[Image from RavenCrow]This morning Matthew Dallman posted a link to a summary of Geoffrey Falk's criticisms of Ken Wilber. Not content to simply read a list of bullet points, I read the Wilber chapter (Norman Einstein) from Falk's book, Stripping the Gurus. I'm late to the game on this since the book has been around--and generally dismissed by anyone who likes Wilber--for a quite a while now.
My first impression was that Falk is an asshole. That was also my second and third impression as I read other chapters of his book. However much Falk acts like the stupid kid in the class who has caught the smart kid making a mistake, some of the critics of Wilber that he quotes have valid concerns that have either been ignored or derided. I find this disturbing.
I followed the back and forth between Wilber, de Quincey, and Hargens back when it happened, but I did not know about some of the behind-the-scenes stuff that went into the exchange. I found both Wilber and de Quincey wanting in that exchange, but I sided with Wilber.
I have generally sided with Wilber even when I found him to be egotistical and belittling of his critics. Because I have found Wilber's overall model useful and insightful, I didn't question some of the smaller details that Falk addresses. I committed the cardinal sin: I found the Buddha beside the road and did not kill him.
I was a Wilber follower. My girlfriend recently referred to me as a "Wilber freak," which I sort of took as a compliment and sort of felt embarrassed by. "Am I that obsessive? Am I that fanatical?" I thought to myself later. Painfully, the answer has been yes, at least some of the time.
Let me say right now that I found Falk's attack on Wilber to be a kind of nitpicking, overlooking the big picture so that he can show Wilber's mistakes. But there is some truth behind the smartass comments and ridicule that Falk espouses.
Wilber's critics have not been given a place at the integral table. They have not be included in the new integral paradigm. It can't be a truly integral model unless it is open to debate, to criticism, to the possibility that it is not the only answer, or even the best answer. The value of any good theory is its testability. Will the Integral Institute allow a non-member peer review of its central tenets? Will it permit dissenters to be heard by its members and followers?
When will Wilber have a non-believer as a guest on his "Get Naked" series? When will Wilber allow a guest on Get Naked to disagree with Wilber's version of integral?
I have not abandoned the four quadrants, developmental lines, states and stages, or much else of Wilber's basic model. However, I will never again be as accepting of everything Wilber says as I have been in the past.
When I talked with my girlfriend about this a little while ago, she asked me how I felt about this new "revelation." I told her I was not disillusioned with Wilber--all men are mortal, as Simone de Beauvoir claimed in her book by the same title. I was angry with myself for not questioning Wilber's work in the same way that I am critical of every other writer/thinker I read.
More than anything else, I am disturbed that I so easily accepted most everything Wilber wrote as though it were the god-given truth. That has been shifting in the last year (largely due to my misgivings about how he has treated SDi), but it was true for a number of years. "I wanted to believe," as Mulder might have said.
I wanted to practice a kind of jhana yoga (the path of intellect) with Wilber as my guru. I feel foolish for having even wanted that. Yet I understand the desire in myself and where it may have come from--but that's another post.
[Thanks to MD for pointing me where I needed to go.]
5 comments:
I think a lot of us find ourselves in your same position, William. By the way, I've just discovered your blog and think it's one of the very best I've seen in its wonderful combination of aesthetics and insight. Thank you for gracing us with it.
Thanks, William. Good post. Ironically, KW himself would likely be one of the first people to pat you on the back for taking a critical approach to his work.
P.S.: I wouldn't say that Falk's chapter on Wilber is "dismissed" by "anyone who likes Wilber." I think that's giving too little credit. When there was a discussion of this chapter on IN, the chorus was often loudly chanting praise on Falk. Many found his biting criticism to be a useful tonic.
You cite Falk claims that have either been "ignored or derided," so I encourage you take up some of these claims and, stripping away the childishness and nastiness of Falk's rhetoric, present some of them that you find most serious on your blog.
hey man, give yourself a break. you fell in love with a good story, just like the rest of us. who gives a fuck if wilber' s gotten some of his facts wrong? people dig integral because it helps them live a better life, not because it's theoretically perfect. are you going to enjoy a Mercedes Benz any less because you know that Ferrari makes faster cars? think about some of things that ken brings to the table that his critics -- especially those with really good points to make and even better alternative models of reality -- seem to lack: passion, intensity, wide-ranging interests, an aesthetic sense, humor, and the ability to wear his heart (mostly) on his sleeve. don't get down on your self because you got "suckered", instead pat yourself on the back for being human. there is, after all, much more to ken's writing that just the theoretical side.
Just to second what everyone else has said: Don't sweat it. About a year ago my brothers jokingly asked if I was going to marry Ken Wilber. Others who now have a similar position, like MD, will tell you they've been in a similar place.
It happens, it has happened, it will continue to happen. But, as you say elsewhere, thinking about what your life would be with and without Wilber's writing helps.
Also, once you reach this stage, it's pretty easy to let go of any quixotic thoughts or ideals about what "Integral" will be, particularly with regard to I-I, IU and the like. I think we can safely say that I-I probably won't change the world, but that some form of the worldview you might call Integral or constructive postmodernism or whatever will continue to emerge.
After all, Voltaire didn't have to patent rationality and for all the obfuscation of a Derrida or a Lacan, the postmodern ethos is very much upon us.
In short, welcome to the club!
great post. made it to my Wilberitis tag. welcome to the post-Wilber stage :) nah. i still love the dude. for what it's worth he's a good comedian.
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