(Author's note: I'd like to extend a special thanks to Beth for suggesting Ken Wilber as today's Global Microscope topic. Wilber is certainly an interesting character, and I hope this blog inspires discussion. Thanks! ~Elizabeth A. Scott)
Citizens of the Pacific Northwest have a fantastic appetite for innovation and sociopolitical activism. To that end, many of us turn to Ken Wilber, author of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995); A Theory of Everything (2000); Boomeritis (2002), for enlightenment and direction.
Wilber is perhaps most famous for his jumbo paradigm, Integral Theory. Loosely speaking, it's a conglomerate model of the human experience composed of ideas scavenged from biology, faith, business, politics, and psychology. Recently, Wilber's comments about a subset of this paradigm, Integral Politics, were published on YouTube under the title, "One Person, One Vote, One Catch." The post generated a tidal wave of comments.
Since Wilber is so influential--so appealing to our Pacific Northwest identity, it's worth examining Integral Politics for soundness. Should it influence our thinking about today's hot issues: panhandling, homelessness, incarceration, mental illness, health care?
If the answer is yes, then Wilber's philosophy is a vitamin; an essential, healthy approach we can use to increase the effectiveness of our political discourse. But what if it's really a deep fried granola bar? It could be tasty, healthy-looking, and a fatal 5,000 calorie heart attack catalyst. Together, we have to watch out for this kind of risk. So let's take a closer look...
Wilber's theory classifies people according to motivation, and assigns them a position within a pseudo-biological/developmental hierarchy. In his YouTube presentation, Wilber mostly talks about people near the top of his hierarchy--the "Worldcentric" folks, and those near the bottom--the "Ethnocentric" folks.
Now here comes the really interesting part. Wilber's "Ethnocentric" groups include Nazis, KKK members, devout Christians, and Republicans. He paints with the broadest brush possible, and uses only one color. For Ethnocentrists, he likes the color blue.
Since the opposite of blue in Wilber-World is green, he uses this color to represent "Worldcentric" people. These are defined as well-educated citizens interested in extending basic human rights to everyone regardless of race, color, sex or creed.
On YouTube, Wilber muses that Worldcentric citizens were responsible for establishing our current, representative form of government. He also suggests that our democracy has a built-in, catastrophic flaw: it pits Ethnocentric, values-focused citizens against Worldcentric, economics-focused citizens. He further asserts that the well-intentioned Worldcentric people are wrong to avoid "values" in the context of government. This, he feels, is one of the roots of civil unrest and displacement from government.
Even more interesting is Wilber's solution to American social discord. He proposes that we accept Ethnocentrism and Worldcentrism as natural stages in life. One must pass through the Ethnocentric stage to get to the Worldcentric stage. Then he compares Ethnocentrism to a molecule within a cell. The cell cannot reject the molecule, he says, so it's impossible for Worldcentrists to reject Ethnocentrists, even though that's exactly what they'd like to do.
According to Wilber, once Worldcentrists have accepted Ethnocentrism as part of their own natural development, they'll evolve onwards and upwards and become "second tier" citizens capable of "Integral Politics." He predicts that increasing numbers of people will actually do this because it's a natural trend. Plus, it inherently relieves tension between political groups. You can't hate your rivals if you see them as existing within a natural life stage.
In Wilber-World, the more people that practice Integral Politics, the easier it will be to make our social squabbles go away. Bible followers will be allowed to do whatever they want in their own homes but, he says, they "won't be allowed to burn people at the stake."
The appeal of Integral Theory to Democrats is that it pretends to promote compassion towards Republicans--and Democrats (like me) love themes of compassion. But watch out! Wilber isn't really teaching compassion at all. He's essentially saying, "Hey Democrats, acknowledge your dark, Republican, faith or ethnically-based genetic code and transcend to greatness. Love your conservative rival as you would a child, and political tension will go away." Can this be true?
Wilber's theory is entirely based upon the transposition of biological or evolutionary principles into a method for organizing geopolitical groups. It sounds scientific--almost logical--but in reality, it's like taking a rock classification system and using it to decide which cereal to eat for breakfast. Yuck!
True, there's often a relationship between genetic code and geopolitical identity, and some global populations are more closely related than others. The English, on average, might be more genetically and politically uniform than Americans. Sometimes this helps keep the peace, sometimes not.
In Rwanda, the New York Times reported just this week that the government has a stranglehold on political discussion. Dissent is not allowed, and international leaders fear citizens will soon be forced to identify with nothing more than their ethnic groups.
Ethnic identity has indeed been associated with the kinds of catastrophes Wilber mentions, and this is his most important--most valid point. Rwandans could be in real danger, since ethnic tensions have led to wholesale slaughter in the not too distant past. It could happen here, too. Think Oklahoma bombing.
I must point out, though, that ethnic identity is rarely the real problem. It's a statistical happenstance. We humans are social animals, and we're competitive. We naturally join groups. Does that mean ethnic or religious identity causes violence? Absolutely not. Famine, lack of economic or biological success, disease, hardship, quests for power/control--even boredom--make better instigators of violence. Ethnicity is just along for the ride.
The idea that Republicans should naturally evolve or develop into Democrats, and Democrats should naturally metamorphose into political super-beings, puts Integral Politics squarely inside a philosophical black hole. Wilber talks about Republicans and Christians the same way slave owners used to talk about human property--like they're not as developed as the rest of us. While I usually agree with liberal/progressive ideas, I find Wilber's stereotypes offensive. His model of Integral Politics is also scientifically unhinged.
There's no biological impetus for political groups like Republicans (Ethnocentrists) to change into Democrats (Worldcentrists) in a country like ours--a country that's not actively being ravaged by civil war. There's no reproductive advantage to being a Democrat. Republicans are not being hauled off to death camps, and I refuse to believe that mainstream Republicans would even wish such a thing on Democrats. (Extremist motivations can't be modeled, so they aren't worth talking about.)
Ironically, Republicans and Democrats often have identical goals: good health, public safety, economic security, even religious piety. We just have very different ideas about how to achieve them. Wilber is right to point out that we have much in common, much to accept; wrong to say it has anything to do with natural life stages. It has everything to do with peaceful communication, education, and open debate.
If Wilber were a vitamin, he would promote peaceful discourse. He would generate an atmosphere of mutual respect that could actually lead to progress. But if I were a Republican being called a social tadpole with a predisposition for white, pointy hats and stake burnings just because of my religious or ethnic identity--I would be furious. I definitely wouldn't be interested in peaceful discourse. I'd be offering Wilber a stack of deep fried granola bars.
Then again, maybe I'm not that highly evolved. I bet those things are tasty...
~Elizabeth A. Scott
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