Ken Wilber - Integral Politics

At the recent 5-day Integral Institute seminar on Integral Business Leadership,
Ken Wilber was asked, by a senior Zen teacher, "What do you think of the Republican convention?"

Ken responded by giving an overview of what a truly integral politics might look like, and used that to compare and contrast with the Democratic and Republican conventions, both of which are less-than-integral. We think that this twenty-minute summary is brilliant, insightful, deadly serious, and wickedly funny, all at once. But by all accounts it is an extraordinary account of why all politics today are considerably less-than-integral, along with certain features that almost certainly would have to be included in the future in any truly integral politics.

In this synopsis, Ken focuses on three items that all political theories have attempted to address but none have managed to fully integrate. These are the tension between (1) the individual and the collective; (2) the source of the cause of human suffering: is the individual primarily to blame or is the society primarily to blame?; and (3) the different levels of development that the different political parties tend to represent: any truly integral politics would include and represent all of them, and yet how on earth do you do that?

Due to time considerations, Ken did not discuss two other equally important ingredients in any integral politics. One. In representational democracies, people have a right to be at whatever stage of development they are at, and generally speaking, within free speech, a right to express the values of whatever stage they are at. Traditional-fundamentalist (blue) has a right to be traditional, modernist (orange) has a right to be modernist, postmodernist (green) has a right to be postmodernist, and so on. This is generally modified in practice, to the extent that the center of gravity of a culture will tend to impose its values on others, especially if they are first-tier (or less-than-integral) values. Nonetheless, in democratic societies, there's a general background understanding that people have a right to be, and a right to express, whatever stage they are or whatever belief system they possess.

Two. They do not, however, have a right to act on those beliefs. This is generally handled in representative democracies by a separation of public and private, and by a similar if more specific principle of the separation of church and state. This means that, for example, in the privacy of my blue-meme mind, I am free to believe that Jesus Christ is my personal savior and that nobody achieves salvation without a belief in Jesus. In public behavior, however, I am not allowed to burn at the stake somebody who disagrees with me. In terms of integral psychology, this means in the interior of an individual (i.e., the upper left), the person can believe whatever they like; but in their public behavior (i.e., the upper right), they must behave according to laws drawn from a worldcentric or higher level of development (lower left), or else they are charged with civil or criminal behavior and removed from society if necessary (lower right).

This separation of church and state, or more generally what Max Weber called the differentiation of the values spheres, is one of the great and enduring contributions of the Western enlightenment, a contribution almost entirely misunderstood by extreme postmodernists, who in fact are operating under its protection while bitterly condemning it.

(The most common version of this is the aggressive attempt to reduce "I" and "It" to "We,' or the attempt to reduce art and science to a social construction, which can therefore be deconstructed. As it turns out, this reductionism presumes precisely what it denies, but then, deconstructive postmodernism has been little without its performative contradictions.)

A truly integral politics exists nowhere on the planet at this time, principally because not enough individuals have emerged at the integral levels of consciousness, and hence no governments anywhere have integral representatives as members (except rarely and by accident). Its principal challenge is to create some form of governance that allows each stage to be itself within the constraints of not harming others (i.e., to let red be red, and blue be blue, and orange be orange, and green be green, etc—precisely because, as we saw, this is a right in virtually all free societies), and yet to govern from the highest, widest, deepest, and most encompassing levels of development emerged to date (starting at yellow). Most representative democracies do this anyway, except their center of gravity is not yet fully integral, and they do it implicitly, not explicitly.

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[emptyhighways]

Very intresting video and text info. I live in Canada, a representative democracy that tries to embrace multiculturalism and plualism. However, the governing paradigm (or center of gravity) is very confined and non-inclusive. In other words, it is a political correctness that is very restrictive. Canadians like to think of themselves as free, yet they are free to follow strictly enforced laws which claim to provide freedom (which often they do, if freedom is seen as a respect for human rights).

[LooksAeterna]

@jhgosnell "from integral you respect WHERE people are at in their growth"

I can't remember whether "respect" was part of the definition of 2nd tier, "understand" would probably be sufficient since you can't even do that below 2nd.

Even if "respect" is in it, this would be the case only if the moral line would be on integral. You can be integral cognitively and morally in the stone age. Hence I spoke of pathological 2nd tier.

[LaiTinycx636]

hiya jemand deutsch

[ClydeLavonxd538]

nun mein hintern ist geil

[MrPisster]

The basic thrust here seems to be that pure ideology doesn't effectively serve situational action. Yet, at the same time, it seems the only way we can approach potential action is through an understanding of the various ideological perspectives and then supposing what the outcome would be, sort of choosing actions based on what would get us closer to an idea. Yet, without an ideology, an ideal doesn't exist. So....hmmm....

[jhgosnell]

@LooksAeterna I agree here...the lines. We can be very evolved in one line and an idiot in another. That would be path. 2nd tier I think. What a mess!

[SuperVinceism]

This paradaigm is only limited only to the extent that it is "possibly" simplistic. Besides that issue, i think this is a brilliant pilitical paradigm. It's Ken, what do you expect.

[DemonHermit]

@presentlightoftruth Why is every philosopher, scientist and spiritual teacher a false prophet to you christians? Nobody is trying to "prophecize" and nobody is propping themselves up as a savior like you guys are always claiming. Now go listen to Kent Hovind and suck up some more creationist bullshit.

[jhgosnell]

I somewhat agree...and add: Traditional values and morals matter as much as more liberal values such as mental flexibility, acceptance, creativity, etc.

[jhgosnell]

I like him...no one seems to understand the importance of all of the various perspectives...conservative and liberal perspectives both have merits. To avoid being wishy washy, we can find a way that the integral perspective actually applies.

[richspur2004]

the first truly third way political party was the Labor party in Australia. When it got into government in the early 1980's it did the market liberalisation that happened under both Reagan and Thatcher in the USA and UK, except because they were interested in both right and left solutions, they were able to maintain the economic safety net while the rapid expansion occurred. Australia now is one of the most prosperous countries in the world and it's due to this type of thinking.