Ken Wilber and the Wyatt Earp Episode

There is quite a bit of material on this one… I think that the easiest place to start is here: http://www.integralworld.net/index.html?visser15.html as it is, ostensibly the last word on the topic and thus contains all the links to the blog posts by Ken “Wyatt” Wilber and Frank Visser.

Here's a surmation, by moi:
Ken Wilber, the much published contemporary philosopher and founder of the Integral Institute, who formulated the AQAL model, posted a blog on 6 June 2006 on his site (www.kenwilber.com). In this blog he uses a metaphor of himself being like Wyatt Earp and (many) of his critics being like bandits shooting him “in the ass”. Ken does not restrict himself to polite language or recognised academic protocols in this post.

He particularily refers criticisms posted on Frank Visser's site (www.integralworld.net) as being devoid of substance (my interpretation). And mentions some of them, Frank included by name. In a follow-up blog posting he iterates that his intent behind the post is to investigate his critics shadows and invites them to do the same (again, my interpretation).

Frank responds and blogs that Wilber is rude, elitist and dissmissive of valid criticism and questions (again, my interpretation).

There is further comment on this episode by Mushin on his wiki page. I shall iterate my opinion in a following post on this thread and it is partially represented on my blog.

Re: Ken Wilber and the Wyatt Earp Episode - Analysis of the Blog

Okay, let's start with my analysis of Ken Wilber's original Wyatt Earp Post. My interpretation and perspective hereunder does, of course, have the benefit of me having read the followup posts, some responses and Wilber's ensuing shadow series.

First, allow me to make a rudimentary surmation of shadow and developmental psychology. It is not important that one concur with the theses of these fields here, merely that one have an intellectual grasp on them, as they are reffered to in the analysis hereunder. Shadow psychology first…

Every individual human being has within him or her all possible aspects of humanity, in the same way that we all have human DNA. When an individual discovers one of these aspects that the persona finds to be negative (evil, immoral, wrong) there is psychological tendancy to (i) deny that such aspect is part of oneself; (ii) this denial causes the shadow aspect to be perceived as being external; (iii) the shadow aspect is then projected onto a hook, which is normally another person; and (iv) one then perceives the other person as being the shadow (negative, evil, immoral, wrong).

Please note here that the hook, being human (or at least phenomenal), does indeed posses this shadow aspect and may well be acting on it. This does not invalidate the point that the first person has the shadow aspect, has judged it unworthy and projected it - now sees it as external to himself or herself.

The developmental system that Ken refers to mostly in his post is Spiral Dynamics. This is a nested hierachal structure of value systems called vMEMEs, each of which is assigned a colour. To avoid possible confusion, I want to make a subtle differentiation here: developmental structures are structures of perspectives, not of objects, people nor forms. (That is to say that everyone retains their inherent humanity and their inherent divinity regardless of where/when or how broad their perspective on reality is.)

Ken often refers to what he calls the mean green meme - he wrote a book on this called Boomeritis - which is an unhealthy application of the green vMEME's value system.

My understanding of Ken's thesis here is such: deconstructionism is taken too far and results in an absolute relativism (my term, I think that Ken calls it pluristic relativism). At green (again according to my model) one develops fourth person perspective and gains a concise understanding and perception of composite social organisms. This comes with a shadow aspect of the judgemental nature of authoritarianism.

Because green has a deep appreciation for humanity and humaneness, having a broad social perspective, green projects this shadow, not onto people but, onto the social structure itself. So the judgemental aspect of being human - which is healthy in the form of personal discernment and unhealthily guilt inducing in the form of authoritarian (social) condemnation - is projected onto the very concept of structures.

So, in the supression of structualism, structures are seen as being oppressive. The internal shadow is perceived as an external phenomenon where structures are mistaken to be a form/object and not a model of perspectives on forms/objects. An example is an evironmentalist condemning capitalism as the cause of environmental damage. It is not actual people, nor their actions in the market that is seen as guilty - it is the market structure that is being judged.

Ken starts his post by saying that it is a reaction to some of the criticism of his work. This particular criticism being “lunatic” and “deranged” and not “serious criticism”. Ken judges the scholership of such critics and finds it to be “laughable” or “pityable”.

I suggest that this is the first of many hooks aimed at attracting the mean green meme shadow as, inter alia, it uses humanitarian terms and is judgemental. Ken then compares himself to Wyatt Earp, who can be seen as a hero and/or as an authoritarian enforcer - again playing the hook role.

He also refers to these critics of his as adolescent and analogizes those who take developmentalism's re-emergence seriously as adults. He is taking a physically obvious developmental structure (adolescent to adult) using it to judge his critics and to support developmentalism - more hooks. These paragraphs are also laced with sexual insults, which may be a blue meme hook and/or an innuendo that green judges the structure that blue lays down.

Ken then, generally, fowards an academic argument for and explaination of developmental models using the criticism of his model as evidence of the veracity developmentalism.

He also points out that there has been good criticism of his work and that he has and still does work to incorporate it in his general model.

Wether Ken's model is applicable or not is, of course, forever open to question. His actions seem, to my mind, to be consistant with his model. I am not defending his methodology here - he has Wyatt Earp to do that. It does appear that he is purposefully trying to hook the mean green meme - “pushing their buttons”. And this is what he claims he was doing in a follow-up post.

Re: The Wyatt Earp Episode - Frank's response and my opinion.

Okay, I've had a chance to take a look at Frank Visser's responses…

The first thing that stuck me is that Frank's postings are far more eloquent that Ken's. The second thing that struck me is that they are far more boring too. This doesn't imply that Frank is boring, it implies that level headed (pun not intended), considered, academic reparte (which Frank has, in my opinion, excelled at here) is found, by many, to be boring.

There's a lot of technical type stuff here, so I'm going to use generalisations. Let's start with Frank's: “…seriously, let me phrase my reponse in the most general way like this: No amount of questions, or questioning of Wilber's model, justifies this type of behavior. Ever.” (Frank's emphasis removed.)

This points, quite vaildly, to Ken's polemic tendencies, which Ken admits to using. I don't have a side on this one, I have a question: “Isn't there a better, i.e. less offensive and at least as effective, way of drawing attention and consideration to this shadow stuff?”

Frank, with equanimity, agrees that there are shadow elements present and also gives examples of what criticisms Ken is referring to and reasons why such criticisms should be addressed.

In this whole episode, there appears to be a pattern emerging from the general responses at Frank's site: the scholars there critize either the inclusion of elements of schools of thought opposing their own which Ken has incorporated into his model; or they critize his methodology of incorporating elements from (apparently) opposing schools of thought.

In essence, they are implying that the integral concept of inclusion is simply wrong, that the world is forever divided into an either/or type scenario. I mention here that they also criticize Ken dropping certain methodologies which he considers as ineffective or from which no more substance can be gained.

My opinioin (which I may demonstrate in a posted response to Mushin's Wiki page) is that I don't want to have have to reject one valid perspective in order to take on another. As Ken's “intentional misbehaviour”, well… it's all a fun game.

Re: The Wyatt Earp Episode - Frank's response and my opinion.

There is many pro's and con's of Wilbers critisism which are worthy of discussion. And as far as I'm concerned this has all been done already, very well in some cases - I might judge.

What is not so much discussed are its consequences.
So even if one would call Ken's original post as “fun” etc., it seems to mark the beginning of a divide between people who had been communicating previously. Now, it looks like, they have withdrawn into their seperate camps - where before it was somewhat chaotic but lively one camp.

The other thing I have noticed is that 'mean green meme' bashing has become a sport of many, picking up Ken's Wyatt Earp manner somewhat. Also picking up the notion of 'altitude' positioning themselves beyond the green in the next colours, often said to be 2nd tier.

I'm not well versed in Wilbers Integral Theory, even though I have read quite a few of his books and liked them. I look at what I stumble across in the Net and ordinary life. Visiting, for instance, a gathering in Berlin of the Wilber Integralists (don't remember their official name right now) I couldn't help but notice that it was 3/4 men, and 3/4 of the conversation/discussion (not dialogue) was about the new revolutionary book and the underlying theory.

Somewhere in the cognitive stance - which often is too extreme for me - 'we', speaking for people here who don't have this great cognitve altitude, get lost, only then to find we have been assimilated somewhere and positioned below on the development scale used by Ken and his students. It makes it hard for 'us' to communicate, leave alone being taken into true dialogue… which might help 'us' to maybe develop to these lofty heights? ;-)

So Ken was producing hooks for shadows… well, if I need such hooks I just listen to Angela Merkel (our chancellor) or George Bush. There's a lot of hooks if I wish to study those aspects of my shadow.
And 'blaming the system' - calling that a shadow is, well, not very helpful it seems. The capitalist system might not be guilty of anything, but it sure as hell is not very helpful in overcoming the environmental crisis we're living with now, is it? So looking critically at that system (and others as well) is not projecting shadows but something that might be helpful in finding better systems, or ways to dodge it until it goes the way of the dinosaurs.

I have yet to discover a good consequence of the Wilber rant - apart from some people having fun at bashing people who (apparently) suffer from some 'green pathology'.
Might I remind you that 'sick' people need medicine, or at least a docter/therapist who listens to them?

Re: The Wyatt Earp Episode

Yip, we have the “mean blue meme” waging fundamentalist religious wars; we have the “mean orange meme” desroying the environment; and we have the “mean green meme” attacking social structures. (Not that there aren't healthy variations of all these value systems.) So I knda see your point there.

I'd like to make this point first, because it partially disagrees with you: I didn't enjoying playing chess when I lost but then I got to appreciate the overall fun and artistry of the game, win, loose or draw.

I agree with you on the point that Ken's methodology is, at best, lacking in beneficial effect. I'd like to make an analogy here to demonstrate my viewpoint on the necessity of evolving - i.e. improving - methododolgies. The tradional zen system of sitting on a mat for five or so years and occassionally been beaten with a stick worked and yet seems to lack compassion. Gempo Roshi's “big mind” method, where he simply asks the ego for permission first (no sticks, no sore ass, no confusing koans) seems, to me, to be far more compassionate and effective - an evolution of the methodology.

I don't think it's you guys that have been assimilated into a hierachy - it's your perspective that has.

There certaintly is evidence of the follower shadow bashing that you mention. Here in Terri's blog (with my response in the comments), is Andrew Cohen taking on - of all things - unconditional love.

Now here is a part of Ken's model that I do not agree with: He insists that translation should occur before transformation. Translation being attaining horizontal health (all developmental lines up to a current stage) and transformation entailing vertical progression. In my language: translation is a shifting of perspective - an appreciation of another perspective; and transformation is the widening of one's perspective.

Quite frankly, I don't see how one can occur without the other. Simply by including more perspectives, one is “gaining altitude” as Ken would put it. (I also noticed that Fred Koffman seems to agree with my viewpoint as he mentioned discussing it with Ken, although he didn't go into much detail as it was a side-note to a workshop that he was presenting on something else.)

My question still remains, are there better ways of creating awareness of shoadow elements? (Besides comparing oneself to George Bush.)

Re: The Wyatt Earp Episode

Ok my 2c.
First of all:

The tradional zen system of sitting on a mat for five or so years and occassionally been beaten with a stick worked and yet seems to lack compassion.

Did it work? What happened? Did they get enlightened?? It probably did something that is for sure, but 'working' seems a bit arguable to me.

And I would like to add a couple of links to blogs from what seem to be integral practitioners, rather than simply integral theorists. One of them is from our own dear C4Chaos:

FART: Faith Atheism Religion Transformation
the other is by Clint Fuhs who is the Curriculum Development Manager for Integral Training at I-I:
Adventures in Practice: I Hate the Witness

I suspect the benefit of *any* methodology is dependent on the person who is using it .

I've been thinking a lot about spiritual teachers - reading zaadster's Alan Kaslev's articles (http://www.integralworld.net/index.html?kazlev2.html) and following up on some of the links, for example: Osho, Bhagwan Rajneesh, and the Lost Truth.

And what comes to me is how lucky I am to have 'made good use' of some of the seemingly less compassionate behaviours of my teacher ( Paul Lowe ) or my life experiences - I always took a look at myself - rather than 'blame' him or the experience for doing something *to* me.

So if I have a reaction  or negative response to someone (eg as I see happening by many in response to Ken's Wyatt Earp episode), I would have a look and see what that reaction was about. I always came out 'stronger', clearer, etc. 

But I realise that this may not be the case with some others, who are more easily 'abused' an who do not have the tools / psychological makeup or whatever it takes to learn from every experience rather than be damaged by them.

My experience does not dismiss the possibility that someone is simply 'off' in areas (the Osho article is a good one re this) - and it doesn't serve anyone to support this 'offness'.

I'm really not sure that better methodologies are the way quite frankly. But maybe this is my feminine bent.

I suspect I'm  not really adding anything to this thread, but here goes anyway.

Sandra

Re: The Wyatt Earp Episode

It didn't work for all zen practicioners and it cedrtaintly did work for all the lineage holders (the zen people with Roshi at the end of their names). And those lineages trace back the transference from mind to mind for about two thousand years.

Here's an interesting occurence which loosely relates to the whole topic. Ken Wilber, after explaining the spiral dynamics system to Gempo Roshi asked him which vMEME he thought the zen masters whom he (Gempo) had encountered were at. Gempo maintained that they were all blue (and enlightened).

Here is the thing - enlightenment is not something that happens at the end of psychological development, it is an omnipresent state. Consciousness does not evolve; one's perceptual capabilities do. The absolute is not relative and the relative is not absolute.

I always took a look at myself - rather than 'blame' him or the experience for doing something *to* me.

Well said! Or, at least, said in my language (and that of internalism). There is ultimately only one subject - we are one. So there is no doing something to someone other than oneself, only the disowning - say no to denial - of some of the human aspects of oneself.

All humans have all the aspects of humanity, so if one wants to pin some disowned aspect of oneself (shadow) onto someone else it will always fit as he/she also has all the aspects of humanity.

I'm really not sure that better methodologies are the way…

By better I meant offensive to less people and usable by more people. There is this whole debate about skillful means - I'm not sure what that is, yet I seem to recognise iterations that are not skillful means as being such.

Re: The Wyatt Earp Episode

Thanks - helpful answer.

And just for the record, somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain I know I read something about some Zen master being asked how many people attained enlightenment through the system, and basically the numbers were so low as to be ridiculous. I read this recently, I'll keep digging!