Gaia: The Integral Pod - Chapel Perspicacious

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://RLtruthseeker-artist.gaia.com — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:40:28 GMT

Ethical standards, lol :)

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://RLtruthseeker-artist.gaia.com — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 06:45:15 GMT

Thank you Telly for your expertise. I appreciate your perspective from a psychotherapist. Perhaps I meant that negative emotions if they are wallowed in, are unhealthy. But I do believe that negative emotions can teach us something to about ourselves, if we are willing to learn from them.
It is also a fact though, that negative emotions are based on the sympathetic nervous system that shuts down the systems of the body...perhaps that is what I was meaning.

I have the same mindset as developing the witness to our emotions...
I made the same point in my blog profiles awhile ago, based on the Buddhist perspective.
http://rltruthseeker-artist.gaia.com/blog/2009/7/mastering-your-emotions#comments
My profile blog also talks about ways of dealing with our emotions.

I do like how you said.
The Paradoxical Theory of Change (which you can find online if you look it up) says that the way to change something, paradoxically, is to fully accept it exactly as it is.
I haven't heard of this theory...but I will check it out.
Thank you so much,
Sincerely, rl

P.S. Tom, I know temptation of wanting to take another man's wife, lol...
but I think I'm being creative, lol.

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://serengeti.gaia.com — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:12:37 GMT

Hi Tely, those are nicely articulated comments, and I resonate with what you say. I might add just a comment about your phrase 'compassionate witness.' I think that's an appropriate description of the stance one takes when one feelingly observes the actions and comings and goings of one's inner life. I find if I attend with awareness but without intention to modify or otherwise influence what is arising, I actually participate more feelingly in what is arising. The unidentified (less in-stream) state of the compassionate witness is thus, at a feeling level, more highly participatory in my inner processes, a more intimate stance. This stance is what I have denoted 'acceptance,' and is what I take Marie Louise von Franz to be speaking of in the quote below.

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://rousetheoneness.gaia.com — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:04:03 GMT

Whoa, great stuff. Thanks Tom.

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://tely.gaia.com — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 05:05:46 GMT

RL, you said "... negative thoughts are inherently unhealthy."

I have to say that I disagree with this statement. A while back, we had a really juicy discussion on OM's blog called "Dealing with Negative Thoughts." I posted a couple of long comments in that discussion that explain where I'm coming from with this. Rather than copy those posts here, let me just give you the links:
http://adliac.gaia.com/blog/2008/11/dealing-with-negative-thoughts#comment_344848
and
http://adliac.gaia.com/blog/2008/11/dealing-with-negative-thoughts#comment_345279

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://serengeti.gaia.com — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:24:01 GMT

Ethical "dilemmas" often present as if requiring decision or solution according to some or another "ideal" standard, whether of decency, goodness, etc. This type of "presenting," however, might itself carry a bias toward analysis and attempted solution within the frame of one's present understanding, which can impede the growth the dilemma might otherwise propel. I have often found that when I feel myself presented with an ethical dilemma, if I simply let the inner polarity burn, that is, if I simply accept the situation as it presents without trying to collapse the uncomfortable polarity it stirs, the situation will often, of its own accord, resolve by shifting my awareness to a new level. With that shift, the dilemma disappears. I have "done" nothing to produce that shift, except to stand in awareness. The longer I can stand, the better.

Marie Louise von Franz speaks of this method in the following passage from her Shadow & Evil in Fairy Tales. The quote nicely illustrates the dangers of living by ideals, and how one's own shadow and growth processes can be hardened by a idealistic "solution" mindset:

The story of the young man who wanted to let himself be killed as a protest against the atom bomb is a typical example of someone whose fanatical and ethical convictions [whose cultivated feelings!] led to a cul-de-sac and having to die for one's convictions---killed by the wickedness of the world. Every day the analytical hour brings you up against such conflicts; people try to be decent and so get cut off from their roots and then don't know how to get on. A man may be tempted to have an affair with a woman outside marriage and comforts himself by saying that everybody does it and one must not make too much fuss about it, and, making such excuses, he does it behind his own back and is then sorry; but when his jealous wife makes a scene, he regresses again. Other people who have the same temptation try to exercise self-control and say it is not to be thought of, and thus repress and fight the shadow tendency. If it is a minor temptation they succeed, but if it is very strong they get depressions and get tired and do not know how to go on in life, and the dreams show the shadow as furious because it did not get its way. That can lead to such a loss of libido that the whole life may get stuck. The man becomes neurotic because the other half of the personality won't accept the decision and is in a constant fury about it. He has hypochondriacal fantasies and depressions and bad moods and has no pleasure in his work. This can very often be observed in people who try to be too moral. Or the husband may be furious with his wife, which is the shadow's revenge because it lost out. In such a situation, whatever the man does is wrong: it is disgusting to give in to the shadow and mean to reject it---if he gives in he is mean, and if he does not he is hanged for it; and that is what I would call the typical shadow conflict. No weighing of pros and cons to a solution. If one cannot shift or cheat a little, the basic shadow conflict in human nature is insoluble, for it results in a situation where one cannot do the right thing. At such a time the weak person will use a crutch and either ask advice of someone else or deny the conflict and say that there is none. That, unfortunately, is often done and with no good results, and then you have the old regression where the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.

The fairy tale [the one she's analyzing] says that one endures such a conflict until the creative solution is found. The creative solution would be something unexpected which decides the conflict on another level ... That is the model of the creative solution in the shadow problem, which is practically what we try to do: to suffer the conflict until something unexpected happens which puts the whole thing onto another level. Then, you might say, the conflict is not solved but different. In the other aspect it could never be solved. One has to be crucified and make no move with the ego against the yes and no. It may last weeks or months; it is a tension of the opposites not to be decided by the ego, for such a creative solution of the shadow conflict means giving up the ego and its standards and conflicts; it means complete surrender [acceptance] to the unknown forces within one's psyche.

Beautiful!

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://serengeti.gaia.com — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:12:28 GMT

Irmeli: I think acceptance is a much better concept to use as an ideal of how to meet people in general. Acceptance is not a feeling. It is an attitude. It is much safer to intentionally cultivate attitudes than feelings.

Irmeli, I really like the distinction you draw here, that the safer road for one's development is to cultivate attitudes, not feelings. I think we could perhaps create a list of things dangerous to cultivate in addition to feelings. My first vote would be to include states.

Though I have engaged inner dialogue all my life at all planes---emotional, mental, spiritual, etc.---I was a late-comer to the language of spiritual instruction. Among several "instructional" words that ran against my grain was the word "practice," as it to me very often implied "to attain enlightenment" or some similar such future state. I have often wondered what in addition to life itself could constitute practice for life itself, and if life is both the means and the end of life, the instruction "practice" becomes redundant, and possibly harmful.

To me, cultivating feelings and states puts an important cart before the horse. Similar to you, I view feelings and states---and dreams, for that matter, which thankfully are almost impossible to "cultivate"---as telling me important information about myself and my relations to others, to life and to life situations. An important factor in viewing feelings, states and dreams as such is the attitude of acceptance. For me, acceptance is perhaps the most subtle and complex of attitudes, as it requires a trained will to stand in the face of unpleasantness, a trained honesty and deep-running honesty, and an ability or willingness to think outside a "me" preserving frame. I personally regard acceptance as the most important attitude in my life box.

Irmeli: Our ideals are inevitably creations of our present way of relating to the world. Or at least we will interprete any view in terms of our worldview. Attachment to our ideals could possibly make it more difficult to letting go of our present way of relating to the world and ourselves.

Wonderful! What you say here is closely related to your thoughts on feelings and attitudes. I was reading David Bohm the other week where he spoke of this tendency of people to project into the future from one's present frame or understanding. He was talking about the notion of heat death, the theory that the universe will simply wind down into a death-chill state from which it will never remove itself. He said this theory is almost certain to be wrong because it extrapolates to infinity finite and not well-understood concepts, like "entropy," that appear in current physical theories.

A light went on for me reading this, because it and the remainder of the book (which talks about the limited nature of knowledge) nicely illustrated that projecting too far into the future is somewhere in the neighbourhood of unproductive, useless and possibly damaging. You say this precisely in your paragraph above.

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://co-mason.gaia.com — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:12:11 GMT

Tom: Ideals belong to the future. They are what is not. That's why they're ideals. Who can predict the future beyond broad generalities?

I have have some losely held visions for the future of humanity, and that is it.
It is very likely that our ideals, don't very well predict what a more evolved stage will bring with it.
Our ideals are inevitably creations of our present way of relating to the world. Or at least we will interprete any view in terms of our worldview. Attachment to our ideals could possibly make it more difficult to letting go of our present way of relating to the world and ourselves.

Probably it would be more conducive to our well-being to replace ideals by maps like AQAL, which make room for many types of visions and interpretations, and leave room for easy shifts to something more comprehensive.

That framework can be added by the mythologies of the old traditions, that touch our hearts. These can be seen as carriers of wisdom from our past in a methaphoric form. We can try to figure out what they speak to us at this moment. Their truth is in the subjective revelation or insight in the present moment. The next day it can already be something else, as it is also for another person.

Irmeli

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://co-mason.gaia.com — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:13:10 GMT

RL:Is naturally arising love then real love?

At least it is a genuine feeling.

I'm afraid that focusing on treating people lovingly inevitably will fade our awareness of the spontaneously arising truer emotions. I think all people should be treated by respecting their human rights and with an effort to take their position. All the spontaneously arising own emotions should be respected as carriers of some important information.

To me emotions themselves are not wrong or bad irrespective of what quality they are. The line between good and bad I draw to what I do with those emotions. Acting them destructively out is bad, but so is also trying to get rid of those emotions, which to me equals to suppression.

RL:Perhaps love is a part of acceptance, or rather acceptance is a part of love?

I think acceptance is a much better concept to use as an ideal of how to meet people in general. Acceptance is not a feeling. It is an attitude. It is much safer to intentionally cultivate attitudes than feelings.

RL: Thinking about “why” we feel this way towards something, and letting insights arise, can actually help us to understand ourselves.These thoughts to me are telling you something is wrong, and if we ignore them, or don't learn from them, then they don't just go away, they manifest and can hurt us later in life.

I perceive feelings and emotions to give information about my spontaeous intuitive perceptions of the other. It informs me about the other, but through my reactions also of myself. My discriminative intelligence tends to evaluate, how the information my emotions give of the other, might be coloured by my own projections and other biases. I often observe the information to be someway distorted. The I don't try to get rid of that emotion, but instead deeply feel into it, instead of acting it out. I'm kind of internally holding it in an accepting way. Normally it gradually just melts away with time.

RL:I don't think focusing though on the bad, if you can't change, modify or accept it, (or using it as meditation to learn from) helps out our internal energies, whether we are talking about the ego or physical pain.

I neither do think that focusing on the bad does any good. I instead advocate respecting all emotions as they spontaneously arise. I do not advocate either focusing on good or bad emotions. I wouldn't even label them that way. To me there are different kind of emotions just like there are different colours.
What is my favourite colour often depends on the situation.

Irmeli

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://serengeti.gaia.com — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:21:04 GMT

I tend to follow a similar pattern in my own process, Irmeli. I long ago stopped living by moral ideals. This orientation matured in me into an attention to simply what is which, given its non-future focus, is less an ideal than a priority. Ideals belong to the future. They are what is not. That's why they're ideals. Who can predict the future beyond broad generalities?

Because the future is in its details and shifts unpredictable, I find it counterproductive and inefficient to orient my inner process by some idea about what the future will or should be. What is is, and what will be will be. I find if I pay attention to what I am now, with the least distracted attention I can muster, my life unfolds actually more quickly than if I train my attention on ideals. That makes sense to me because ideals are predictions of what the future will or should be which, as predictions, will be off-base the actuality of my own unfolding to some considerable extent.

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://RLtruthseeker-artist.gaia.com — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:58:24 GMT

Thank you Irmeli, your comments are very much appreciated. I appreciate you taking the time to talk about your experiences and how they have affected you. I'm sorry about your hereditary muscular disease.

Naturally arising love and compassion are essential for our wellbeing and healthy mutuality. These referents are however not identical with cherishing ideas and thoughts about love our mind, while simultaneously suppressing actively awareness of non-loving thoughts.

Cherishing thoughts and ideas about how things are "supposed" to be to me isn't real love, it's psuedo-love and pretend. Is naturally arising love then real love? (and I don't mean it has to go overboard in its display).

These referents are however not identical with cherishing ideas and thoughts about love our mind, while simultaneously suppressing actively awareness of non-loving thoughts.

Perhaps love is a part of acceptance, or rather acceptance is a part of love?

Are we focusing too much on love, when we should be emphasising acceptance?

This seems to me what you are saying. For me personally, I don't feel guilty about a "bad" thought, only that negative thoughts are inherently unhealthy. I don't try to "suppress" them, which is what I think a lot of people do. I actually use them as contemplation. Thinking about "why" we feel this way towards something, and letting insights arise, can actually help us to understand ourselves.These thoughts to me are telling you something is wrong, and if we ignore them, or don't learn from them, then they don't just go away, they manifest and can hurt us later in life. -
I think you mean the same thing.

Being able to discriminate something as bad or dysfunctional is as important to our evolution as is the striving for the good.

- I really like this distinction, and will have to use it. I don't think focusing though on the bad, if you can't change, modify or accept it, (or using it as meditation to learn from) helps out our internal energies, whether we are talking about the ego or physical pain.

I wonder if those marriages would work better, if people were more open to feeling also the unloving aspects of themselves, and hence being able to consciously deal better with those energies.

I really like this too. Psuedo-dealing with things and "pretending" they are all okay, when you don't really feel okay is a way of avoiding the issue, and a form of denial. I agree with this statement.

I wrote about the distinction between pain and suffering here. Hope this helps you a little. http://rltruthseeker-artist.gaia.com/blog/2009/7/suffering-part-2#comments
Suffering results when we "contract" from life, and from pain. When we have our minds start flinching from something.

Sincerely,
rl

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://co-mason.gaia.com — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:03:43 GMT

RL: But surely love and compassion help bring about this capacity, no? I tend to describe these as non-linear attractors in that they can bring about this change.

Naturally arising love and compassion are essential for our wellbeing and healthy mutuality. These referents are however not identical with cherishing ideas and thoughts about love our mind, while simultaneously suppressing actively awareness of non-loving thoughts. This easily leads to simulating love in an emotional flatland, while simultaneously unloving stuff may be acted out destructively in unobserved ways.
When people marry they tend to cherish idealistic dreams about a long lasting loving relationship, and they can feel very committed to that only ending up in bitter disappointment. I wonder if those marriages would work better, if people were more open to feeling also the unloving aspects of themselves, and hence being able to consciously deal better with those energies

RL: I'm an idealist, but I'm also very much a pragmatist and a realist. Having ideals is nothing without the practical means to carry out those ideals, or rather ideas.

I’m clearly a pragmatist and a realist, not an idealist in my orientation to life. My whole adult life have centered around on how to have a healthier physical body. That is because I have a rare hereditary muscular disease. There are no medicines for it, and doctors in general know pretty little of it.

The desire to be healthier, has been pushing me to do many types of practices. And those practices have been all the time been informed and modified by their actual observed health results. I have never had lofty ideals of enlightenment, compassion or love spurring me on my practices.

I have not done my practices in an orthodox way very long, but instead started pretty soon to modify them to a direction that suits better for me. Of course that requires a keen capacity for discrimination. That capacity however improves by exercising it. Also in my meditation my focus has been in the bodily energies instead of emptiness without self.

In retrospect I can see how the desire to be healthier has pushed and challenged me to evolve. This evolving has brought with it in addition to better health also many unexpected side gifts. E.g. I have learned to energetically work with certain types of chronic pains and aches in my body in a way that actually enhances healing without taking any painkillers. Also without this work I would be by now permanently in a wheel chair. Actually however I live a physically pretty active life having as my hobby and practice gardening, and many types of physical exercises which to many women of my age are already too heavy.

With this background I have a strong tendency to take distance from lofty and unrealistic ideals that I perceive in part being used to camouflage something else. My guiding principle has been: Be open to new ideas, but do not naively just believe in them, instead test them, if they really work for me. Through AQAL however I have learned to better understand that this approach is not for everyone.

To be healthier has been my non-linear attractor, love and compassion, as much as they have appeared, have been side products. Hence I am big pragmatist. My UL and LL practices and orientations have all the time been grounded in UR and LR, but not limited by them.

This approach is a pretty self centered one, although my self centeredness is not of the type that abuses others, or wants to overpower and control them . Clearly self centeredness can evolve to become more inclusive.

There has also been very little space in me for idealism, because I am pretty powerfully immersed in the now, which is often for me very fulfilling as it is. And especially so, when I’m in a state of transformative flow.

I have a deep trust in the resilience and guiding intelligence of life behind its right quadrant manifestations. That may be my idealism.

RL: Ideals are simply things that we strive for, but we should develop non-attachment and equanimity at the outcomes…because we can't control life, we can only influence it to certain degrees.

Non-attachment to our ideals together with working for them with persistence is powerful. Also non-attachment to the outcomes together with honest regular evaluation of the actual results is a powerful combination that creates healthy progress and true transformation.

Our dreams and high ideals, irrespective of how advanced they seem to us, are inevitably just translations of our present developmental stages. They focus is in the perceived good end in a continuum where bad is at the other end. However there cannot be the good without the bad. When transformation to the next stage appears, there is an emergence, a new and more comprehensive way of functioning, that has very little to do with our dreams and ideals. Good and bad are still present, but what and how good and bad is perceived has got somewhat modified.

In my present worldview some sort of heaven, where everything is perfect, beautiful and good is an impossibility. It would be a non dynamic state of stagnation with no evolving. Being able to discriminate something as bad or dysfunctional is as important to our evolution as is the striving for the good. It is essential also to learn to make these discriminations internally in a non blaming and accepting way.

RL: I think there is a difference between healthy ideals and egotistical ideals/non-integrous revolutionary ideals. Our ideals must be based on realistic progress too.

I agree. There is healthy idealism, which means working for something we perceive as realizable, and in which ideals can be revisioned as we learn from the obstacles we encounter in the work.. There has to be an ongoing assessment of the actual progress towards the goal.

I used the signifier idealization ( I picked the word up from dictionary, and don’t know how fit it is in this context) to describe an attitude towards one’s ideals that is not grounded in reality. I think a tendency to disowning the counterpart of the object of idealization goes hand in hand with this type of idealization.

RL: Ultimately, I value truth (I'm not one of those Post-modernists who say that truth is only relative, and therefore meaningless.), and finding the best context, compassionate wisdom, and creating realistic and meaningful progress in my own life (i.e. doing the best I can, and then doing better :) and in conveying that information to others, in order to do the same.

That applies to me too.

Irmeli

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://rousetheoneness.gaia.com — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:59:34 GMT

Hi Irmeli and rl

Just want to say I am enjoying and appreciating your conversation here, especially this:

Irmeli: "From AQAL perspective however idealization means a disruption from the principle of transcend and include in healthy human evolution. In pathological idealization we perceive as a higher evolutionary stage something that truly cannot be more inclusive, as it is created of our escape of what is. Healthy transcendence appears by seeing more clearly the facts, and unwanted results of our actions, and then accepting what is. Transcendence becomes possible through learning to contain, envelop and penetrate the pain and frustration this clearer seeing causes. Here including the preceding stage is already inbuilt in the process."

...and this

rl: "sometimes you have to be a little rough and straight with people who will take advantage of you. I'm not interested in being naive or New Age, in thinking “love is all you need” lol. You very much need the head, or you can actually end up doing well-intentioned damage."

Best wishes
James

P.S. With regard to this part of your exchange:
irmeli: "Idealization almost inevitably brings with it pathological dissociation from the unwanted we are escaping."
rl: "Hmm. I wonder why you say this?"

Not wanting to speak on behalf of Irmeli here but, as I read it, I think when she used the word "Idealization" here I think she was meaning the kind of unhealthy idealization that you distinguish later on in your comments.

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://RLtruthseeker-artist.gaia.com — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:58:18 GMT

Ooohh. Sorry, I didn't reach this post sooner. I don't think I can top that. lol.

The actual better capacity to co-operation is NOT the same as cherishing idealistic dreams about pure love and compassion.
Yes! I agree with this statement. But surely love and compassion help bring about this capacity, no? I tend to describe these as non-linear attractors in that they can bring about this change. But sometimes you have to be a little rough and straight with people who will take advantage of you. I'm not interested in being naive or New Age, in thinking "love is all you need" lol. You very much need the head, or you can actually end up doing well-intentioned damage.

Life does not care about our value judgments, but life seems to favor human societies with actual better capacity to co-operation and mutual support.

Yes. There are our subjective value judgments, and there is survival in the objective domain. Objectively you can say whether an organism survives or not, yes or no, healthy or unhealthy. But in the subjective domain, you have to decide whether that life is valuable or not. They are two different lines, but they are still two sides of the same coin. Ultimately that's why I think ethics needs to be situated based on survival of the organism and in our own consciousness. Yes, we do have vary much contrasting values and orientations in life (based on whichever model, Spiral Dynamics, we're using), which is why knowing ourselves, others and knowledge is so crucial.

At best idealism means a belief in the possibility of progress in well- being and in a better tomorrow.

LOL. You caught me. I'm an idealist, but I'm also very much a pragmatist and a realist. Having ideals is nothing without the practical means to carry out those ideals, or rather ideas. We shouldn't harshly judge ourselves because we don't live up to our ideals, but rather see them as hypotheticals. Ideals are simply things that we strive for, but we should develop non-attachment and equanimity at the outcomes...because we can't control life, we can only influence it to certain degrees.

Idealization almost inevitably brings with it pathological dissociation from the unwanted we are escaping.

Hmm. I wonder why you say this? I think there is a difference between healthy ideals and egotistical ideals/non-integrous revolutionary ideals. Our ideals must be based on realistic progress too. And of course we must always keep in mind that we mustn't place our ideals on others, instead we must as you have said "having a dialogue between good and bad, both internally and also externally with others"

Ultimately, I value truth (I'm not one of those Post-modernists who say that truth is only relative, and therefore meaningless.), and finding the best context, compassionate wisdom, and creating realistic and meaningful progress in my own life (i.e. doing the best I can, and then doing better :) and in conveying that information to others, in order to do the same.

rl.

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://co-mason.gaia.com — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:38:08 GMT

RL: I think one of the most insightful things about this essay is that it makes the distinction between subjective values (good, bad, better, worse, ) and objectively that things just are. People want to make all kinds of value judgments for or against the world, people and it's objects…and they confuse that with the world itself. Life doesn't care about that, it just IS. But by puting the moral basis as things that help serve life and consciousness, we can ground Ethics, and make it more authentic….instead of just “I”m right, your wrong,” moralizing tone.

I agree very much with you on this. In the following I try to describe how I see this in my own words.

Each of us evolves from birth on sequentially always in the same order through the different developmental stages finally ending at diverse altitudes in the many lines of intelligence. We know also that the successfulness and outreach of this developmental unfolding is highly dependent on many factors in our upbringing and surrounding society. The means and strategies available to us in navigating through our life situations are dependent on where we have reached in this unfolding. Understanding this has inevitably implications on our moral understanding.

AQAL approach with its four quadrants, stages, states and types provides a framework with which it becomes much easier to understand why another person is behaving the way she does.

What each of us perceive as good (enhances well-being individually and collectively)and bad or evil (dysfunctional individually and collectively) is dependent on the collective ways of relating to each other we are embedded in. This does not however mean that good and bad would become meaningless, when they are relative. It means that good and bad are dependent on the altitude and perspective (quadrant) through which we look at things.

Life does not care about our value judgments, but life seems to favor human societies with actual better capacity to co-operation and mutual support. In those societies also the individuals evolve better.

The actual better capacity to co-operation is NOT the same as cherishing idealistic dreams about pure love and compassion. Our moral judging of others doesn’t necessarily improve their well-being and development, and neither our own. Focusing on unrealistic, idealistic values, creates a dream that helps us to escape of what is, and blinds us from realistically assessing our life situation . We evolve much better by recognizing and accepting realistically what is, and by making maybe tiny but realizable changes there. If we can drop the idealistic dreams, and instead look at the situation from many perspectives, e.g. through the AQAL framework, the chances are much higher that we will come to a solution that will truly relieve suffering, both our own and that of others.

At best idealism means a belief in the possibility of progress in well- being and in a better tomorrow. An ideal person commits to her values, works for them, and invests in defending them. With harmful idealization I mean a tendency to unrealistic expectations, beliefs, and worldviews, when the facts or actual results of such beliefs, don’t support these notions. The harmfulness refers here to the ineffectivity, and possible hazards of these types of attitudes compared to more realistic ones. However if that is the best that is available to a person, this approach is good enough considering the actual altitude and perspective. That is then what is.

From AQAL perspective however idealization means a disruption from the principle of transcend and include in healthy human evolution. In pathological idealization we perceive as a higher evolutionary stage something that truly cannot be more inclusive, as it is created of our escape of what is. Healthy transcendence appears by seeing more clearly the facts, and unwanted results of our actions, and then accepting what is. Transcendence becomes possible through learning to contain, envelop and penetrate the pain and frustration this clearer seeing causes. Here including the preceding stage is already inbuilt in the process.

Idealization almost inevitably brings with it pathological dissociation from the unwanted we are escaping. And the end result tends to be acting out what we escape in subconscious ways, and also seeing instead those qualities in others, who then irritate us, and whom we vehemently judge.

We have tended to absolutize our ideas of the highest good and evil. Through AQAL framework these become more relative, and one becomes much more humble in these issues. Also our whole understanding of good and bad can change. We start to use them less to judge others and the world, as you too have observed. Rather this polarity starts to function more as a subjective internal tool to work with. Not in a black and white manner, or in a judgmental or blaming way. Rather it is more like evaluating the many different perspectives that appear to one’s mind on the scale of good and bad, what the overall impact of our possible course of action might have in the totality of things. Mostly it is about evaluating the different shades of grey in a continuum, where at the other end is the very good and at the other the very bad. Seldom our actions have only good or bad effects on all the people influenced by them.

Being ethical means then having a dialogue between good and bad, both internally and also externally with others. It means making distinctions on the effects of our actions in the different situations and circumstances in life. It means optimizing our well-being individually and collectively while our good and bad impulses are all the time communicating their perspectives to each other. And both are seen as important. Then good cannot change to defenseless submission or self-satisfied totalitarian behavior, while the bad or harmful simultaneously gets realized in hidden and subconscious ways.

Irmeli

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://RLtruthseeker-artist.gaia.com — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:19:32 GMT

No problem. :) Best of luck in taking care of your grandson. Wishing you the best rl. :)

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://co-mason.gaia.com — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:46:59 GMT

Hi RL and Doug!

Thanks for your appreciation!

I'll return to this topic as soon as I can find some time for it.Just now things here have turned in a way that I'm truly busy with other responsibilities.

My grandson's nanny's own son has got swine-flu. My grandson has got vaccination against it three days ago, but it takes two weeks to give effective protection.
So for these two weeks we grandmothers alternate in taking care of Sampo. For me this means traveling by early morning train to Helsinki and coming back late in the evening.
In addition to that we have a busy time in our own business. I was yesterday in Helsinki, and now I have to work the whole weekend to catch up in my own work. And then on monday I will be again in Helsinki.

Irmeli

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://DouglasRWallack.gaia.com — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:45:45 GMT

RL,...& Irmeli,

Seems like some Kosmic synchronicity reading your posts just before I start my class on Management Ethics.

And you are right about my good friend Irmeli. She is one of the most keenly discriminative thinkers I know.

Keep this going, I love it. {;-)

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://RLtruthseeker-artist.gaia.com — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:36:42 GMT

Thank you Irmeli, I always value your comments. It was for my ethics class and nobody had heard of Integral theory, including my ethics professor who also teaches philosophy! I also introduced reading material and insights to my advanced professor of philosophy who also had never heard of Integral theory.

         It makes me glad that I can help someone...For me personally it's not about "directing" that person's life. It's about perhaps steering them in a more inclusive direction, and I think the Integral map can help make those distinctions. Better distinctions, but a more holistic embrace! I don't know if people truly understood all the implications, distinctions, or major impact that the Integral theory can have, but at least I was able to expose them to it. :)

         I think one of the most insightful things about this essay is that it makes the distinction between subjective values (good, bad, better, worse, ) and objectively that things just are. People want to make all kinds of value judgments for or against the world, people and it's objects...and they confuse that with the world itself. Life doesn't care about that, it just IS. But by puting the moral basis as things that help serve life and consciousness, we can ground Ethics, and make it more authentic....instead of just "I"m right, your wrong," moralizing tone.

      I think Integral theory, (but by no means the only method), can help us to make those distinctions...and we can all become more moral, have better character/integrity, and basically value life more. I see Integral theory ethics being combined with virtue ethics/ or a spiritual value system to make a very strong system of individual and collective values.

         As always, for me it is about Spirit, and not about my own voice.

Re: Integral theory and Ethics

http://co-mason.gaia.com — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:02:55 GMT

Hi RL!

You have got in your essay plenty of Integral stuff in a pretty concise form.

How was it recieved? It got me wondering how much does someone, who is not familiar with Integral Theory truly understand what you say?

I liked the essay, and especially these passages in it:

"By using the AQAL matrix, I was able to figure out that "good" and "evil" are not located in the objective domain. They are located in the subjective domain. For example, good and evil are value judgments. They are subjective realizations. They exist in the subjective domain, even though they have objective physical correlates. For example, the term "evil" has been associated with hatred and intolerance in people, but hatred and intolerance also have a usual physical correlate. The physical correlate of hatred is violence, just as the physical correlate of compassion is altruistic behavior, kindness, helping others etc. A person who keeps hatred and intolerance in their subjective mind will sooner or later manifest that violence in the outer world."

"If we can point out that human values lie on a collective scale and that there is a spectrum to human consciousness, then we have a map and a "direction[14]" to move towards. The responsibility is placed on the individual in moving up these levels in his or her consciousness, and in their contributions to society, but we can also set up institutions and movements (collective values) that contribute to a greater understanding and provide the evolutionary growth of both society and the individual."

"Integral theory doesn't tell people what to do, it just points out patterns in human behavior, and relationships to reality. By being able to make clearer distinctions, the right choice becomes obvious. By being able to look at different contexts and take multiple perspectives, Integral theory doesn't privilege any one voice. Instead it shows that those voices that do privilege a single domain are partial."

I suspect it has been a great learning experience with a lot of pondering for you to write this essay!

Irmeli