The Deconstruction of the World Trade Center

INTRODUCTION

‘The Deconstruction of the World Trade Center—A Date That Will Live in a Sliding Chain of Signifiers’ is an excerpt, from the novel Boomeritis, dealing with the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  The novel itself will be released this coming April.  It was not my intention to post any of it until that time; recent events convinced me otherwise.

There is a monumental problem with doing so, alas.  This excerpt comes at the end of the book, and thus much of it will make little sense unless you have read the entire book first; indeed, several wrong conclusions will be drawn from reading this piece alone.

Still, I have decided to post it for the following reasons.

One, I was flooded with questions about the attack—what did I think, what did it mean, what’s an appropriate response, both individually and collectively?  It is certainly fitting that something be said, but any response that would do justice to the situation would have to be lengthy and nuanced—the section in the novel that does so is over 80 pages.  I decided that there was no reason for me to rewrite that 80 pages.

Two, although this is an excerpt from the novel, it’s not really.  Let me explain.  The novel itself is pretty much like any novel—around 350 pages of fiction.  Without giving anything away, the novel is about a young man, age 20, who is getting a degree in Artificial Intelligence from MIT.  He becomes preoccupied with the thought—quite common in AI circles—that within approximately 30 years, machines will reach human-level intelligence.  He therefore firmly believes that within his lifetime, he will be able to completely download his consciousness into silicon cybercity and kiss the messy world of carbon flesh goodbye.

In the course of his studies, he decides that, if he really wants to understand what the evolution of consciousness in the coming Silicon world will look like, he should study the evolution and development of consciousness in the world of Carbon—that is, in humans—and maybe pick up a few hints.  This leads him eventually to a place called Integral Center in Cambridge (yes, obviously modeled after Integral Institute—but with several postmodern twists that constitute part of the inside joke of the book itself: and I definitely cannot tell you what those are!).  

As his understanding of the development of human consciousness deepens, he becomes enthralled with the idea that Silicon consciousness itself would start to grow and evolve, and that it might in fact evolve up the entire spectrum of consciousness… maybe even to Spirit itself.  And thus he becomes obsessed, absolutely obsessed, with the thought: who would first discover God on a widespread scale, Carbon or Silicon?

Needless to say, I can’t tell you too much more without spoiling the whole story.  But I can add one more thing: the novel itself is meant to be a criticism of boomeritis, or pluralism infected with narcissism.  And therefore—this was the major requirement when writing it—the novel itself must exemplify everything that it criticizes, thus making it a self-conscious parody of exactly what it is criticizing—which is precisely what boomeritis itself does.  Thus, the book is billed as “the great postmodern novel” (which is what several critics have already called it) because it eats its own tail in good postmodern fashion.

The detailed criticism of boomeritis that the novel generates can only be understood, of course, by reading it.  All I can say is that it is a sustained, serious, critical examination of boomeritis as it has infected postmodernism, almost all of the pluralistic movements, New Age spirituality, new paradigm claims, transpersonal psychology, transit astrology, even UFO abductions—all as they impact a young 20-year-old whose parents have a very bad case of it.  

The problem is that, reading the following excerpt alone, without reading the 350 pages of carefully presented evidence, will make it look like the characters are simply spouting emotional tirades at Boomers or the green meme—which is categorically not the case.  Still, the handful of critics mentioned in this excerpt will therefore do what the handful of those criticized in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality did: they read the endnote in SES that criticized their work without first reading the book, and they got so worked up that they could never really read the book with an open mind after that; all subsequent discussion with these critics therefore never reached the status of authentic dialogue but remained on the level of first-tier blame and accusations.  The same will happen with this excerpt, and I truly regret that.

Speaking of endnotes, I forgot to say why this excerpt isn’t really a part of the novel.  It’s part of the endnotes to the novel.

Endnotes to a novel?  That can’t be a good thing, right?  Watch sales plummet with that bright idea.

Actually, there are no endnote numbers in the novel, or anything to suggest that the novel itself has endnotes.  Except for one small footnote early in the book, which says, “In the course of the year, I took voluminous notes, academic and otherwise, on the strange proceedings that began to define my life.  These notes and references can be found in their entirety at http://wilber.shambhala.com.”

If you then go to that link, you will find some 150 pages of endnotes.  Then about 150 pages of sidebar endnotes.  Then the 80-page WTC piece posted below.  So it’s a 350-page novel with around 380 pages of endnotes.  Good grief.  As one of my friends said, “How positively Wilber of you.”  I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a great compliment.

Anyway, the endnotes continue with the fictional characters in the novel.  But clearly, in endnotes, these characters are not developed at all.  These really are supposed to be just that—academic endnotes—and not anything resembling a literary novel (which hopefully the novel itself does).  When I first circulated this excerpt for feedback, numerous people—who had read the excerpt but not the book—responded with something like, “Loved the content, but you are no novelist.  The characters are all flat, and they all sound like you.  Get a ghost writer, really.”

Well, in my defense, I now must give a little bit of the book away.  Remember that I said that the novel itself, in order to succeed in criticizing boomeritis, had to exemplify everything it criticized?  At one point in the novel, an IC professor is outlining the seven major features of postmodernism—which really means, the seven features of postmodernism shot through with boomeritis, as almost all of pluralistic postmodernism is.  So those seven features are exactly the seven items that the book itself must display.  The professor puts it like this:

“For starters, since postmodernism is basically a mood of criticism, the novel itself, to be truly postmodern, would have to criticize postmodernism.  But in order to do that, the novel would have to exemplify everything that it criticized.  That would be the real trick, to write a novel that embodied everything it attacked.

“For example, since postmodernism is endlessly, often sickeningly self-reflexive, make sure a main character is named after you, and by all means make the novel about you in every way that you can, while constantly criticizing the pathetic narcissism of it all.  Yes?”  

So the 20-year-old main character’s name is Ken Wilber.  I can’t give the other 6 items of the “perfect postmodern novel” without spoiling everything, but I can give a bit of number 5.  The professor—her name is Lesa Powell, you’ll meet her in the excerpt—is explaining that since postmodernism is in love with flatland—no depth, only surfaces—then the characters in the perfect postmodern novel would… well, here’s how Lesa puts it, and how Kim and Ken (Wilber)—two students attending the lecture—respond:

“Five, this especially means that all the characters would have be flat and two-dimensional.  Not one-dimensional, but not three-dimensional either.  This is perfectly in keeping with the postmodern credo that there are no depths, only surfaces, and thus, for your characters, the words ‘flat’ and ‘two-dimensional’ must apply.  Flatland characters for the perfect flatland novel, yes?” 

“God, Kim, that’s exactly how I feel—flat and two-dimensional.”

“Me too, Ken, me too.  It’s as if my life—my entire life—is trapped inside the postmodern novel that Powell is describing.  It’s as if my life isn’t my own—as if I’m not even the author of my own actions, my own feelings, my own desires.  It’s as if the whole notion of authorship itself is evaporating.  I am being written by some self-reflexive postmodern twit, and this is my life.  Jesus, where’s the Prozac?”

And so, in the novel itself, although the characters often come to life, they never really quite reach the quality of great literature, although they are great fun, I hope.  The critics will naturally say, “Yes, but could he have written great literature, instead of the great postmodern novel, assuming he even did that?”  And the answer is, We will never know, will we?  All I can tell you is that the two-dimensional depth of the characters is as intentional as I could make it.

But here’s why I am mentioning all that.  As the endnotes begin—the notes posted on Shambhala.com and not found in the novel itself—Kim turns to Ken and says,

“I was wondering.  If a postmodern novel had endnotes, and….”

“Why on earth would a novel have endnotes?,” I interrupted.

“I don’t know. Confused author, can’t shut up, has to weigh in on everything.  Let me finish.  If a postmodern novel had endnotes, and in the novel the characters were two-dimensional, doesn’t that mean that in the endnotes they would only be one-dimensional?”

“I guess so, I dunno.  All I know is that I feel like I’m evaporating, sort of wasting away, going pale and anemic, and… Kim…?  Kim?….”

Well, you get the point.  Part of the novel is a self-reflexive parody, a postmodern put-down of postmodernism (or rather, postmodernism infected with boomeritis, which almost all of it is).  I think this is why, judging from the feedback so far, most people found this to be a very funny book.  Which is what I tried to do, make it a great grand fun read.

But it’s also very serious in the points it makes, and that is also obvious in the book.  This can certainly be seen in the WTC excerpt which follows.  Although, again, please remember that this is not indicative the writing style of the novel itself, nor of any of the narrative devices (some of them fairly original, I believe) that make the book a different reading experience.

Also, nothing in this excerpt—or some of the other endnote sections that I will be posting over the next few weeks—gives any indication of what actually happens in the novel—none of the real plot, twists, etc.  So although you will probably not be able to get all the points in this endnote without first reading the novel, reading the endnote now will not ruin the novel in any major fashion (although the one-dimensional dialogue may drive you nuts).  

For those who want to get the most out of this endnote, a few technical items need to be  understood first.  If you haven’t, I recommend that you at least read chapter 1 of A Theory of Everything.  Preferably the whole book, but at least chapter 1.

What the following excerpt does is basically outline the full spectrum of consciousness—some 12 major bands or colors in that Great Rainbow—and then suggests the typical responses to the terrorist attack that each level, band, or wave would have. 

If this is what most interests you, there is a long middle section on integral politics that can be skipped.  Part I gives the first-tier and second-tier responses; Part II outlines an integral politics; Part III gives the third-tier responses.  Many people are interested only in Parts I and III, and that’s fine.  I’ve added section headings to help locate these parts.

I feel a bit awkward releasing these one-dimensional notes when none of the novel itself has seen the light of day.  Therefore, with Shambhala’s blessing, I am first posting the Prologue to the novel (see the following).  It’s very short and displays none of the literary devices that hopefully make the novel a postmodern joy ride, but it does give a flavor of the style, which perhaps might act as a counter-balance to the lead of the endnotes (which will be posted in the next week or so). 

In any event, I do hope this is the beginning of a reading experience that will open you to new vistas in your own ongoing journey to your own deepest treasures.

Ken Wilber
October 17, 2001