Those who speculated that Wilber's rant last week was only a test were right. He has posted the follow-up, in which he reveals that most of us failed the test, and he only wants to work with the presumed 2% who got it -- you know, the second tier folks.
He claims to have run the original post by 200 I-I people and spiritual teachers, with 70-30 split on post, don't post. He also claims to have toned it down and then, at the last minute, deleted two lines that might have revealed that it was a test. No fair knowing that you are taking a test.
Despite his explanation (mostly, this was a marketing ploy for the new and improved -- with 90% more self-righteousness -- Integral Multiplex), I remain unconvinced that alienating first tier people (remember, they are 98% of the population -- likley more) is the best way to market an integral worldview.
Those of us who believe in integral and work to understand it, spread the word about it, and get more people interested in it are not well-served by his actions. He may have hooked the 2% of the people who are second tier, although I doubt most of them care in the slightest about any of this, but he successfully aliented a lot of long-time fans and potential customers. That's a bad business plan.
He argues for the union of the relative path and the absolute path. But having the ability to speak from and live within absolute reality -- emptiness -- does not justify acting like the hind quarters of the horse he rode in on as far as the relative world is concerned. They won't get it.
So the grades are out. I surely failed the test. But I still believe in integral, and I can rest assured that it will be ten more years before Wilber blows off some steam.
As an added bonus for those who still read the blog, there are some cool pointing out instructions. That alone is worth the BS of the last few days.
Technorati Tags: Ken Wilber, Integral Institute, The Rant, Second Tier, Pointing out instructions, Integral Pissing Match
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ReplyDeleteWell, this is an interesting development! I was actually wondering if there was something wrong with me that I couldn't work up the wild outrage and disappointment of everyone else...
ReplyDeleteKai in NYC
Like yourself, I fail to see Wilber acheiving anything useful with this-- unless ego-reinforcement for the second tier "in crowd" where they pat each other on the back about how much more enlightened they are than anyone else can be considered useful.
ReplyDeleteI also love that Wilber's "explanation" of his rant is full of his standard circular logic-- "You do not understand me because my mind is so advanced. In order to understand me you must make yourself think just like I do, and then when you manage to think just like I do you will see that I am right to think the way I do"-- and kindergarten taunts disguised as shadow psychobabble-- "I'm rubber and you're glue, whatever you call me is just your shadow bouncing off and sticking to you."
I'm going to start the Ken Wilber school of penguin fairies. The practice is to repeat to yourself for two hours every day "I am a penguin fairy" for two years or however long it takes until you believe it.
Ok, I feel more capable of a coherent response now. Wilber does want to see people move into the second tier; he's also, of course, thought seriously about how and when such movement happens. It happens, we know, only to folks who are passing through late green. His message is so off-putting, annoying and apparently inadequate precisely because it's designed to push our buttons in the most infuriating way imaginable: that's where the lesson is. As always, we are all free to defensively decided Wilber is full of shit and we want no part of this and he's egotistical, not nice, hurt our feelings, fell short, and let us down to boot; but like it or not, there IS a real lesson here, and opportunity to make important psychological shifts if we can sufficently deattach from our reactions long enough not to take ourselves so bloody seriously. I'm saying all this, ummm, in a NICE way!
ReplyDeleteKai in NYC
Hey Kai,
ReplyDeleteI hear what you're saying - you and my buddy Jay are on the same page.
I was never offended. But I do think he has offended a lot of people, and I see that as harmful to the integral movement. So yeah, I have some attachment here, but mostly to the hope that integral ideas will spread.
The Bodhisattva vow asks me to devote my life to helping others find freedom. I see integral as part of that path, epsecially in the West. Wilber's actions, lofty though their intent might have been, sabotage that effort.
For whatever it's worth, I no longer identify Ken Wilber = Integral movement. So that is a good thing to come out of this.
Peace,
Bill
I don't want to belabor the point, but I guess there's just one more thing I have to get off my chest. "Finding freedom," even in the Buddhist tradition (as much as I understand it, as a non-Buddhist), while it can be compassionately worked for on others' behalf, and is an embodiment or realization of compassion in of itself, is nonetheless mostly a traumatic experience when/as it happens. Sit with that. When you are becoming free, it will "hurt." I use the term "ego death." It seems to happen all of a sudden for some--or the final expiration anyway is sudden--or piecemeal for others (me, for example); but the dying of the ego seems to be a painful process. Certainly my piecemeal experiences has been painful: I can pinpoint those traumas after which I had more freedom (less ego). Now I beleive being open to pain, to being offended, to being rubbed the wrong way (especially and above all by the people I acknowledge to have advanced further along this process than I have) is an exquisitely necessary part of the process which, if I respond without reflexive rejection, will reward me with more growth.
ReplyDeleteSure it feels good when our teachers speak sweet words to us, but we have as much or more to learn from their harshnesses and discordances I beleive. Okay. I'll shut up now.
Kai in NYC
Kai,
ReplyDeleteI agree with this to a point: I beleive being open to pain, to being offended, to being rubbed the wrong way (especially and above all by the people I acknowledge to have advanced further along this process than I have) is an exquisitely necessary part of the process which, if I respond without reflexive rejection, will reward me with more growth.
But I think that only really works well for the people who are already well along the path. Everyone else -- that is to say 98% or more of the people on earth -- won't respond well to that.
I guess that is my main argument. His post was preaching to the choir and pissing off/hurting/alienting everyone else.
I get the point he is making, but from an integral perspective I see it as narcissistic, unnecessarily mean-spirited, poorly argued (partly the point I guess), and just off the mark.
And there is a certain cultish quality to it that some other people are making bigger than it is.
Peace,
Bill