Is Ken right on Derrida?

I'm sure you all know what Ken thinks of Derrida. But is he accurate? And if not, why? Following are excerpts of an “integral” analysis of Derrida that is very different than Ken's. I'd suggest that if Ken's kosmic address is this far off on one of his contemporaries (only recently dead) then one really must question whether Ken's naviagtion system has a true “global” positioning satelite.
 

Integral Re-Views Postmodernism by Gary Hampton, in the current issue of Integral Review: 

Abstract: In this article I re-evaluate the potential contribution of postmodernism to integral theory via integrally-derived perspectives. I identify a premature foreclosure: the underappreciation of postformal modes of thinking (cognitive development beyond Piaget's formal operations). I then enact certain forms of postformal reasoning in relation to integral theory. This includes an engagement with such perspectives as complexity theory, conceptual ecology, vision-logic, dialectics, genealogy, critical theory, and construct-awareness. A major theme concerns the dialectical relationship between reconstruction and deconstruction-partly explored through a developmental assessment of contra-indicative discourse by both Wilber and Derrida. Although the territory is complex, the relationship between current Wilberian theory and postmodernism is clearly problematised. I posit that a deeper engagement with postmodernism can lead to an autopoietic deepening of integral theory.

In so doing, particular texts from Wilber and Derrida-chosen for their contra-indicative properties-are developmentally assessed to problematise the premise that Wilber's (re)constructive approach is necessarily operating at a more mature developmental level than Derrida's deconstructive approach.

Derrida's comments here are therefore not coming from a relativist perspective. He is making value judgments in favour of a discussion of Spirit and against Heidegger's inappropriate silence on the issue. Furthermore, deconstruction itself is clearly articulated as being beyond the relativism of unbridled equivocity: Derrida sees relativism as self-limiting, confusing, unintelligible.

Here, in addition to Derrida's vividness of language regarding concerns and insights into matters spiritual-with a sense of appropriate wordplay-we can also see Cook-Greuter's identification of the construct-aware Magician where “concerns, questions, insights and commentary cleverly united into one complex sentence structure.” A plausible hypothesis, then, would be to consider that these comments from Derrida centre around the perspective of The Magician-a level beyond Wilber's Teal / Integral / “post-postmodern” / Yellow vMeme. In short, this evidence supports the hypothesis that the above text from Derrida is operating from the construct-aware stage.

Derrida rationally differentiates deconstruction from destruction and indicates that deconstruction is a constructive activity. He also explicitly reflexes upon its subtle dialectical quality. His writing demonstrates a high level of developmental maturity, in which deconstruction is recognised and reflexively enacted in a post-relativist, dialectical, construct-aware mode. Derrida and deconstruction are clearly something Other than that signified by Wilber in his use of the term, deconstructive postmodernism.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Also see Desilet's articles on Derrida at Integral World, as well as an extended discussion with Desiltet at Open Integral.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Thanks for this, Edward.  I'm just several pages into the first article you recommended and it seems excellent.  I just noted that the author recommends something I've been exploring on my blog, in the vein of a positive valuation of Green, and utilization of Green “technologies,” as a means of enriching Integral:  Bohmian Dialogue and Deep Dialogue.  I fully agree with the author that, rather than allowing these methods to languish in Green, they can be fruitfully employed in an Integral context.  I like his emphasis on participatory modes of research (as opposed to the more “distant” approach of mapping that is typically emphasized in Integral discourse) as a way of arriving at fuller Integral cognition – here, through deepening and cohering postformal thinking…

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

I'm sure you all know what Ken thinks of Derrida. But is he accurate? And if not, why? Following are excerpts of an “integral” analysis of Derrida that is very different than Ken's. I'd suggest that if Ken's kosmic address is this far off on one of his contemporaries (only recently dead) then one really must question whether Ken's naviagtion system has a true “global” positioning satelite.

It never crossed my mind that Ken is infalliable, but his interpretation of Derrida is well within the mainstream. If you want to argue that the mainstream, relativistic interpretation of Derrida is wrong or incomplete, I'm actually very sympathetic to that point of view because I think Derrida and post-modernism are still relevant and important, but first they must be rescued from the misinterpreters.

I don't agree with the author that the relationship between “Wilberian theory” and postmodernism is problematized. Ken is obviously critical of a particular interpretation of postmodernism, but he has also accepted and integrated it. Secondly, the author is a non-American and clearly has very little understanding of the damage that has been done by the popular vision of postmodernism. In my opinion, that view is largely responsible for the rise of George W. Bush and what he represents, the war in iraq, the inability to address global warming, and the decline of Liberalism in America over the last 30 years.

~MrTeacup

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Mr. T, are you reading – or have you read – the first essay that Theurj referenced?  Or are you going by the excerpt in Theurj's post?  Because the essay goes into some detail about how American and European sociocultural dynamics may influence the manifestation of healthy or unhealthy iterations of “deconstruction.”

For instance, take the following comments:

“From a slightly different hermeneutic perspective, the following question arises: From whence does such violence emanate? Which AQAL quadrants are implicated here? Lower right power structures? Lower left cultural values? Upper right bodily urges? Wilber's upper left subjectivity? or something tetra-arising? One interpretation is that Wilber appears to be referring to an event occurring in (his) lower left quadrant-in American cultural values.

Interestingly, Ben Agger's (1996) interpretation of the situation is both significantly convergent and significantly divergent from Wilber's. In terms of agreement, Agger reinforces the hypothesis that there is something singularly wayward with America's interpretation of postmodernism and deconstruction. In terms of difference, Agger suggests that, rather than being related to America's excess of radical politics, it is actually American culture's deficiency in radical politics that is the cause of wilful or careless “ignorance” regarding deconstruction:

the American reception of postmodernism has tended to ignore postmodernism's stress on the linkage between discourse and democracy, a linkage that I contend is precisely the opening of Derrida's critique of western logocentrism to radical politics. Put differently, the American reception of postmodernism suppresses (or simply never learned) the social and intellectual history of French postmodern theory, which emerged out of the 1968 May Movement as a critique of Stalinist and orthodox-Marxist authoritarianism in preference for a radical micropolitics of everyday life (later to emerge as new social movements theory). Far from turning away from politics, people like Derrida and Foucault viewed their own philosophical work as intensely and obviously political, contributing to the heterodox French left project, especially in ways that embrace the feminist and gay/ lesbian movements (¶ 14).

Could an adequate interpretation of this instance, then, be that the American nation-culture constitutes a “pathological” aberration among the plurality of global nation-cultures, in that it, substantially alone, has interpreted postmodernism as a form of destructive violence against the radical politics of an authentic democracy? a masculinist straight-jacketing of meaning-from, shall we say, French fries (delicately-sautéed postmoderne)-to McGiveMeGiveMeGiveMeU.S.NewNewsNewsweakNewspeakFreedomNowNow “Freedom” fries?-contributing to an exponential escalation of the prison population of concepts?⁷⁴-a suppression of freedom in the name of freedom?

Perhaps not. Perhaps, conversely-as Benedikter (2005) indicates-the U.S., including Wilber's sizable contribution, leads the world in new thinking-in integrating, specifically, “Pacific” or “Eastern” conceptualisations. There is certainly strong evidence that points this way, too. Then again, does it have to be either/or? It is surely not the intention of well-respected American authors to perpetuate neo-imperialist languaging; but, if Wilber's comment is true, and if integral theory, developmental theory or socio-cultural theory seeks to speak from a global rather than a local (i.e., American) perspective-and to a global rather than a provincial (i.e., American) audience-then note might be made that the rest of the world might not have substantively partaken of such a cultural fad as deconstructive postmodernism-or, at least, might not have substantively partaken of a “vulgar” interpretation of postmodernism. It would seem that the theoretic transition from modern to integral needs to take into account the importance of different cultural types-specifically addressing the 242 of the 243 nation-cultures that are not the U.S. of A. (regardless of how many subcultures the U.S.A. includes).⁷⁵ If cultural type or state can skew the normalised theoretic structure of cultural development to the extent indicated above, then such straight linear interpretations of AQAL's default theoretic hierarchy of significance between levels of development and cultural type and state become problematic or untenable. Instead, a much subtler, more complex theoretic structure needs to be envisaged, where cultural variants (such as the identification of the AQAL state of neo-imperialism regarding the current U.S.) can be seen to be a major player amongst integral elements-the AQAL ecology of types, states, lines, levels and quadrants / native perspectives. ”

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Another book that examines the cosmological and postructuralist branches of postmodernism (like the above referenced author) is Process and Difference. (I reference it in an OI blog entry.) One of the authors of PD (Keller) also notes how David Ray Griffin built his case against deconstruction based on the American interpreters but basically didn't know anything about Derrida. She said Griffin “mounted the argument against a ‘deconstruction' of his own invention.” I know that Ken also favors the Whitehead/Griffin “constructive” pomo and uses many of the same arguments against Derrida as if he's responsible for the Americans that use him, in a sense also creating a straw Derrida.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Balder,

I am still reading the essay, but I read the part that you quoted. The author acknowledges the problems of the American reading of postmodernism, but in the appendix he objects to constructs such as Mean Green Meme, and I think interprets it as an attack of the philosophy instead of an attack on the American naive postmodern zeitgeist. Other Europeans in dialog with Ken have said that they've never seen the MGM, and he responded that it's mainly an American phenomenon, so this leads me to the conclusion that he hasn't really had to deal with what it has created. I would rather believe that than the alternative, which is that he does know and doesn't care.

I still think its a fantastic essay though. The concern that integral thinkers might throw the postmodern baby out with the bathwater is warranted, but the appendix on MGM is not so great though and weakens the overall impact, in my opinion. It reads like this: “Postmodernism is not the same as Green, but even if it is, Green is not so bad.” It's a non-sequitur. The anti-MGM response seems to take as an assumption that a massive backlash is about to come from the integral community, but it's virtually inevitable that the integral community will grow out of and be largely supported by the green community. I think they are taking the worst possible interpretation that could plausibily be made of the concept of MGM, and saying that the integral community holds that view, or might hold that view, and it just seems unfair. The business of counting Ken's positive, negative and neutral descriptions of pluralism is ridiculous and unworthy of the essay, which is excellent.

~MrTC

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

I think I sympathize with the main goal of the article, but what I don't see is why the author thinks he has to position himself opposite to Wilber to reach it. I think he's right in that many integralites have a somewhat warped view of Green, but Wilber has already included lots of postmodern truths in his model, as MrT also pointed out. No need to “rescue” postmodernism from AQAL steamrolling over it.

The author then undercuts his claim by quoting a research in Appendix A, which is supposed to indicate that Yellow has less problems with Green than any other meme!

Wilber objects to the extremes of postmodernism (and so does healthy Green), certainly not to postmodernism itself. He doesn't even totally reject deconstruction, and in fact embraces Nagarjuna's version of it.

I'm afraid the article doesn't succeed very well because it doesn't take lines into account properly. Hampton keeps talking about the “Wilberian vMemes”, which actually don't exist. The MGM, for example, is a combination of Green infected with Red in different lines. This is not the same as a pairing of Red and Green vMemes as in Spiral Dynamics. Confusions like these abound throughout the article.

To say that deconstruction is beyond integral by claiming that Derrida is at Magician (by considering just one of the many criteria) and comparing that to Yellow as “the level of AQAL”  (as if that is the level Wilber himself is at) sounds heavily confused to me. And as if all that wasn't bad enough, Hampton then asks in the Appendix if deconstruction can be considered a line of development!!!

I'm not familiar with Derrida's work, so I don't know if Wilber portrays it correctly, but Hampton's article doesn't convince me at all on that point. Especially since Hampton doesn't represenst Wilber correctly.

Peter


 

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

I have explored the topic of this post at length at OI and don’t intend to do so here again. I just raise it as an open question, as something for you to consider for your further enquiry. My research to date leads me to tentatively conclude that Derrida’s cognitive development is at least construct-aware, and that he also has a non-dual awareness in today’s pomo milieu in his reflections on the undeconstructable. So by Ken’s definition he’s pretty damned near “enlightenment,” imo.

But I’m not here to convince you of that, just to raise the question and let you explore it if it is your inclination. But for me it also raises some of the other questions I asked, like if what I contend is accurate then how does Ken place Derrida’s altitude at pluralistic and give him no credit for any awareness of emptiness? The first article I provided gives some also tentative sugesstions for this, but there are countless others if you are open to look. So if you decide Ken is wrong on Derrida after your own enquiry, then Ken’s kosmic address compass must be off, at least is some ways. And if so, one would think you’d want to correct that, since the entire Wilber-5 IMP depends on the accuracy of this compass.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

I haven't finished the essay yet, but after reading everyone's comments here, I skipped ahead to the first Appendix.  I suppose you all have noticed that this forum and Julian both get (dis)honorable mention…!

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

So if you decide Ken is wrong on Derrida after your own enquiry, then Ken’s kosmic address compass must be off, at least is some ways. And if so, one would think you’d want to correct that, since the entire Wilber-5 IMP depends on the accuracy of this compass.

I do think Ken is wrong about Derrida, but the interpretation that he critiques is very mainstream and he's entitled to critique it. And if you think that Derrida has been misinterpreted, I would expect you to welcome Ken's critique. I do, I think it's a step in the right direction. Ken's interpretation is not central to Wilber-5, so its hardly a fatal error.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

theurj, I would be highly surprised if Ken turned out to be right on all accounts. He'd be the first. I'm totally open to Ken being wrong about Derrida, but I just cannot conclude that based on that article you pointed to here, and I didn't have time yet to check out the others. Thank you for posting this, and I'm willing to look at other sources. But expect me to be as critical to these articles as their authors are to Ken.

Also, if you start a thread here, I kind of expect you to be willing to discuss it here, and I find it a bit strange that you're not willing to do that. You ask very specific questions in your first post, and some of us here have taken effort to engage them. If you're not willing to respond to my arguments or those of others, then fine, but I may not be overly enthousiastic to engage you next time.

I just tried to find where you “discussed this topic at length” at OI, and I couldn't find it. Could you at least point it out? [edit: I think I found it. You're Edward Berge, then? I guess that's common knowledge… :) ]

Could you please tell me if Ken placed Derrida at a pluralistic altitude in terms of a center of gravity, or at pluralistic altitude cognitively? And does Ken claim (or imply) that judgment to be accurate?

Peter

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Thanks for the response Peter. I can understand your reluctance to engage me in particular due to my attitude. It’s just that I’m tired of defending Derrida against Ken, having invested so much time and energy into it previously. I’m ready to move on. But you don’t have to engage me per se to engage the topic, do you? If the topic is worthy then run with it. It doesn’t need me.

As to Ken’s kosmic addressing of Derrida, perhaps one recent place to start is “Don’t confuse Derrida with Dharma” at Integral Naked (http://in.integralinstitute.org/live/view_integralspirituality.aspx). I no longer subscribe so haven’t heard it but I imagine, as is his wont, that Ken reiterates all his previous points on Derrida there. For those that have heard it, what does he say about D and pluralism, the latter of which is most certainly “green.”

On the other hand Ken does seem to suggest that D has gone beyond this in IS, for example this from p.185 of the draft:

“But, in any event, that rather complete relativism ended with Derrida’s admission, in Positions, of a transcendental signifier—there is a reality to which signifiers must refer in order get a conversation going. Without a transcendental signifier, Derrida said, we couldn’t even translate languages—and there ended the extreme poststructuralist stance. (Leaving behind its very important, but very partial, truths. Many of those partial truths of poststructuralism—contextualism, constructivism, and aperspectivism—are fully incorporated in AQAL.”

But I have yet to hear Ken expound on where D goes with these ideas, and indeed he went. It seems that the “extreme” pluralist interpretation of D continues to dominate.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

theurj,

I just finished listening to Don’t confuse Derrida with Dharma, and here's the what he says about Derrida:

“Derrida is not about having a satori experience. You can read Jacques Derrida your entire life and not get a satori.”

That's it. This doesn't seem that controversial, but maybe you disagree. Then I looked at Sex, Ecology and Spirituality:

“That is why Jonathan Culler, perhaps the foremost interpreter of Jacques Derrida's deconstruction, can point out that Derrida does not deny truth per se, but only insists that truth and meaning are context-bound (each context being a whole that is also part of another whole context, which is itself…). “One could therefore,” says Culler, “identify deconstruction with the twin principles of the contextual determination of meaning and the infinite extendability of context.” Turtles all the way up, all the way down.”

From this passage, Ken seems to view deconstruction quite favorably, and only seeks to rescue it from boomeritis misinterpretations. This is reinforced in Boomeritis:

“But in the hands of boomeritis, context-dependent was used, in a wildly exaggerated fashion, to make all meaning and all truth shiftingly relative and arbitrary, so that any established meaning could be undermined…”

Hampton agrees: “Derrida and deconstruction are clearly something Other than that signified by Wilber in his use of the term, deconstructive postmodernism.” Overall, I don't think there's a lot of evidence that Ken relegates Derrida to only green, and you still haven't given us the reference to where Ken says Derrida is operating from pluralistic cognition.

~MrTeacup

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Hey guys

On this recent IN dialogue, Ken mentions some of the differences between the routes that postmodernism took with Foucault and Derrida respectively - might be relevant to your debate…

Ewan

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

I don't have IN so if anyone has heard it please elaborate. One can also explore how Hampson (via his source) claims that both the cosmological and deconstructive aspects of pomo originated in…was in Shelling? This is also explored in the book I referenced above, Process & Difference, only using Whitehead and Derrida as examples. The latter also finds much rapprochement between the two and challenges some of Griffin's antipathy to deconstruction. (Ken gets some of this from him as well as dichotomzing the two as if one is “more evolved” than the other. Hamson also challeges this.)

As to Ken's analysis of Derrida as green, here's but one example from On Critics etc at http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/interviews/interview1220.cfm/

Green: The Sensitive Self . Communitarian, human bonding, ecological sensitivity, networking. The human spirit must be freed from greed, dogma, and divisiveness; feelings and caring supersede cold rationality; cherishing of the earth, Gaia, life. Against hierarchy; establishes lateral bonding and linking. Permeable self, relational self, group intermeshing. Emphasis on dialogue, relationships. Basis of value communities (i.e., freely chosen affiliations based on shared sentiments). Reaches decisions through reconciliation and consensus (downside: interminable “processing” and incapacity to reach decisions). Refresh spirituality, bring harmony, enrich human potential. Strongly egalitarian, anti-hierarchy, pluralistic values, social construction of reality, diversity, multiculturalism, relativistic value systems; this worldview is often called pluralistic relativism . Subjective, nonlinear thinking; shows a greater degree of affective warmth, sensitivity, and caring, for earth and all its inhabitants.

Where seen: Deep ecology, postmodernism, Netherlands idealism, Rogerian counseling, Canadian health care, humanistic psychology, liberation theology, cooperative inquiry, World Council of Churches, Greenpeace, animal rights, ecofeminism, post-colonialism, Foucault/Derrida, politically correct, diversity movements, human rights issues, ecopsychology. 10% of the population, 15% of the power. [Note: this is 10% of the world population. Don Beck estimates that around 20-25% of the American population is green.]

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Hi Edward,

I note that in the shambhala article you're pointing to, Ken also states:
I am a big fan of many of the great postmodern writers, particularly Heidegger, Nietzsche, Derrida, Foucault, Gadamer, later Wittgenstein.

This doesn't mean that he agrees with everything these men said, of course, but I really don't see Ken as totally dismissing Derrida, as is also apparent from some of Ken's notes. You seem to be implying that Ken placing Derrida at Green is a putdown, and I wonder why.

In the IN dialog that Ewan pointed to, Ken places Derrida at Green again, but, interestingly, he puts Foucault at Teal and a bit later as “pushing into Teal”. He also says that he thinks that Foucault is the better thinker of the two, and that Habermas thought so as well.

He doesn't specify if Derrida himself is at Green, or his work (probably both). He also doesn't specify what line of development he's talking about, so the best I can do here is to assume that he's talking about a self-line, but I'm really not sure. This still leaves room for Derrida to be cognitively above Green, but I fail to see why Derrida's psychograph is so very important, and it certainly is not central to AQAL as a framework. I don't think anybody is implying that we don't have to take Derrida seriously.

Peter

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

This isn't related to the discussion, but what struck me right at the beginning of the page you linked, Ewan, was this statement:

Ken explains that the only definition of Left and Right, or Democrat and Republican, that truly “sticks” is the following: the Left believes primarily in exterior causes of human suffering (guns kill people, so take away the guns), and the Right believes primarily in interior causes of human suffering (people kill people, so teach individuals not to do that).

Besides that it's a stunningly simplistic definition of Left and Right, there's the problem of Left being equated with Democrat, which is centrist at the most. As far as I can tell, you don't have much of a national Left presence in the US, nor have you in the past. Even as a description of Democrats vs Republicans it's superficial and inaccurate.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Hi Nicole,

Ken's view on politics is much more refined than that. The second part of the audio has just been released, and you can read some details about that here.

If anybody wants to discuss that further, please open a new thread, since it's off-topic.

Peter

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Hi all,

Edward, thank you for getting this thread going. And to all who have contributed let me also thank you for all the rich comments and for the wonderful references that I feel called to track down. 

Rather than offer an answer to the thread's question directly (let me say in passing that I think that the drift of Ken's views of Derrida are not wrong), I want to point to Derrida's writings themselves – since without his texts as a touchstone we risk becoming abstract in our claims – and especially to his writings starting c1990 when he began to make assertions that startled many of his earlier American deconstructionist followers, claims (more complex than I am expounding) like the one that: justice is undeconstructable. 

What is apparent in these texts is a kind of “ethical turn” – one inspired by Derrida's friend and, in many ways, silent mentor: Emmanuel Levinas (Derrida delivered the eulogy at Levinas's funeral, for which see the brief and beautiful opening essay in Adieu; and to be sure his reputation in Parisian began with “Violence and Metaphysics,” his 1964 review essay of Levinas's first magnus opus, Totality and Infinity).

In my opnion Levinas was the greatest recent philosopher of the Infinite Thou – God in the 2nd person breaking into the order of beings, always already calling us to responsibilty for the Other.  Said too bluntly, his work is a deep and radical reframing of Buber's view of the I-Thou (the latter about which Ken speaks with so much brilliance and luminonsity, I must add). 

Derrida, in his later writings, is often Levinasian, or Levinas-inspired.  He explores “the Good beyond Being” (a Platonic phrase often cited by Levinas) through themes like “welcoming,” “hospitality” and “mourning,” as these themes are analyzed as complexly constituting the ethical relation to the Other.

One might not experience satori reading Derrida, put there is a chance for some – through coming accross the occasional passage, perhaps – that the Heart might become that much Fuller: strange as that might sound about Derrida.

I thought that sharing these remarks might contribute in some way to this thread.

Much love,
Michael

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Thank you all of you who have addressed my article. It was written in part to inspire such discussion as this. Let me respond to each of you individually—through the following group of posts.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

theurj

Thanks, Edward, for bringing my article, “Integral Re-Views Postmodernism: The Way Out Is Through” to the attention of the Zaadz community. I note that your particular interest concerns the relationship between the ideas of Ken Wilber and Jacques Derrida, and this, indeed, is one of the substantive threads of my article. You also point to Gregory Desilet’s work on Derrida. I only came across Desilet’s work after submitting my article, but we have recently been in touch, and I look forward to further cordial discussion with him.

Thank you also for bringing Anne Keller’s “Process and Difference” into the discussion. Her work is certainly pertinent to this important topic. Your indication of her differentiation between an American interpretation of deconstruction and Derrida’s deconstruction—as evidenced through her critique of Griffin’s languaging in this regard—certainly adds weight to one of the points I am making regarding a call for discernment between particular American and non-American viewpoints. I also agree with you that her work, like mine, can be used to problematize the notion that the cosmological branch of postmodernism is necessarily more evolved than the poststructuralist branch. And, to confirm your remembrance, I did indeed indicate that Arran Gare cites Schelling as the bifurcation point of this historical genealogy.

I also agree with the weight of significance you place on this issue, when you say that “if you decide Ken is wrong on Derrida after your own enquiry, then Ken’s kosmic address compass must be off, at least in some ways.”

With regard to Derrida’s apparent toward the transcendental—as also brought to the table by Michael’s helpful recent contribution to this thread—I would recommend Roland Benedikter’s work (“Postmodern Spirituality” on the Integral World website.) And I agree with you that, despite this apparent turn (I say “apparent” because I believe the terms “extreme relativism” and “deconstruction” should not be conflated in the first place, and secondly because a certain constructive deconstruction of the term “transcendence,” for example, might also be useful), “it seems that the ‘extreme’ pluralist interpretation of Derrida continues to dominate.”

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Balder

Thanks for your positive feedback, Bruce. Most encouraging. I was interested to read your blog on Green “technologies” as a means of enriching integral—this sounds very aligned to the central intention of my article. We both honour the work of David Bohm and Ashok Gangadean and their respective forms of dialogic approaches. You also have quite a knack for choosing fine and beautiful pictures!

On another point, I’m sorry you feel that there was something of dishonour (as well as honour, perhaps) in my reference to Zaadz and to Julian. My intention was of course not to be dishonourable but rather to be carefully factual. I hope the care in my current post indicates my respect for the Zaadz forum and its participants.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

MrTeacup

Thanks for your engaging feedback, Mike.

You appear to agree with me that there has been a misinterpretation of Derrida by particular “mainstream” perspectives, such as Wilber’s perspective. And you agree that “the concern that integral thinkers might throw the postmodern baby out with the bathwater is warranted.”

IDENTIFYING RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN WILBER AND POSTMODERNISM

You also contend that my article has not problematised the relationship between Wilberian theory and postmodernism. You believe that Wilber has “accepted and integrated” postmodernism. However, my article does not claim that Wilber has totally rejected postmodernism nor that he has not included it in a particular way in his model, but rather that the particular delineations of his “acceptance” and “integration”—the ways in which he has purported to “transcended and include” postmodernism—do not entirely, deeply or coherently accord with important understandings arising from postmodernism: he appears not to have wholeheartedly or reflexively engaged with and enacted postformal thinking, nor the radical import of deconstruction. In short, I contend that his “acceptance and integration” of postmodernism is substantively partial.

You say, “Ken’s interpretation of Derrida is not central to Wilber-5, so its hardly a fatal error” but the issue at hand is not Derrida but the concept of deconstruction. Wilber’s interpretation of deconstruction might well be an error that some might regard as “fatal”—although I would regard it more as an opportunity for an autopoeisis of integral theory. I contend that the substantive import of Derrida’s deconstruction could modify the core theoretic fabric of AQAL via, for instance, a meta-dialectic of construction~deconstruction. AQAL (whether Wilber IV or V) appears to be aligned to a fundamental notion of construction rather than an alignment with a recursive dialectic of construction~deconstuction.

INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTMODERNISM; U.S. AND NATION-CULTURAL “TYPES” AND “STATES”

On another point: yes, I am non-American—as I mention in the article. When you state that I have “very little understanding of the damage that has been done by the popular vision of postmodernism,” I assume you infer this idea from the fact that I do not directly explore “the popular vision of postmodernism” in my article. You are correct that I do not directly address this. However, such discussion was beyond the article’s intent. The particular interest, rather, was in indicating the possibility of American-centrism with regard to Wilber’s identification of “deconstructive postmodernism.” It is one thing to construct a theory which eloquently speaks to the U.S. alone; it is quite another to assume this then automatically is adequate for the rest of the world. This distinction is also relevant to the following point you make about me, when you say:

“he objects to constructs such as Mean Green Meme, and I think interprets it as an attack of the philosophy instead of an attack on the American naive postmodern zeitgeist. Other Europeans in dialog with Ken have said that they’ve never seen the MGM, and he responded that it’s mainly an American phenomenon, so this leads me to the conclusion that he hasn’t really had to deal with what it has created. I would rather believe that than the alternative, which is that he does know and doesn’t care.”

I naturally care about the situation in the US as I would for the rest of the planet. However, my article is not about this particular social dynamic, but rather, in part, concerns the claim that Wilber regards his theoretical construction as universal—globalcentric rather than nationcentric—and therefore not only applicable to the US. If the MGM is a useful construction but only for the US, then this calls into question the default weight given to the particular AQAL dimensions (quadrants, levels etc.) and instead foregrounds the importance of nation-cultural “type”—in this instance, the unique temperament, as it were, of the American nation-culture at this point in history. Such an understanding can be identified in relation to AQAL dimensions, but the theoretic tenor would be quite different from common AQAL-related discourse, and would be more aligned, for instance, to certain strands of critical theory. Furthermore, any riding roughshod over such discernment could also be AQAL-identified but with similarly different tenor (the importance of a nation-cultural state—the AQAL dimension of state as identified in the lower left quadrant)—in this case, in relation to neo-imperialistic languaging. The latter hypothesis might also well be reinforced if it was identified that the theoretic signifier, “deconstructive postmodernism,” as found in integral or developmental literature, be based primarily on an—furthering your term—“American naïve” perspective toward the postmodern rather than on one which is more globalcentric, less nationalistic.

GREEN

I’m sorry you feel the appendix on the MGM is not as worthy as the rest of the article. It is true I spent a little less time refining the appendices than the main text (they are, after all, appendices), so I apologize if my languaging in these was less clear than in the main body. This suspicion is perhaps reinforced by your summary of the MGM appendix: that “postmodernism is not the same as Green, but even if it is, Green is not so bad,” as I would not personally own such a summary.

With regard to your comment that the data I presented concerning Wilber’s languaging about Green is worthy of ridicule, I’m sorry you feel this way. I was attempting to indicate—perhaps a little unskillfully?—Wilber’s overly repetitive association between postmodernism and the concepts of pluralism and relativism—to the detriment of other important postmodern features such as the enacted awareness of complexity theory, dialectical operations, and the radical import of linguistic construction.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to elaborate on these points.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Hi Gary,

Thanks for joining us in this forum to discuss your article. As I said earlier, I'm very impressed with it, and it's a wonderful expansion to our knowledge in those areas.

In short, I contend that his “acceptance and integration” of postmodernism is substantively partial.

I agree with this. Integral theory has yet to fully articulate a complete integration of postmodernism, but this is also true of systems theory, and probably a lot of other approaches as well.

AQAL (whether Wilber IV or V) appears to be aligned to a fundamental notion of construction rather than an alignment with a recursive dialectic of construction~deconstuction.

I don't understand how that can be true. The AQAL framework has sharply limited the ability for various methodologies to claim ultimate truth. The very issue we are discussing is that Ken has deconstructed deconstruction and whether it is legitimate or not. AQAL is only useful because it is deconstructive. Whether a fuller embrace of Derrida

If the MGM is a useful construction but only for the US, then this calls into question the default weight given to the particular AQAL dimensions (quadrants, levels etc.) and instead foregrounds the importance of nation-cultural “type”…

I agree that integral theory would do well to more carefully describe the cultural nature of MGM, but as I've said, Ken has made that distinction, although perhaps not often enough or loudly enough. Having said that, my experience has been that the greatest impediment toward a broader acceptance of postmodernism is American naive postmodernism. I contend that because of this the US has experienced a series of very substantial political setbacks and regressions at enormous cost globally. So in my view, the degree of attention given to this local phenomenon is necessary and welcome, though we should note the potential distorting effect on integral theory. It might be helpful for you to know that in a recent audio clip, Ken identified “Green allergy” as the major shadow of integral people at II, and it is almost certainly the case that one of the major projects of integral politics in the US is to help spread Green cognition to those currently at Orange.

On the nature of MGM, I agree with David here. I think MGM is generally understood as Green cognition, Red shadow, and Todovic's methodology is inadequate to the claim that she's making. My impression of many “pure” Spiral Dynamics people is that they simply don't accept the existence of the Shadow. Another possible MGM combination could be Green cognition, Amber/Blue shadow.

And one final note to give you some context – my impression of the “Open Integral” crowd has been less than positive. It seems that they have a tendency to assume that we are all blind Ken Wilber worshippers who accept everything that comes out of Boulder uncritically. To offer such things as ”one really must question whether Ken's naviagtion system has a true “global” positioning satelite” as if this was some bold statement, to me betrays a profound arrogance  and an ignorance of what actually goes on here. So it is not the intellectual content of your work that I object to, it is Edward's misuse of it in his patronizing efforts to show us the error of our ways. It's not my intention to lump you in with him, but I hope you will acknowledge that the “count Ken's words” is extremely suspect. No-one should be subject to this kind of calculus to prove that you hold a viewpoint that you have actually repudiated – it's borders on an ad hominem attack.

Thanks again,
Mike

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Mike said:

“And one final note to give you some context - my impression of the “Open Integral” crowd has been less than positive. It seems that they have a tendency to assume that we are all blind Ken Wilber worshippers who accept everything that comes out of Boulder uncritically. To offer such things as ”one really must question whether Ken's naviagtion system has a true “global” positioning satelite” as if this was some bold statement, to me betrays a profound arrogance  and an ignorance of what actually goes on here. So it is not the intellectual content of your work that I object to, it is Edward's misuse of it in his patronizing efforts to show us the error of our ways.”

Wow, for one who talks a good game on shadow projection you really should take a look in the mirror Mike. My comments were specific to Ken's contentions on Derrida, not to imply that there is blind repetition or worshipping in this pod. In fact that's why I joined and came here, because I find such questioning of Ken's model. Aside from such projections I appreciate your input.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Edward, I'm willing to examine my reaction for shadow projections, or that I'm simply misinterpreting you, but from the very first sentence, you've made it pretty clear that this is not about Derrida, it's about Ken, and how we shouldn't assume that Ken's kosmic address compass is completely correct. This is patronizing, because no-one, in fact, assumes that. And your unwillingness to engage others in a thread you started doesn't help.

Again, I'm prepared to question my conclusion, and it doesn't take away from the fact that this thread has been very helpful to me, so thank you from bringing this topic up.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Mike, I appreciate your considered reply. What I tried to make clear with this topic is that it’s about Ken’s interpretation of Derrida, which I happen to think is wrong is some significant ways. You say that no one assumes Ken’s kosmic addressing compass is completely correct, but I didn’t claim that; I claimed that since it’s wrong in this particular instance it calls into question its possible accuracy with other addresses. Now I think we can assume there there are some in I-I, and even right here, that have assumed Ken’s address is right on Derrida, no? I know I was one of them before I began my own investigation.

As to my unwillingness to engage the topic further, I admit to that but it’s not because of my superior attitude thinking you’re all a bunch of Wilber zombies with nothing worth saying. I’m just plain tired of the topic, having invested a lot of time and energy into it elsewhere. Perhaps I shouldn’t even have introduced it if I wasn’t going to participate much, but that assumes that’s the best way to start and maintain a topic. I only hoped to raise what I thought was a relevant inquiry and that it would survive or die on its own without me. And it appears to be doing so, now engaging the author of one of my quoted sources. Despite my silence you admit that you are gaining something from it, as am I.

I just want to take in the responses, to learn something, to question my own assumptions and at times strong responses to Ken. I get tired at times of defending positions and need a break from it.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Kessels

Hi Peter. Thanks for critically engaging with my article and giving me the opportunity to respond in some detail!

CONTRASTING

You say, “what I don’t see is why the author thinks he has to position himself opposite to Wilber to reach it.” It is indeed true that I have chosen to focus on areas of disagreement with Wilber rather than areas of agreement. As it happens, I have, to some degree, addressed this in Appendix B, where I comment that, “the seduction of formal academic expectations may have led to…my foregrounding of difference to, or differentiation from, Wilber’s approach in this article. Whilst this has its merits, it may not sufficiently express the commonalities I might share, nor adequately convey my appreciation of Wilber’s panoramic vision and courage. If this is so, I apologise. It is work-in-progress (and, in my defence, the purpose of this article is not to comprehensively address Wilber’s work but rather to explore in detail a certain—problematic—territory within it). I look forward to pertinent community dialogue, analysis, deconstruction”—which you are now doing! So thanks for pointing this out. It is, no doubt, quite an art to strike the right balance in this regard.

WHICH POSTMODERN FEATURES?

Regarding your comment that “Wilber has already included lots of postmodern truths in his model, as MrT also pointed out,” please see my response to MrT above. If Wilber has already included “lots” of postmodern truths, I contend that he has not sufficiently explicated what these might be. My analysis, instead, indicates that he tends to reflexively focus on the one “postmodern truth” of pluralism-relativism. It indicates the way Wilber has not adequately addressed the “postmodern truths” of dialectics, complex-awareness, or linguistic-awareness, for example.

RESEARCH ON THE YELLOW AND GREEN vMEMES

I do not understand your point that “this” undercuts my claim that Yellow has less problems with Green than any other vMeme. Perhaps you could elaborate? You also seem to infer that such a claim is rather outrageous. If so, I might wish to suggest that you specifically engage with the research which leads to this conclusion (see Natasha Todorovic’s 2002 “The mean green hypothesis: Fact or fiction?” at www.spiraldynamics.org). Perhaps it is faulty in some way? or perhaps my interpretation of it is askew?

Wilber does indeed object to the extremes of postmodernism rather than to postmodernism per se, but his framing of AQAL nevertheless foregrounds difference to, or differentiation from, postmodernism-as-Green, and it is toward this particular emphasis that I am addressing my comments.

DECONSTRUCTION AND LINES

You comment that he embraces Nagarjuna’s version of deconstruction. Interestingly, this is the point I am making when I refer to the possibility of deconstruction as a developmental line. This idea that you and I are making—namely, finding some commonality between the deconstruction of the text and the deconstruction of the ego—is, however, one that Wilber is not apparently interested in acknowledging. It is thus somewhat ironic that you seem to have a problem with me raising the question of whether it might be useful to consider deconstruction as a line of development!

You comment that my article does not take lines into account properly. I have attempted in Appendix C to outline some of the relationships between my article and AQAL lines. My hunch is that, through theurj’s titling of this thread as “Is Ken right on Derrida?” you might have assumed that the intention of my article is in some way to AQAL-ly evaluate Derrida as a whole, a task which would indeed require the developmental evaluation of numerous lines. However, this is not one of the aims of my article (as I elaborate below). Other than this hunch, perhaps you would care to be more specific.

TERMINOLOGY REGARDING MEMES AND VMEMES

You say that I talk about “the ‘Wilberian vMemes’, which actually don’t exist.” My understanding of what you are pointing out is that I am not using Wilber’s terminology. This is indeed correct. This is because, as my article points out, it is in fact Wilber’s terminology which is confused. Wilber continually speaks of “memes” when he is talking about the coloured developmental levels. But according to Spiral Dynamics theory—the theory Wilber got this terminology from in the first place—“memes” are denoted as being like genes, except that they reside in the noosphere (and refer to the propagation of particular ideas) rather than in the biosphere (the propagation of genetic material). In contrast, “vMemes” (or vMEMEs) act like big complex-attractors to the small memes. It is vMemes which signify the coloured developmental levels. For a full discussion of the distinction between “memes” and “vMemes” see www.spiraldynamics.org

RED AND GREEN

You point out correctly that Wilber identifies MGM as a form of Red “infecting” Green. You also say that the MGM is “a combination of Green with Red in different lines,” and differentiates this from “a pairing of Red and Green vMemes.” Perhaps you could give me a reference regarding this differentiation: I am unclear what particular lines you are referring to. You might be making an important point, which critiques and furthers Todovic’s research when she concludes that “the data shows that when Green increases so does the rejection of Red.” You might therefore be in a good position to add a particular, important discernment to the MGM discussion. I look forward to your ideas here.

Whilst I acknowledge the potential usefulness of the above possibility, I find it difficult to see the validity in your general comment that “confusions like this abound throughout the article.” I can see, rather, that the article decisively steps beyond the comfort zone of default integral assumptions, and this may cause some initial startlement or confusion.

RE-PRESENCING RATHER THAN RE-PRESENTING

You comment that I don’t “represent Wilber correctly.” The potential truth I see in this statement is that both my terminology and theoretic constructs are not entirely equi-valent to Wilber’s. This is because I am not setting out simply to re-present Wilber’s point of view. I am rather seeking to indicate particular ways in which Wilber’s perspective may be problematised (and I am doing this with a view to deepening integral theory).

Let me now turn to your following comment: “To say that deconstruction is beyond integral by claiming that Derrida is at Magician (by considering just one of the many criteria) and comparing that to Yellow as “the level of AQAL” (as if that is the level Wilber himself is at) sounds heavily confused to me.” Let me attempt to unpack this a bit. Firstly, I’m unsure what you are referring to when you speak of “comparing that to Yellow as ‘the levels of AQAL’ (as if that is the level Wilber himself is at).” Perhaps you could clarify? I will address the rest of the comment in two stages: comments regarding the idea that “deconstruction is beyond integral” and comments regarding the idea that “Derrida is at Magician (by considering just one of the many criteria)”

THAT “DECONSTRUCTION IS BEYOND INTEGRAL”

It is a little unclear what you mean here, as my article does not state this. The term “integral” can signify many things. Even Wilber uses the term integral in a number of ways. I’ll follow two particular interpretations here. Firstly, one of the main threads of my article is that the concepts of deconstruction and (re)construction can be fruitfully regarded (in various contexts) as peers—a complementary pair in one dialectical unit. In this regard, deconstruction would not be beyond integral but beside it, perhaps like two friends together who hold different but paradoxically entwined perspectives. The second interpretation I will follow is that you might be pointing to a developmental evaluation, where the term integral is perhaps equivalent to Yellow, above which there are “post-integral” levels; and that I am claiming that deconstruction is operating at a higher level that Yellow. There are two points regarding this interpretation. Firstly, although this idea would perhaps differ from the current Wilberian perspective, why would such a claim be necessarily confusing? Deconstruction involves an acute awareness of the linguistic constructions we are using; Susanne Cook-Greuter’s construct-aware level addresses a similar phenomenon. Beyond such an intuition, though, is the evidence I have presented: particular analyses of Derrida’s text using Cook-Greuter’s framework. I would agree, though, that if such evidence is compelling, then this would cause quite a disruption (perhaps involving initial confusion) to default assumptions regarding deconstruction.

THAT “DERRIDA IS AT MAGICIAN (BY CONSIDERING JUST ONE OF THE MANY CRITERIA)”

My article does not state that “Derrida is at Magician.” Instead, it makes the following indicative statement: “This evidence supports the hypothesis that the above text from Derrida is operating from the construct-aware stage.” (p. 135) Our statements are different in at least two significant ways. Firstly, I am referring to particular writing from Derrida, not Derrida as a person. Secondly, my claim is that the evidence I have presented supports a hypothesis. It could be said that hypotheses may stand as if true until other evidence counters or furthers them. The call here, then, would be for you to engage with the evidence I have presented and offer counter-evidence. It might well be, for instance, that other text from Derrida indicates something quite different—writings from less mature developmental levels, for example. If so, then the hypothesis can be appropriately problematised or refined. I would look forward to such evidence: I have no vested interest in claiming anything for Derrida beyond that which I have researched myself and presented to you.

EVIDENCING

A corresponding call would be for you or others to assess on what basis Wilber has come to the particular evaluation he has made with regard to Derrida’s deconstruction. I have presented my evidence for you to decide for yourselves. Beyond mere claims, what specific evidence has Wilber provided? What degree of transparency is there with regard to Wilber’s evaluation of Derrida? What type of data is he using? By reflecting on such questions, you improve your ability to make rational discernments.

DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN DERRIDA AND DECONSTRUCTION

As my intention was not to evaluate Derrida as a whole, but rather, particular texts of his, my use of only “one of the many criteria” (of ways to evaluate Derrida) is valid: there is actually only one criterion in question—Derrida’s languaging, as there is only one aspect of Derrida that the article concerns itself with—namely, deconstruction. This particular criterion is therefore highly significant in this particular context. And I am assessing this in relation to Wilber’s identification of the category of deconstructive postmodernism. And I am taking possible identifications of “Derrida’s languaging” and “Derrida’s deconstruction” to be sufficiently intertwined or synonymous for purposes of this article (i.e. at this level of reasoning)—to be left undifferentiated. Therefore the matter in hand—deconstruction—can be evidenced solely by reference to Derrida’s languaging: the text I am analyzing.

My article also says that “Derrida and deconstruction are clearly something Other than that signified by Wilber in his use of the term, deconstructive postmodernism.” Here, notwithstanding the above, I am referring in part to Derrida as a person as part of the compound, “Derrida and deconstruction.” This is framed as a “negative” rather than a “positive” identification in that I can claim that a particular totalizing view of Derrida is problematized by a particular analysis of “part” of Derrida (Such a statement requires far less evidence than a “positive” identification). The address of Derrida as a person is in reference here to Wilber mapping of “Derrida” within Green, which he does in A Theory Of Everything, as I indicate on p. 129. The inference here is the problematisation of Wilber’s placement of the signifier “Derrida” in this way—because evidence from a particular criterion—in this case, his languaging—points to a strongly significant divergence of assessment. In other words, I am suggesting that the specific evidence is sufficient to problematise Wilber’s totalizing placement, but I also attempt not to overstate my own position: I do not give an overall evaluation of Derrida (even if that were a valid or desirable quest). The intent and interest of my article is not to attempt an overarching evaluation Derrida or Wilber but to sufficiently problematise particular totalizing ideas and then to suggest a subtler, more nuanced way forward for integral theory. I suggest that this can be achieved by thinking postformally—such as appropriately embracing certain dialectical, complex-aware and linguistically-aware considerations.

To end, thanks Kessels, and to you all, for giving me this extended opportunity to elaborate on some of my ideas with regard to theurj’s particular interest in my article.

Gary

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Hi Gary,

It's very cool to see you joining us in this discussion. Thanks for the extended and detail reply to my concerns. Since there are many different topics, I'm going to address them over multiple posts. In order to follow the pleasant tone of discussion that you initiated, I'd like to explain what my position is here. I'm not trying to defend Wilber or AQAL, nor is it my intention to bash your article. Like I said, I sympathize with one of the main goals of the article, which is to correct an imbalanced view on postmodernism that some people are sporting.

Let's start with what you called “contrasting”.

My point about you positioning yourself opposite from Wilber was indeed about specific points; you made it clear that you agree with the overall framework. The points that you are trying to make, however, don't seem to be opposite to Wilber's view at all, at least not to me. One of my problems is that you paint a picture in your article in which Wilber's stance to postmodernism is mostly negative. I don't think this is a fair representation of his position.

I want to start with the description of Wilber's Green altitude (not vMeme, but we'll get to that later):

Green (worldcentric—able to take a 4th-person perspective): Green worldviews are marked by pluralism, or the ability to see that there are multiple ways of seeing reality. If orange sees universal truths (“All men are created equal”), green sees multiple universal truths—different ones for different cultures. Green ethics continue, and radically broaden, the movement to embrace all people. A green statement might read, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, regardless of race, gender, class….” Green ethics have given birth to the civil rights, feminist, and gay rights movements, as well as environmentalism.

The green worldview's multiple perspectives give it room for greater compassion, idealism, and involvement, in its healthy form. Such qualities are seen by organizations such as the Sierra Club, Amnesty International, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Doctors Without Borders. In its unhealthy form green worldviews can lead to extreme relativism, where all beliefs are seen as relative and equally true, which can in turn lead to the nihilism, narcissism, irony, and meaninglessness exhibited by many of today's intellectuals, academics, and trend-setters…. Not to mention another “lost” generation in students.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Gary said: ” You point out correctly that Wilber identifies MGM as a form of Red “infecting” Green. You also say that the MGM is “a combination of Green with Red in different lines,” and differentiates this from “a pairing of Red and Green vMemes.” Perhaps you could give me a reference regarding this differentiation: I am unclear what particular lines you are referring to. You might be making an important point, which critiques and furthers Todovic's research when she concludes that “the data shows that when Green increases so does the rejection of Red.” You might therefore be in a good position to add a particular, important discernment to the MGM discussion. I look forward to your ideas here.”

Gary, thanks for your fine article. I'd just like to call into question Todovic's study (first result that will appear on that link), which seems to have some serious flaws.

The primary problem I see with it is the method–a test where subjects accept or reject certain statements, check boxes next to statements that are “most like me” or “least like me” or that “I strongly agree with” or “strongly disagree with,”  and finally a sentence completion test. This is problematic for a couple of reasons if we are investigating the MGM. Todovic brings attention to one of them on page 8, without seeing the implications of it on her study: “What he [Graves] noticed about Green is that individuals don't want to admit to having negative feelings about others.” But the test depends on the individual making such an admission. And I think we all know that we like to “shine” in these tests, whether they are anonymous or not, and more likely to give our highest response rather than our lowest response. After all, it's a test! But furthermore, part of the idea is that Green isn't aware of these attacks; it's a blindspot; it's a shadow, if you will, so a test like this would never uncover it. It would take a long-term study where people were observed in real-life or near-real-life situations. Rather than questioning one individual at a time (and just for a few hours at the most, it seems) and depending on the subjects' openess and awareness of themselves, qualified researchers would have to observe a group of such people interacting over a long period of time.

A few other things I noticed:

On page 2 she says that “One arguement used by MGM proponets is that people centralized in the Yellow system will reject Green because they have recently emerged through it.” And then she goes on to say that Yellow only rejects Red 7% of the time, but if you look at her chart, she is talking about “Highly Rejecting” or “extreme” rejection. It wouldn't make sense that Yellow would “highly” or “extremely” reject Green or any of the first-tier structures, at least not as much as Blue or Orange, because Yellow sees that they are all necessary and that it has all these structures within itself.

On page 4, she talks about MGM proponets confessing to a mission to uplift others and noting that this isn't a part of the Green/Yellow structure–and then seems to imply that the MGM proponets, including Wilber and Beck apparently, might be Blue/Orange themselves. But maybe the MGM proponets are beyond even Yellow, where the mission to uplift others arises again. I've seen other critics, Bauwens, for example, confusing Wilber and Beck with Blue/Orange as well, not seeing important differences between the two.

On page 7 she asks whether the MGM involves a pairing of individuals rather than systems within individuals (it's both, isn't it?), but then goes back to her test results, which, as I said, didn't study individuals interacting but rather individual reponses to certain questions. I don't have any evidence to offer for the MGM, certainly not any studies to cite. Just a little anecdotal evidence, along with Wilber, to lead me to believe that it might be happening. We've seen in protests, for example, a combination of Green and Red, haven't we? Wilber has cited a study of Berkeley Vietnam War protesters in which some gave Green reasons for opposing the war and some gave Red reasons. What Green and Red have in common is that both don't like Blue (Amber) and Orange. You see examples of this pairing all over the place in the U.S., including many protest movements in the 60s where some (even within the same organization) would be advocating violence and others peaceful resistance along the lines of Ghandi and Martin Luther King–a huge divide between the two. At the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999 you had Red anarchists from Oregon joining all sorts of protesters, many of whom had a COG clearly in Green, and then starting a riot, with some of the Green protesters trying to talk these black-masked individuals out of breaking windows and such as they did it. The meetings between the red Hell's Angels and Ken Kesey, the Grateful Dead, et al., (most of whom were probably green) described by Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson provide more coloroful anecdotes. Not proof, of course, but interesting, huh?

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

On the page 2 example, I meant to say, in the first instance, that Yellow rejects Green 7% of the time, not Red. I'm not really sure why she brings this up, but what would seem to matter to establish yellow is whether the person could sufficiently differentiate from Green rather than having a visceral rejection of it. And then, as you note, she questions whether yellow even exists, asking “if such a thing [second tier] even exists!” This along with her apparently believing that Wilber and Beck's “elitism” is really Blue/Orange, makes me wonder if her study is really an example of green trying to fight off yellow or higher. 

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

On the subject of whether the MGM is a pairing of individuals (or of groups) or lines within an individual, I would think that it would just be lines within an individual. Green individuals or groups associating with Red individuals or groups might be more of a healthy aspect of Green, at least until they get beat up or abused somehow. But still, there seems to be an interesting connection between the two, some kind of acceptance or non-rejection of Red both in the intererior and exterior, although it's a common enemy that brings them together as well at times.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Gary, I want to thank you personally for your excellent article and for joining us here in this discussion.  I plan to return to your post to me soon, and may have some questions for you at that time. 

But for now, I just want to say that I believe your article may have helped me get a recent teaching position!  In an interview for a faculty position at a local university, I mentioned your essay and one of the arguments in it when I was asked about my understanding of Integral / postmodern dynamics (and the tension between them).  The interviewer was satisfied with my answer, and glad that I was not willing to just take a default position in favor of Integral over caricatures of postmodernism as the MGM (as if that were fully representative of the nature and scope of postmodernism).

Best wishes,

B.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Gary,

See what Ken says below regarding Derrida and Buddhist Emptiness. Then see following that an inquiry in another Zaadz/II thread, Indigo Buddhism. Could you respond to this in light of your reference to Benedikter on how Derrida might indeed touch on more than just “the limitation of language in the waking state?” And do you have any insights into my other questions at the end?

From On Critics etc.:

Shambhala: Okay, we'll come back to that. But what's wrong with finding parallels between, say, a certain type of Derridaean deconstruction and Buddhist Emptiness or the Madhymaka school?

KW: There's nothing wrong with it, as long as you keep certain profound differences in mind. The basic aim of deconstruction is to work with language, and while in the waking state or gross realm, attempt to come to a certain type of understanding about the ambiguity, instability, and paradoxicality of signifiers. The aim of Buddhist meditation is to strengthen consciousness so that it can give bare attention to all the phenomena that arise in the waking state AND the dream state AND the deep sleepless state, so that one awakens to an all-pervading consciousness or Buddhamind that is present in all three states–waking, dreaming, sleeping–and thus gain a great liberation from all transient states of being, high or low, sacred or profane.

Shambhala: Once you put it that way, there seems little in common.

KW: There is very little in common. All they share is a certain number of similarities about the limitations of language in the waking state. I find those similarities suggestive and useful, and I have written about that (e.g., in endnotes for SES). But if one merely stays with deconstruction, then one will not take up the arduous practice of yoga, of zen, of meditation, which will transform consciousness beyond the verbal mind altogether–in fact, beyond waking, dreaming, and sleeping, which is something deconstruction not only cannot do, but does not even imagine is possible. But until you are pursuing a yoga in which you remain conscious through the waking state, the dream state, and the deep sleep state, then you are merely identified with the superficial, surface, waking state, and you manipulate linguistic signifiers in that state and imagine that this “deconstruction” is somehow deconstructing samsara, whereas it is merely manipulating a rather surface consciousness and not getting into the deep causes of suffering, such as the attachment to the waking state itself. Deconstruction is something the ego does in the waking state in order to hold onto the ego.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

theurj said Today, 12:28 PM:

I said above on 6/25/07 at 7:14 pm:

And one last point for now: What if the ultimate “state” of nonduality, which is not a state or a stage, has nothing whatsoever to do with subtle and causal meditation techniques or interpretations? What if the nondual is our natural condition, like primordial awareness, and that we have to “regain” it instead of develop or “practice” into it? What if the nondual is not part of the state-stage developmental scheme at all? It seems the only “research” to that effect, the one Ken quotes all the time, is from something he co-wrote with Brown* and which obviously had its own research agenda based on what? Ken's model…

Balder said 6/26 at 9:33 am

Concerning the question of whether nonduality might not be a “state” or stage at all, but a natural condition which must be regained rather than achieved or created, I actually think that IS Ken's position.  It certainly is the position of Dzogchen.  Dzogchen does teach practices, but it calls them non-practices precisely for the reason you point out:  there is nothing to achieve.  “Practicing into” primordial awareness is an exercise in recognition, not in generating some new evolutionary stage.

* * *

Given the above, is it necessary to study/practice meditation (Buddhist or otherwide) and/or go through state-stage developmental training (subtle, causal) to arrive at a stable nondual realization? Is it possible that one can “recognize” our primordial awareness and/or emptiness via other modern or postmodern study/practice? And are the latter only confined to the gross state?

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

For example, this is from Benedikter's “Postmodern Spirituality Part IV” at Integral World, as quoted in the Open Integral thread ”Postmodern/Postmetaphysical Spirituality”:

II: THE HIDDEN GOAL OF LATE POSTMODERN PHILOSOPHY: OBSERVING YOUR OWN THOUGHTS IN THE MOMENT THEY ARE HAPPENING

RB: Ok. Let's first resume shortly, what we saw so far. We saw: Postmodernism (or postmodern philosophy, to be more accurate) tries to teach you something that is, in many aspects, part of a second or avantgardistic wave of enlightenment. It tries to transform the traditional diachronic enlightenment into a synchronic enlightenment. The reason developed by modernity said: “First think, and then observe. Look back, what you thought, and you will see, what it really was. To see, what it was, is possible always only afterwards.” With other words: The howl of Minerva is always late (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel). But the new reason of “positive”, avantgardistic post-modernity says: “Think and observe your thinking at the same time.” Or as Derrida put it a dialogue done from his living room in Paris at my presence: “I watch tv, and at the same time I watch myself watching tv”. That synchronicity indeed is the postmodern mind at its highest level.

Question: That is deconstruction at the synchronistic level.

RB. Yes. Please keep in mind: If I speak of synchronicity in thinking and in (auto-)observing the thinking, then I speak of the ego which is observed synchronically by the witness. There are still few who can practice this. I speak, of course, of postmodernism on its potentially highest level.

Question: Yes.

RB: One of the core methodologies of postmodern didactics and paedagogics seems to be: Deconstruction wants to teach you how to observe the rising of your own reason, the origin of your own thoughts in the very moment when these thoughts are produced. (Cf. Jacques Derrida: Letter to a Japanese Friend, in: Wood & Bernasconi (ed.): Derrida and Difference. Warwick: Parousia Press 1985, pp. 1-5; Jacques Derrida: Qu'est-ce que la déconstruction?, in: Le Monde, Mardi, 12 octobre 2004, pp. III.) Even if it remains half conscious, the ultimate goal of the best parts of postmodernity is to transform the enlightenment of the first wave, as we knew it from Immanuel Kant, into an enlightenment of a second wave. Kant said: “Always first think, use our thought and when it is over, you can and must look back and see critically what it was.” (Cf. Jean Francois Lyotard: Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime: Kant's Critique of Judgment, Sections 23-29. Stanford University Press 1994; cf. Jacques Lacan: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book 11. W. W. Norton & Company 1998; Jacques Lacan: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis 1959-1960. W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition 1997; Slavoj Zizek: Tarrying With the Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology. Duke University Press 1993). This was the “first wave” of enlightenment. What postmodernism is trying to teach us instead, is: “Give us a second enlightenment which is synchronistic! That means: Try to observe what and how you're thinking in the very moment you're doing it. Be self-conscious in every moment of your life! Be a double ‘I', a double consciousness always - and rationally!” So this is, to a certain extent, a more evolved approach of the same basic characteristics of modernity. It is a second wave of modernity. A more evolved approach, as you can see, but also a more difficult and dangerous, of course. I agree that postmodernity was against a certain form of reason, a certain form of modernity. But this is not the main point. Because at the same time, Postmodernity had many things in common with modernity. In the end, the leading postmodern thinkers just wanted to make one step further. Beside all the provocations, besides the sometimes useless intellectual battles and the many misunderstandings. They basically wanted to proceed from diachronic to synchronic enlightenment - by the means of a “philosophical psychoanalysis of the ego”.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Hi, Edward,

This is interesting.  I'm not sure how many postmodernists actually aim at this, but I wouldn't be surprised if some do.  But while this differs from the West's “first” Enlightenment, it doesn't (appear to) differ from, say, the Buddhist approach, which emphasizes mindfulness of the system of body, emotion, and thought.

The WC lattice may give the impression that contemplative traditions are mainly about “state training,” but that's too simplistic a view, in my opinion (and I am sure Wilber would agree).  For instance, while the Buddha trained deeply in accessing ever-deeper states, one of his discoveries (as you will learn in most vipassana retreats) is that a moderate level of “absorption” – a state in which the mind is concentrated, calm, and clear, but not so deep that contact with the world of ordinary phenomena is lost – is more useful on the path to “enlightenment” than the deep, formless states (the higher jhanas).  Buddhist training involves accessing and familiarizing yourself with both, but vipassana – insight meditation – depends on turning one's concentrated awareness on the arising of thought from moment to moment.

So, if some postmodernists are doing this in their own way, then no, they do not necessarily need to engage in the traditional Buddhist or Hindu (or whatever) methods of state training.  But they will nevertheless be doing something quite similar to what these schools also do in their programs of awakening.  With an important difference being that Buddhists recognize state training as useful in being able to stabilize and deepen awareness of thinking while thinking.

Best wishes,

Bruce

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Bruce said: “I'm not sure how many postmodernists actually aim at this…”

Perhaps they don't aim at it at all. Perhaps that's one of the points, that to even frame pomo discoveries in these terms assumes an “eastern, meditative” bias. As if the latter is THE answer to the issue of  “states.” It's akin to claiming that Derrida is limited to a linguistic analysis in the gross state, assuming the meditative-state context as the fnal word on the issue. Whereas such states of consciousness might, indeed do, have very different contextual meanings in pomo. And that such states are “not it,” it being what many pomoers like Derrida aptly call khora or emptiness. States apparently have nothing to do with the latter, or even what many Madhyamikans call the nondual.

Also note how Benedikter calles what the pomos are doing a “psychoanalysis of the ego.” This leads to my earlier contention (maybe in the Indigo Buddhist thread?) that pomo reframes what might be termed the Witness as simply the very nature of the ego as a self-reflexive “being.” Perhaps it's not a “double-I” at all. Perhaps that's the only way Benedickter can frame it within his “meditative” bias. Perhaps it's just the ego itself, by its very nature, that can reflect on mind and body but not see itself. And perhaps modern and pomo conceptions of it via the relatively recent discovery of psychodynamics frame it in a developmentally more accurate way than the “traditional” meditative disciplines? And the kicker: perhaps it doesn't take any training at all to have this “realization.” Perhaps it is inherent in the structure of the ego to begin with, thus appearing like a mysterious, metaphysical “given” to a pre-psychdynamics worldview.

Heresy, I know. Please forgive me Father for I know not what I do…

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

I don't regard it as heresy to argue that Buddhism is not the be-all and end-all of enlightenment projects, nor to suggest that there are ways to come to liberating insights and transformation of the self outside of traditional Buddhist/contemplative contexts.  But not knowing the sources you're drawing from well enough (I haven't read Benedikter, nor am I familiar with the pomo sources he draws on), I am really not able to follow what you're saying.  I would suggest, however, that your characterization of the Buddhist understanding of ego and “buddhanature,” by contrast to the pomo one, is not accurate.  Buddhists have explored the question of the “inherent self-existence” of any abiding entity or “thing” or “mind” with great subtlety and detail, and have dismissed notions such as a timeless “Witness” or an eternally abiding metaphysical entity such as the atman or Self.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

I’d agree Bruce that Buddhism generally deconstructs any metaphysical pretention to a “self.” But perhaps to get at the distinction I’m trying to make I need to ask a few questions. Would you agree that Freud et al made some discoveries that were not included in the Buddhist canon? I seem to recall Ken saying something to the effect that we must integrate Freud and Buddha, that the former was clearer on the personal developmental leg of the journey (aka “the self”) and the latter the transpersonal. (Sorry, can’t find a citation at the moment.) So what did the former elucidate that the latter did not?

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

That's a big subject, but one distinction I might draw is between the horizontal deconstruction of the self and the vertical construction of the self.  That's really simplistic, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with it, but what I mean is this:  Buddhism demonstrates that the self has no inherent existence and is a dependently arisen phenomenon in a field of equally empty “objects.”  The self is mere appearance upon which we impute inherent existence.  Freud (and those after him) have made it clear that the self is a product of time – a temporal unfolding of structures, all of which are “constructed,” yes, but not all of which are equal.  The psychoanalytic (and larger psychological) tradition has demonstrated that the “appearance” of the self has an order to it – one which is essential to a certain level of healthy functioning (without which the liberative project would not get off the ground), and which can be compromised at various stages of its development.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

So all I’m suggesting is that the modern psychological understanding of the personal, constructed, vertical self is something new, and this lack of understanding flavored the Buddhist deconstruction of a horizontal self, because the “self” means two different things here. In the former case it is essential to normal, healthy functioning; in the latter it is an impediment to “enlightenment.” Perhaps it is, as you say, not so simple as a dichotomy of horizontal/vertical, state/stage. They obviously have to be related and why Ken ties to do so with his lattice, but as to how they are related still leaves a lot of open questions.

In any event, the advantage the pomoers have is an embeddedness, sometimes unconscious but more often conscious, of this cultural ego dynamics and hence interpreted such things as emptiness or nonduality differently than the traditions. (E.g., they didn’t even call them by such terms.) Plus I’m wondering if it is not so much a higher vertical level interpreting just a gross state but also a reinterpretation of the subtle and causal states as well. (But again they are not called as such.) The latter of which seems to include some of the more “transpersonal” notions I’ve mentioned elsewhere that see the “trans” personal as a U-turn into experiencing the sub- and unconsciouss from the vertical vantage-point of a “conscious self (aka ego).” In that sense it is akin to saying that we remain conscious in dream and deep sleep, but again in different terminology in a different context.

Again I must emphasize that I don’t have this worked out in a general theory of everything. These are just questions that arise for me in studying such theories.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Hi theurj,

I’m enjoying your line of enquiry, with the questions you’re asking and the suggestions you’re advancing, and I’m appreciating the insights I’m gaining into pomo thought – just reading up on khora on this Wiki page was illuminating enough in itself.  I can see that khora as a concept has much in common with the concept of the ‘openness’ of Emptiness that allows any ‘object’ to arise within it. (I’m giving Emptiness aka Voidness a capital letter to signify I’m referring to that as distinguished in Madhyamaka Prasangika philosophy. For a comprehensive explanation of the differences between non-Prasangika and Prasangika logic read here, and for an extremely comprehensive analysis of “Mind and Reality” within Tibetan Buddhism have a look here.)

But one thing’s been missing so far in this discussion, and that's an acknowledgment that distinguishing conceptually what khora or Emptiness may be is one thing, but ‘realising’ Emptiness is another thing. So what does it mean, to ‘realise’ Emptiness?

First, the lack of inherent existence of an object, or the 'self' (and I would need to be persuaded that this wouldn't also apply to any perspective of the self, regardless of structural level), is negated using “the Five Great Madhyamaka Lines of Reasoning”. The end result of employing these lines of reasoning is to produce what is called “a mere vacuity”, (an absence of any conceptual image or idea of said object, or self), which is itself a conceptual image of emptiness or voidness. Only then does one enter into equipoise meditation on this conceptual image, resting on this during the meditation session. This process is repeated session after session after session, maybe year after year, until at some point it is possible for what is described as ” the wisdom mind of Emptiness” to develop and arise. Acquiring this 'wisdom mind' that has direct knowledge of Emptiness, (there is no longer a conceptual image of emptiness) is what is meant by 'realising' Emptiness, and the significance of this is that ones mental consciousness no longer 'grasps' at objects or self as existing inherently. As might be allowed, this is quite different from having a conceptual understanding of khora or emptiness.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Gary, I have been intending to respond to you and got sidetracked in several other discussions.  I'm writing to you today just to let you know that I've passed your article on to faculty members at JFKU.  I was speaking with several the other day and we were talking about the need for a positive approach to the gifts of postmodernism within the Integral and Holistic studies programs there, and I mentioned your article to them.  They were interested, so I have passed on the link.

Best wishes,

Bruce

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Thank you those who have furthered discussion of my article. Let me respond to you individually in the following string of posts.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

1. Is her method a generally accepted method in her field, or is it a departure from the norm?
2. Even if it is a generally accepted method, is there something about the particular data or context that requires an alternative method?
3. Even if it is a generally accepted method, are such generally accepted methods adequate?

1. There seems to be an implication in your comments that the Red vMeme is necessarily destructive. In what way would this be giving a balanced view of the Red value-Meme?
2. Both contexts you cite are occasions where different individuals come together rather than references to that which may be identified as operating within individuals.
3. Your anecdotes begin to describe characteristics of these contexts (such as Red and Green vMemes being attractors here). The anecdotes do not, however, directly address the identification of vMemes themselves. In other words, your object of inquiry is “protest.” A discussion could then explore characterisations of protests, such as whether protests were “mean.” But why should such a situation directly alter the identification of the values of a vMeme, such as is indicated by the MGM tag?
4. If you can justify altering the identification of a vMeme, then why should such contexts affect the identification of only the Green vMeme, and not the other vMemes that operate as attractors here or in other contexts?
5. How might such contexts be adequately differentiated from analogous contexts where two or more vMemes might be identified as attractors—such as (a) Green and Orange together in the context of environmentally-friendly businesses? (b) Green and Blue together in occasions of environmental law enforcement?

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

MrTeacup

Thanks for your positive feedback, Mike.

Attending postmodernism

You rightly point out that many approaches have not fully taken on board the insights of postmodernism. You mention systems theory, for instance. I agree with you that such approaches could benefit from a better engagement with postmodernism. And I would add that it especially behoves integral theory to do so, as—unlike some other approaches—one of its objects of interest is postmodernism itself. It thus has a special calling (over and above other approaches which could benefit from postmodernism but whose objects of interest do not include postmodernism) to ensure that it is internally congruent with respect to the feature of postmodernism.

Dialectic of de/construction

You say, “The AQAL framework has sharply limited the ability for various methodologies to claim ultimate truth. The very issue we are discussing is that Ken has deconstructed deconstruction and whether it is legitimate or not. AQAL is only useful because it is deconstructive.” Let me address the four parts of your statement.

1. “The AQAL framework has sharply limited the ability for various methodologies to claim ultimate truth.” Yes, this is what it claims it is doing, and in a particular and important way, this is what it does. However, one of my points is that Wilber has not adequately reflected upon AQAL itself as a theoretic entity. In other words, the objects of concern within AQAL indeed include various methodologies, and that indeed part of AQAL’s theoretic narrative concerns an imperative to limit the ability of various methodologies to claim ultimate truth. But what does it say about itself or about other approaches which espouse methodological pluralisms? If we zoom out one level of analysis, then what comes into focus is AQAL as a single conceptual entity—one theory. And at this level, there is, I believe, an assumption that such an approach, compared to other—less pluralistically methodological—approaches, is less partial, better, or nearer ultimate truth. What limits does it acknowledge for itself? Indeed, in what way does it reflect upon itself? Well, one of my points is that it does not sufficiently address such questions as this. So, in lieu of an internal discourse around such matters, I identify an overarching bias toward the concept of construction, as is suggested by the term, “integral.”
2. “The very issue we are discussing is that Ken has deconstructed deconstruction.” One of the points I am attempting to make in my article is that Wilber hasn’t grokked Derrida’s deconstruction. From this, I would therefore say that he has not “deconstructed” anything (including the object of deconstruction), as he has not enacted the operational process of deconstruction. He has, however, “mapped” the object of deconstruction in a particular way. And my article provides a particular critique of this mapping.
3. “Whether [deconstruction] is legitimate or not.” “Legitimate” by what standards? “Legitimate” by whose standards?
4. “AQAL is only useful because it is deconstructive.” This is an interesting viewpoint. Maybe you could elaborate?

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Balder

Wow! I’m thoroughly delighted that I might have helped you get a teaching position! Thanks for letting me know, Bruce. I assume at JFK? I met the Holistic/Integral faculty there 2 years ago—a lovely bunch of people. If you bump into Sean Hargens, please pass on my warm regards. I’m pretty sure you’ll have a good time in that position. And thanks very much for passing my article on. Much appreciated.

:-) Gary 

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Hi, Gary,

Yes, I know Sean quite well; he was a teacher of a number of my courses as well as my thesis advisor, and I believe his “good word” was also instrumental in my getting the position at JFKU.  I'll be sure to give him your regards.

I have still been intending to respond in more depth to your article.  In time … I promise!

Warm wishes,

Bruce

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Kessels

Peter, thanks for appreciating my presence in this forum, and for the pleasant tone of discussion.

Postmodern features of AQAL

Firstly, let me address your following comment:

“If you want to point out the strengths of postmodernism to an integral audience, I think you'd be building a much  stronger case by pointing out that AQAL already contains a number of postmodern truths…”

Actually, in a significant sense, I agree with you here. If my main intention was to point out the strengths of postmodernism to an integral audience, then the article would have benefited from a comprehensive analysis of AQAL with regard to the modes of cognition (eg. postformal and formal ways of engaging) it employs (noting here the important distinction between objects of theoretic concern and the enactment of theorizing). But, to do such a thing well is a huge task. My article was already something of a small book—at over 30,000 words—and I felt that its configuration was sufficient to inspire useful dialogue at this particular juncture. I did, however, make reference to this larger task in footnote 15, where I say,

“My tentative use of postformal operations in this article does not imply that Wilber does not enact particular postformal operations in particular ways with regards to AQAL. For instance, the breadth of territory covered in AQAL could be associated with postformal vision; the value of its mission potentially legitimized with reference to fuzzy logic and its “transcendent” relations, fuzziology and social fuzziology; its systematization can be viewed in relation to Michael Commons and Francis Richards’ Model of Hierarchical Complexity; the eight native perspectives can be seen to be a dialectical development of the four quadrants; Wilber’s purported methodology of orienting generalisations could be fruitfully linked to grounded theory, intuitive inquiry and other emerging academic methodologies; his style could be viewed in relation to certain postmodern affectivities; whilst the incorporations of holarchy via Hegel’s dialectical principle of sublation (Wilber’s “transcend-and-include”) can also be seen to emanate from a postformal perspective. In a similar way, both formal and pre-formal operations could also be identified.”

I note, however, that this perspective is not one that Wilber has substantively identified himself - he has not been postmodernly reflexive in this regard.

Wilber's stance on postmodernism

You comment, “you paint a picture in your article in which Wilber's stance to postmodernism is mostly negative. I don't think this is a fair representation of his position” and, “you do these kind of things consistently in your article, you're making Wilber look like the arch enemy of postmodernism, which he isn't.” In support of your position, you quote Wilber’s description of the Green “altitude,” in which a range of both positive and negative features of various kinds are given. You then say, “to me, this is in contrast to the quotes you use in your article, which are almost exclusively negative towards Green. I wonder why you did this?” Let me separate out some things here.

Firstly, a central theme in my article is not so much that Wilber is an “arch enemy” of postmodernism but rather that his interpretation of postmodernism is skewed and partial—he misses crucial details, and, although some postmodern characteristics could be seen as I have indicated above, he nevertheless neglects to sufficiently identify or reflexively embody many significant postmodern features. If we look closely at Wilber’s description of the “Green altitude” you provided, we can see that it consists of nine sentences; five of these foreground the concept of pluralism (noting that even where he mentions “compassion,” “idealism” and “involvement,” he says they spring from multiperspectivality), one lists Green political movements, one lists Green organizations, one identifies a list of negative Green traits, and one a consequence of these negative traits. On the face of it, it appears balanced. But where are the “many postmodern truths”? There is only one, elaborated upon five times: pluralism / mutiperspectivality. Where are the postmodern features of: abjection, alterity, body-without-organs, bricolage, chaos theory, complexity theory, conceptual ecology, critical theory, desiring-machine, dialectics (including negative dialectics), différance, discourse analysis, eventism, fractals, fuzzy logic, genealogy, hegemony, intertextuality, jouissance, the libidinal economy, logocentricity, magic realism, paganism, post-colonialism, post-feminism, quantum mechanics, queer theory, schizoanalysis, semanalysis, semiotics, simulacra, singularity, string theory, subaltern theory, territoriality, or trace? This ecology cannot be reduced to pluralism or its elaborations. Is not neglect a form of antipathy?

A particular discourse analysis of my article

Secondly, you make a claim about the quotes I use in my article. To investigate the validity of this claim, I will do a discourse analysis of my article.

In terms of long quotes denoted by indentation, I note the following:

By Derrida (4)

• In proactive support of discussing Spirit
• On the unconditionality of forgiveness
• Derrida’s languaging as complex
• On deconstruction-as-not-negative

• On integral x2
• As exhibiting postformal paradox
• On linguistic awareness

• On vision-logic x2
• In friendly support of endless contexts
• Unscholarliness regarding Gebser
• Identification of deconstruction-as-a-cultural-movement as a solely American phenomenon
• Associating Green with nihilism, deconstruction, boomeritis x2
• On constructive postmodernism
• As exhibiting dualistic thinking

• On the soul as endlessly deep x2
• Problematisation of a unified view of postformal thought
• On the complexity of Derrida’s deconstruction
• Identifying Green and deconstruction as ethical
• American’s interpretation of postmodernism as not based on the French poststructuralists
• Complexity theory
• Poetic cognition
• Linguistic awareness
• The need for new linguistic abstractions
• The holonomic paradigm
• The holonomic paradigm’s promise of reconstructing the fabric of the theorizing of postformal developmental levels
• On Wilber’s statements as too extreme / linear
• On Gebser’s integral

1. If one looks at the “altitude”-related neologisms he has constructed, I note the following: (a) “flatland” is negative toward Orange and Green (b) “vision-logic” is positive toward Green and above (c) “meme green meme” is negative solely toward Green (d) “boomeritis” is negative solely toward Green (e) “integral” is positive toward Yellow and above. There is thus a significant relative preponderance of neologisms concerning negative Green.
2. Although The Marriage and Sense and Soul might have a balanced view of postmodernism (I don't know: I haven't read it), my experience has been that other texts by Wilber do not generally display such a balance; and when they don’t, the tendency is toward viewing Green as negative.
3. An entire book concerns negative Green: “Boomeritis.” This is not the case for any other altitude; nor is there an entire book dedicated to positive Green to counterbalance this.

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

theurj

Hi Edward,

Let me respond to your engaging request. Your post starts,

“See what Ken says below regarding Derrida and Buddhist Emptiness. Then see following that an inquiry in another Zaadz/II thread, Indigo Buddhism. Could you respond to this in light of your reference to Benedikter on how Derrida might indeed touch on more than just ‘the limitation of language in the waking state?’ And do you have any insights into my other questions at the end?”

The Way of Deconstruction (by way of deconstruction)

Wilber appears, on the face of it, to make a pertinent point regarding the different gross realms in distinguishing between the two deconstructions. He also appears not to apprehend the import or potential of deconstruction: He says, “the basic aim of deconstruction is to work with language” and to “attempt to come to a certain type of understanding about the ambiguity, instability, and paradoxicality of signifiers.” My reading here is that both these phrases infer a substantively nontransforming Cartesian subject—one which engages in a process of “work” upon the object of “language” (and I note that Wilber appears to be decidedly but unnecessarily literalist with regard to the concept of “language”), and one which “attempts to come to a certain type of understanding” upon the following object(s): the “ambiguity, instability and paradoxicality of signifiers” (I say “substantively” rather than “absolutely” because there is surely a simple type of transformation involved in the process of a Cartesian subject “understanding”); and that neither of these phrases directly allows for deconstruction as cognitive mode (or “part” of a cognitive mode) beyond formal operations—deconstruction as a jnana yoga, perhaps? aligned to a Way of Logos-Sophia or ((philosophy)) or ((poetry)) (to use Ashok Gangadean’s awakening syntax)… Realization toward the latter could be facilitated for some, I would suggest, by way of Cook-Greuter’s “construct-awareness” and/or by way of engaging in an exploratory intimacy toward trusting—and resonating with—“All As Text.” I don’t see why this shouldn’t include the qualities of “text” of the various gross realms. So I think the statement that “deconstruction is something the ego does in the waking state in order to hold onto the ego” misses the mark and the opportunity. And, indeed, to say that deconstruction has a “basic” aim at all is, I think, a tell-tale sign that Wilber does not fully understand Derrida’s deconstruction. As Derrida says: Deconstruction in a nutshell? Why, the very idea!

Paths in spirit

With regard to nonduality, I think there are as many paths to Spirit as there are paths in Spirit. Bon voyage now-here!

Re: Is Ken right on Derrida?

Gary and all,

You might enjoy watching Heidegger in this two-minute video in which, according to the accompanying translation, he discusses “thinking [that] is, compared to metaphysical thinking, much simpler than philosophy, but precisely because of its simplicity it is much more difficult to carry out.”

http://videos.zaadz.com/228854/heidegger_and_the_task_of_thinking

Cheers!
~ Tom