cannot contain many worlds, awareness can. And because we already know that are in fact many worlds, it follows that we already are standing in an awareness that has cross-paradigmatic capacity, a capacity that can eventuate in metatheoretical overview, such as the one offered by AQAL.⁶

These three regulative principles--nonexclusion, enfoldment, enactment--are principles that were reverse engineered, if you will, from the fact that numerous different and seemingly "conflicting" paradigms are already being competently practiced all over the world; and thus the question is not, and never has been, which is right and which is wrong, but how can all of them already be arising in a Kosmos? These three principles are some of the items that need to be already operating in the universe in order for so many paradigms to already be arising, and the only really interesting question is how can all of those extraordinary practices already be arising in any universe?

In the footnote to #6, KW further comments:

 It is not necessary that the horizons of different paradigms are reproduced identically in all subjects undergoing the discipline, only that the subjects themselves can agree on certain broad similarities, a topic that is central to Excerpt C, subheading "A History of We's."

In fact, as Ricoeur points out what is communicated publicly in conversation & dialogue is never my inner personal experience but rather the public meaning of that experience. So even Wilber's point is that you and don't have to have the exact same experience/worldspace when reading his quotation (though the three strands still apply--take up the practice, i.e. read the thing, the event/meaning is disclosed [if you get it], and whether you get it is checked via discourse with the knowledge community].  All that has to happen is we have a more or less similar (mutually recognizably so) sets of intuitions/experiences regarding the above.   

And the reason that this not absolutely identical but roughly overlapping sets of horizons is all that is necessary is because the world is not pre-set.  Returning to the earlier quotation, there is not "the/one world." 

If philosophy is a meditation on being-in-the-world, I find this attitude one of grace.  There is a deep relaxation involved in: A)seeing that much of what we initially term as conflict is really underneath sign of relative health (people are clueing in to their own experience, already in practice, if unconscious in large measure) which means we don't have to enforce some one truth on all beings and B)not needing to have the "exact same experience" and fretting over the exact nature of the exact nature but rather focusing more space and attention to learn to articulate clearly and listen attentively and find creative ways of interacting with both our similar (roughly) worldspaces and the differences, different qualities/nuances we each feel/experience within them.  

The beginning sets the off-base tone for the rest:

Readers of this blog, the book or, in particular people who've heard me speak about the book at length, know that I think political philosophy, or more accurately, political visions can be boiled down to Locke versus Rousseau. The Lockean vision holds that man is the captain of his soul, that his rights come from God, the individual is sovereign, that the government exists because men of free will cede certain authorities to it in order to best protect their lives and property.

The Rousseauian vision holds that the collective comes before the individual, our rights come from the group not from God, that the tribe is the source of all morality, and the general will is the ultimate religious construct and so therefore the needs — and aims — of the group come before those of the individual.

First off notice how decidedly reductionistic/simplistic and Western-centric this Lockean/Rossueauian dichotomy is. How would Confucius fit in this scheme? He emphasized promoting harmony and filial piety (collective side) though at the same time the government was responsive to and society was ordered upon The Rule of Heaven (God-equivalent, so Lockean).

Or the Qu'ran, the principal text in Muslim political discourse. The individual stands before God and is judged by his/her deeds alone and therefore has certain rights in this world that can not be trounced upon. But also of course heavy emphasis on the ummah (the social body of Muslim believers worldwide). Not to mention the critique within of tribal versus meta-tribal moralities (red and blue in Spiral terms) both of which have social-collective emphasis. So you see Goldberg has already lumped all "social collective" tendencies into one as if they were all the same.

Even within Western discourse, I'm not sure this dichotomy makes a great deal of sense. What about Hobbes? He is profoundly influential to Western political discourse and doesn't easily fall into this Locke vs. Rousseau schema.

And I'm doubting Martin Luther King was citing Rousseau as his primary influence on the Civil Rights movement. A no doubt progressive effort with plenty of emphasis on social relations, collective commitment and cross-class, cross-racial, cross-geographic, cross-religious large-scale bonding identities.

Not to mention John Rawls who sought to ground more discussion of equality (social-collective) within an overall Lockean framework (constitutional order, individual rights, social contract). Rawls is arguably far more influential for American mainstream left thought than JJR.

Of course since humans are always already individuals-in-relation (autonomy and sociality, rights and responsibilities) the real question is neither either/or but the proper balance of the two and how the lines should be demarcated. Obviously for Goldberg, the social/collective tendencies must come through the nuclear family, civic organizations, volunteer society, but never in a way expressed through formal governance. Now I have a great deal of respect for that opinion on one level--strongly supporting the notion that our local, more rooted bonds take precedence over vague abstractions like "the world community" and so forth. People taking responsibility into their own hands, defining their own selves, not waiting around for the guvment to fix things.

On the other hand, given the history of the world, I can't take it as simply some intrusion of left-wing fascism or accidental that with the rise of industrialization, social welfare policies were enacted within all of the countries who underwent (in the 20th century) the process. That of course for Goldberg makes me a card carrying Marxist I suppose, but so be it. A new technological-economic structure inherently brought forth a new social form of connection. Doesn't mean that is to embrace all the statism of the 20th century, that there isn't massive government interference/over-reach (on both the right and left), just that you aren't undoing this entire structure (governmentally or socially) unless you undo the entire technological order that makes possible such configurations.

Back to JG:

Bill Clinton's modestly named "Global Clinton Initiative" is sold with the following sentiment from Bill Clinton, which appeared on the GCI's website for years. “In my life now,” Clinton declares, “I am obsessed with only two things: I don't want anybody to die before their time, and I don't want to see good people spend their energies without making a difference.” (Historians may add that there was a third obsession — with his wife's campaign for president).

Forget the gnostic hubris in the idea that Clinton could be part of anything that could determine when the right time to die for each of billions of humans might be, the idea that everyone — and I mean everyone — should be "making a difference" as defined by a handful of global priests is really a stunning, and to my mind frightening, ambition. Leave no child behind has escaped the paddock and is now galloping across the globe.

How dense is that analysis; I mean come on. Here's a wild guess. When Bill Clinton says he is obsessed about people not "dying before their time" I'm betting he means things like children dying of starvation/hunger, humans dying of diseases of which we in the industrialized world have cures for, that kind of thing. i.e. People dying from causes that we could alleviate and therefore they would likely just live out the rest of their lives. That is what he means by dying before their time. Not that he Bill Clinton wants to be Supreme Ruler of the Earth and decide when people die. WTF?

The second half of Clinton's dyad Goldberg completely mashes and garbles. First off, Clinton said "all good people" not "all people" (pace Goldberg) and secondly Clinton said "spend their energies without making a difference." We know that one of Clinton's big things is to bring more accountability (a la Buffet and Gates) to charitable giving--see Clinton's book on the subject. i.e. (Again guessing here) Clinton meant something like he sees a lot of good willed people who are trying to do good things, but structurally the systems aren't in place for them to make lasting contributions. Ergo, their energies and good will get wasted. That's something markedly less than Clinton's global priesthood via diktat enforcing worship of their "difference making" religion.

--

Update I: And just for the record, I don't believe in "transnational progressivism" or some transnational cosmopolitanism. I think every state should be itself, each country has its own history that has contours/grooves that need to be respected and honored (the good elements that is) but can also bring others into that stream and they add their own elements (this is my American side now talking). Both rooted and open to change. At the same time there are common larger than nation-state problems (terrorism, climate issues, labor/human migration, spread of disease) that require alliances and connections to work together in mutual interest.

But who needs basic common sense when you can in such black and white terms segregate and categorize and vilify every one in purely abstract terms--not ever touching upon any of the actual presenting problems/issues current.

The Quadrants are the individual (UL), communal (LL), biological (UR), and techno-economic-ecological (LR).

The writing experiment beings after the jump...

--

The route I walk three to five times per week is without my thinking about it anymore essentially routinized. Just the other day it occurred to me that this is was in part the design of some city planner(s). I end up walking to a nearby park and the route I go to get there is the fastest, with the least traffic (not that there is much in my hood anyway) and often the most tree lined.

My consciousness (UL) and my physical body/organism (UR) ride and are only possible due to the gift of this person's vision and the labor of many others.

From a birds eye/God's view perspective, from the person standing on a rooftop in my neighborhood, they could watch me walk and would quite easily be able to predict my end point and the route I will take to get there.

But that person would not be able to sense the rhythms of my body--only a person following up close to me during my walk could take my heart rate or listen to my breathing or any other number of biofeedback loops. But they could not gain the vantage on the path I/we would be taking.

While consciousness never exists with a material rider and in this case as well as urban planning, systematic structures. No consciousness in that exact time and space without the sewer lines, the booming real estate industry, etc.

Now on these walks I tend to do my "big picture/free mind/deep thinking." Walking, movement (e.g. pacing) has always in a sense freed my mind up to be more creative and productive. Undoubtedly there is some biochemical rationale involved here--the walking releasing some hormones perhaps that help give space to deeper thought.

Similar because of the ordered design (LR) of the neighborhood I can walk without focusing too heavily on my immediate physical surroundings, also opening space for deeper thought.

But seeing me walking (either from the birds eye position or the up close biofeedback position) would one be able to determine/guess what I was thinking. While the material substrate of both my biology and the environment (natural and human-created) make possible this conscious exploration/meditation they do not determine its contents or contours. But again no thought without them either.

How would one know that I was doing this very thought experiment on the arising and coherence of quadratic existence? How would one know via 3rd person modes of being-in-the-world what my first person mode of being in the world was contemplating?

Unless of course one asked me (LL). And then we entered 2nd person conversational mode of being in the world. If a person approached me as another human (i.e. a thinking-feeling being of depth) and asked me what I was thinking about my response would be based no doubt on what I was contemplating.

But I would have shifted as well from a 1st person mode (interior phenomenological turning in on my own mind) to the outward other and Language would then enter--discourse, dialogue, the 2nd person m-o-b (mode of being).

This conversation is itself not determined by either the city architecture, our respective biological organisms or even our own individual thought (though each are always in play). As Paul Ricoeur has shown we never gain access into the inner experience (the other's 1st person m-o-b) but what is communicated is the public meaning/presentation of my inner experience.

Just as I now am communicating in public the reflection about this period's reflection. It can not recreate the inner felt experience of my personal cogitation, and no doubt the format of this writing is itself shaped by the medium of blogging (itself shaped by the exigencies of its technological frame, i.e. the internet). Yet it is always free and non-determined.

Though it is not entirely free on the other hand. The language we speak presumably would be English already massively structured in terms of grammar, social approved/valued forms of communication and the methods and ways of such typical conversations. All of these are never absent from my communication of my interior thought and yet again (since all quadrants arise) are not totally determinative of what I say.

But what I say is not always what is heard/communicated and the dialogue itself opens up the possibility of new learnings, new creations, new memories that retroactively re-create what I was thinking in the earlier episode.

And then the individual may walk away after our brief conversation. The birds eye viewer has only seen an interaction between two organisms. I return to my first person frame/experience. I cross the street.

Primary among them: moving to totally deregulate sectors, especially financial, is a bust. It is still rare for decision-makers in these industries to be operating from enlightened self-interest. Greed is still the primary motivator; cutthroat competition compels short-term thinking; capital rich environments produce vast indulgences.

Listen, if you bought a house you couldn't afford, a pox on you. The fact that someone was willing to sanction your stupidity is no excuse. On the other hand, the fact that government is forced to stabilize the latter largely at the expense of the former is criminal. Necessary but criminal.

It's long been said that capitalism is the best system among a bad lot of alternatives. Not exactly a ringing endorsement. I hold that capitalism - unlike other state-sanctioned alternatives - is inherently neutral (while communism for example is theoretically ideal) and is therefore determined by the operating system of the individuals driving it. In a world principled by win-win decision-making, the free movement of goods and services without heavy handed interference from bureaucratic officials would see a world lifted at all the margins. This is not going to happen any time soon. So, truthfully, we are still in need of government to help determine parameters regarding competition standards, equal distribution and, for lack of a better term, modesty.

The ruthless bastards who daily push the edge of legality and integrity still require parental guidance to define the boundaries of their playground. I know because I deal with many of them. They have mastered the rhetoric of 'worldcentric' while having wonderfully clever ways of self-promotion and lining their pockets with suspect policies.

An Integral analysis would simply say this: the sophistication of the system exceeds that of the principles. Bright individuals with shady morals can bend the system to conform to their self-centred interests. I'm not sure the system needs to be changed in this instance, or even that government needs to intervene with an updated New Deal. Rather, incentives need to be embedded that compel the more enlightened among us to to get involved in matters economic. Enough of gangsters and cowboys leading with their dicks.

How the global economy operates over the next 30 years is perhaps the single greatest determinant of how the centre of gravity of the consciousness of Earth's inhabitants develop, and by extension how well we are able to adapt to the complexity of a Post-American world.

(LA OPINION DE MALAGA) La apuesta de la Junta de Andalucía por el distrito de La Palma-Palmilla va en serio y se traducirá en un ambicioso plan de actuación que ejecutará la Empresa Pública de Suelo de Andalucía (Epsa), dependiente de la Administración autonómica, según informó ayer la agrupación socialista de La Palma-Palmilla.

En los próximos días, Juan Alcaraz, coordinador del área de rehabilitación de Epsa, entregará un informe previo del estado del distrito y la intención es continuar trabajando con el plan durante el mes de agosto. Alcaraz ya ha puesto en marcha proyectos como la rehabilitación del casco antiguo de Málaga y Marbella, así como la urbanización de la barriada de Los Asperones.

El plan integral de La Palma-Palmilla surge tras la visita a Sevilla de la agrupación socialista del distrito en mayo, para plantearle al consejero de Vivienda y Ordenación del Territorio, Juan Espadas, la instalación de una ´oficina integral de servicios´ de la Junta en La Palma-Palmilla. El consejero visitó el distrito un mes más tarde para anunciar, tras reunirse con el alcalde de Málaga, un ´plan de actuación integral´.

"Se trata de un plan muy ambicioso porque va más allá de la rehabilitación de las viviendas, ya que contempla además las necesidades y problemas de La Palma-Palmilla en su conjunto: medio ambiente, seguridad ciudadana, educación, absentismo laboral...", precisó Manuel Curtido, responsable de la agrupación del PSOE en La Palma-Palmilla.

Así, Curtido explicó que Epsa estará "físicamente" en el distrito, con una oficina para atender las necesidades de La Palma-Palmilla y hacer el seguimiento del plan, que el responsable socialista espera que se realice "a lo largo de cinco o seis años".

Además, el responsable político subrayó que no quiere que la iniciativa "sea una cuestión en la que sólo intervenga el PSOE y ha subrayado que pedirá la colaboración del Ayuntamiento de Málaga, y los vecinos, para que sean una parte importante del proyecto", sin olvidar a la administración central, que tendrá que intervenir en cuestiones como la seguridad ciudadana.

En este sentido, señaló que confía en que el Consistorio "no ponga todas las pegas del mundo como ha hecho con el Puerto o con el metro y se suba al carro porque es una noticia importantísima para La Palma-Palmilla".

Manuel Curtido subrayó por último que lleva 25 años trabajando por el distrito. "Y no tengo frustración porque en La Palma-Palmilla se está empezando a trabajar."

Ayuntamiento. La concejala de La Palma-Palmilla, Mari Ángeles Arroyo, señaló a La Opinión que "todo lo que sea bueno para La Palma- Palmilla será bienvenido", aunque recordó que el distrito cuenta con una oficina de rehabilitación y el Ayuntamiento está rehabilitando 88 bloques de La Palma, "y ya hay 76 comunidades de vecinos formadas". Arroyo recalcó que el problema "no es de rehabilitación, que estamos haciendo a tope, sino de regularización de las viviendas". "No sería el primer plan que hemos visto en La Palmilla", añadió.

Estava eu vendo uns programinhas em D passados quando achei um que calculava uma integral definida, então resolvi portá-lo para Haskell.

Primeiro algum embasamento teórico:

Basicamente, uma integral é utilizada para se calcular a área sob uma função (não importando sua forma). Basicamente, a idéia é dividir a função f(x) em vários retângulos de comprimendo dx e altura f(n), onde n é o ponto atual. Vale frisar que é a área até o eixo x.

Observe que quanto menor o valor de dx, maior a precisão.

Neste exemplo, utilizaremos retângulos com base de 0,00001 unidades.

A rotina principal para este cálculo é:

area ini fim fn =
    let
        alturas = map fn [ini,ini+dx .. fim]
        areas = map (dx *) alturas
    in
        foldl (+) 0 areas
    where
        dx = 0.00001

Onde ini e fim delimitam o intervalo que se está calculando. fn é a função.

As funções utilizadas para isso foram:

• map = recebe uma função e uma lista. Retorna uma nova lista, com os valores da função aplicada a cada elemento da lista original. Por exemplo: map (0-) [1,2,3] aplica a função "0-n", onde n será cada elemento da lista, retornando uma lista [-1,-2,-3].
• foldl = recebe uma função, um valor e uma lista. Aplica a função ao valor e ao primeiro elemento da lista, então  ao valor resultante e ao segundo elemento,  e por aí vai. Por exemplo: foldl (+) 0 [1,2,3] retorna a soma  aplicaria (((0+1)+2)+3), retornando 6. Vale lembrar que essa função avalia a lista da esquerda para a direita (sim, existe uma foldr)

Basicamente o que é feito é:

• Crio a lista com todos os valores no intervalo: [ini,ini+dx .. fim];
• Acho as alturas de cada retângulo, aplicando a função passada à essa lista: alturas = map fn [ini,ini+dx .. fim];
• Acho a área de cada retângulo, multiplicando cada altura pela base (dx): areas = map (dx *) alturas;
• Somo todas as áreas, começando com 0: foldl (+) 0 areas.

Um uso disse seria:

main = do
    (putStrLn.show) (area 0 1 (\x -> x + 3))

Aqui eu calculo a área aproximada da reta x + 3, de x=0 até x=1.

A sintaxe \x -> x + 3 é chamada expressão lambda, e é utilizada para definir uma função anônima inline, que recebe um argumento x e retorna esse argumento + 3.

En este sentido es que las marcas luchan por ganar un espacio en cada momento. Algunas optan por aparecer en televisión porque eso es lo que más hace determinado tipo de público, otros por aparecer en revistas de negocios mediante artículos que entreguen más detalles acerca de su oferta o con argumentos que la validen, y otros por simplemente poner la marca en su envoltorio.

En este contexto, los artículos publicitarios se establecen como un medio efectivo para alcanzar determinados segmentos de una manera discreta y personalizada, favoreciendo la repetición de compra, reconocimiento y la retención del nombre y/o mensaje del anunciante.

De la misma forma, pero en distinto contexto, es que un artículo publicitario puede aportar con creces a la promoción de una marca. Basta con asistir a una feria y fijarse en los asistentes para ver cuál es el stand más visitado. Gorros, lápices o bolsas (gratis!) resultan un excelente gancho para llamar la atención de determinado segmento.

Actualmente existen miles de artículos entre los que se debe elegir el adecuado para cada segmento objetivo. Por ejemplo, si se es parte de una empresa de servicios financieros que busca aumentar la lealtad de sus clientes, una buena opción podría ser una calculadora solar de bolsillo; tal como si se es dueño de un garage se puede regalar un medidor para la presión de los neumáticos que lleve impreso el logo y número de teléfono. Una opción popular (y repetida) para las empresas de tecnología es el mouse pad con logotipo y URL.

Se cual sea el artículo, la idea es que su ventaja radique en la mayor exposición que tendrá frente a cualquier otro tipo de promoción. El valor a pagar dependerá de la calidad y cantidad del producto elegido (y la audiencia).

Después de todo, ya sea un gorro o un destapador, el producto promocional representará un símbolo tangible del mensaje de la empresa y debería ser algo que valga la pena conservar.

Tener una imagen sistémica y organicista, adquirir una cierta comprensión de orden del mundo como sistema complejo posibilita gestar una visión integradora del universo abierta a la vivencia mística y filosófica de unión a la Tierra y la Naturaleza. Las huellas de la tendencia hacia una idea unitaria e integradora del universo pueden seguirse desde el pensamiento más antiguo, incluso anterior a la filosofía griega.

La búsqueda de un fundamento unitario de la naturaleza se identifica con el mismísimo origen de la filosofía, que nació al mismo tiempo que la noción de arché, sustancia básica o principio rector del cosmos (del termino griego "κόσμος", que significa orden u ornamentos), que lo ordena y los diferencia del caos (palabra que deriva del idioma griego, Χάος). Más de dos milenios y medio después, en la actualidad, la ciencia sigue persiguiendo el mismo objetivo.

En su contexto compiten dos enfoques de desigual aceptación, tradicionalmente mayor la del primero, aunque la tendencia hoy puede estar cambiando: (i) el disociativo y (ii) el integrativo, asimilables a las dos grandes apuestas metodológicas y ontológicas que son (a) el reduccionismo y (b) el emergentismo sistémico, la complejidad.

El camino reduccionista se guía por el principio de deconstrucción, y su fórmula predilecta es “nada más que”: la Tierra no es “nada más que” un agregado de materia, un ser vivo no es “nada más que” una peculiar combinación de moléculas, la conciencia no es “nada más que” actividad químico-eléctrica cerebral, etc.

El principio único aparece así en la base elemental, considerada “simple”, de modo que, obviamente, el reduccionismo se identifica con el programa cartesiano llevado hasta sus últimas consecuencias. De alcanzar pleno éxito, su resultado final sería la unificación de la naturaleza en su nivel más básico, accesible a través de un proceso de deconstrucción de las entidades, cuya realidad intrínseca es puesta radicalmente en entredicho.

La metafísica que presupone el reduccionismo es de tipo monista y se resume en la formulación de que “sólo lo elemental es plenamente real”. Sin embargo, conduce paradójicamente al estallido de lo existente, puesto que todo se descompone en unidades o “partículas elementales” que pierden su capacidad de asociación compleja.

El camino sistémico parte de lo más elemental que se puede identificar (que, como advierte Edgar Morin, no tiene por qué ser simple, dado que podría encerrar una infinita complejidad que escapa al observador), lo cual se entiende como un nivel de realidad x, y de su tendencia a integrar niveles de realidad superiores (holones), digamos: x+1, x+2,..., x+n.

Dichos niveles no son menos reales por el hecho de estar formados por entidades de los niveles inferiores, sino que su estatus ontológico es igualmente fuerte, desde el momento que ninguna entidad, de cualquier nivel, está constituida exclusivamente por las unidades de los órdenes más básicos, sino que siempre es algo más, donde la dinámica relacional es constitutiva, de modo que nunca puede, en rigor, decirse que algo (un sistema) “no es más que” el catálogo (inconexo) de sus elementos. Suele resumirse esta concepción diciéndose que el todo es más que la suma de sus partes. Surge una ontología pluralista y relacional que, no obstante, abre la puerta a una concepción integralista del universo.

Si la primera concepción se remonta a los atomistas griegos y tiene en Descartes su referente principal, la segunda cuenta con raíces aun más antiguas: Heráclito y, en cierto modo, todo el panorama de los “primeros filósofos”, Pitágoras y los socráticos. Se rastrea su continuidad en Aristóteles (a quien se debe, justamente, el dictum “el todo es más que la suma de las partes”) y en el cosmo-organicismo estoico. Su última gran presencia histórica, en la Naturphilosophie romántica, precede a un largo eclipsamiento de siglo y medio, hasta que Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901 – 1972) la recupera en la Teoría de Sistemas.

Pero es un hecho que, hasta muy recientemente, los científicos de la naturaleza, al amparo de la corriente principal, han apostado fuerte por el reduccionismo, y ni siquiera han sido los únicos, ya que el afán reductor se apoderó también de los especialistas en ciencias humanas. No me parece exagerado decir que, durante bastante más de un siglo, “ser racional y científico” se ha identificado con “ser reduccionista”, y ello no dejaba de tener su lógica, puesto que todo comportamiento holístico parece presuponer un “acuerdo” entre las partes, o una conexión a distancia entre ellas. Aparte del éxito tecnológico del programa reduccionista, explicable por la facilidad de manipulación que otorga.

Pese al interés que siempre mostró von Bertalanffy por las nuevas teorías científicas y desarrollos tecnológicos que podían fundamentar la Teoría de Sistemas, ésta es esencialmente empírica: implica simplemente reconocer lo que se ofrece a nuestra vista, a saber, que “entidades integran entidades”. La totalidad quark, por ejemplo, forma parte de la totalidad protón que, a su vez, forma parte de la totalidad átomo que, a su vez, forma parte de la totalidad molécula que, a su vez, forma parte de la totalidad célula que, a su vez, forma parte de la totalidad organismo que, a su vez, forma parte de la totalidad Cosmos que, a su vez, forma parte de la totalidad del Kosmos del instante siguiente... y así hasta el infinito. De todas formas, este reconocimiento tiene su importancia, puesto que muchas veces reconocer lo evidente es dar un paso de gigante. Así, siguiendo a Ken Wilber, la realidad no estaría compuesta de partículas o constructos como los quarks de dimensiones sin extensión, cuerdas o membranas, sino de holones (totalidades que, simultáneamente, forman parte de otras totalidades y así siguiendo).

Aunque algunos conceptos esenciales para la constitución de los sistemas verdaderos (holísticamente integrados), como los feedbacks o bucles de retroalimentación, fueron aportaciones de la cibernética, que suministra modelos muy interesantes, la explicación física del nacimiento espontáneo de sistemas integrados de orden superior al de los agregados iniciales de elementos (sistemas de orden x-1) la dio el crucial descubrimiento por Ilya Prigogine de las estructuras disipativas.

A partir de dicho hallazgo, y del desarrollo subsiguiente de la Termodinámica de procesos alejados del equilibrio, la Teoría de Sistemas, y luego las ciencias de la complejidad, dejaron de ser “una especulación organicista basada en un conjunto de casualidades”, para convertirse en una teoría general del orden físico que cuenta con una sólida base.

El esquema básico es el siguiente: al crecer un flujo de energía libre (o, lo que es lo mismo, al incrementarse un cierto gradiente energético) que baña un sistema, éste se adapta modificando su estructura. Dicha modificación puede ser destructiva (desestructuración completa del sistema) o constructiva, y lo segundo supone frecuentemente el surgimiento de una nueva estructuración de menor entropía (o mayor neguentropía, lo que significa “menos probable por más ordenada”). La modificación estructural se orienta siempre a permitir una disipación más eficaz del flujo energético incidente y de la emergencia de un nivel de auto-organización de orden superior al de los constructos constitutivos.

En un principio, las investigaciones de Prigogine se ciñeron a sistemas químicos cuyo equilibrio reactivo inicial se rompía más allá de un cierto umbral, pero tanto él como otros investigadores se dieron cuenta de que el modelo era generalizable: de algún modo, la realidad toda respondía a esta especie de ley de la reestructuración “lejos de las condiciones de equilibrio”, a esta ley o dinámica física legimorfa creadora de complejidad y de diversidad cualitativa. Todo un proceso ontogenético de complejificación creciente se ponía en marcha gracias a ella. Lo que aquí deseo captar son las dimensiones humanamente significativas de un proceso natural científicamente establecido que se despliega en numerosos ámbitos y a múltiples escalas.

Es bien conocida la contraposición entre teleología y teleonomía: la primera, que presupone causación final, es tenida por no científica, mientras que la segunda (causación final meramente aparente) tiende a ser admitida. Hay algo, sin embargo, en esta esquematización típicamente racionalista, que no acaba de encajar, porque toda apariencia de finalización implica que se da de hecho, en el ente o en el proceso, una cierta finalización.

Es decir, que si bien el proceso general que hace surgir los niveles de creciente complejidad es teleonómico (plenamente explicable por una causalidad eficiente como la puesta en juego por las estructuras disipativas), el resultado sigue siendo una complejidad holistizante, llena de “fines vitales”, que culmina en el ser humano con ente acabado. Esta paradoja es una manera de formular el principio antrópico, que supone la convergencia fáctica de teleonomía y teleología.

Pero hay más: el ser viviente experimenta esos fines vitales, teleonómicamente explicables, como fines existenciales genuinos. Goza al realizarlos y sufre con su falta de realización. El goce o sufrimiento humano se podría asimilar a la realización o no de sus fines vitales, desde los más básicos hasta los más sutiles. Esto lo ilustra perfectamente Abraham Maslow con su pirámide de necesidades. Así, el sufrimiento humano sería el no poder realizar lo que demanda la naturaleza propia.

La subjetividad, es decir, la conciencia, aunque sea meramente sintiente, sería lo que transforma lo teleonómico en teleológico: sólo hay auténtica finalidad para el ser subjetivo, y no hay ser subjetivo sin finalidad. Lo que “desde fuera” se aprecia como teleonómico, se vive “desde dentro” como teleológico. Entonces, la pregunta sería: ¿No es la espiritualidad el reconocimiento de la centralidad del ser conciente a nivel del individuo y del cosmos? Es esta justamente, pienso yo, la gran intuición que tuvieron todos los místicos de la historia. Lo que ellos sugerirían es que la flecha del universo apuntaría, hacia la superación de una “extrema pluralidad”, es decir, hacia la reunificación holónica-integral y la conciencia jugaría un rol central ya que es a través de esta que ello sería posible. No se trata, sin embargo, de una reunificación material, como sería el caso de darse un big crunch, un regreso al punto cosmológico inicial, sino de una unificación a la vez sistémica y psíquica.

En cierta forma, una definición progresiva del espíritu debería estar ligada a la evolución sistémica general, que implica el paso de la “extrema pluralidad” de un universo de partículas constitutivas, a la unidad de un cosmos integrado a través de las relaciones heterárquicas establecidas horizontal y verticalmente.

La teoría de los sistemas complejos, hoy en auge cada vez mayor, se ha enfrentado, durante décadas, a un considerable rechazo por parte del main stream académico. Toda concepción organicista era sospechosa de no ser científica, lo que demuestra hasta qué punto es cierto que el pensamiento científico se identificaba con el reduccionismo.

Pero las cosas han cambiado mucho. A mi modo de ver a partir primero de los descubrimientos y teorizaciones de Prigogine y luego del impulso que centros de investigación como el Instituto de Santa Fé, de Nuevo México, le dieron a las hoy llamadas ciencias de la complejidad, justamente en el momento en que la Red, Internet, se gesta como el sistema complejo de creación humana más sofisticado y desde donde, a partir de la comprensión de su dinámica basada en la emergencia de la inteligencia colectiva, queda planteada la utilidad del pensamiento sistémico-organicista. El neo-organicismo, ahora denominado enfoque sistémico o de la complejidad, gana cada vez más cuerpo.

Las actuales ciencias de la Tierra, encumbrando a la cada vez más prestigiosa teoría geobiológica de Gaia como forma de comprensión de problemas globales como el cambio climático, la sistémica organicista de las ciencias cognitivas y neurociencias, la economía de la globalización tan acosada por los efectos mariposa, la conectividad de las redes de comunicación de la sociedad del conocimiento, como comenté, la ciencias de la vida y la biología evolutiva que cada vez más trasciende el análisis del individuo para enfocarse en el colectivo de la población, la bio-informática y la genómica, los fenómenos de no-localidad a nivel cuántico, etc. Todas estás teorías plantean un salto de nivel epistémico respecto del enfoque reduccionista. Tanto es así que, hace poco, un científico cuyo nombre no recuerdo en este momento respondió a la pregunta que públicamente se le formuló, de ¿qué es, en realidad, el universo?, con estas palabras: “Un gran proceso de autoorganización”.

Estoy convencido de que las consecuencias filosóficas de la asimilación de la teoría de los sistemas complejos y los enfoques sistémicos en general serán cada vez más significativas. La principal, a mi entender, es la transformación en tendencia objetiva de lo que antes no era más que una intuición romántica y mística. Se trata de la ciencia posnormal a la que Silvio Funtowicz y Jerome Ravetz aluden.

Con todo, el mecanicismo no debería desaparecer, sino que se resitúa como un punto de vista válido en ámbitos limitados y desde determinadas perspectivas, de la misma manera que la física newtoniana es una primer aproximación válida a los problemas de escala mesoscópica. Y lo mismo sucede con el reduccionismo, valioso, por lo demás, instrumentalmente.

A nadie podrá escapar la convergencia de formas de lo espiritual, y de éstas con el trasfondo de la búsqueda científica, que es susceptible de promover la toma en consideración de estos puntos de vista. Pienso que en nuestro mundo está, hoy por hoy, demasiado presente el principio de discordia y separación como para prescindir de algo capaz de crear conexiones y vínculos.

A snippet:

As the old Wilber guard scrambles to find distance from its toxic personality cult, there is a danger of watering down the central insights of the integral model: namely, that every moment arises in four fundamental dimensions (or eight, splitting it finer with IMP), that worldview determines vantage, and that collapsing the context into any of these areas produces partiality by definition.

This last point is where I’d hope the conference would veer itself: the basic Integral Model is the starting point for each and every perspective or action. It is what Hargens in the WIE interview meant when he said that integral was ‘content-free’ (to which critics might agree, but replace the word with ‘empty’). The model should not be asked to do more. That is the work of other theory, other work. Torbert’s work, for example, fits well within this context, including many if not most of the central insights and promises. But it should neither attempt to replace the integral model, nor assume it operates outside its scope.

This is not a debate of either/or, but rather effectiveness and applicability. The integral map does well when it is static, over-arching. It is the scaffold into which the pieces take shape and arrange themselves rightly. There is no ‘integral politics’ or ‘integral ecology’ or ‘integral art’. These are each arenas within which wisdom and approach are exclusive to the field of study, but through which insight and integration can be gained with other disciplines once having oriented properly, via the integral map.

Which is to say this works on (at least) two levels.

One, the model simply clarifies/organizes what already is taking place within a discipline.  This is why the best stuff applying integral (see here for economics, here for biology) are from those already well versed within the confines of the discipline to which they offer up an integral simplifying/clarifying view (but simplification). Those who read Integral (read: Wilber) first and then think they have reached the end have the mental cart before the horse.  Then end up spouting on all manner of topics without being grounded in the knowledge community first.

[When such healthy coherence is achieved within different disciplines--and again this is a sorta second-order type move it in no way replaces or substitutes for the canons and methods already established within the disciplines themselves--then they could finally cross-fertilize with a common language.]

Two, the model is a mental yoga.  This is what Juma describes as every moment arising in four dimensions and to collapse the context is inherently partial.  Wilber often cites the Bhagavad Gita and Krishna's famous admonition to Arjuna:  Remember the Lord and Fight.  That is, Remember the Truth about the Spiritual Nature of Reality and yet you still have to battle in this world of division.

To play off that notion, we are always going to be collapsing the context--that is always having to specialize and enter the disciplines and one or the other of these dimensions (principally) on their own terms.  Nothing ever is achieved otherwise.  But in so doing one can not forget the prior move and the ground.  Or else there is nothing integral and it will simply be whatever the general tendency therein reduces it to (modern, postmodern whatever).

So weirdly put (but not weirdly intending): Remember the Quadrants and Collapse the Context could be the rallying cry.  And by remember not some nerdy mental recollection but rather remember the space of consciousness in which the four co-arise.  Actually think-feel them.  Remember that you are purposefully entering one and then worlds open up within those  (quadrivia).  Embrace limitation from the position of transcendence.

As a final note, Juma is appropriately loving and critical to all sides in this debate, aware of the strengths, but not (over)hyping the value.   What Heidegger called the basic stance of dasein as Care.  He models Care in this post.  And others would do well to heed what he is saying.  Integral will bumble and stumble along as it has to date until his message gets through in a serious way.

]]> http://indistinctunion.wordpress.com/?p=2110 Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:49:06 +0000 cjsmith http://indistinctunion.wordpress.com/?p=2110

Apropos of the previous post, I'm reading Luke Timothy Johnson's Living Jesus.

The central argument of which is that there is a choice with Jesus: either we approach him as a living person (the Resurrected Jesus Christ of faith) or as a dead person (the Historical Jesus).

The former involves membership in a church, the "learning" of Jesus as a being of truth, love, and power; the latter succumbing to the ideology of the world concerning what is and what must be truth. The New Testament was written by individuals testifying to the power they felt in their faith and hope in a Resurrection. In other words, there is no non-Resurrected Jesus in the Gospels. Even the Jesus who in the story is not yet resurrected (or crucified) already is in the mind of the author, already is for the reader who is part of the tradition.

The Scriptures are read then for the Christian as to the future not the past. When the blind will see, when they starting seeing in the midst of our praxis and faith now. To say he is Resurrected is to say he is Lord. he lives. What it is not is to say what Resurrection exactly is or isn't. That again is the tyranny of history and fact. The damned ignorant "What Happened (or Didn't Happen) on Sunday Morning....Film at Eleven" view of Christianity.

The Enlightenment Kant described as "think for yourself." As such, the notion of authority has been degraded in the modern/postmodern world to inherently oppressive external power that continues to keep the individual in a state of childlike idiocy/naivete. What Johnson (echoing Alasdair MacIntyre) is arguing for is a tradition.

He translates "disciple" as "learner". Hence to "learn Jesus", the subtitle of the work. In learning Jesus we are "learned" by him and learn about ourselves in our depths as he sees us. That is the transformation of faith that flowers in courage, joy, mercy, and love in this world. None of which occurs (transformation i.e.) by the study of the Jesus of History. Conservative historical Jesus-es, liberal ones, whatever.

There is no holistic sense of worship, study, meditation of the Scriptures, ethics, in a community because faith is a "private" matter in my conscience that no authority or person can question. But it is sterile. Liberal religion--what Kant called religion within the limits of reason alone--is part and parcel of this issue. It assumes the Enlightenment myth of atomistic muscular individuality and the supremacy of the ego and its rationalist thought processes/worldview.

This is not to argue for a pre-rational mythic view (i.e fundamentalism), which if anything is more concrete and limited in its scope. When in reality what is needed is greater depth and understanding of the need and meaning for symbolism and inter-relationship for the human creature.

The argument that one can get back to the "real" Jesus and his teaching without the tradition is a product (a failed one btw) of Protestantism and later the Liberal Enlightenment discourse. Johnson it is worth noting is a Catholic (i.e. he understands that one always stands in a tradition and the NT is the work of communities of tradition).

In my thinking about an Integral (i.e. post-metaphysical) Christianity what Johnson's work again reiterates is a notion I'm working (vis a vis perspectives in Wilber's system): namely that how we approach the Scriptures shapes what we experience. To wit, if we take the Jesus is dead path of Johnson's (i.e. Historical Jesus) that is what will we experience. There will be arguments as to how exactly he is dead, what the meaning of his life was/wasn't, which is the history of the Historical Jesus Quest--in my take WWJM? Why Would Jesus Matter (forgetting for the moment what we think he would do).

There is the way of approaching the Bible as Literature which has its own merits. But that is our read which comes from the tradition of artists and gains wider credence in a post-orthodox/confessional world. It is not the space from which it was originally written. That is not to say it is wrong, but it should be noted, that it is our choice to enter the text in this manner.

There are the Mystical and/or Gnostic Jesus reads. Whether orthodox or heterodox Christian or pan-religious (i.e. Jesus as the Guru). These reads have their own depth as well. But they are mainly justification/confirmation of the mystical path of interior (individual) consciousness one undertakes.

As a Christian then and as someone studying to be a clergymember, I have to argue for the read of Jesus is Alive. Johnson is right, with other reads one can produce great ethical reflection, mystical exegesis, artistic creativity, but there is no transformative community of faith. In the other versions it generally (though not exclusively) tends to be a second order retroflective support for what we have already on our discovered, however profound it may or may not be.

The texts of the NT seek to help bring about that experience of Jesus as Risen as Lord. That is why they are written. There is a surplus of meaning and meanings and functions the texts can otherwise serve (and do). But it is read in every other way than the one that calls for a leap (in Kierkegaard's language). Where we enter a world where we are no longer in control and can be called and seen existentially by a power that we can neither understand nor comprehend but are attracted to (and repulsed by) nonetheless. On the other side of walking through door, all bets are off. That is why we avoid this path. Likely for good (though ultimately dehumanizing I would argue) reasons.

This alternate path is the path of following the Glory of the Lord as Balthasar said. In the text of the Bible and the text of our world.

]]> http://dailycloud.wordpress.com/?p=161 Sun, 06 Jul 2008 04:12:38 +0000 jumawood http://dailycloud.wordpress.com/?p=161 I've held off writing about integral theory since starting this blog. For one, I've been wary to brand the blog prematurely, or to be guilty of too much inside baseball. As well, I'd fallen a little out of touch with developments on the ground, and have purposely kept myself out of touch, having found the self-referential nature of the work somehow dissociating from the world. To sum, sometimes one has to abandon a view and return to it again anew.

Which is where I'm at these days: revisiting anew, hopefully with a sharper gaze. One of the frustrations I had following the community was its tendency to 'clique' together and feed itself with artificial anticipation and trumped self-importance, odd assumptions about being on the 'leading-edge'. Truthfully, the work itself is leading-edge, illuminating, awe-inspiring, affirming. It is also marginalized, cultish and somewhat confused.

And now, Integral Institute is holding a conference this summer that could well be a pivot towards a more intriguing applicability within mainstream academia.

The central problem in applying Integral Theory is also its greatest strength: it applies across contexts, indeed can be considered the ground floor of all disciplines. For much of modern history, academic streams have tended to develop in isolation with limited inclusion of other disciplines. When disciplines are integrated (say infant development into neurobiology) they tend to be packed into the entrenched bias of the dominant field (for our example, development is reduced strictly to biology).

So far, its been impossible to separate Integral Theory from its primary architect, Ken Wilber. This has caused complications that are in the process of being untangled. Friends and colleagues for years have been grappling with right relationship to Wilber, and how to extricate an applicable model from its primary vision holder.

Sean Hargens appears to be the central figure charged with the task, though certainly he's not alone . Recently, Sean co-wrote a piece on Integral World (a poor name for what is actually an anti-Ken Wilber cult. I prefer to refer to the site as the drunk uncles, though I'm sure that's enough to get me tossed from both camps). Sean also appears in an interview with WIE Unbound (warning, spiritual content!) here (subscription required; 1st month free).

In both the article and the interview, Sean goes out of his way to separate Integral Theory from Ken Wilber. While he stays respectful, there is no missing the urgency and seriousness of his intention. This is primarily of Wilber's own doing, having been a ruthless guardian of the theory and its extended organizations, accepting mostly adoring kids and worshipful adults to construct a 'movement' whose central focus (including who was accepted and rejected - hence the 'clique') began and ended with Ken Wilber.

I find this encouraging, but also a little unnerving. Perhaps out of necessity, this conference is sounding in danger of topically defining itself by what it isn't, rather than what it is. In truth, the language Sean banters around comes almost exclusively from Wilber's work; the models are unchanged from Wilber's original creations. Being too vigilant to over correct could well leave this group more fragmented and confused: with half a baby and someone else's dishwater.

Among the presenters at the conference will be Bill Torbert, whose advanced work in Action Inquiry I've used in my own business, and whose adherents claim is more practically adept at integrating theory and practice, moreso than the static quadratic model. There is truth to this, but it is a partial truth, and underscores a constant conflict in attempting to prop up what is finally a very ambitious intention: using the integral model to draw together practitioners from across fields and contexts under one academic tent.

What Torbert, and others such as Spiral Dynamics, commit is the age-old assumption that indeed it is they who hold finally the inclusive model that will gain traction in a terribly complicated world. There is hardly a theory that doesn't claim dominion over all the facts.

As the old Wilber guard scrambles to find distance from its toxic personality cult, there is a danger of watering down the central insights of the integral model: namely, that every moment arises in four fundamental dimensions (or eight, splitting it finer with IMP), that worldview determines vantage, and that collapsing the context into any of these areas produces partiality by definition.

This last point is where I'd hope the conference would veer itself: the basic Integral Model is the starting point for each and every perspective or action. It is what Hargens in the WIE interview meant when he said that integral was 'content-free' (to which critics might agree, but replace the word with 'empty'). The model should not be asked to do more. That is the work of other theory, other work. Torbert's work, for example, fits well within this context, including many if not most of the central insights and promises. But it should neither attempt to replace the integral model, nor assume it operates outside its scope.

This is not a debate of either/or, but rather effectiveness and applicability. The integral map does well when it is static, over-arching. It is the scaffold into which the pieces take shape and arrange themselves rightly. There is no 'integral politics' or 'integral ecology' or 'integral art'. These are each arenas within which wisdom and approach are exclusive to the field of study, but through which insight and integration can be gained with other disciplines once having oriented properly, via the integral map.

When we look for what is integral art, ecology, politics or medicine, we become cult-like, given to hysteria that we are special, part of a new in-group. We become afflicted with boomeritis, thinking we are restarting the world anew from our priveleged new insight. We also become marginalized and rightfully so. No discipline needs to be restarted. Purged of partialities or outdated assumption, balanced perhaps, but not restarted. It is the separate disciplines that need to find right-relationship to integral, not the other way around. The integral model should be held taut against them.

The integral movement is not special, and should not treat itself as such. It is important, which is different from special. If it wants to be accepted into the mainstream, it needs to be normal, practical, applicable immediately to whatever context it finds itself. While this skill is indeed woven into the DNA of the model, the community has shown itself less than that, an opinion defended simply by pointing to its continued failure as a viable mainstream academic alternative.

11 Give us aid against the enemy,
for the help of man is worthless.

12 With God we will gain the victory,
and he will trample down our enemies.

For me the struggle of sexual addiction is unsurmountable without the strength and power of God.  Man's help, while important is not merely enough.  I have to be accountable to others to be successful on a daily basis.  While the accountability is integral, I also must admit and accept that I am under God's authority.  Through God I am granted an alternative and way out of sin.

I can take refuge in the fact that God will trample the enemy.  My goal and mission is to flee from the enemy and temptation.  If I take action to try and destroy the temptation, then I am only opening myself up to further attack and peril.

My only comment is as follows:

In that comment he leaves this question for me:

I would like to know, however–because I am not a student of Derrida and have read very little of his work–just what he offers that your average pluralist does not. What makes Derrida unique? How might integral use Derrida? How do you use Derrida? Could you give an example or two? Also, if there are any particularly useful books or articles by Derrida I would appreciate knowing what they are. I don’t have much time to spend on him (the shorter they are the better), but I feel there may be something important there, and I would like to understand it better.

As far as a short introduction, I recommend Gregory Desilet's eulogy for Derrida. The link is here. Desilet brings out that the core element for Derrida is that division is inherent to being, at its very heart. There are particularly reasons for this given his understanding of grammar, linguistic structures, and epistemology. The application of this insight to texts is known as deconstruction (or perhaps better termed deconstruction/reconstruction). All of which is more the details, fine points, but the main essential point is division/otherness (differenace).

Desilet writes:

This potential for endless fracturing of the text opens the door to the “deconstruction” of the text—the uncovering of new and perhaps unexpected interpretations. These interpretations nevertheless require, contrary to what some critics of deconstruction’s relativistic slant have suggested, rigorous justification, evidence, and argument in their presentation.

It's certainly true that there are a lot of bad deconstructors who are in fact not following rigorously the methods, nor would pass muster of this particular knowledge community (the craft in MacIntyre's terminology). And Desilet is correct that the canons of deconstructions are fairly rigorous, However, and this is where Desilet and I would part company (I think), there is no larger evaluative tool to distinguish between gradations of better/worse even among those that have properly followed the rules, i.e passed the muster. In that regard something like a stage conception of development is necessary as a way of grounding such (necessary) distinctions.

That being said, it is worth experiencing the space of the infinite iteration of all texts/interpretations. That is, in a larger sense, to feel the space of the "other side", of "division." Within oneself, one's community, communication, and so on.

It can be powerful voodoo to some (at first), but in the end it's just one among a million different dimensions of existence/spaces in the Kosmos. Absolutized--i.e. taking it as the de facto final point of development, the terminus/Omega Point--is highly problematic.

As a practical example of what I mean, Derrida's of notion of nonviolent (this is a major starting poit for Desilet's own writings).

Desilet writes:

If Derrida is right, a fundamental—but not passively embracing or uncritical— affirmation of the intrusions of difference may become the essential step in achieving nonviolent diverse community. By acknowledging the necessary presence of the other as an essential part of ourselves and as an inescapable element of difference and variation in our modes of communication, it becomes much more difficult to radically exclude, negate, or violently eliminate the other in our communities.

Relatively, inculcating as a value within oneself, the practice of seeing the other in oneself, oneself in the other, non-coercion in communication, being vigilant about patterns of scapegoating, of creating a final us/them duality are all deep practices. As absolute practices, however I've argued elsewhere, this can lead to madness or at the least not following a proper ethic of self-defense/self-care. [As a sidenote, the radically diverse plurality, nonviolence themes again highlight Derrida's overall thought as green/pluralist not turquoise/construct aware.]

As I noted in the earlier post, even Derrida towards the end moved towards Habermas' political views on the EU, which have some element of interventionism (Habermas supported the First Gulf War and Balkans Conflicts of the 90s not the Second Gulf War).

So there is the permanent practice of learning to see the other as never simply the other. As never simply all-in-one him/her/itself. Just as we are never all in one. And to the degree community rules and ethics can be worked out to respect the difference and embrace that plurality in a manner respective of all sides, it is to be preferred, however recognizing (here would be an integral transcending/including of this) that there are times and places where dialog will not suffice and however necessarily evil it can and will be, other methods must be brought forth to deal with conflict and violence. Still (and here is the Derridian insight as a permanent feature) in such a situation, integral should never fall victim to the universal tendency to demonize/scapegoat the other.

It is like Wilber's invocation of the Bhagavad Gita: Remember the Lord and Fight. (or perhaps "Struggle."). Remember the Lord means remember not only the Moral Law and Spiritual Reality of Truth but also one's enemy is in a sense a reflection of the Lord (hence can not be scapegoated/demonized). But you must still fight.

As even Gandhi said, he was not interested in non-violence but rather "truth-force."

Update I:  Linking back to an old post, at this point in my life I'm spend a great deal more time and find much more of value in the phenomenological and hermeneutic tradition of Continental thought.  Rather than the post/structuralist school.

Anoche mantuvimos una interesante reunión con varios colectivos y vecinos del distrito para explicar los últimos avances para la implantación del Plan Integral de Palma-Palmilla, del último Consejo de Distrito y charlar sobre las necesidades de nuestros barrios.

En dicho acto, pudimos comprobar de primera mano la expectación que ha generado la puesta en marcha de un nuevo proyecto para la rehabilitación social, económica y en materia de vivienda de este distrito, de la voluntad y el compromiso de todos depende que sea un éxito y esta Agrupación luchará por ello.

Agradecer su asistencia a todos los colectivos y vecinos que asistieron a la reunión, no sólo apoyamos su dedicación y entrega para mejorar este distrito, con interesantes aportaciones de las que hemos tomado buena cuenta y de las que haremos compromiso común desde nuestra Agrupación.

If asked right now which boy will die a drunkard, you would likely choose Tode Mall.  It is the most logical choice.  His father is a drunkard, and, therefore, Tode Mall would be exposed to drink at a very early age.  However each of these boys are exposed to alcohol, simply in different ways.  Pliny's father has made his money from the sale of alcohol.  Ben's father runs a grocery store, with a little alcohol in a backroom.  Tode Mall's father kept a rum-hole, a shabby drinking house.  So you see, each father is involved with the sale of this intoxicating liquid.

Soon after the story begins, Tode Mall is thrown out of the house, if you can call a single, cold room a house, by his father.  Getting on a train, Tode follows Pliny's father, Mr. Hastings to New York and back.  Soon thereafter, Mr. Hastings hires Tode to be a serving boy at a hotel that he owns.  While he is working at the hotel, Tode Mall finds a part of the Bible.  Constantly, Tode tries to understand what it means.  Soon after he starts reading the Bible, Tode decides that he should not serve liquor to the customers, so he has to leave the hotel. 

Once again one his own, Tode decides to start a food stand.  While Tode is operating his food stand,  an motherly woman takes him under her wing and teaches Tode about God.  Tode Mall begins to attend church regularly.  After a while, Tode is hired by Mr. Stephens as a confidential clerk.  Tode continues to rise in influence, and soon becomes a very well-respected young man.

Now what have the others, Pliny and Ben, done during this time.  While Tode was rising, Pliny and Ben were falling.  Both are good friends, and they often spend the evening together, drinking!  Sadly, both Pliny and Ben have succumbed to drink.  All to commonly, Pliny will spend the day in bed with a headache brought on by too much drinking, only to drink again this night!  However, Tode hasgotten to know Pliny and is working, albeit unsuccessfully, to save Pliny from alcohol.  The crisis comes one night when, riding home from a drunken party, Pliny and Ben crash in their carriage.  Both are badly injured.

Before the day is over, Ben Phillips is dead.  Pliny is near death, but, through careful care and thoughtful prayer, he lives.  Amazingly, even after this frightening accident, Pliny still drinks.  Not as much, but he has not completely controlled his appetite for the destructive liquid.  Eventually, thanks to the Lord's blessing and the thoughtful love and care of his friends,  Pliny Hastings does completely reform. 

As the story ends, Tode Mall, now called Theodore Mallory, is married and a partner in a large and successful business.  Pliny Hastings is also married and free from drink.  This book shows the destructiveness of alcohol; Ben Phillips was destroyed by it; Pliny Hastings barely escaped.  Three People also illustrates the importance of hard work.  Tode Mall went from gutter to a well-to-do business man through God's blessing and hard work.  I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good story.

Warning: Nerd Alert. Heavy integral theorizing ahead.  Read at your own mental peril.

--

A while back (June of last year to be precise) I wrote a short piece commenting on an article by Gary Hampson in Integral Review. Gary just recently commented on the original post, along with some questions for me.

Gary's original article is available here in pdf from. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the link next to his name.

My original post from last year is here. Gary's comment is at the bottom of that post.

I'm going to take a bigger view and hope that in doing so I cover the questions Gary has asked.  Much more after the jump:

Gary's article is wide ranging and very sharp.  He argues for a reevaluation (actually as he says more properly a "reviewing", i.e. a re-cognizing) of postmodernism from the perspective of integral. This includes a number of sub-elements: e.g. reviewing of postformal cognition. On the main points of that effort, I think his work is a real significant contribution to integral thought. Two thumbs up for my money.

What this means is via this process of reviewing, green/postmodernity is redeemed in a sense. It is healed and made usable for the integralist. The often jarring disjunction between green/yellow seen in the integral community is (dis)solved by going turquoise/indigo, in which case green is not frightening but simply limited play/tool.

I would also recommend his problematizing of the notion in Wilber's writings of the mean green meme (see Appendix A in Gary's article).

One way to square this circle between the two is to say that what Ken is doing is trying to push people from green (postmodernism) to teal-turquoise (integral, post-postmodernism) hence the amplified rhetoric. What Gary has done/is doing is re-translating down the Spiral. That is, he is safely and stably within the integral frame and is re-interpreting ("re-viewing" in the mind and heart) the place of green (postmodernity) from within the integral world. So for those who have already achieved such a shift in consciousness, Gary's work is to be preferred. It's like memory--the more we remember a story one way, it eventually did happen that way, whether or not it "really did" or not.

All that said, there is one minor disagreement over a sub-point in the article (in larger agreement of the overall arc & thrust of the thing). This minor disagreement involves Derrida and his placement/categorization within Wilber's and Cook-G.'s developmental schemes.

A tentative (very tentative) speculation of mine is that Gary has confused his (proper/correct) re-interpretation of Derrida-in-integral with Derrida as Derrida is. If that makes sense. I think what he has done is very useful but should not be confused for anything other than a very heterodox (even heretical) read of Derrida.  So long as that is kept in mind, I think it's great. Because it is that way if we re-member that way.

And before I get further afield I want to say that my overall view of colors/levels and such is that they are only at best first approximations.  i.e. We have to have a common descriptive language I suppose but what is of real value is the actual spaces ("locations" in Wilber's wording) of these writers.  i.e. Following their paths, exploring the worlds, mindsets they uncover.  Otherwise colors are meangingless and at their worst distract from real quests for knowledge. 

So anyway, with my quasi-agnostic position on the value of colors laid out, let me get into them. 

To give a comparison (this from Integral Spirituality p. 69, see image above) of the two lists and how they match up (remember for Spiral equivalents, amber=blue, teal=yellow, magenta=purple):

Wilber= Cook-G.
Indigo = Ego Aware
Turquoise= Construct Aware
Teal = Autonomous
Green =Individualistic
Orange = Conscientious
Amber = Self-protective
Red = Impulsive
Magenta= Symbiotic

So according to this schema, if Gary is right, Derrida is turquoise. As Gary agrees (p.133 of his text) C-G sees the green meme as equivalent to her individualistic. This is where Wilber would traditionally place Derrida and I am in agreement with that basic proposition. [But with a slight twist I'll get to in a second.] At most like Foucault, Derrida may have been intuiting the beginning of teal, but never fully stabilized there seems to me.  Flow without open-ended chaotic structure/integration.

Returning to Wilber's image above, notice in the cognitive line a few descriptors/qualifiers of the levels. For green KW has Pluralistic Mind which reads "meta-systematic". Teal is Low-Vision Logic qualified as paradigmatic. Turquoise (which is the construct aware equivalent) is Higher Vision Logic qualified as cross-paradigmatic.

Looking at that I think can help clarify some of the ground I think. So green by this reading is certainly post-formal. (Formal being equivalent to orange/modernist). It is not however vision-logic. Yet still meta-systematic, which I think Derrida is and something Gary is getting at but misinterprets as construct aware.

There is a meta-system to be sure in Derrida's writings, which I summarize below. But it is a meta-system that serves the end goal of plurality (here I read Derrida in light of the influence of Emmanuel Levinas), hence green.

Much of the confusion I think stems from the use of the word relativist by Wilber, Gary, myself & others. I actually prefer the term pluralist. Pluralist means just that--plurality of voices, opinions, views. It is not paradigmatic however insofar as there is no integration. Now integration may be a crock and the pluralists may be right that this is just the reformulation of normativity, exclusivity, and uniformity (i.e re-entrenching orange modernity). I think that's incorrect, but that is always out there as a possibility I suppose.

But granting that something like this C-G/Wilber view is correct, then no I don't think Derrida (deconstruction more generally) is either paradigmatic or cross-paradigmatic. That is neither autonomous nor construct aware in C-G's schema.

A number of Gary's questions to my post directly or indirectly deal with this notion of relativism. What I said in the original post was:

I think the problem stems from this idea that green is relativist. And relativist is taken to mean that the person can not make any judgments or believes in no better/worse. No one can actually do that. There is plenty of vertigo in postmodernism and a difficulty in some to make clear distinctions, but eventually pushed people come down on a side.

In other words, if relativism is taken to mean that everything is relative, this is clearly a performative self-contradiction; it's an absolute statement. Eventually people will value something over something else. But what they may value is say plurality over unicity.

And promoting plurality is itself a fairly unified position.  So moving the debate onto that terrain shows that it is never plurality versus unity but rather different combinations of unity and plurality.  Orange (having a 3rd person point of view cognitively) tends to see the other but mostly as either to be subsumed into one's own system or a threat.  Green on the other hand sees the other (at its best) th plural as having its own value and own right to exist on its own terms.  (Except usually for the other that is Western modernity but that's a whole other story).   

And Derrida is no different in this regard.

Derrida is described a post-structuralist. Structuralism as my old philosophy professor (who taught me the subject) used to say was "Linguistic Kantianism."

By that he meant the following. [This is a little bit a detour but I'll come back to the main boulevard shortly, I promise].

The cribs notes version of Kant is summarized thusly: no perception without conception. Meaning the mind never sees anything "bare". Every sense (percept) is in fact always already an interpretation (conception). The structures of the mind that Kant articulated shape our vision of the world. They (con)struct our reality.

Structuralism as Linguistic Kantianism then means the following. Language is parallel here to the mind in Kant. There is never linguistic perception without linguistic conception. i.e. There is never simply describing something as it is. Language is not a clear window into the thing as it is (just as with Kant neither is the mind).

The structures in this case however lie not in the mind (as for Kant) but rather in language itself. Often in grammar (Derrida's first book is on the subject). Language then is a construction not a reflection. The structure of language (for structuralists) was what was really speaking whenever anything was said or written not authorial intention, the inner self, etc.

Hence structuralists proclaimed the end of the author, the end of the subject, the end of history and so on. It was the end of phenomenology (a la Husserl) and hermeneutics (a la Heidegger) both of which presumed this inner world either individually (phen.) or communally (herm.).

The structuralists came to see binary opposition at the core of these linguistic structures--which remember were the real bearer of truth not the subject. e.g. Male/Female. Being/Becoming.

Derrida critiques elements of structuralism but as a post-structuralist is entirely within that frame. He accepts the basic structuralist account/critique of interiority. What he will do--and rather brilliantly--is show that the binary opposites the structuralists detail develop historically. Structuralism tended to ahistoric (descriptive rather than historically understood).

Derrida shows that the signifier (the material element of discourse, i.e. words on a page, vocal chord vibrations) always slides back under the signified (the intended speech). One binary Derrida always points to, central to his thought is the absent/present. The absent for Derrida while treated in the history of Western thought as subsidiary is actually for him primary. One of his more famous and radical claims was that grammar precedes the speaking of a language. Because the signifier (grammar) always slides back under the signified (speaking). Because structures speak not people. The absent/forgotten (grammar) slides back and pushes out the present (intended speech).

Why I would say that this is not construct aware/cross-paradigmatic is Derrida does not detail (so far as I can tell and I've read a good deal of his writings) what would be in Wilber-5 the perspective, i.e. the prior move of accepting structuralism. Structuralism is in Wilber's perspectives view is an outside (3rd person) view of the inside (1st person). KW's work is structuralist (3rd person view of interior realities) as both he and Gary point out, but I would say it is construct aware because it describes itself as such. It points to its own perspectives and level--that is aware of its own construction.  As opposed to simply performing construction (Derrida) and realizing that there is construction.

And even deconstruction. I would argue the prior move (the taking of the perspective that reveals structuralism and that structuralism in turn reveals) is a moment of presence over absence undercutting Derrida's total and absolute prioritizing of the absent. Pull this thread and Derrida unravels. But it's worth following his unraveling. In fact, I would say that he is the master par excellence of the feeling and space of unraveling (but no integration). It's just that at some point, you can't live in that space forever. You have to eat and do things and make ethical choices. But it's always a real space in the Kosmos and one worth checking into and back into periodically. 

All of which is definitely not to say he (Derrida) is not in many ways a brilliant thinker who brought forth some central insights of permanent value. I think he was and did. Its also undoubtedly true (as Gary describes) that Wilber comes from a line that goes Kant-->Foucault-->Habermas. Habermas held a higher opinion of Foucault's work than Derrida's and so does Wilber.

Rather than choosing between Foucault or Derrida, I would say they were simply dealing with very different things. Both I believe had intimations of a post-pluralist mindset but never made it. Both interestingly ended their lives in dialogue with Habermas (teal thinker par excellence), which I think is highly pertinent and telling. Derrida at the end of the day (and this was my point that no one is a pure relativist) basically had to sign on to Habermas' political writings on the role of the EU (paradigmatic politics relative to that context).

Both Foucault and Derrida I would say reached dead ends. Brilliant dead ends and the journey they got to those dead ends is worth the recapitulation. Also according to my understanding of what Gary has done, their respective works can be re-imagined in an integral frame.  For Wilber's re-view of Foucault through integral, see here. 

And deconstruction can then work as Gary argues along with construction as complementary not contradictory. But only I would say after it has gone through the grinder of integral.  Derrida's promotion of the absent/grammar/the underside could be and should be held within all the higher stages, but we must be cognizant we are placing it/interpreting it in such a way. Left on its own, as it were, it does not (imo) reveal a construct aware space.

So I have decided that truly and completely, people who rail over Global Warming issues are mad. They are not well people. They've lost the basic functions of listening and engaging. Nuance is completely off the table. I am not crazy. You are.

But it got me thinking: how clear can one make a position so that it doesn't slip off the greased pole into a heap of pornographic assumptions. Even Trevor in the comment section of Bergen's post seemed either to be confused or playing dumb. This is an issue that defies sensibility, because none seem to be in play.

I decided to have a little fun and spell out as I might to a disabled child who doesn't speak my language, what exactly a sane and rational position is on global warming.

So, here are my orienting generalizations on the global warming debate (in categories of decreasing certainty):

Truths We Should All Agree With

1. Global warming is occurring. (ed note: it's number fucking one people!!)

2. Humans have a hand to play in global warming. (ed note: number two you bastards)

3. We cannot say for certain what that role is. (ed note: that's it, I've lost half of you)

4. Humans should be proactive in finding solutions. (ed note: you're back! But on guard...)

Things We Have to Come to Grips With

1. The developing world is, um, developing. That's two billion new capitalists.

2. We cannot reasonably or morally stunt this growth.

3. Some degree of climate change may not be caused by humans.

4. Wealthy and healthy people tend to care more about the environment.

5. Democratic societies are a net positive in global affairs.

Things We Can Do Today

1. Eradicate malaria.

2. Provide the world's poor with clean drinking water.

3. Significantly reduce HIV/AIDS.

4. Tax carbon emissions.

5. Push technological innovation.

6. Continue to grow the global economy.

7. Push for increasing wealth distribution.

8. Help facilitate the growing consciousness of sustainability and corporate responsibility in multinationals.

Expected Benefits

1. Rich, educated, healthy people care about the environment and move to protect it.

2. Unattractive fossil fuels compel technological innovation.

3. Wealthy democratic societies demand accountability from leaders.

4. Collective endeavors to aid one another brings about greater harmony.

5. A world connected is a world of greater peace, prosperity and ingenuity.

And listen, if climate change is gonna get us, its gonna get us. Stop being so afraid to die. It's very unattractive in a mortal.