Colorado and our country are upended in tragedy as a man, armed-to-the-teeth, walked into a theater and opened fire. Our hearts ache for the families who have lost members and the friends who have lost friends, for the people injured, and the many lives torn apart. As I write this, the news coverage of this rampage is constant; in a few weeks—perhaps by the time you read this—it will likely have abated, as will the calls for doing something about this madness. As so many people are noting, we go through these tragedies with the regularity of natural disasters, and act as though they are equally out of our control. Each time they happen, the voices for gun control temporarily gain volume, and each time those same voices are drowned out as our national attention span moves onto the next story, and the well-defended gun lobby exhales. I’m sure you already have your own opinion on gun control, and I don’t pretend that my opinion will change yours. I will note that it is preposterous to me that the amount of Sudafed I can buy in a month is regulated by a driver’s license check, and yet someone can seemingly buy unlimited amounts of ammunition without stirring the slightest notice.
What I do want to explore is what a non-dual, Zen perspective brings to this story. Because our ordinary perspective, being a country of fierce individualists, is to isolate this madness to the individual who perpetrated it, to lock that person far away, and imagine that we’ve taken care of the problem. This is a one-sided view, a tiny dot of the whole truth, not up to the magnitude of the problem. Yes, we acknowledge in Integral Theory, each of us has individual agency; we are responsible for our actions. AND we are also connected in a social context; we are part of nested layers of “we” beginning with our families, communities, generations, societies, countries, and so on. AND, as enlightened beings in every wisdom tradition have realized and variously expressed: we are also spiritual beings, ceaseless change arising from causes and conditions, absolute emptiness and all that is: the true human body is the entire universe. AND, as we explored in my previous post (see The Zen Leader and the Art of And), only the AND thinking of paradox comes close to approaching the fullness of human existence.
But instantly we may find we’re uncomfortable with this line of thought. We don’t want to identify with this mass murderer; we don’t want to think he’s also a spiritual being or that his actions came out of a social context in which we also participate and over which we have some control. That feels too much like making excuses. It’s much more comfortable to think he’s an individual nutcase, and that individual solutions will suffice. I would submit that this distancing ourselves—even more than the well-moneyed gun lobby—is that main reason we lose interest in these episodes after awhile and nothing really changes.
But let’s say we work through our discomfort and stand for a bit in the understanding that this mass murderer is part of a larger social context. It is said that the ills of society are always expressed through its weakest links. If this man is a particularly weak link, what social ills did he express? Well, rage for one, alienation, a shortcut to infamy because the path to legitimate fame is downright difficult—topics familiar to all of us because they are a part of our psyche, and make up a huge part of our entertainment culture. What other ills? How about a society that has connected guns to freedom? That thinks the unlimited accumulation of weaponry is somehow good for us, ignoring all data to the contrary, as well as the irrefutable fact that some of that weaponry is going to fall into the hands of weak links? How about a society where the polarization of wealth is increasing, and the system seems rigged for the rich, where compromise for the greater good is gone, and gridlock reigns as political policy? How about a society where cunning masterminds are folk heroes, minds are disconnected from heartfelt bodies, and life and death are like a video game?
I’m not saying these things exactly caused a weak-link man, armed-to-the-teeth, to walk into a movie theater and open fire, and they certainly don’t justify it. Nothing can justify it. I’m saying they’re part of a social context in which some individuals are more likely to be weak links and are then able to express themselves in monstrously destructive ways. In the same way as we have many more genes than get expressed, and that the context surrounding the chromosome (dependent on history, nurture, epigenetics) greatly affects which genes do get expressed, so, too, we possess a wide range of human potential for good and evil, and the context in which we find ourselves has a great deal to do with what we express. That doesn’t excuse individuals for their actions. It simply acknowledges the AND of a larger context.
We can take it up another level and understand that this mass murderer is also a spiritual being, one with the entire universe—cringe as we might to think of it. We much prefer our one-with-the-universe thinking to come with blissful imagery and New Age music. But one-withness knows no such boundaries; accepting that lets us also understand that the rampage of one murderer has implications for all of us. Like all of us, his actions came from causes and became causes, creating chain reactions, far beyond what the eye can see or the mind can trace. Merely granting the laws of physics, we know that energy is neither created nor destroyed, and the murderous energy unleashed in the movie theater will play out in endless repercussions, far beyond the lifetimes of those maimed or murdered, or the murderer himself.
We can’t make policy at the spiritual level. And the policies we’ve made at the individual level—death or incarceration—do not stop the problem and have their own repercussions around creating more weak links. So if we are to exert any leadership in this picture—and by leadership I mean authentic efforts and energy that make a positive difference in this state of affairs—it has to be at the intermediate level of social context. We could be utopian and say we’ll tackle all the social ills and create a society in which negligibly few people become weak links. But evidence is that we’re moving in the opposite direction of greater polarization, which, coupled with the pace and pressure, means we can expect there will be more people barely hanging on.
Much more realistic would be what I would call—not “gun control,” that mind-numbing label—more like “Rampage Control,” which would be checks and limits that reduce the likelihood that weak links can become so murderously expressive and go on a rampage. We’re not talking ordinary hunting gear, or that self-defense weapon tucked away in the home; as with managing any paradox, we don’t want to regulate to the extremes. We’re talking about checks and limits that kick in along the process of getting armed-to-the-teeth with automatic weapons and procuring 5000 rounds of ammunition. It shouldn’t be that difficult; hey, we figured this out for Sudafed.
About the author: Dr. Ginny Whitelaw is a leadership expert and Zen master in the Chozen-ji line of Rinzai Zen. She is the author of The Zen Leader (www.thezenleader.com), President of Focus Leadership, and founder of the Institute for Zen Leadership.
Comments
Wed, 08/01/2012 - 20:33
Wow, I hate always being the contrarian jerk, but..... I will be anyway. While I respect the authors attempt at understanding the inherent madness of the human condition; she knows nothing of guns and US gun laws.
"....the process of getting armed-to-the-teeth with automatic weapons and procuring 5000 rounds of ammunition."
For example is completely false. No one in the US can buy a automatic weapon. An automatic weapon is a machine gun, like the US army uses. What we can buy is an AR-15 semi-automatic, that is built in the visual "style" of an M-16, the fully automatic US army equivalent.
The AR-15 is an essentially weak rifle. The only advantage of the M-16 is its ability to rapidly (automatically) fire a lot of rounds. The AR-15 uses a round, typically .223 is not even adequate to hunt deer. The standard hunting rifle is chambered in .308, a much more powerful round, that would actually do much more damage to a human.
But what about "common sense" gun regulation. Well every time I have ever purchased a gun, I must fill out onerous paperwork, provide a photo ID, provide social security number, answer questions about my citizenship and criminal record, and then the gunshop owner, has to call the FBI while I wait there and they run my criminal records and either approve or deny my purchase.
Lets talk about all that ammo. I profess, I have purchased close to 1,000 rounds of ammo online before. Wow, and I had no intention of killing anyone. Do you know what I like to shoot at. You don't have to cover your eyes, all you zen masters, I only shoot at paper targets, and the occasional coke can. Did you know that you can easily shoot through 2-300 rounds of ammunition doing target practice in just a couple hours. Wow, so my thousand rounds of ammo, almost provided me with enough practice ammo for three days of target shooting. I must be a terrorist. Did you know that ammo is fucking expensive. Did you know that you get a bulk discount on ammo purchase. Sometimes saving over 20% on the purchase price. Shooting is a fairly expensive hobby. Sometimes us poor rednecks who live in the pastoral gun clinging mountains, would like to save some money. LIberal progressive integralists are supposed to feel sorry for the poor aren't' they.
And what about the "illusion of safety". One commenter, who professed to be a former NRA member, likened gun owners, to a backwards pastoral group of racists, still clinging to their guns and religion. Who own guns out of fear of the new integral progressive movement led (like sheep to the slaughter) by Barack Obama.
What about all the "safety" programs provided by our loving president. Every time we fly we now get either radiated or groped by fascist thugs. We still have all of our emails filtered by NSA snooping programs, with keyword search. Our progressive integral president now even has the right to kill americans on his personal hit list and detain us indefinitely, NDAA. What more do we integral progressives want from our dear leader.
Perhaps instead of being a pastoral, rural, uneducated group of rednecks, the new generation of young american gun owners, are sick and fucking tired of being treated like cattle by its loving government. Maybe we want to be in charge of our own security. Maybe we are sick of the all false flag attacks and FBI patsy's set up to create an environment of fear, and just want to be left alone to live our own lives.
Yeah this was a snotty, half angry post. I own that, and I don't really care. I am sick of the green progressives who talk down to the more conservative and libertarian branch of the integral movement. Guess what, at 2nd tier their is both a conservative and liberal side. See I can use AND also.
Love and light bitchezzz!!
Thu, 08/02/2012 - 04:23
Ben,
"...one commenter..." That'd be me.
Since stereotypes are bogus, here's an example of who I had in mind as I wrote. Not the rural poor or middle class but someone from the elite side of the classless cultural circuits I mentioned. Someone who was never religious (though he collected antique Russian icons, trophies from the demise of enemies). Someone who counted Attourney General Ashcroft among his close friends, and whose office displayed more photos of he and Newt Gingrich than of he and his wife.
Not fear, in an overt sense, but its acceptable form, disdain, held sway for Chuck. Disdain for the masses in general and for the attribution of dignity to, almost, all. I got the sense he was cosmopolitan-prepluralist. As far as he was concerned I wasted my time serving the homeless. His cultivated taste for a decentralized enclave of insularity made a five star world his transposed equivalent of the small town.
For all his global investments, he was invested most in utilitarian regard of who, for him, were the social 'others'. For him it wasn't necessary to personally own many guns. That he left to security firms. Talk about illusions of security.
Civilian militia proponents, anti-government survivalists, and Ashcroft's affinity networks (who pushed the Patriot Act and re-waged the War on Drugs, who we can largely thank for current levels of domestic surveillance) are, in my view, ethically identical, comrades on the front lines of fear-of-other. Theirs is another example of cathexis overlay, or interior stake-holding. Even as they propagandize against their vilified versions of each other, they are both twins in social values, joined at the hip they, respectively, shoot from.
Fri, 08/03/2012 - 01:52
"Civilian militia proponents, anti-government survivalists, and Ashcroft's affinity networks (who pushed the Patriot Act and re-waged the War on Drugs, who we can largely thank for current levels of domestic surveillance) are, in my view, ethically identical, comrades on the front lines of fear-of-other."
They are on the front lines of the survival instinct, yet those two groups, survivalist anti-govs and Ashcroft US govs both fear each other. They work against each other actively. The Ashcroft group wanting to form a more cohesive/controlled/domesticated Collective, while the Anti Govs want a stronger Individual liberty/ constitutional protection from the US Gov. This is the essential dualism.
Ironically, the liberals, who favor Collectivism tend to be in favor of giving up individual rights for a more "Safe" collective.
A larger point is that both of these groups you mentioned as well as liberals live under an even larger fear.
Fear of death and dissolution. The key spiritual insight is that we all seek safety and refuge, either in the bohdisatva or the arms of a strong centralized police state, or organized religion, or wall street money and private security. They key is that we ALL DIE regardless.
I believe that the best of liberalism is care for the other, but the worst part is a collective Fear of Death and dissolution that gets projected outward on others via ever expansive laws controlling guns, controlling fast food, spending money we don't have to promote social welfare.
Conversely, the best of conservatism is protection of the individual, but the worst is that it applies mainly to a certain group of well connected individuals and their fear is of the other tribes, races, nations whom they seek to dominate in expansive wars. They also believe that they protect individual freedom by spending money they don't have to finance wars.
An integral approach for politics must realize that to give the government more power to control guns, force citizens on or off pharmacological drugs, or manage us like cattle, are giving this power to a FIRST TIER government. Maybe once we have Socrates and his philosopher kings running the country then we could have faith that the gov wouldn't take advantage of us, but not now. I don't want Aschroft or Obama, or Big Sis ordering me around, "in my best interest". To apply universal laws written by the collective and forced onto the individual is like using a flamethrower to uproot some weeds. Someone should stand up for the individual integral practicer and his rights.
Thanks for the well thought out reply, BTW>
Thu, 08/02/2012 - 00:20
retracted
Wed, 08/01/2012 - 22:16
Ultimately integral will always lean more toward the progressive (sentimentalist?) than conservative (regressive?) "side" -- but only because each level supposedly incorporates more than the previous. So green is relatively more true than Orange, Amber, Red, etc. However that doesn't tell nearly the whole story since autonomy and communion approaches are both equivalent factors in addressing any situation from an integral viewpoint. AND as the contrarian-libertarians reminds us, quite usefully, is that the "backlash aggression" against ostensible liberal-progressives is an important energy to build into any system. Its not only a matter of giving lip service to both sides but also of incorporation the intensity of the energy they feel as the attempt to correct and counterbalance each other.
Until we succeed in this task we will find that even in integral discussions people will end up exploiting the content in order to vent their supposed liberal-progressive or libertarian-conservative moral frustrations. And we should expect this imbalanced, counter-balancing dance.
Now, Ginny's article ends with, quite obviously, a call for "—not “gun control,” that mind-numbing label—more like “Rampage Control..." What is beautiful about that is that it finds one of the key areas where the traditional dichotomy of political sensibilities can be bypassed. Rampage Control is not about guns. Obviously populations with more guns are more likely to use them on each other both intentionally AND unintentionally. But this logic applies to lots of things. The conservative slogan, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" is the basis of Rampage Control. Ultimately we will never have a society which is safe from terrorists large and small until we address their INTERIORS rather than their OBJECTS.
I was at the lake today. Possession of alcohol is a $200 fine. But is the problem really in the bottles? The only real trouble is people acting poorly. Yet we target the items precisely because we have not smart way to target the chemistry, emotions, sanity, intelligence, motives, behavioural profile, etc. of the individuals. Ultimately, however, the only just AND effective form of social policing and personal empowerment comes from building law around interiors rather than exteriors.
This is what Ginny is feelings towards.
Fri, 08/03/2012 - 02:07
Yes, I was rash, angry, and assumed too much from Ginny's article. ..... But that is typically my style.
I understand what you all are saying. Spiritually to be free from fear and teach freedom from fear and peace will always be the best solution to societies and the individuals problems. Rampage control is basically impulse control and sounds good.
Now lets appoint a board of bureaucrats chosen by the politically well connected funded by Super pacs, pay them outrageous salaries, and give them unlimited unchecked power to design "safety zones" and "psychological markers of psychosis" and lets make all gun buyers sit down and provide interviews to these all seeing ones to determine gun eligibility. See how that works.
When can we as a society ever solve our own problems, without always making everything illegal. The governments only power comes from the barrel of a gun to force us to hand over money to follow their laws.
You are absolutely right that there is a healthy balance between individualistic libertarians and communistic (communal) liberals. But for the last decades both parities have dis-favored individual rights in favor of collective rights. Whether it be social programs, war spending programs, regulations, drug laws. Everything from both parties has limited individual freedom consistently. I think it is far overdue for a political swing back towards individualism.
My working theory is that their is a collectivist and individualistic side of each level even at 2nd tier. Since most/many of the integralists come straight from green (hippies) they tend to associate with the collectivist side and the democratic party (flawed as it is). This is a collective shadow coming from remaining green impulses in otherwise 2nd tier cognition.
So I have taken it upon myself to represent the libertarian individualistic side of 2nd tier. In my own fear based, gun loving ways ; )
Yes I am from the midwest,
Yes I am christian,
Yes I can shoot and clean guns,
Yes I have read every single Ken Wilber book, footnote, and excerpt ever written.
Later homeboyz
Sun, 07/29/2012 - 17:58
In the news it's been revealed that the shooter was under the care of a psychiatrist.
Therefore, it's a possibility that he was given an UR Quadrant "diagnosis" and was under some kind of pharmaceutical "treatment."
See: http://www.psychsearch.net/mass-murderers/
In one of the videos, Michael Moore asks some legitimate questions regarding these pharmaceuticals and the effects they have on people.
Wed, 07/25/2012 - 23:14
In the last year gun advocacy groups have spent over $20 million dollars on political contributions and lobbying. This money is coming from the manufacturers of guns whose only concern is profit regardless of how many people are killed. They would be happy to see every American carrying a gun which would mean more sales and money for them. About 12,000 people are murdered each year by guns in the USA.
Here is a comparison of people murdered by guns each year in other countries:
USA- 12,000
Germany-269
Canada-144
Poland- 111
Spain- 97
Portugal-90
Switzerland- 68
Australia-59
Sweden- 58
Japan-47
Hungary-38
Lithuania -16
England-14
Denmark- 14
Ireland-12
New Zealand-10
Chile-9
Iceland-0
As Americans we believe that we are one of the most civilized countries in the world. But as you can see we need to grow in this area. It’s time to do something about it.
Tony
Fri, 08/03/2012 - 01:35
we also have a much higher population than most of those other countries. Iceland? Really. We also have a much higher cultural diversity and language matrix than many of the european countries. These all lead to more violence as the melting pot doesn't always cook evenly.
My point is that the knee jerk response is to attack guns. Reach for exteriors. The most obvious "solution".
Again, how many american tribalistic gang bangers are responsible for a higher murder rate.
What should we do, make all guns illegal have the government continue to increase their surveillance of us.
The problem of the publics fear for their safety has no end. Their has to be an ending point were we can be responsible for ourselves.
Wed, 07/25/2012 - 20:48
"When I knew nothing, then I abhorred the criminal, sinful and impure, being myself full of crime, sin and
impurity; but when I was cleansed and my eyes unsealed, then I bowed down in my spirit before the thief and the murderer and adored the feet of the harlot; for I saw that these souls had accepted the terrible burden of evil and drained for all of us the greater portion of the churned poison of the world-ocean."
Sri Aurobindo, from Thoughts and Aphorisms, 132
Wed, 07/25/2012 - 04:44
As a former NRA member (35 years ago) I can attest to a seed of trends that are now ellaborated in the availability of assault weaponry.
If trauma reflexively promotes retrospection, as evidenced in discussions of this case, maybe that pattern is present in causes of cyclic trauma. For every strike, a looking back.
I have the impression that many (US) 2nd Amendment advocates, whose efforts make and keep assault weaponry available here, are themselves, by virtue of their dominant values, traumatized by complexities and diversities of the world. For many, an insistence on a nostalgic semblance of small town insularity prevails. Through the constant 'assault' of global realities on pre-pluralism (pre-consciencious) mounting threats to worldviews preceded the more recent marketing and accumulation of personal arsenals. Reflected in these last few decades of pooling narcissism...there's validity to the assault they feel. As there is to their, our, adaptive reactions.
However, I'm curious as to causes of polarizations that markedly flare following shockingly charged events, bringing into stark relief conflicting positions that appear, to me, as codependent. For every deadlock or loggerhead, a mutual space; what I called in a 2010 blog, 'cathexis overlay', and 'interior stake-holding'.
For instance: the political roots, or ideological originations, that gave us intensified regulation of over-the-counter ingrediants of meth, via the War on Drugs, are the same source networks that drove the deregulation of weapons, the same cultural circuits. Fear of Other figures well into both. The Sudafed checks and the absence of checks for certain weapons share a pedigree of ideation, the same scaffolding network stemming from values espoused and reinforced within a significant band(s) in the spectrum of american polity.
Yet, as part of progressive/conservative codependency, both 'sides' hold tensions in place, such as when Left Handers speak against Right Handers employing Right Handers terms, and vice versa. One resolution of such tensions/pressures was suggested by Ginny when writing, "...this distancing ourselves... is [the] main reason... nothing really changes." We make each other 'as we speak'.
Wed, 07/25/2012 - 00:30
What a bunch of garbage. This so-called "integral" analysis virtually ignores the existence of the free moral agent who committed the crimes. This is just more mean green meme (politically left) reactionism claiming to be integral. The author's comparison to the absurd war on drugs (sudafed control) says it all: complete state control will keep everyone safe and happy. The only problem is, this isn't even a second-tier position, let alone an "integral" one. Perhaps we should be asking why entire theatres full of submissive and defenseless victims exist in our society, rather than focusing on the alleged external causes of the "weak link", who is actually simply a murderer.
Fri, 08/03/2012 - 02:10
Amen, and thank you for replying. I am seeking out other like minded souls in this place.
I am happy to get a least one person who agrees with me.
Wed, 07/25/2012 - 01:37
I think your moral passion misses the point of Ginny's article -- which specifically asks the question about what other factors IN ADDITION to individual agency might we want to take into account. Not that her points should be taken to exhaust an integral perspective or even to be terribly insight but we certainly can't critique her remarks as being non-integral on account of leaving out individual moral agency when the specified purpose the article itself is to look at factors which exist along side such agency.
"Submissive and defenseless" is perhaps hyperbolic and dismissive but yes, another additional factor definitely should be the way in which we are collective and individually prepped to handle such events. I was privately quite vexed by the "tweets" and "footage" coming from the theater as events unfolded. Yet a position does not fail to be second tier when it focuses on particular aspects at the expense of other aspects. Integral is the context from which specific elements are exaggerated and examined.
Tue, 07/24/2012 - 22:03
I don't have any trouble realizing mass murders come out of a social system I am part of. With this guy and the Virginia Tech guy, I wondered if they were good at science and were pushed into those demanding (and to a great extent, heartless) fields. Maybe they didn't like it, got lost and saw no other way out of a crappy, high-stress, soul-less career/life. I started out in chemical engineering, made a lot money doing things I thought were ultimately destructive (I was an early systems thinker), but when my career drive faltered, my girl friend made it clear her love was contingent upon my big paychecks. Fortunately, I found a better way out.
While I'm loath to promote the Huffies, they have another take on this that intrigued me:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shank/why-gun-control-debate-do_b_...
They say the "peace index," an amalgam of social care in a society, is a good predictor of rampages.
Tue, 07/24/2012 - 17:38
I have to confess that when I first heard he was a "gifted neuroscience student," my first thought was: I wonder what the consequences of intensive study, which reduces thought and emotion to a chemical reductionist flatland, might have on an emotionally troubled individual. I recoiled at the thought, since it seems quite a stretch to suggest that the academics could lead to psychopathic behavior. But it sunk back in after reading here, for me anyway, that this is another AND in the larger context.
Tue, 07/24/2012 - 20:21
One hears a great deal of talk about the bleak slaughter-reality of the films like the Dark Knight -- despite the fact that these moments present heroism, the victory of the good, the ultimate spiritual redemption of peoples and cities, etc. The nihilistic vibe is not found in the overt content. So too with neuro-science. Nothing meaningless necessarily implied by the content yet it is a place where instincts that are in love with the flattening of reality seem to be able to feed hungrily...
Tue, 07/24/2012 - 15:09
Rampage Control at all levels of our society depends upon good data concerning human interiors -- and we won't do a very good job until we have massively interlinked, regularly updated, automatically processed total bio-social-psycho-neuro personality-profiling which can intelligently track and sort patterns.
But what do we do in the meantime?
It's always useful and vexing to consider how the total social matrix, with all its structural imbalances, with all the great and small pains which constitute its body, with all the stimulations, connections and disconnections which stream through our cultural machinery, might easily cause a short-circuit here, blow out a wire over there, etc. We do have to cast our gaze beyond the vile individual and even beyond the typical "concerns" which the media falls upon immediately.
Thanks, ginny.
Fri, 08/03/2012 - 02:14
"and we won't do a very good job until we have massively interlinked, regularly updated, automatically processed total bio-social-psycho-neuro personality-profiling which can intelligently track and sort patterns."
You are fucking kidding right? You aren't advocating pre crime software monitoring for the individual are you?
Mark of the beast anyone?
Fri, 08/03/2012 - 11:41
One of the integral leaders was saying that a common mistake amongst integral folk is to become overconfident about knowledge. Methinks, integral is a map of the many previous ways in which we've been dumb. But less dumb doesn't suddenly mean smart. And wasn't that the point of Minority Report? The super smartest precog, the truly gifted one, knew things were not predictable.
Fri, 08/03/2012 - 15:57
I would argue that "less dumb" is precisely what "smart" means. The situations of current suffering and danger on this planet are very great and we are not ethically permitted to hold back either in terms of our own attempts to confidently employ our best ideas to the best of our ability -- nor is there a possibility of making this planet happy and free unless we are thinking in terms of how to optimally employ all the technological systems which are emerging. We already are controlled, monitored, toxified, etc. The choice is between not managing its intelligently and boldly for maximum benefit and accelerated human development or... trying to do that. Learning as we go. Getting smarter every time we realize how dumb we've been. But never allowing the possibility of not knowing to hold us back -- because absolute mystery isn't going away. It has become the basis for our constantly evolving enactment of a certainty which admits its own limits, reveals its own edges, without stalling or hesitating or doubting itself.
Fri, 08/03/2012 - 03:12
I am advocating something close to pre-crime software monitoring for all individuals, yes. Restrictions on exteriors can be dropped in the degree to which interiors are publicly known (though with an idealized amount of private autonomy over one's own data sets). This is necessary not only for the intensification of both individual and collective rights but for the functional establishment of planetary mono-cultural civilization (of "diversity"!). This is the unspoken heart of the integral agenda. Wilber's integral algebra makes "all human perspectives" algebraically computable and the stage, level & line concepts provide the framework for total, trans-cultural, multi-valent personality profiling.
Inevitable.
Desirable.
Fri, 08/03/2012 - 11:24
so layman, in one word :
you are advocating
integral fascism
as cure : )))
thank s alot for being so candid
Fri, 08/03/2012 - 15:49
It is admittedly a dangerous position -- but so are they all. Yet I'm willing to bet we disagree about what the word "fascism" means. I don't associate it with a particular form of society but rather with the tendency of any society to become corrupted. So I am talking about something that is definitely imperialistic, possibly totalitarian but, in my eyes, the opposite of fascism. Fascism is suicide and regression at the level of the collective body. It comes on the Left, it comes on the Right, it comes up the Middle. It inevitably disenfranchises people via their exteriors and employs minimal systems of acquiring collective intelligence. It is better for every individual is human societies are better organized than they are right now but this organization cannot succeed without using people's real inner condition (to the degree that individuals are willing to share this privately owned data) or without finding protocols to maximize the compiling of intelligence into shared decisions and actions.
Tue, 07/24/2012 - 03:36
Dr. Whitelaw,
Thank you for this thoughtful and timely post. This first thought that occurred to me when I heard of this tragedy and saw it on the news was: "what images & fantasy world was this individual immersed in that his world-view and perspective could be so skewed?"
He dyed his hair red, committed this crime at a "Batman" movie, and when apprehended, told the police that he was "the Joker". One definition of psychosis is that of an extreme projection - seeing out in the world the unconscious contents of one's own psyche as some attractive or fearful "other." To just label him an incomprehensible nut would be missing an opportunity to see how these kinds of atrocities germinate, are nurtured and finally emerge as acts in the world. The field of Tantra (Eastern and Western) and depth psychology deals with energy/charge/libido and imagery and may have more to tell us about these kinds of tragedies.
It may be that these acts occur within the field of some kind of fantasy/psychotic world-view, perspective, and persona. It may be that this individual went from using images (fantasy, movies, etc..) as a means of entertainment to a form of self-medication at some point and then continued into developing a kind of latent persona. We see this all the time today with folks dressing up for Comic-Con, Cosplay, and Renaissance Festivals, etc... People are deriving a kind of identity or alter-ego from their fantasy life. This can be healthy and is not necessarily a concern.
But somehow for certain individuals a line gets crossed where this persona/world-view is capable of actually seizing them as a kind of autonomous complex which causes them to act-out from a psychotic world-view or perspective.
Just some thoughts.
Joe Camosy
Fri, 08/03/2012 - 02:17
Or he could just be a government patsy who was set up to continue our fear based society and take our minds off of the nations slide into an economic depression while the continually growing police state can totally strip us of our individual rights and make us all slaves of the governments.
Did I just say that out loud?
Obama 2012!
Tue, 07/24/2012 - 15:25
The identification with antagonist is always intriguing. Of course there are all kinds of doctrines concerning the shadow but we must also expect that the protagonist of any fantasy-realm is the natural structural point at which identification, even over-identification "ought" to occur. If we suspect that one DOES reflect oneself in the "one" who is the ONE of any fiction or realm then why make the additional move of passing beyond that one, reversing, become the anti-one? This broken, evil boy is not just merged with "the joker" but with the "anti-batman".
He takes a side against the crusader for life, survival, etc. He is an adversary to intelligence, mythic understanding, deep commitment. It conforms to a pattern of nihilism where, taking the long view, we see months and months of stark preparation for a zero-event, a narrowing of reality, an attempt at total contraction.
The human monster anticipates social death (absolute horrifying rupture with his social field, total emotional disconnect), personal death, AND the death of individuality (not just in the loss of self into the archetype but specifically in the loss of self into the archetype which opposes the self-archetype). The reversed archetype is a pawn in a game which pursues the fascinating logic of the "pure end", the empty mindlessness as opposed to the living mindlessness, the very enthrallment with the false concepts of rebalance-through-destruction & terminal-stillness which characterize Bane & Talia as the villains of this particular Dark Knight film.