For The Turnstiles

Listen: On its present trajectory, with the load it now bears, Wilberism cannot become a mainstream-able academic discourse. This is because of the cultish way knowledge is made in integral theory at present, of course. But it also has to do with the way that words actually mean something. Words matter in the work of defining, specifying, and deploying concepts.

Wilberism is laden with words that, on one side, have little or no definite meaning: they have polemical value, but are so bent out of shape and proportion as to have conceptual value left. Spiral Dynamics as Wilber uses it is like this. "Green" is an insult. "Red" is a put-down. And that is that: in practice, whatever their content may be is elusive and not infrequently contradictory, as in Wilber's infamous comments on the Iraq War. I am convinced that "postmodern" simply means, to Wilber and his followers, whatever is perceived as an enemy or obstacle to Wilberism. You cannot bring all this to bear in an academic conversation without a lot of ultimately pointless verbal gymnastics. (In this context, "green" means X. But in that one, it means the opposite, Y. &c.)

Further, when it does get specific, Wilberism is predicated on concepts with particular theological content, for which there is no real consensus in the academy. Good luck convincing a religiously plural biology department of the conceptual value of "Spirit" in explaining the phenomena they observe and describe. It is a non-starter. Even a theology that seeks to integrate the wisdom of all or at least listen to all is itself a particular theology. If it is anyone's consensus, it is someone's consensus, not everyone's. It is surely not mine. In fact, given Wilber's affiliation with intelligent design (through Michael Behe), it is definitely a regressive "consensus" of an isolated minority, affiliated with reactionary politics.

On this point, Analogy can be made to the anthropological and historical claims of The Book of Mormon: the business on Jaredites, Mulekites, Lamanites, Nephites, and the rest. This narrative may make sense as a belief system; it offers a "bigger picture," after all, in which we all get to be right (at least partly). But these claims are complete nonsense by any measure of contemporary science. They have no purchase in contemporary anthropology or history departments except as artifacts of nineteenth-century speculative anthropology, artifacts of cultural history. I think Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality as well as Integral Ecology will be regarded as much the same, insofar as they have any place at all in contemporary academic discourse.

If you want to legitimize integral theory as academic discourse, you need another way to move forward. That is, you need to move forward from different premises, different assumptions, and different methodologies from the ones canonized in SES. Where might you find such a place to begin? You may find it productive to look to us devils and dirtbags, rather than the angels of neurosis and transcendence.

It remains to be seen if "integral methodological pluralism" can do this. A closer reading of this approach will be forthcoming from me. For now, from the scholarship that claims to work from IMP that I have seen so far, there is little reason for optimism. I would like to know: to what extent does it represent a departure from these problems, or to what extent does it merely reproduce them? I have some ideas on this, but I have yet to resolve for myself what is meant by "pluralism" in this context (e.g., can this fairly be described as "pluralism" at all, or is it an attempt to contain the multiple in the singular of the AQAL frame?).

***

Nota Bene. This does not necessitate a renunciation of a detailed and uncompromising inquiry into consciousness and traditional practices of knowing. On the contrary. Clearing away the discourse of a perennial philosophy and the imperative to synthesize, homogenize, and commodify makes for the specificity of traditional discourse in the multiple to emerge, well, rhizomically if you like. Make this your question: what is the particular contribution this text, this approach, this idea (and only this one) can make now? This is related to the imperative to do well what only you can do well, instead of reducing your own constellation to some canon of external authority (which amounts to hiding your light under a bushel of bullshit).

***

Rebuttal: It may be so that Wilberism has its limits in interfacing with the academy, that it is limiting as a methodology. But you promote a methodology called dialectical materialism, which is also limiting, is it not? Limiting in the sense of marginalizing which corners of the academy will take your work seriously?

Reply: I try to think dialectically. And I am a materialist in much the way Sebastiano Timpanaro describes the term in On Materialism. I am not a dialectical materialist in the sense of being a Soviet philosopher.

That said, the approach I advocate does introduce limits in scope, but it attempts to account for those limits, to point them out critically, instead of trying to pretend them away. Further, it is also a commitment made not to a discourse or a canon or a cult figure, but to an imperative to transformation from a situation of dependence, subordination, and struggle to one of autonomy and maturity and creativity. DiaMat as a discourse suits the purposes of an integral understanding toward a radical transformation of self and society. Hence, I think it is warranted, even if the business school (the "1%" in the language of the "occupy" movement) finds it off-putting or threatening or anachronistic.

***

Rebuttal: The reason no one in the academy takes Wilber seriously is because their consciousness has not yet reached a proper level of development. They are identified with a paradigm that is not yet Integral--

Reply: Sorry to interrupt, but if this is your attitude, I advise you to check your assumptions. Even if you are right and people working in conventional academic disciplines and who identify as, say, secular humanists or agnostics or members of whatever religious tradition that is not Wilberism are, in sum, not quite enlightened enough to understand the profound truths of the Integral Age (I do not think you are right on this point, but here I will give you the benefit of the doubt): even if it is so, this kind of attitude will not help you convince anyone of the value of your ideas. It will help others become convinced you are a looney, a crank (on the Dunning-Kruger principle). It only marginalizes integral discourse further. How does that help anyone accomplish anything?