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Posted January 9th, 2009 by Jim Garrison
"Gaia’s main problems are not industrialization, ozone depletion, over-population, or resource depletion. Gaia’s main problem is the lack of mutual understanding and mutual agreement ... about how to proceed with those problems. We cannot reign in industry if we cannot reach mutual understanding and mutual agreement based on a worldcentric moral perspective concerning the global commons. And we reach that worldcentric moral perspective through a difficult and laborious process of interior growth and transcendence."
– Ken Wilber
What is integral?
Integral theory set out to answer a very simple question: How can everyone be right? Everyone has a perspective, and no one can be wrong 100% of the time. So is there a way to make sense of all the different perspectives that exist in the world? From differing views on science, politics, economics, art, medicine, religion and everything else, integral provides a basic framework to at least orient all the different views that are out there. In this sense, integral is sort of an indexing system for ideas. To do this, Integral makes an important observation:
Every human experience has four fundamental “terrains,” and if we ignore any of these terrains then we leave out a really important part of the story.
Experiences: The first terrain is the terrain of our experiences, our consciousness and inner thoughts and feelings, something that is completely interior to ourselves and never can be known by another person unless we decide to share them. This is the terrain of our deeply-held personal values, our personality, our ambitions and fears, our spiritual longings and all of the other thoughts, feelings, and drives that are very personal and completely intimate to us. The experiences terrain drives how we interpret our lives and the world.
Behavior: The second terrain is the terrain of our behavior and actions, as well as our body and physiology, something that is still very personal to us but can be witnessed by someone else. This terrain is observable, and so it constitutes all the things we do, say, and even includes things that can be measured scientifically like our body and brain. If the first terrain is all about the interior aspects of our individual experience, the second terrain is about the exterior aspects of our individual experience. The behavior terrain drives how we act in the world.
Culture: The third terrain is terrain of the culture we inhabit, which includes the language we use, the worldviews and values that we collectively share, the styles we think are “cool,” the music that is in style, the morals we find acceptable, etc. Something that you may not recognize is that all moral and taste considerations of culture are actually occurring in a shared interior space among a group of people. We can only begin to discuss culture if it is a shared experience amongst more than a single person, and therefore this collective space of shared interior meaning is vital to understanding how societies develop and what they collectively value. The culture terrain drives what we value and the worldviews we have.
Systems: The fourth terrain is the terrain of the systems we inhabit, which includes the economic and legal system, the political system, our transportation and civil systems, and many others. The systems terrain helps us to understand all of the aspects of our collective experience that are observable. This is a fancy way of pointing out that unlike the cultural terrain which describes the interior space of groups, the systems terrain describes the exterior space of groups. Or unlike the behavior terrain that describes the exterior space of an individual, the systems terrain describes the exterior space of a group. The systems terrain drives what we actually do or create when we act as a group (whether two people or two billion people…).
Why all four terrains are critical to large-scale change…
For example, many experts in climate change have proposed new legislation to combat the effects of global warming. Notice that legislation is a shared agreement in our democratic system, and therefore belongs in the systems terrain. So why might the legislation fail? When legislation fails it is always because the other three terrains are out of sync, perhaps because the sponsors do not give adequate consideration to the terrain of culture (i.e., what we value), the terrain of consciousness (i.e., what we’re individually motivated to support) and the terrain of behavior (i.e., what we will actually do on voting day).
This sounds simple because it is.
But it’s amazing of how many ideas completely ignore one or more of the four terrains. By using an integral framework to map our ideas, we can be sure that we’re accounting for the entire process of the ways we actually get anything done. See if you can identify which terrain each of these climate change ideas stem from (experiences, behavior, culture, or systems), and make a quick mental note of how we’d try to ensure their success by incorporating the other three terrains.
Here's a brief example: Encourage church-goers to change all their home light bulbs to fluorescents.
This is an example of a group action (i.e., system terrain), so we’d want to make sure that A) culture: we think about the values of various church-goers as it relates to issues of conservation, stewardship of the Earth, moral obligations to our children, etc. B) behavior: we consider what the easiest and most effective way to suggest action for each individual, perhaps through a national effort on one Sunday to use tithing money to pay for a light bulb swap C) experiences: we consider how individual church-goers may be motivated to engage in this activity, perhaps by recognizing that some people are motivated by scientific data, some are motivated by personal emotional appeal, some are motivated by group values, and some are motivated by improving a situation.
Now take a look at these ideas and do your own brief integral analysis...
1. Institute an international carbon credit trading system. (Hint: systems terrain)
2. Ask individuals to send a letter to their elected representatives supporting carbon legislation.
3. Motivate people to take climate change seriously as a long-term environmental threat. (Hint: experiences terrain)
4. Convince people that the long-term environmental threat of climate change outweighs short-term economic considerations.
5. Implement a new carbon control regulatory framework.
6. Convince Wall Street institutional investors that corporate environmental stewardship is a critical long-term moral good. (Hint: culture terrain)
Back to the original question. How can everyone be right and there still be such violent disagreement amongst people in every facet of life?
Whenever someone discusses an idea as if only a few of these terrains exist, or perhaps aren't even real (or they just ignore them), disagreement ensues. The old Indian parable of all of the blind men touching the elephant and disagreeing what kind of animal they are touching is the core dilemma that integral tries to solve by pointing out that in our complex world of interconnected systems, multiple cultures, massive economies, widely divergent worldviews, and changing motivations and behavior, we absolutely have to have a simple framework for making sense of the complexity. It has to include everyone, and it has to give serious and real respect and consideration to their way of seeing and going through the world. This is why the integral framework has been chosen as the operating system for State of the World Forum’s approach to climate change.
Let’s see if we can change the process by which we approach climate change itself.
Please join us.
(For a more advanced, and more thorough, description of Integral theory you can download the attached white paper here.)
