The Integral Paradox

Something my wife and I appreciate about each other is that we're both into Ken Wilber's writing and so we can talk about it to each other when we walk through the woods on a lovely spring day.

The first Wilber book I read had been recommended by someone who I didn't know personally, so once I began reading there was really just me. This was before AQAL so I didn't know I was missing out on 2nd person We culture. I seemed to remember trying to tell people about it, but thanks to my brilliant expositions nobody was much interested. 

In '95 SES came out, and in '96 I met my wife to be, and she did read the Wilber books and she just got it. 

I've since been trying to become more integral, and the pained expression on my face is me noticing the many ways that I'm not integral, but hey gotta start somewhere. I will say this though; I met a friend of a friend who is in law enforcement, and the subject of privacy came up in conversation. Their take on privacy was that it wasn't really a big deal. For myself as a geek, that sort of high handed attitude was exactly the sort of thing that was wrong with authorities when they have too much power. I could have gotten really annoyed, but I didn't -- which I found interesting. Rather, whilst I did find the extent of what individuals in the police are able to do alarming, I happened to be automatically entering more into his perspective as I imagined what he had to do in his role as a detective. From the map in my head, I wondered if he was quite amber in a number of ways. But in the context of his work life, what he was saying didn't bother me. Instead I found I could talk about other amber issues, and we could sorta resonate on those, and meanwhile I wondered about where the functional balance might be between the need for amber to have the authority and power to dominate red, and yet do so without harming or distorting the freedom of orange and above. 

I'm going into it in some detail because it was a rather novel experience for me, plus I got to chat to a guy whom I'd normally feel more inclined to avoid.

It seems to me that was a bit of automatic integral cognition coming online. Maybe that'll extend itself to other areas of my life. But the cool thing is that even though the other guy had never heard of Ken Wilber, I was able to enter into a We space more with him that if I'd just be sat in my own little world, feeling incompatible with his. 

Even if they are perhaps a million miles from integral, integral opens up the space.

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Hi Timothy,

Based mostly on the title of your post i've been musing over this question. . . in the categorical sense, is there such a thing as The Integral Paradox?  If we take the AQAL framework in its broadest sense, as being integral, and if we take it to be a map of Samsara, and if in a realizable sense Samsara is Nirvana; then yes! There is such a thing as The Integral Paradox.

But outside of that central question the integral impulse seems to thrive on Paradox; because of its use everything scope paradox becomes fodder, fuel that actually feeds it.

But maybe this sort of inquiry is outside of the scope of your question; if so, the alternative is likely to prevail; which is to say that it's more likely to be an interior matter, one based on your own interpretation of circumstances and your responses to them.

Oftentimes, we are cautioned against confusing the map for the territory -something i take to be a wise injunction indeed. For me this means spending less time and energy "being integral", preferring instead to spend it on the actual process of integration. This includes musing over questions such as yours. And i thank you for the opportunity.

Warmly,

Charles

41N54'51" 88W18'31"

Hi Timothy,

good to hear from you again.

I had the same experience that you describe: Once you get the basic concept of Integral, AQAL, Spiral Dynamics, and the whole Package available at this site, then eventually will  come a point where you gain less and less from official Integral products. The more you cling to the concepts, the Maps, the colorful graphics, the optimistic tone of the presentations, the more you are in danger to become increasingly blind towards the outside world which appears ordinary and lame in comparison. So for example there exist less "Integral Websites" than "Not-Integral Websites" in the World Wide Web which is roughly 5% versus 95% expressed in numbers (rough estimation). Or even better: "Non-Dual Websites" versus "Not-Non-Dual Websites" AHAHAHAHA this one cracks me up :-DD So actually your world will shrink if you believe too rigidly into the Integral Solution, and it's not only your world that will shrink, hear me my friend AHAHAHAAH Okay this is also kind of sad methinks. However, you get the point.

bye,

--

>Five Star General of the Seven Armies, Archon of Atlantis<

Hey Tim, haven't heard for you in a while, thanks for posting.  What I'm about to write is going to leave bruises - on me.  It won't be popular.  But what you're asking is one of the most insightful and provocative questions that's come along in a while.  And I have personally thought about it, struggled with it, and managed its complexity for a few years.

The short version is this: people interested in integral (as in, AQAL writing or Integral Life content) go through a developmental sequence that is Identity - Differentiation - Integration.  (And people's replies here and elsewhere tells us much about where they are in the sequence.)  Sound familiar? 

At the initial Identification stage is when we have our biggest fans, we've been able to turn on the lights in a dark room so they can stop stubbing their toes in a fragmented world, and it's a bit of a love affair.  There is often a deep subjective identity that forms around Integral Life, Integral, Ken Wilber or others: "this IS me, thank god there are others!" This is a fantastic stage: full, liberating, sensuous and stimulating.

Stage 2 is the process of differentiation from seeing everything through an AQAL lens, where these recently-identified integrals can start to see themselves embedded in AQAL-ese and, to borrow an old adage, begin to recognize that now that they are an AQAL-hammer everything looks like an integral nail. We begin to see that a knowledge quest for the rest of our lifetime can fit in an integral framework and yet we find that on a practical level there are just some difficulties with an integral way of living: jobs, relationships and other aspects of living that require us to bridge multiple worlds.  This stage 2 is also where the risk of dissociation occurs, and there are generally two outcomes moving into stage 3.

Healthy stage 3 integration moves to a place that can hold integral metatheory as a profoundly robust whole life-operating system that is still in its social infancy in terms of pragmatic methods.  In short, it is beautiful, and nourishing, but still has much work to do to fill out all the promise it has in the world.  And yet that work is not done, and we often ask ourselves "how can I most fully contribute to this outcome?"  This is when we take seriously the mission to use integral as a personal and social object to transform lives.

Unhealthy stage 3 dissociation moves to a sense of anger and scorn toward integral for much the same reasons: it is incomplete, it is too theoretical, it is not yet fulfilling its promise.  It overpromises and underdelivers.  I see this reaction a fair amount from critics both in the IL community and more broadly.  It is a prima facie accurate description but an underinformed criticism, ignoring the nature and history of how progress is made in social movements and technology adoption.

Now, here's the tricky part.  Understanding all of that is just table stakes for leading in this community.  Where it gets tricky is deciding where, with limited time, energy and money, do I (as CEO of Integral Life+Institute) choose to build leverage into the social system: stage 1, 2 or 3?  And to answer "all of them" is a nice platitude that ignores the starting constraints.  The truth is that for the past few years Integral Life has been focusing on stage 1: increasing social adoption of integral as a worldview-contender for enlightened mainstream thinkers.  We've not done a good job of defining the pedagogical highways that take someone safely through stage 2 into stage 3.  There are two things that could help here: one, more advanced material that serves as a deeper exploration of integral theory and highlights this kind of developmental progression as a member itself; and two, since I've arrived I've tried to stem the "integral as the world's salvation" language.  At a deep level we actually believe it, and yet the way a stage 1 organization expresses it (where we were when I came onboard) and a stage 3 organization expresses it (almost where we are today), feel completely different.  One is cultish. The other is coolish.

So that's a huge amount of context for my reply to your post, which is that it will depend on which stage you're at in your relationship of digesting integral as a life-operating system before you'll know how to manage the feeling of alienation you're pointing to.  Stage 1 either doesn't notice the alienation and sees its non-integral friends as in the dark or sees it and wants to convert them to the gospel.  Stage 2 very much begins to feel the alienation and either begins to get frustrated with one's friends or suspicious of integral being for real.  And stage 3 either accepts the deep reality of integral's unreadiness for large-scale social adoption and enjoys the merits of integral and their friends regardless; or it rejects integral as being inadequate and yet another broken new age promise. 

Most of my closest friends are not integral.  They don't get it. They don't care. And they are the happiest, most successful people I've ever met, including those in the integral community.  Now I select my friends carefully and they are high-quality people, and yet I've found it immensely strange that this is the case.  Part of it is developmental: they don't have the time or luxury or calling to do the existential pondering that integral has self-selected around. 

But part of it also relates to something we talk about a lot in our organization, which is that a culture is its conversations.  And when I look at the conversations on Integral Life, I am seriously underwhelmed at the diversity and fluency in so many important affairs.  So much of our community expresses an absolutizing desire for spirituality.  True integral spirituality goes and starts companies because people need jobs.  It gets in the lab to treat malaria.  It builds roads.  It raises children.  It gets really angry and lets people know that there are lines in the sand we'll fight for.  It has a point of view.  Until we start celebrating those kinds of conversations I do not think we'll see this community move into a healthy stage 3 integration. (And, for what it's worth, this is one of the reasons I wrote my monthly letter this month about the global economic era we're moving into and how to prepare one's portfolio for it.  Coming this week.)

Sorry for the long reply.

--

Robb Smith

Hey guys!

Well I was hoping this would stir a little traction - so I am delighted to see and hear from those of you I know - Charles, David, Chistoph, Robb,  - as well as those I don't. Thanks.

I have to comment the first and most here on Robb though, because thanks to you buddy I managed to lose at least an hours worth of sleep (maybe closer to two) after only briefly skimming your comment.

That stage sequence strikes me as pretty darn accurate, and also quite vital to understand - and seek to nurture. (And for posterity here let's remember that we are talking essentially about horizontal stages.) The idea of creating what are essentially three well differentiated portals of Integral Life, nurturing these three distinct stages, also seems like an important direction to go. Since IL has been up and running I unfortunately haven't been able to afford a premium membership of any kind, so I can't really say much about the whole but, yes, it would seem that basically everything that's ever been offered online (or even off) is primarily introductory. Perhaps something like ITC is more along the lines of a genuine stage 2 offering - because the opportunity is there to bring forward something substantial along the lines of serious application. But of course, that is also quite limited too. I wonder, now that we're talking about it, if a good deal of the unrest that has arisen thus far historically doesn't all have to do with that desire; that is, the desire to really move on and into a real stage 2 with things. Which brings me to my next point.

Back just before you came on board Robb, when Wilber posted a job notice in his blog, I spent something close to even a weeks worth of sleepless nights seriously considering whether or not I should step up and apply for the CEO job. I knew I would not pass muster in terms of the solid credentials for it. (And even had a dream of Ken Wilber saying something along the lines of "who do you think you are considering that your qualified for this job . . .") But even today I still feel if given the opportunity I might just well have something dynamic to offer (and I do have some substantial, credible experience and thus insight along the reality of second-tier organizational lines). But that is not the point. My real point is twofold.

One, this allowed me to really put myself into what would now be your shoes. And quite frankly they just ain't all that easy a pair when it comes down to it. So I guess maybe more than anything else here I'd like for you to know that. i.e. I appreciate the mammoth - and quite possibly even impossible- task you've now clearly devoted a couple years of your life to. But going back to that experience of stepping into those shoes, I remember specifically having a conversation with someone (can't remember if it was several people) that involved realizing and making the point that . . . well, for all that we've got going here so far, and for seemingly all the people interested and for seemingly all the potential waiting out there to burst . . . this in reality just isn't going to be easy. It may take generations before even a smigeon of what could possibly be actually is. Quite frankly, we need to accept that even some the most preliminary of Integral visions just may not be possible in our lifetimes.

And, two, it all does seem to come down to the LR. Building the structures necessary to foster, nurture, implement and grow even a very small, well-functioning and genuine Integral worldspace - on all four quadrants - is just plain hard. Extremely difficult to near impossible. Because not only do the proper and necessary LR structures just not yet exist, but the structures that do exist below such a thing - and so thus supporting it - may still have a long way to go in and of themselves! We've got the UL's, and certainly plenty of them. And thus we've got a LL now quite well going, no matter how it continually morphs and changes. (Obviously this gets more complex, but you all get the idea.) And pretty much little or none of any of this would even be possible without, well, lots of brains and bodies out there existing with the other two simultaneously. But to have a LR anything more than a collection of body-brains sprinkled here and there about . . . we're talking about some seriously overwhelming propositions. Literally carving out new - hard, physical, mechanical, functional - grooves that, well, . . . Rome wasn't built in a day. And in order for Rome even to be built the scaffold of structures it stands upon need to be ready to support it. It's that darn 0.05-2%. It's just a very, very small fraction, and beyond that it just hasn't been around for very long. Even if we would consider the oldest person still here (i.e. still alive), we're still barely into the morning of Rome's first day.

So, not to be outdone by your long post, I'd like to go back and just share a little of my recent experiences. (I'd like to acknowledge Charles though and say, yes, paradoxically we are just talking about better ways of organizing samsara, in a task that will never, ever be done.)

It really kind of hit home with me last January, when due to the current and rapidly deteriorating circumstances of my (LR) life, I found myself with a pick and shovel literally, as that saying goes,  "digging a ditch" to save my own and my family's life. The work was brutal; with the intention to save and support my family being the only noble thing about it. It was, for all intents and purposes, slave labor. Not in the sense that no one was getting paid, but in the sense that this extremely ancient and primitive form of building something is as close to as bad as it gets. There were no real physical benefits, just the continual, backbreaking repetition of actions geared towards sending you to an early grave. And that was the reality and the worldspace. The idea of even thinking of something even remotely close to "AQAL" was impossible here.Certainly meaningless. I was back in ancient Egypt, or Babylon. There was no priority to even learn to read and write much less come up with some scholarly, academic article to present at some ridiculous, highfalutin conference of what now appeared to be extremely spoiled morons. Myself among them. Who gives a rat's ass about the existence or non-existence of something like "social-holons" when my children are going to die today if I don't grunt forward, pound this unforgiving soil, and beat my own body into death to prevent that basic, fundamental reality from happening? And this was the only real and ongoing reality for all of those around me. That's what hit home even more.

What an absolute insult to them -these many, many people with many more families and relatives and relations at home, elsewhere and around the world -to even be thinking about the importance of defining "dramatic intelligence" or anything even remotely of the sort. This was their lives. And was going to be, until the end of them. At least for this and maybe even the next generation. But that was the whole point. If there was anything to get out of it, maybe the kids or grandkids might be able to have a better life than I have today. I had visions of folks I met and saw at the ITC conference and the Harvard scholar Howard Gardners of the world, etc. coming out here to the same place to pick up the 35lb pick and try doing the same thing for even about 15 minutes. Then let's see how well you can handle a shovel. Now continue for the next seven hours, not because it's fun, not because it's any sort of a "valuable learning experience." But because your life and the lives of others absolutely depends upon it. Needless to say, things like "AQAL" and "Integral" were suddenly very, very far away. And as I would like to again emphasize - if it didn't come across clearly above - the lives and minds and worlds of those around me in this situation (somewhere in the range of red/amber) would never, ever in even a remote possibility contain, be aware of, or care about such a thing. And so yes the sentiment certainly came about: what good is it all, anyway.

After a short time however I managed to be able to move on. This time to car sales. I was introduced by a pretty energetic and inspiring guy, probably a well-developed and inspiring orange. Maybe there was even some "spirit" involved because my grandfather not only sold cars, but sold this manufacturer too. That manufacturer? Chrysler.

You can see where that is going. But more importantly, I was now within a more orange environment exterior space, unfortunately dominated by (interior) red. At least I could reclaim my body back, but again, where is an AQAL opportunity in this? I'm going to be frank about this. Any application was essentially meaningless. Why? Because even when dealing with the general American public in this industry, getting to amber and orange was a huge struggle. Much less green. Much less anything beyond. Now, this is where I want to go back to my own experience resembling an Integral CEO. Something I really think many people or everyone out here needs to clearly understand. All these visions in your head mean nothing in enactment if they do not meet their equivalents (at least in potential) across all four quadrants. You can't divide Integral labor up among ambers, reds, greens and orange. You can, of course, but you are only going to see those equivalent results. A mix of green, orange, red and amber . . . no matter how brilliant and skillful you are at dealing with people . . . is still just that. A mix. A mix still struggling to reach the genuine level of a vision. And quite frankly, no, you can't just do it all yourself. (You are after all, a holon.)

So Chrysler tanked, but that was really only the beginning of it. My wife was incredibly sick and I was forced to actually quit my job. (Once again, what is the fundamental priority for your families survival? In this case it was not even yet shelter or food, it was people just plain not dying or killing themselves!) But that got better and I went to work for a pretty darn decent orange dealership selling Ford. But that's about where the promise ends. At this point, I didn't even bother thinking Integral. I knew there was (at least yet - way, way yet) no point. Only a few instances brought the idea up. (For example, in order to succeed in this industry, you basically have to devote (and maybe even whore out) your entire life and energy to the LR. Those who were succeeding did this. At the expense, that is, of their relationships with their spouses, children, families and any semblance of a life in anything else. In other words, this certainly ain't Integral. And go ahead and begin trying to change it. This would require first for you to succeed doing this current schtick. Succeed enough to then become, say, a manager. Continue even more intensely for a another few years and maybe then become a senior manager. After a few more years of that, now go ahead and become a dealer. Now your the boss, now you have the chance to start implementing your visions of auto dealership integral. And yet, now, even then, after all that it took to get to here, you find at the very least that the surrounding industry does not support it (e.g. culturally) and a bevy of practical matters are against it as well (e.g. techno-economically).) But anyway, saw a few people wholesale neglecting their LL, UL, UR lives in order to succeed. Thought that wasn't a really good idea, but what else was anybody - including me - supposed to do?

Okay, now I'll try and wrap this up.

We eventually lost our house, lost our cars and during that upheaval I again was hit with the thought: honestly, what, in this instance has "Integral" done for me? No seriously. Really, really done for me? In all these instances (or at least in all these perspectives) nothing. It didn't save my house. It didn't save our cars. It didn't save me in a job (one I had to quit but they went out of business anyway, and the other I was fired). It didn't really do anything to save my now quite strained family and marriage. But things did begin to get a little better. We hunkered down, pooled resources with others and are currently, at least for now, pretty stable. And finally just last week I decided it might just be time to make some contact here again. For this is what happened.

I've been in an office situation for a few months now, selling optimization of Google listings, in a mixed uses office (and I am also getting my real estate license). And I was walking up here the other day and, by golly, this something quite resembling joy came over me. Why? Because I suddenly felt like myself again. Here I was (here I am) in this distinctly orange environment (and whatever else there is here, it all stops at orange), and by golly I am getting along with it just fine. The people I talk to like me, I have no problem fitting in and relating . . . and this "being different" just aint no thang. I don't need to apply any AQAL hammer because no longer is everybody and everything an AQAL nail. I used to be able to get along with everyone and in nearly every situation just swimmingly, in many ways isolated and alone, sure. But  becoming an Integral junkie on Integral crack really did change all that. What was supposed to be about integrating my world really did start to seriously fracture it in a real, living and practical way. So sitting there the other day I said, jeeze, what a freaking paradox.

Everything you said Robb seems to me completely accurate. And I'm happy to report I'm feeling well adjusted now into stage three. I'm still interested in all of this. I'd love to discuss what a stage two (and stage three) portal might look like, and what might be beneficial to at least guide folks through them. Cause this is pretty big. And all of the things I was interested in before (like an Integral actor's studio, etc.)

But for the moment, I think I'd better get back to work!

Tim

Hi Tim!

Rereading the below, I apologize for (perhaps obviously) not keeping up with ii discourse. (Robb: Thanks for scribing the stages of integral awareness- 'twas new to me.)

Regarding "Has being Integral made you far less genuinely integral?": I consider myself lucky to realize very young that the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know, and that no-one can possibly know everything. I'm quite at peace with that. I remember when first introduced to integral thinking, I realized how non-integrated I was. A short answer is therefore, for then, "yes." The more I learn and absorb, though, the more vast my perspective, the more integrated I feel; STILL realizing that there's so much more. Again, I'm at peace with that, due to lovely little nuggets like 'just as a drop is in the mighty ocean, the mighty ocean is in the drop', and 'the light of your heart is the same as the light of the universe'. Expanding knowledge makes more room for wisdom. It seems that when data-knowledge expands, wisdom-knowledge sort of contracts, or sums up plethoras of data and you get those 'AHH!' and 'AH-HA!' moments which remain. Brevity increases (How's THAT for  paradox!).

Eckart Tolle advises something like (paraphrased): 'If someone has wronged you, forgive them, for they were only operating at their level (stage) of consciousness at the time.' Once that really sank in for me, it first slapped the mild spiritual elitism and superiority complex right out. I then discovered that this can be expanded into a more general acceptance, understanding, compassion and/or delight with others, as each case may be. Very few people in my life are at integral (whether they read Ken or not, by the way), but if someone manifests the healthy form of their first-tier stage, then they are someone with whom I enjoy hanging out. Now: such a person may not be able to truly "see" and understand me. I suspect that the desire to be seen, which is of course wonderful, and the loneliness that can result from not being seen, is an egoic issue.  On a good day, when feeling more or less transcendent of my ego, I can have a positive interaction with a healthy red guy, be neutrally indifferent with a mean green, then fall asleep happy. I egoically admit that a better day would add/involve a chat and hug with someone nice and enlightened.

Tolle also holds the same advice in the UL: 'Forgive yourself, for you are/were only operating at your own level of consciousness at the time'. This can of course also be expanded to self-acceptance, understanding, compassion and delight. Yes, that could be construed as an egoic statement, but I think it indicates either a healthy ego or a perspective beyond it. Transcend and include.

I hope this is pertinent, and best wishes!

Jeff