Chapter 1.

Cyber_Rave_City@XTC.org
1. p. 21: "Basically, Graves discovered that there are around eight major levels
or waves of human consciousness... as we will see."

Hazelton quoted Graves: "Briefly, what I am proposing is that the

psychology of the mature human being is an unfolding, emergent,
oscillating spiraling process marked by progressive subordination of older,
lower-order behavior systems to newer, higher-order systems as an
individual's existential problems change. Each successive stage, wave, or
level of existence is a state through which people pass on their way to other
states of being. When the human is centralized in one state of existence, he
or she has a psychology which is particular to that state. His or her feelings,
motivations, ethics and values, biochemistry, degree of neurological
activation, learning system, belief systems, conception of mental health,
ideas as to what mental illness is and how it should be treated, conceptions
of and preferences for management, education, economics, and political
theory and practice are all appropriate to that state." C. Graves, "Summary
Statement: The Emergent, Cyclical, Double-Helix Model of the Adult
Human Biopsychosocial Systems," Boston, May 20, 1981.

2. p. 21: "The same is true with Graves model; to date, it has been
tested in more than 50,000 people from around the world... no major
exceptions found to the general scheme."

Hazelton said (from Kim's notes): "This is a statement made by Don Beck
in a lecture at Integral Center; he said that much of this data is on computer
file in the National Values Center, Denton, Texas, and is open to qualified
researchers."

3. p. 21: "(Let me just say that 'Spiral Dynamics' is a registered trademark...

used here with grateful permission.)"

Hazelton said (from Kim's notes): "Both of my lectures--today's and

tomorrow's--about Spiral Dynamics, I have shown to Don Beck, and he said
that he was in substantial agreement with my points. Of course, this does
not mean that he agrees with every little detail, but only that my
presentation is faithful to Spiral Dynamics as Don sees it.

"What I particularly admire about Don Beck's work," Hazelton

continued, "is that he has found a way to both remain faithful to the spirit
and findings of Graves, and yet also continue to modify, update, and refine
Graves's pioneering work. For, like any great pioneer, Graves's work is now
quite dated. Graves did not have a fully articulated understanding of the
four quadrants, the relation of levels and lines, the relation of stages and
states, the higher levels themselves (including the transpersonal stages and
states), and the nature of recent breakthrough discoveries in the various
quadrants, such as brain neuroscience, genetic factors, neurophysiology, and
chaos/complexity theories; finally, a sophisticated understanding of the
influence of what we call the Lower-Left quadrant (or cultural background),
so intensively investigated by postmodern epistemologies, is also lacking in
Graves. Beck has attempted to combine these new breakthrough discoveries
with the pioneering work of Graves to arrive at a much more integral and
comprehensive psychological model than Graves possessed, while still
incorporating those aspects of Graves that have stood the test of time. He
has done so by plugging the original Graves model (which is a phase-2
type of model) into an 'all-quadrants, all-levels, all-lines, all-states' model
(a phase-4 model), thereby moving toward a much more integral
psychology. You can see an outline of this Spiral Dynamics Integral, or SDi,
at www.spiraldynamics.net. See also www.globalvaluesnetwork.com.

"(One caveat: those of you practicing spiritual contemplation will not find
in SDi an elucidation of the higher, transpersonal states and stages. This is
because research on these post-turquoise developments is scarce, and Beck
tries to remain close to available evidence. The nature of these higher states
and stages is investigated in Integral Psychology. There have been attempts to
reduce spirituality to expressions of the first- or second-tier memes, but
these reductionisms fall short of the mark, and seem to reflect a merely
theoretical attempt to grasp transpersonal states and stages, and not a direct
experience of those realms, which are thoroughly post-turquoise.)

"Of course, there are some scholars who insist on presenting a 'pure
Graves' model (for use in business, politics, education, etc.), but 'pure
Graves' today simply means outmoded, obsolete, and inadequate. Using
such outmoded models for business consultation, education, and so on,
produces much less than adequate outcomes. This is why Beck's move
toward a more integral model is impressive.

"Don Beck is a valued, founding member of Integral Center. If you would

like to work with Don Beck, you can contact him at drbeck@attglobal.net. I
should also mention that two other members of IC, Jenny Wade and Peter
McNab, have also updated Graves into more integral models (see, e.g.,
Wade's Changes of Mind), as have theorists such as Wyatt Woodsmall. For
my friend Chris Cowan's interpretations of Graves, see the Cowan link at
www.spiraldynamics.com. One thing all of these theorists--and virtually all
of us at IC--agree on is the absolutely profound and lasting contributions of
a remarkable genius called Clare Graves. (For a fuller discussion of all of
these themes, please see Integral Psychology.)"

4. p. 22: "Spiral Dynamics... as proceeding through eight general stages,

which are also called memes."

Hazelton continued (from Kim's notes): "Spiral Dynamics speaks

specifically of vMEMEs or 'value memes,' which are organizing principles
underlying virtually all forms of human behavior. For our introductory
lectures we have simplified this to just 'memes,' but the important
differences should be remembered. See Beck and Cowan, Spiral Dynamics.
For various criticisms of memes, see A Theory of Everything, endnote 9 for
chapter 1; for criticisms of Spiral Dynamics, see the same book, endnotes 6
and 10 for chapter 1."

5. p. 24: "Approximately 0.1% of the adult population, 0% power."

Hazelton added, "If you add up all the percentages at each meme, you
will get more than 100%, because there is some overlap."

Kim pointed out that Hazelton wrote a widely respected textbook on

developmental psychology, called Up the Spiral Staircase: Studies in Where
You Want to Be Going: Cambridge, Harvard Yard Publishing House, 2000.

6. p. 29: "Because second-tier consciousness is fully aware of... the necessary

role that all of the various memes play."

Hazelton added (from Kim's notes): "The existence of these waves of

consciousness is why many philosophical arguments are not really a matter
of the better objective evidence, but of the subjective level of development of
those arguing. No amount of orange scientific evidence will convince blue
religious believers; no amount of green bonding will impress orange
aggressiveness; no amount of turquoise holism will dislodge green
pluralism--unless the individual is ready to develop forward through the
spiral of consciousness unfolding. Intellectual debates and 'dialogues' across
stages are almost entirely worthless, since real understanding would require
a subjective transformation on the part of some of the participants, and
frankly, that is unlikely."

7. p. 34: "In the end, the only justifications...have the form 'justified for me.'"

Hazelton: "See One Taste (a book written by a member of IC), Nov. 23

entry, for references and extended discussion."

Chapter 2.
The_Pink_Insides_of_CyberSpace
@LookingGlass.org

1. p. 45: "As Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner reminds us, 'The young
child is totally egocentric... The whole course of human development can be
seen as a continuing decline in egocentrism.'"

From Kim's margin notes: " The Quest for Mind, p. 63."

2. p. 59: "But when given actual tests of moral development... scored at

preconventional, not postconventional, levels."

Margaret Carlton, from Kim's notes: "Data on the percentages of

protesters at various stages of moral development varies considerably,
depending, of course, on many factors. In general, the research swings
between around 60% precon and 30% postcon to around 30% precon and
60% postcon (with usually around 10% or less at con). Our basic points
about boomeritis can be made with any of those results, because they all
show the same general thing. The point is that boomeritis is a dose of highly
developed green (say 60%) with an underbelly of strong red (say 30%)--both
culturally and personally. It's green infected with red that causes so many
problems, as we will see in the following talks. For one example of dozens of
studies, see H. Haan et al., 'Moral Reasoning of Young Adults,' Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 10 (1968), 183-201, which shows a type of
even split between pre and post (60%/75%). Keep in mind that most people
give responses from more than one level, so the total percentages often add
up to over 100, but the general conclusion from all of the studies points to
one thing: pre and post became strange bedfellows in this generation."

Chapter 3.
The_Lay_of_the_Within@SpiralD
ynamics.net

1. p. 67: "We will continue to use the research of Spiral Dynamics... actually
something we call Integral Psychology... since we have already introduced
it."

Hazelton: "See Integral Psychology for a summary of this cross-cultural

research."

2. p. 67: "You can easily see all of this on slides 1.1 [page 23] and 4.1 [page
118]."

Hazelton: "Much of the wording of the charts is taken from, or

paraphrased from, Beck and Cowan, Spiral Dynamics, with the permission of
Don Beck."

3. p. 98: "What we really see with the healthy green meme... often extended
even to children's rights and animal welfare."
 Hazelton added (from Kim's margin notes): "The green meme is an
intensification of the postconventional, worldcentric, universal care of
consciousness. Although green claims that all truths are socially constructed,
pluralistic, and relative, those items are said to be true for all cultures, with
no exceptions--hence, green actually has a universal, postconventional
stance. Green makes a series of strong claims that are said to be true for all
cultures, such as the fact that all knowledge is culturally situated; multiple
interpretations are possible for any event; intersubjectivity is constitutive for
all experience; there are no unmediated, pure experiences; knowledge is
socially constructed--and so on. Those claims are universally true, according
to these theorists, who then claim that there are no universal truths (except
their own--hence, boomeritis)."

4. p. 101: "In the end, the only justifications...have the form 'justified for me.'"

Kim's margin notes: "See One Taste, Nov. 23 entry, for references and
extended discussion."

5. p. 102: "And there... is the tragedy of the Me generation."

Joan Hazelton continued (from Kim's notes): "Another real problem with
green is its tendency, as Don Beck puts it, to 'talk turquoise.' That is, it is
not uncommon for green theorists, especially ecotheorists, to use the
terminology of second-tier thinking and thus appear more integral than they
perhaps are. In teasing apart these claims, I have remained close to Beck's
memetic analyses, since he has had several decades of experience with this."

6. p. 107: "These nested hierarchies are often called growth hierarchies, such
as... ecosystems to biosphere to universe."

Hazelton added (from Kim's notes): "Students of Sex, Ecology,

Spirituality--a book written by one of the members here at IC--will notice that
in that series I am not differentiating individual (upper quadrants) and
collective (lower quadrants). In actuality, the organism is NOT a part of the
ecosystem, but rather individual and collective are correlative aspects of all
holons at every level of development. But for the simple example given in
the text, the conclusion remains the same." Kim's margin notes say, "See 'On
Critics, Integral Institute, My Recent Writing, and Other Matters of Little
Consequence,' at http://wilber.shambhala.com/."
Chapter 4.
And_It_Is_Us@FuckMe.com
1. p. 122: "Some researchers, such as IC member Jenny Wade..."

Kim's margin notes say: "See Jenny Wade's Changes of Mind. See The Eye of
Spirit, second edition for a critical discussion of Wade's model."

2. p. 127: "And now... the development of worldviews from orange to green

to integral!"

Kim's margin notes: "All Deirdre Kramer quotes in this lecture are from
'Development of an Awareness of Contradiction Across the Life Span and
the Question of Postformal Operations,' in Michael L. Commons et al., Adult
Development, vol. 1, Comparison and Applications of Developmental Models
(Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1989)." Kim's margin notes also cryptically say:
"For a fuller overview of Kramer's work, see the Introduction to CW4."

3. p. 127: "It is just that... formal operational cognition (orange by any other
name)--assumes a great deal of importance."

Margaret Carlton continued (from Kim's notes): "We have seen that
development in general proceeds from preconventional ('me') to
conventional ('us') to postconventional ('all of us'). Here is another way to
say that: preconventional has only a first-person perspective (I or me).
Conventional adds the capacity for second-person perspectives (you, which
together with I, gives we and us), and thus conventional awareness can take
the role of others in the same group. Postconventional adds the capacity for
third-person perspectives (it and them), which also means that
postconventional awareness can take multiple perspectives--first-, second-,
and third-person, all at once--and thus I can take into account, not just my
group, but all groups (not just ethnocentric, but worldcentric).

"In other words, this is just another way of saying that the move to
postconventional awareness is an astonishing advance in the capacity for
care and compassion. I can show genuine concern, not just for my tribe or
my race or my nation, but for all peoples, all tribes, all races. In fact, this is
why Carol Gilligan calls this the move from the 'care stage' to the 'universal
care stage.' This does not guarantee that I will love everybody, so to speak,
but only that the suffering of others--the suffering of anybody--begins to
deeply bother me: I can't help it. This will mature into the green sensitive
self, and from there into an integral self that wishes to embrace all sentient
beings with justice and compassion."

4. p. 128: "Of course rationality... has its healthy and unhealthy versions."

Carlton's full statement (from Kim's notes): "Of course rationality can be
misused--every meme has its healthy and its unhealthy versions. But that
does not detract from the extraordinary accomplishments of orange reason,
first and foremost of which is the capacity to take multiple perspectives and
thus to truly begin to entertain a multicultural perspective. Even many of the
harshest critics of the Enlightenment have slowly come to acknowledge that
the principles of the universal rights of man, inaugurated by the
Enlightenment, are in fact the same principles that eventually supported the
abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, and multiculturalism: the right of
every human being to freedom and equality. These principles are applied
with more sensitivity by green, but let duly note that they begin with
orange."

From Kim's margin notes: "See M. Carlton, 'The Historico-Cultural Shift

from Transcendental Signifieds to Sliding Signifiers as Exemplified in the
Painterly Art of the Everyday in Early Eighteenth-Century Northern France,'
Journal of Concrete Fabricated Theoria 17, 2 (2001): 34-67."

Also from Kim's notes: "See the Introduction to CW4 for a detailed
summary of worldview development."

5. p. 130: "However, when the richly textured relationships between multiple

contexts are discovered... which we simply call integral."

Margaret Carlton continued (from Kim's notes): "We saw that pluralistic
relativism--the worldview of the green meme-- differentiates systems but
cannot integrate them. However, when the richly textured relationships
between multiple contexts are discovered, the next worldview begins to
emerge, which we simply call integral. Deirdre Kramer notes that at the
previous stage of pluralism (green), 'Systems are differentiated into meta-
systems of culturally and historically relative, dynamic systems that cannot
be explained apart from their immediate cultural or historical contexts.
Finally, at the integral [second-tier] level, these contexts are reintegrated into
a more encompassing structure where such contexts are seen as arising in
relation to one another and evolving in a systematic fashion.' In other words,
the holarchical Spiral comes into view.

"What particularly separates this second-tier worldview (universal

integralism) from its green predecessor (pluralistic relativism) is its
increased capacity to hold multiple contexts in mind. Deirdre
Kramer one last time: 'In a dialectical (or integral) system there is a
relationship among such contexts. In a contextualist (or pluralistic) system
there is no such relationship.... A contextual perspective would contend that
the opposing value systems of two cultures or two generations are
unrelated'--because they are supposedly incommensurable and purely
relativistic. But a further growth of consciousness allows the recognition of
deeper and wider connections, which discloses, among other things, a
directionality to the changes that were thought to be random at the
preceding or pluralistic level of development: 'At the (integral) level, perfect
prediction is also impossible, because of the emergent quality of evolving
structures. However, there is nevertheless a direction to such change, and a
relationship among contrasting systems.' This directionality is dynamic,
dialectical, developmental, and evolutionary--it is, in fact, the Spiral of
development. 'Change occurs through evolution, where conflicts are
resolved and redefined by newer, more encompassing solutions which yield
new conflicts, and so on. People, groups and society naturally evolve
through different phases. The whole of the organization transcends and
gives meaning to its parts'--or, as we at IC put it, each whole transcends and
includes its parts."

Kim's margin notes: "See the Introduction to CW4 for a detailed summary
of worldview development."

6. p. 133: "I don't know... but research has not supported those claims at all."

From the lecture of Dr. Lesa Powell, Integral Center, Nov. 14, 2000 (taken
from my and Kim's notes):

"A major objection might be that stage conceptions are oppressive,

marginalizing, patriarchal, sexist, racist, and Eurocentric, and have little
cross-cultural research supporting them.
 "These charges have especially been leveled against two of the green
meme's whipping boys, Piaget and Kohlberg. I have my own reservations
about those theorists--in particular, I believe that their schemes, although
valid for what they cover, are simply a small slice of a much bigger picture
of integral development. But for the areas that they do cover, they appear to
be quite sound, at least in general claims. Although I am not specifically
using either Piaget or Kohlberg in the arguments of this lecture, they are the
hardest cases to argue; and thus, if we can show that their work is
generically sound, then major objections to stage theories in general will be
defused.

"Start with Piaget. After almost three decades of intense cross-cultural

research, the evidence is considerable: Piaget's stages up to formal
operational are universal and cross-cultural. As only one example, Lives
Across Cultures: Cross-cultural Human Development is a highly respected
textbook written from an openly liberal perspective (which is often
suspicious of 'universal' stages). The authors (Harry Gardiner, Jay Mutter,
and Corinne Kosmitzki) carefully review the evidence for Piaget's stages of
sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational.
They found that cultural settings sometimes alter the rate of development, or
an emphasis on certain aspects of the stages--but not the stages themselves or
their cross-cultural validity.

"Thus, for sensorimotor: 'In fact, the qualitative characteristics of

sensorimotor development remain nearly identical in all infants studied so
far, despite vast differences in their cultural environments.' For
preoperational and concrete operational, based on an enormous number of
studies, including Nigerians, Zambians, Iranians, Algerians, Nepalese,
Asians, Senegalese, Amazon Indians, and Australian Aborigines:
'What can we conclude from this vast amount of cross-cultural data? First,
support for the universality of the structures or operations underlying the
preoperational period is highly convincing. Second, ... the qualitative
characteristics of concrete operational development (e.g., stage sequences
and reasoning styles) appear to be universal [although] the rate of cognitive
development ... is not uniform but depends on ecocultural factors.' Although
the authors do not use exactly these terms, they conclude that the deep
features of the stages are universal but the surface features depend strongly
on cultural, environmental, and ecological factors--what we call the four
quadrants. 'Finally, it appears that although the rate and level of performance
at which children move through Piaget's concrete operational period depend
on cultural experience, children in diverse societies still proceed in the same
sequence he predicted.'

"Fewer individuals in any cultures (Asian, African, American, or

otherwise) reach formal operational cognition, and the reasons given for this
vary. It might be that formal operational is a genuinely higher stage that
fewer therefore reach, as I believe. It might be that formal operational is a
genuine capacity but not a genuine stage, as the authors believe (i.e., only
some cultures emphasize formal operational and therefore teach it).
Evidence for the existence of Piaget's formal stage is therefore strong but
not conclusive. Yet this one item is often used to dismiss all of Piaget's
stages, whereas the correct conclusion, backed by enormous evidence, is that
all of the stages up to formal operational have now been adequately
demonstrated to be universal and cross-cultural.

"I believe the stages at and beyond formal operational are also universal,
including the postformal stages (green and second-tier), and various books
by many IC members have presented substantial evidence for that.

"The same is true for Kohlberg. Although his moral stages do not cover
all facets of morality, they have proven cross-culturally sound for the
ground they cover. 'Similar findings have emerged from studies in Mexico,
the Bahamas, Taiwan, Indonesia, Turkey, Honduras, India, Nigeria,
and Kenya.... So it seems that Kohlberg's levels and stages of moral
reasoning are "universal" structures...[and] Kohlberg's morals stages do
seem to represent an invariant sequence.' (D. Shaffer, Social and Personality
Development, 1994, 417-18.)

"As another researcher summarizes the evidence: 'Comprehensive

reviews of cross-cultural studies suggest that Kohlberg's theory and method
are reasonably culture-fair and do reflect moral issues, norms, and values
relevant in other cultural settings. Further, these data also support the
developmental criteria implied by his stage model [giving] impressive
support for his developmental theory and its nonrelativistic stance....' (J.
Vasudev, 'Ahimsa, Justice, and the Unity of Life,' in M. Miller and S. Cook-
Greuter, Transcendence and Mature Thought in Adulthood, 1994, 241.) This does
not mean that Kohlberg's model covers all the relevant morals issues in
various cultures, only that it has proven to be universal in those stages that it
does address. It is nonrelativistic because it is universally accurate, as far as
evidence can determine.
 "But, another objection will go, Carol Gilligan demonstrated that
Kohlberg's stages are biased against women. That charge has not held up
to research, either. 'At this point there is little support for the claim that
Kohlberg's theory is biased against females.... Nor is there much evidence
that females travel a different moral path and come to emphasize a
morality of care more than males do. In fact, there is evidence to the
contrary: when reasoning about real-life moral dilemmas that they have
faced, both males and females raise issues of compassion and interpersonal
responsibility about as often as or more often than issues of law, justice, and
individual rights' (their italics). In short, 'Research has consistently failed
to support the claim the Kohlberg's theory is biased against women.' (D.
Shaffer, Social and Personality Development, 1994, 423-24, 435.)

"This does not mean that men and women do not have characteristically
'different voices' in certain life situations. The claim of research such as
Deborah Tannen's, for example, is that men and women tend to speak in
different voices in many circumstances. This is summarized in the book Sex,
Ecology, Spirituality as follows: men tend to translate with an emphasis on
agency, women with an emphasis on communion; men tend to transform with
an emphasis on Eros, women with an emphasis on Agape. But I have also
emphasized the fact that all of the basic levels of development are
themselves gender neutral --they are not biased toward either sex, and
research strongly supports that claim. The fact that men and women might
navigate the basic waves of development with a different voice, does not
alter in the least the fact that they both face the same waves."

End of Lisa Powell's lecture. Kim's margin notes say: "Powell

recommends the book Integral Psychology for an extensive overview of the
relation of Piaget and Kohlberg to a more comprehensive and integral
psychology."

7. p. 135: "In other words, many feminists confused the idea... according to
Gilligan herself."

Kim's margin notes: "For Carol Gilligan's strong embrace of a hierarchical

model--her phrase--see Gilligan et al.'s chapter in Alexander and Langer,
Higher Stages of Human Development, as well as the editors' introduction."

8. p. 140: "And then to yet even higher, transpersonal waves, which we will
discuss later."
 Carla Fuentes (from Kim's notes): "Cook-Greuter also includes 'post-
autonomous' and 'integrated' stages, which are stages leading into the
transpersonal. See Melvin Miller and Susanne Cook-Greuter, Transcendence
and Mature Thought in Adulthood (Lanham, Md.: Roman and Littlefield, 1994).
As important as these higher stages are, they are incidental to the main
topics of this seminar. For the ways in which they do significantly impact
development, see Integral Psychology. Susanne Cook-Greuter is a founding
member of Integral Center."

9. p. 140/41: "As Susanne Cook-Greuter puts it, 'With the conscientious self...
scientific methods will eventually lead to the discovery of how things really
are, to the discovery of truth.'"

Carla Fuentes (from Kim's notes): "Unless indicated, all quotes from
Cook-Greuter are from 'Maps for Living' in Michael Commons et al., Adult
Development, vol. 2. Although described as 'analytical,' this conscientious
stage is analytical within a very high level of cognitive integration; it is
simply less systematic/integral than its successors. Still, it does not yet grasp
the contextuality of knowledge. Compare Deirdre Kramer's summary of this
general (conscientious) stage: 'Change occurs in an orderly, chainlike
fashion. Any event or behavior can be traced to a cause. Causes can be
isolated. There are absolute, correct principles which must guide action in all
situations; they are universal and hold for all people regardless of
differences in background. There is one correct or ideal solution to a
problem; one person or group has the right to impose his or her will on
another'--in order to enforce the one right universal standard with no
reference to any cultural differences.

"When Cook-Greuter describes the worldview of the conscientious self,

she is basically referring to what we are calling universal formalism, the belief
that the only truth fit to know is scientific positivism, which, in disclosing
some universal truths, which it certainly does, imagines that all truths must
therefore be scientific, in the narrow sense of formal, empiric-analytic, and
monological--all fancy words for pretty much what you think 'science'
means. (This orange rationality is also, as we saw, the general worldview of
the western liberal Enlightenment.) In thus failing to differentiate scientific
facts from its own cultural presuppositions, it tends to mistake its own
cultural prejudices for universal standards that can be imposed on the world
at large. This does not mean that formal science can produce no truths of any
sort: after all, it managed to land a human on the moon, something poetry
has yet to match. It simply means that formal science can be harshly
insensitive to truths other than its own.

"Formal rationality can be oppressive; but, in fact, preformal memes

are much, much harsher; and, in fact, much of the 'oppressive' power
ascribed to orange-reason is actually due to mythic-blue. As Kramer said,
universal formalism believes that 'there are absolute, correct principles
which must guide action in all situations; they are universal and hold for all
people regardless of differences in background. There is one correct or ideal
solution to a problem; one person or group has the right to impose his or her
will on another.' Note, however, that this absolutism is even more intense at
the previous mythic stage, because the preformal stages are much more
aggressive when it comes to exclusionary practices, for they involve their
own ethnocentric prejudices imposed on the world at large (e.g., blue-meme
Bible fundamentalists wish to impose their values on virtually everybody).

"As we will see in Seminar II, under a pre/post fallacy, many

intellectuals (especially in cultural studies) have simply assumed that, since
universal formalism can be absolutist, it was itself imposing all absolutisms,
whereas formalism was actually a lessening of the absolutism and lack of
worldcentrism that marks all preformal stages. (As with narcissism and
egocentrism, increasing development generally means decreasing
absolutism, in the sense of increasing perspectivism and greater
decentering). This pre/post confusion lead many scholars to blame formal
rationality for something that it was, in fact, in the process of overcoming.
The postformal stages do not so much undo the absolutist damage that was
imposed by formal rationality, as simply carry on the de-absolutizing job
begun by formal rationality (more precisely, since every stage is marked by
relatively decreasing narcissism/absolutism, development itself is a process
of de-absolutizing and decentering: myth has less narcissism/absolutism
than magic, formal has less than myth, postformal has less than formal, and
transpersonal has less than postformal). Thus--and I intend to emphasize
this--what many scholars take to be the 'Others of reason' are really the
'Others of myth.'

"At the same time, formal rationality, precisely because it transcends

(and ideally integrates) the preformal stages, can therefore, in pathological
forms, repress and oppress those stages. Such repression is not inherent in
rationality, but it is a very real possibility. Even so, the mythic structure is
also capable of strong and extensive internal repression and external
oppression; in fact, it is the mythic structure that institutes most forms of
Freudian repression, as well as most of the repression of sexuality, life
vitality, organic richness, and élan vital (see Transformations of Consciousness
and Integral Psychology). Again, what superficially appeared to be the 'Others
of reason' are actually the 'Others of myth.'

"Thus, many scholars combined an assumption that rationality is

inherently repressive with a pre/post fallacy (which assumed the preformal
stages possessed postformal pluralism), and that mixture of partial truth
(rationality can repress preformal domains) and two massively false
assumptions (rationality can only repress and pre/post confusion)
underwrote virtually all attempts to resurrect the Others of formal
rationality (almost all of which were actually the Others of preformality). We
will examine each of those points in Seminars II and III."

10. p. 142: "Development, we have seen, proceeds by differentiation and

integration... thus [the green-meme's] self, and its worldview, tend to remain
fragmented, pluralistic, inchoate."

Fuentes continued (from Kim's notes): "This is not to say that this stage
of dynamic relativism (green) has no integration. Each stage of development
is 'transcend and include,' and early postformal cognition manages to
integrate an enormous number of formalistic elements into coherent systems
and contexts. It simply cannot take the next higher step and
integrate those systems into meta-systematic/paradigmatic
unities, which would usher in the integral dialecticism of second tier. As
such, the stage of dynamic relativism is referred to by many researchers
as 'fragmented' or 'disjointed,' but it is fragmentation within a very high
level of other integrations. See Integral Psychology, written by one of
my IC colleagues, for a further discussion of this theme."

11. p. 143: "But these waves of consciousness are potentials... so no human

being is ever ranked."

Carla Fuentes continued (from Kim's notes): "Notice that, like 'hierarchy,'
'universal' is present in blue and orange, disappears at green, then reappears
in a kinder, gentler, softer version in all post-green waves. Mythic
absolutism (blue) is extremely harsh and dogmatic: there is one, and only
one, way to do things, and that is according to the Book (the Bible, the
Koran, Mao's Little Red Book, etc.). Formal rationality (orange) is a truly
universal, postconventional, worldcentric reason, but due to its static nature-
-not to mention its tendency toward scientific materialism and positivism--it
tends to exclude items that do not fit its logical net. Green postformal
awareness is in fact universal and worldcentric--its claims are made on
behalf of all peoples--but it is so sensitive to the marginalizing tendencies of
rationality that it consciously defines itself as local, pluralistic, anti-
universal, and anti-hierarchy. Universal anything drops out of the conscious
picture for green. But then, with the emergence of second-tier integral
awareness, universal returns, but now--like hierarchy--in a softer fashion,
fully cognizant of the damage that can be done with false claims of
'universal truth.' But just as there are dominator hierarchies and
actualization hierarchies, so there are dominator universals and
actualization universals. This becomes apparent at second tier, which--
precisely because it comes only after and through green--can use universals
in a more compassionate and self-actualizing light, as we will continue to
see in Seminars II and III. Jay Ogilvy, who has been understandably
suspicious of many universals (see Many Dimensional Man), also fully
acknowledges these softer, second-tier universals, which he wonderfully
calls 'good enough universals.'

"In the meantime, whenever you hear an attack on universals,

hierarchies, or stage conceptions, you are almost always in the presence of
the green meme--and you are probably being lectured to about how
insensitive you are in comparison to the wonderful pluralism of the green
meme." Kim's notes bizarrely add: "See Boomeritis for further discussion."

12. p. 145: "Thus, as consciousness evolves... the self has moved from a
stance of individualism to one of autonomy."

Carla Fuentes continued (from Kim's notes): "Of course, the green meme
and its pluralistic worldview are in fact postconventional and worldcentric,
as we just saw, because the green meme wishes to extend pluralistic
freedom to all peoples everywhere. But because this is the phase of
differentiation, and not yet integration, the green structures are highly
unique and subjectivistic, and this gives rise to the 'individualistic self'
(Loevinger). This is a type of 'higher narcissism' occurring within
universal structures, but not yet capable of integrating them fully. When this
higher (green) subjectivism is infected with a reactivation of lower
emotional narcissism, especially purple/red--that explosive
mixture is known as boomeritis.

"Does this violate the rule that increasing development is marked by

decreasing narcissism? Not really, because the 'higher narcissism' is
actually occurring within very advanced structures that can take multiple
roles--and are therefore much less narcissistic than preceding structures--but
within those higher capacities, the self focuses on its own newly-emergent
interior, often to the exclusion of others. The result is not an integrated and
autonomous self, but an atomistic and isolated and individualistic self,
absorbed with its own existence, and often skeptical or critical of everybody
else's--the individualistic self taken to extremes."

13. p. 145: "They can integrate previously compartmentalized subidentities...

into a coherent new whole."

Carla Fuentes continued (from Kim's notes): "This further integration we

at IC often call the mature 'centauric self.' Again, it is not that the
previous stage of individualism has no integration, for in fact it integrates a
enormous amount of material. In particular, in transcending
conventional/conformist modes, the individualistic self differentiates a
number of abstract causal relations (based on formal operational) and then
integrates those that hold utility for the self (using early postformal or what
we also call early vision-logic). This is a dramatic increase in the capacity for
integration of perspectives, moral drives, and worldviews. The autonomous
self simply goes further (using middle and late vision-logic) and integrates
emergent aspects of the self that do not fit the utilities of the individualistic
self; among other things, this means that value systems, arising from meta-
systematic and paradigmatic cognition, can start to emerge (e.g., dynamic
dialecticism). See Integral Psychology for a further discussion of this theme.

"Also note that researchers such as Carol Gilligan have suggested that
the mature integral (centauric) self increasingly transcends and integrates
stereotypical male and female traits. These male and female traits, according
to some theorists, include (respectively) justice and care, agency and
communion, rights and responsibilities, autonomy and relationship. In the
model we use at IC, the centauric self does indeed dialectically integrate
those traits (to a greater degree than its predecessors); but whether a
particular trait is associated more with males or females is a matter of
empirical research, which to date has been, at best, inconclusive. Should
research demonstrate that, for example, agency is more typically masculine
than feminine, then that finding is easily incorporated into this model; until
then, we simply have to await more research."

14. p. 146: "Cheryl Armon... 'The focus is on the self and enabling the self...
This individualistic self produces... its own little planetary system of
values.'"

Kim's margin notes: "All Armon quotes are from 'Individuality and
Autonomy,' Commons et al., Adult Development, vol. 1."

15. p. 149: "This is the... positive side of postmodernism."

Dr. Morin continued (from Kim's notes): "Boomer intellectuals especially

focused on the shadow elements of Enlightenment rationality, which often
involved the tendency of universal formalism to reject or marginalize those
realms and values that escape its logical net. Put simply, formal rationality
can repress the body, nature, woman, and anything else not of its liking at
any given time. The tendency of formal rationality to repress the 'three great
others' of body, nature, and woman was first pointed out by one of our IC
members almost twenty years ago, in a book called Up from Eden. Of course,
few of those repressions are inherent in rationality, but many of them have
been carried out by rationality (a fact to which we will return). And, let us
note, the capacity and likelihood of such repression--and especially the
repression of the 'three great others'--is much greater at mythic blue than at
rational orange.

"In its restrictive mode, universal formalism is also known as

'uniformitarianism,' the belief that all truths that are fit to know are fit like a
straightjacket for everybody. Scientific positivism is the best (or only) way to
find all truths, and anything that does not fit that scheme is ruthlessly
suppressed, or at least ignored to death. It is not science, but scientism (as it
is not rationality, but rationalism), that is the real culprit, a fact missed by
most Boomer intellectuals, but the good news is that some of the limitations
of universal formalism (and mythic absolutism) were indeed brilliantly
exposed by Boomer scholars."

16. p. 149: "If all truth is relative... none of them have any power over
me."
 Dr. Morin continued (from Kim's notes): "But notice: I am not claiming, as
do most critics (such as Christopher Lasch), that the Culture of Narcissism is
pure and simple a case of fixation/regression to preconventional narcissism.
The actual 'narcissistic personality disorders' are an extremely primitive
developmental pathology (fixated and fragmented at beige-to-purple). To
claim that an entire generation was stuck at that early developmental level is
a thesis impossible to support. This is why so many of the charges of
'narcissism,' although intuitively appealing, have been theoretical pasta that
did not stick to the wall.

"I am suggesting, rather, that the Culture of Narcissism is in fact an

extraordinary mixture of very high and very low. There is nothing that
says a pluralistic culture has to be a narcissistic culture. The green meme
invites, but does not demand, narcissistic extremes. But the general
narcissism that has dogged Boomers--we have been called everything from
the 'Peter Pan generation' (an unwillingness to surrender childhood
narcissism) to the 'Woodstock nation' (hedonistic narcissism) to the 'Me
generation' (rampant narcissism)--was an emotional charge looking for a
home, and the green meme supplied it, encouraged it, inflamed it,
championed it."

17. p. 151: "Let us not forget, my friends:... second tier emerges."

Dr. Jefferson added (from Kim's notes): "Jenny Wade, who is a valued
member of IC and a good friend of mine, has made a careful study of
Graves, and she believes that orange (achievement) and green (affiliative)
are not two different levels but two different choices offered to blue
(conformist), so that both orange and green can advance directly to second-
tier (authentic). See Sidebar C for the extensive debate on whether or not
this branching occurs. Wade's book, Changes of Mind, is a fine overview of
the spectrum of consciousness; it is discussed at length in the second edition
of The Eye of Spirit."

18. p. 154: "Rather, as Ray's survey results suggest... pluralistic values and
subjectivistic warrants."

Dr. Jefferson added, "See One Taste, Sept. 23 entry, for a discussion of
Ray's integral culture as an example of the newly emerging Person-Centered
Civil Religion."
19. p. 154: "As IC member Don Beck himself points out... there are few
second-tier memes in most of the cultural creatives."

Don Beck, personal communication to Mark Jefferson.

20. p. 154: "And, in fact, Loevinger's research shows that less than 2% of
Americans are at the autonomous or integrated stage."

Dr. Jefferson added, "This research is summarized in The Eye of Spirit. This
also fits very closely with Beck's research (less than 2% of adults are at
second-tier); the rest are at individualistic or lower, and that means, by simple
arithmetic, at least 92% of the cultural creatives are less-than-integral. See
The Eye of Spirit for references and discussion of this data; see Integral
Psychology for an overview."

21. p. 156: "Paraphrasing Clare Graves, 'The green meme must break down...
This is where the leading edge is today.'"

Dr. Jefferson added, "Of course, by 'break down,' Graves means that the
fixation to green has to be transcended. The green meme itself remains as a
crucial component in the overall Spiral."

22. p. 155: "The major reason I am talking about boomeritis... by highlighting

some of the obstacles to this integral transformation, it might more readily
occur."

(From Kim's notes): "When Mark Jefferson first proposed the concept of
'boomeritis,' he outlined it to Don Beck, who subsequently gave these
reflections during a lecture at Integral Center in May, 2001. From Don Beck's
lecture:"

Let me offer a few words about Mark Jefferson's concept of "boomeritis,"

which I think is a very important contribution to understanding cultural
development and its stagnation points at this time in history.

(1) The entire boomeritis initiative is only part of a much larger strategy
to kick start the Spiral into moving beyond the First-Tier systems, especially
among the elite, in the academy, and certainly in pockets where versions of
what Jefferson calls the MGM--the Mean Green Meme--dominate the
intellectual conversations. No doubt area code 415 is such a place. It should
be noted, as Jefferson does, that the MGM does not represent the totality of
the FS vMEME but only a specific version that often appears in the infancy
stage of an emerging value system. Typically, MGM has elements of a blue
moralistic high horse that claims it, alone, can separate saints from sinners,
the "sensitive" from the "insensitive," and the right views of history vs. those
that support the oppressors over the oppressed. When it morphs into a
malignancy phase, it is "mean" indeed.

(2) In terms of a quick analysis of the meaning of "boomeritis," consider

the following metaphor. Think of the eight value systems (vMEMEs)
awakened thus far as the upstream movement of water through dams, locks,
and filters with each representing a different level of complexity. Ideally, the
water will run through all of the levels since each step and stage adds what
is necessary to deal with shoreline Life Conditions. One of the threats at
Station Six (Green) is that because of its rejection of Station Four (Blue) and
Station five (Orange) codes (while forgetting that it depends on Daddy
Orange and Granddaddy Blue for its life comforts) it often suppresses them,
interferes with their essential functions, thus allowing the flow to bypass
their filters. So, what you have is the flowing of human emergence directly
from the Station Two (Purple) and Station Three (Red) zones into Station
Six (Green), thus bypassing the Blue and Orange vMEME codes. This
"deconstructionism" is too heavy as Green works out its own unresolved
problems in Stations Four and Five; becomes vested in the zealous rejection
of "good authority" and "individual ambition" because of academic careers,
books, statements, and other social bromides. (This is not to discredit the
valuable contributions FS-Green makes to cleansing the Spiral, softening the
tones, affirming the intrinsic value of human rights, and constructing social
bridges over the artificial divides of race, culture, class, affluence,
generations, etc.--positive contributions that Jefferson also emphasizes in
any discussion of boomeritis.) Unhappily, with the pathological version, the
Station Six pumps stop working and human development is thus blocked as
final state thinking descends like a menacing green smog.

Evidence of this rejection can be seen in highly emotional attacks on

morality codes (nuns with rulers or Bible-thumping evangelicals) and
indiscriminate forays against anything that rings of the free market,
capitalism, or "materialism." This is also quite clear in education as "green"
antidisciplinary initiatives have compromised the teacher's capacity to
keep order in the classroom as well as the use of the underclass as victims
to be held in chains for self-serving ambitions. I can cite far too many
examples of this paralysis, especially from my years in South Africa.
 Until the natural progression of minds and cultures is facilitated through
the Fourth (blue) and Fifth (orange) Stations, this boomeritis condition will
persist. I completely agree with Jefferson on this. You will note how African-
American parents are insisting that schools be returned to the historic roles
to provide what the kids are lacking in preparation for life in the 21st
Century.

(3) Rather than defining people as single colors or isolated musical notes,
it is clear that systems exist in people (companies and cultures, too) in the
form of chords and progressions. Jefferson is often kind enough to quote me
here: "It is not types of people, but types in people." When a new vMEME
first joins the chorus, it will be under the influence of the previous vMEME
codes, often in an adversarial display. I recently explained this as the tug of
basement vMEMEs. Once it gains experience and moves into a nodal phase,
it will be released somewhat from the basement influences and begin to
sense messages from the attic vMEMEs-those on the verge of awakening. So,
we exist in these tension zones rather than in pure tones.

(4) The real message of Spiral Dynamics is not about vMEMEs per se.
Rather, it describes the MASTER vMEME MAKER--that is, the complex,
adaptive intelligence that generates vMEMEs (value systems, life priorities,
and bio-psycho-social-spiritual codes); monitors their strengths/weakness
ratios, ebbing and flowing tendencies, and arranges them into compounds,
admixtures, and alignments. From the Second Tier (Yellow) Systemic 7th
Level perspective, one must be able to scan over the entire Spiral and strive
to (A) facilitate the healthy expression of each vMEME so that all of the
awakened vMEMEs can be vibrant and robust; and (B) assist the whole
Spiral to remain flexible, adaptive, and open so that if and when vMEMETIC
change is naturally inclined to occur, the awakening will be relatively
positive. No guarantees here, since people cannot be until they are and all
we can ever do is help folks become what is next for them to become. (This is
pure Gravesian in its philosophy, perspective, and systemic prescriptions.)

So, the healthy expression of a vMEME code serves the overall interest of
the Spiral (human emergence); the unhealthy blocks that development,
attacks the earlier vMEME codes, and claims to be the final state. (The
current example can be seen in the Taliban's destruction of the "heresy"
Buddha statues.) Both Marxism and unbridled global capitalism have the
same effect of pouring acid on the indigenous cultural vMEMEs. A Theory of
Everything uses the expression "transcend but include" to reflect the
importance of bringing the past with us. Yet it is quite natural for those who
are moving through the Delta change stage to convince themselves that they
have discovered the utopia and pity the future generation for having
nothing to think about of note. In short, one of the distinguishing
characteristics of Second-Tier systemics is the capacity to sense the whole
Spiral "elephant" so one can address issues (blockages) up and down the
spine of the Spiral. This is one of the primary reasons we are forming Vital
Signs Monitors in various communities and countries, so we can develop a
more refined sense of "allness."

(5) With that as a background, now to the FS:

Sensitive/Egalitarian/Communal (Green) vMEME code. Healthy Green has
done wonders: it softens the boundaries that have plagued societies for
generations; cleans up a lot of the dehumanizing poison; and, at least in the
healthy version, welcomes in each vMEME code into the "warm, inner
circle."

Note, in addition, how A Theory of Everything describes the positive

contributions from Green: "the pluralistic relativism of Green has nobly
enlarged the canon of cultural studies to include many previously
marginalized peoples, ideas and narratives. It has acted with sensitive and
care in attempting to redress social imbalances and avoid exclusionary
practices. It has been responsible for basic initiatives in civil rights and
environmental protection" (TOE, pg. 14).

In short, the FS "GREEN vMEME" is not under attack by the author of A

Theory of Everything, nor by me. Case closed. (It should also be noted that an
interest in Clare Graves is on the rise thanks to the popularity of the book A
Theory of Everything and the role its author has played in introducing these
ideas to millions of people. He has been careful to give proper credit; always
checks with me regarding interpretations; and has helped me foster the
Gravesian/Spiral Dynamics message near and far. He is the very first writer
to have done this, so I appreciate him greatly. So should the whole Spiral
Dynamics community.)

That's healthy Green. In an early phase, however, Green often knee-

jerks negative reactions to DQ:Blue (or any authority system) and
ER:Orange (greed, materialism, and elite-ism) since, logically, it has arisen to
solve the problems that the earlier vMEME(s) created. Just as we are
isolating the MGM from the FS System, Green voices do the same thing to
DQ:Blue and ER:Orange. Blue and Orange are "bad" while only Green is
"good." Obviously, these voices will view any criticism of Green to be an
attack on their on highly prized system. This is called assimilation and
contrast but that is a topic for a later day.

(6) Thus, to repeat, our attempts to isolate the MGM (or Mean Green
Meme) are not an attack on the FS 6th Level at all but upon that version of
same that fails to "include" the essential steps and stages of development.
What you see is the unholy bonding of the CP-RED (we are victims and
have been oppressed by Big Blue and Selfish Orange) with FS egalitarianism
(that says "we will rescue you because we need you to join with us in
attacking evil Blue and divisive Orange)." Thus, it is the RED-GREEN
hybrid, devoid of healthy and responsible Blue-Orange, that especially
creates elements of the MGM and boomeritis. The "moral drench of closed-
system Blue" can also turn Green into a MAD vMEME DISEASE.

A similar idea was suggested in a conversation I had with Dr. Clare W.

Graves in the early l980s when we were launching the South African
initiative, first called "Strategic Evolution." He warned me specifically to
plan for a personal attack from the FS system (Green) because (A) I was even
in South Africa in the first place, thusly "selling out to the white, racist,
apartheid regime" and, (B) I was advocating a different solution than what
Green demanded, which was the instant redistribution of power since the
only reason for the European-African gaps in development were the result
of blatant racism. As I mentioned earlier, an unhealthy expression of Green
egalitarianism is to "deconstruct" the Blue/Orange social, economic, and
political architecture since it, alone, is supposedly the cause of human
suffering. After such Green inspired "deconstruction" in South Africa, the
place is in total shambles. The MGM deserves a great deal of the blame
which, because of its intellectual arrogance, will never be able to understand
the damage it has dumped on the entire African continent. I have
considerable evidence to support this observation.

Graves himself had been haunted by the MGM. I've spoken recently with
one of his former students who gave a charming narrative of her
relationship with her Professor Graves, and detailed the biting criticism he
received from his colleagues because he was, in his long research effort,
constructing a hierarchy. Further, when he would go to a meeting of the
American Psychological Association that was into group hugs, he refused to
take off his shoes, put them around the wall, and sit on the floor. He was
often thrown out of the meeting because he was not "sensitive." So, my dear
friend bore the scars from the Mean Green Meme. While he did not use
memetic language since it had not then been coined, he did use a metaphor
that stuck with me: "Don," he said, "it is like the painful passing of a kidney
stone. Until that part of FS gets beyond us, the flow will not continue. You
best watch your backside when you are in South Africa." I got the message
but failed to take the advice. I still bear the scars. I valued most highly his
gentle counsel.

Many of you are quite aware that the author of A Theory of Everything has
suffered from the same venom. And, because the MGM claims to be morally
superior because of its humanity focus, and is not above throwing racial
accusations around to endear itself to those trapped in RED, it becomes a
serious menace as it blocks the Spiral emergence. The very steps and stages
necessary for upliftment, Blue and Orange, are rejected, often because the
Green advocate has personal, unresolved subsystem problems in those
domains. (As the author of SES independently put it, "My own observation
is that these particular critics seem to gravitate to the past phylogenetic
structure that corresponds with the ontogenetic structure in themselves that
is immediately prior to their failed personal integration.") This is truly sad as
our youth suffer from being ill prepared in their 4Q/8L interior
development. No wonder affluent kids with meaningless (translated:
devoid of Blue) lives are empty and hollow and why so many in the under
classes fail to rise to greater prosperity (translated: trapped by anemic
Orange).

(7) I'm not at all concerned that Jefferson uses "meme" instead of vMEME
since I've long held that the word "meme" carries with it both the coding
process (the v) as well as the icon, idea, cause, place, etc., which have been
permeated by the code. Jefferson always explains in various footnotes that
Spiral Dynamics uses the vMEME language.

Nor do I object to the use of polemic as a tactical device, because yellow

will not react to the "tone" of the delivery, but green will often get infuriated.
It's a good diagnostic device, as Jefferson says, when set in an overall
Integral context.

(8) I do not believe a specific vMEME code can solve the problems that it
has created, at least at the same level they were generated. The Station Seven
(yellow) equipment has the essential filters that were missed in the surge of
water past the original Station Four and Station Five junctions. As yellow
does its unique work, the boomeritis display within Green will be replaced
by a much healthier version of the FS vMEME codes, as the Spiral returns to
its evolutionary task in a robust and dynamic fashion. So, the initial Second-
Tier work is to surf up and down the flow to repair the filtering system at
each of the stations and keep the movement open if and when natural forces
trigger the movement, opens the gates, and facilitates the continuation in the
human stream of development. No doubt but that this Second-Tier function
will uncover all kinds of bugs and beasties in each of the vMEME territories
and filtering stations.

(9) When Jefferson introduces the notion of boomeritis, he often uses a

simplified "phase-2" model to explain it. We all understand that he actually
embraces a "phase-4" model--a more complete model that includes all
quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types. But using a simple "phase-2" or
"developmental" model allows a simplified introduction to this topic, and
advanced students can then proceed to explore a more complete, phase-4
model (as outlined in, e.g., Integral Psychology).

(10) Finally, introducing the concept of "boomeritis" is a specific

intervention designed to unblock the natural flow and is simply part of a
much larger initiative around Integral thinking itself. The virus of
boomeritis itself is a natural enemy to this progression and acts as a vapor
lock to arrest future emergence. We will have to either drain the swamp or
remove the green sludge from the natural channel. This is beginning to
happen, even in Washington DC, but also in many sectors in Europe as new
perceptions are developing in France, certainly in the Netherlands, and in
parts of UK. We expect the boomeritis virus to fight like hell to keep its
privileged position, especially within affluent societies.

Don Edward Beck, Ph. D.

Founding Partner, National Values Center
CEO, The Spiral Dynamics Group
Box 797, Denton, TX 76202 USA
drbeck@attglobal.net
Chapter 5.
Subvert_Transgress_Deconstruct
@FuckYou.com
1. p. 176: "Fired for consistently showing up late at work... what his lawyers
call 'chronic lateness syndrome.'"

Kim's margin notes: "All examples in this section are from Charles Sykes,
A Nation of Victims . See also Derek Van Cleef, When Victims Rule the World
(Who Will Be Left to Blame My Problems On?), Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Haught, 2001."

2. p. 178: "There are a substantial number of actual victims... That is the real
tragedy."

Van Cleef added (from Kim's notes): "When children of real physical and
emotional abuse begin their healing process, the first and often most difficult
step is to admit and acknowledge the actual abuse--this step is sometimes as
traumatic as the abuse itself. That society can encourage that first step is
wonderful, in my opinion. But there is, generally speaking, no second step
that is also encouraged: namely, ceasing to be a victim by assuming
responsibility, not for your past, but for your future. Sooner or later, every
victim has to forgive and forget to the best of his or her ability, and face
tomorrow afresh. A nation of victims encourages the first step,
discourages the second, and there is the real tragedy."

3. p. 180: "As Charles Sykes, author of the widely acclaimed A Nation of

Victims, points out, 'Perhaps... if you add up all the groups that consider
themselves oppressed... their number adds up to 374 percent of the population.'"

Kim's margin notes: " A Nation of Victims, pp. xiii, 13."

4. p. 181: "'This rush to declare oneself a victim... suggests a more fundamental

transformation of American cultural values and notions of character and personal
responsibility.'"

Kim's margin notes: " A Nation of Victims, p. xiii; emphasis added."

5. p. 181: "'Despite its pretensions... victimism is an ideology of the ego.'"

Kim's margin notes: " A Nation of Victims, p. 23."

6. p. 185: "These people... the new race that will populate the earth."

Margaret Carlton added (from Kim's notes): "For a discussion of whether

these UFO experiences represent any higher realities, see One Taste, Aug. 4
entry. See also M. Carlton, The Alien Abduction Within (New York: Samuel
Wizzer, 1999)."

7. p. 190: "And thus, in something of a shocking move for his green-meme

followers, Foucault retracted... looking, that is, for more second-tier
worldcentric constructions."

Dr. Powell continued (from Kim's notes):

"As Foucault himself made quite clear, it was not reason en toto that he
was attacking, but reason in its objectifying, monological, instrumental, and
representational modes (and the retroflection of those modes in
subjectifying/subjugating ways). But he was himself attempting to use
authentic reason (what we at IC would call second-tier, integral vision-logic
instead of merely monological, instrumental, objectifying formal-operational
reason).

"Dreyfus and Rabinow ( Michel Foucault) are certainly of this opinion. On

instrumental-rationality, Foucault demonstrated that, with the rise of the
positivistic Enlightenment, 'human needs were no longer conceived of as
ends in themselves or as subjects of a philosophic discourse.... They were
now seen instrumentally and empirically, as means for the increase
of...power' (p. 141). On merely objectifying-rationality: 'Foucault's object of
study is the objectifying practices...as they are embodied in a specific
technology' (p. 144). On representational-rationality: 'The theory of
representation, linked with the social contract view and with the imperative
of efficiency and utility, produced [quoting Foucault] "a sort of general
recipe for the exercise of power over men: the mind as a surface of
inscription for power, with semiology as its tool; the submission of bodies
through the control of ideas"' (p. 149). And Foucault himself on monological-
rationality: men and women became 'objects of information and never
subjects in communication.'
 "Thus, as Dreyfus and Rabinow conclude, it is those generally monological
modes of reason applied to humans that are especially shot through with
thinly or thickly disguised power (or the reduction of intersubjective
communication and mutual understanding to
objectifying/subjectifying/subjugating modes of power-over). This is why
Dreyfus and Rabinow conclude that in Foucault's project, 'trying to show
that the relations of truth and power have for good reasons been mistakenly
held to be opposed is still a matter of applying a new and modified form of
reason against a more highly complex version of power.' A new reason against
power. This, they say, 'should be seen as an advance, not a refutation of the
Weberian project. Foucault is eminently reasonable' (pp. 132-33).

"This, too, is why Foucault identified himself with the broad lineage of
Kant, and why he went out of his way to identify his points of agreement
with Habermas. Foucault: 'There is the problem raised by Habermas: if one
abandons the work of Kant or Weber, for example, one runs the risk of
lapsing into irrationality. I am completely in agreement with this.' The
problem was not solved by the abandonment of reason, but a finer
attunement to its dangers and abuses: 'How can we exist as rational beings,
fortunately committed to practicing a rationality that is unfortunately
crisscrossed by intrinsic dangers? What is this Reason that we use? What are
its limits, and what are its dangers?' (Foucault, 'Space, Power, Knowledge.')

"Thus, the notion that Foucault saw all knowledge and reason equally
and thoroughly shot through with power/domination is entirely incorrect.
That is boomeritis Foucault, not Foucault Foucault." Dr. Powell ended by
saying, "See Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, 2nd revised edition, chapter 12, note
46."

8. p. 193: "Never mind that Foucault... soon enough retracted it."

Kim's margin notes say, "See note 11 for lecture [i.e., chapter] 6."

9. p. 198: "As Jonathan Culler in his book On Deconstruction summarizes it...

all meaning is context-dependent and contexts are boundless."

Dr. Powell added (from Kim's margin notes): "See Sex, Ecology,
Spirituality, 2nd revised edition, notes for chapters 2 and 7, for an extended
discussion of deconstruction. See also L. Powell, Foucauldian Power Tales of a
Young African-Caribbean Woman (Los Angeles: Rhizome Press, 2000)."
Chapter 6.
Dotcom_Death_Syndrome@Reall
yOuch.com

1. p. 212: "And nowhere has boomeritis flourished more than in cultural

studies."

Mark Jefferson continued (from Kim's notes):

"Notice again that most of these 'Others of reason' are really the 'Others
of myth'--the others of the mythic-agrarian structure (ethnocentric, mythic-
membership, with an intensely ascending spirituality), which therefore
tended to devalue nature, body, and woman. I am not denying these three
Others. In fact, Up from Eden, written by one of our colleagues here at IC,
was one of the first books to uncover these three others and their similar
suppression (from Up from Eden, chap. 13: 'The point is that the oppression,
repression, and/or exploitation of nature, body, and woman all occurred for
the same reasons; nature, body, and woman were viewed as one entity, an
entity to be suppressed. Put differently, all three were substitute sacrifices of
and by the male ego--the same substitute sacrifice'). Unfortunately, this
repression has been misunderstood by the various schools of feminism to
date--all of which are first-tier schools. We believe that only an integral,
second-tier feminism can accurately address the 'cause' and 'cure' of this
particular Otherness (it turns out not to be due to repression proper, but to
lack of emergence, as we will discuss later; see especially lecture/chapter 7
and its notes). The point is simply that, in any event, these three others are
largely the Others of myth, not reason. In fact, it was only with the coming of
worldcentric, postconventional, orange, formal rationality (which,
incidentally, was patriarchal) that these Others could start to be derepressed,
a derepression that advances with postformality. Ascribing this particular
repression to Descartes's monological gaze is absolutely ridiculous. (See
Sidebar E: 'The Genius Descartes Gets a Postmodern Drubbing.')"
 Kim's margin notes say, "See note 9 for lecture 4, and note 4 for this
lecture. See also Up from Eden; Sex, Ecology, Spirituality; A Brief History of
Everything; and Wilber, subheading 'The Relation of the Three "Others"
(Body, Nature, Woman) to the Great Traditions,' in the chapter 'Paths
Beyond Ego in the Coming Decades,' in Walsh and Vaughan (eds.), Paths
Beyond Ego."

2. p. 213/14: "To its credit... this version of postmodernism was attempting

to undo the universal formalist accounts that had harshly imposed one
privileged scheme on all of history."

Mark Jefferson added (from Kim's notes): "This does not mean that
history follows no schemes, only that multiple perspectives, multiple
contexts, and second-tier constructions are more likely to disclose them (i.e.,
postformal is more adequate than formal to capture the holonic and
contextual nature of history's fluid schemes). Feudal mythology (blue) and
modernist rationality (orange) both imposed their own schemes on history's
flow--as, of course, did the pluralistic green meme, nowhere more so that in
claiming that it wasn't. Second-tier integral constructions also make their
own impositions, but more delicately and self-consciously, and most of
all they do not deny that history's multiple patterns (both subjective and
objective) are somehow there, even though second-tier's own interpretations
also add to those given patterns in ways not always found in the patterns
themselves. Integral historiography takes all of that into account, even in
its own movements. See Sidebar A : 'Integral Historiography.'"

3. p. 215: "For example, without exception, every single societal type... had
some degree of slavery."

Kim's margin notes: "Lenski, Nolan, and Lenski, Human Societies."

4. p. 216: "But as 'bad' as formal rationality can be... prerational cognition

supports only egocentric and ethnocentric perspectives."

Mark Jefferson continued (from Kim's notes):

"As Dr. Fuentes pointed out in lecture [chapter] 4, rationality, both

ontogenetically and phylogenetically, can repress prerational/preformal
impulses, feelings, and emotions (for more about these repressions,
oppressions, and resultant pathologies, individually and socially, see Up
from Eden, Transformations of Consciousness, The Eye of Spirit, Integral
Psychology).

"But the point is that those prerational, preconventional structures do not

contain postformal pluralism and postconventional perspectives; and thus
when it comes to exclusionary practices, those prerational, preconventional
structures are much less inclusive, less encompassing, and less caring than
rationality in either its formal or postformal capacities. The claim that
prerational, preconventional, preformal structures are somehow more
encompassing, more caring, more emancipatory, in themselves, than formal
structures, is the essence of the pre/post fallacy that characterizes retro-
Romanticism and much of cultural studies--and lies at the very heart of
boomeritis.

"Furthermore, much of the repressive/oppressive nature of rationality is

not inherent in reason itself, but is the product of reason being hijacked by
prerational impulses and stages. Auschwitz is not the product of rationality;
Auschwitz is the product of a mythic-ethnocentric worldview
commandeering the products of rationality for its own agendas. Once again,
many of the 'Others of reason' are really the 'Others of preformality' or the
'Others of myth.'"

5. p. 222: "'Do these feminists really think women are that stupid?' she
thundered."

From my journal, a discussion with Carolyn, Chloe, Scott, Vanessa, Kim:

"Chloe, I'm serious. Don't you ever feel oppressed by males?" I asked.

"But in what way? Are males physically stronger than me? Sure. Do
they seem more crazy ambitious than me? Much of the time. Are they
sexually, or I should say genitally, more insanely driven? Yup. Are they
more obsessed with work than relationships? Seems like it. And so if I enter
any race that is run according to those values, then I am probably going to
lose. And so what? The only way I can feel oppressed or cheated or held
down is if I buy those values in the first place, and I don't buy them, so I
don't feel oppressed."

Vanessa had her own reasons for being suspicious. "Radical feminists
make a sharp distinction between male and female ways of knowing; they
say that they value the feminine modes more than the masculine; but then
they claim oppression when they don't have equal access to the
masculine modes. But you can't have it both ways. It's self-contradictory,
it's just victim chic, and no, I don't buy it. It's degrading to females."

"That's not what radical feminists are saying," Carolyn objected.

"Liberal feminists, or first-wave feminists, say that there are no
significant differences between men and women, and therefore everybody
should be treated equally. But radical feminists, or second-wave
feminists, claim that there are in fact major differences between the sexes,
and that the human race is completely screwed up because the male values
have dominated to the exclusion of female values--that's the meaning of
patriarchy. So they just want the scales to be more balanced, that's all."

"Yes, but what does that actually mean?" complained Vanessa. "Does that
mean that we are supposed to put more women into positions of power? But
what if many women don't want to play power games? What are we
supposed to do, get rid of positions of power altogether? The only way to do
that is to get rid of males. Because according to the radical feminists, males
are intrinsically power-driven. So the only other option would be to force
males to adopt female values as defined by the radical feminists. Now that
would be a real nightmare. All that would do is declare a war on boys,
which has in fact already happened." Carolyn had been reading a book by
that title, The War on Boys, and while she didn't agree with all of it, she said
there was enough credible evidence in it to convince her that, for whatever
reasons, the green meme in America had a relentless animus to the Y
chromosome.

"Oh please," said Carolyn. "What it means is that this society would
move from a ranking society to a linking or a partnership society, with males
and females working together."

"That is just more of your own green-meme power drives," said Scott.
"You're just trying to ram your green values down everybody's throat, and
you have the nerve to call that 'peaceful partnership.' You won't let red be
red, you won't let blue be blue, you won't yet orange be orange--you want
all of them to be green, just like you. Talk about swallowing your parents'
boomeritis! I mean, forget it."
 "That's not it, either," Carolyn protested. "You guys are so unfair, you
won't even listen. Radical feminists are saying that male values have already
crushed the female values, particularly those of body, earth, nature,
relationships. And the entire society and the planet is suffering horribly for
it. So we are just asking that the playing field be leveled and that these
values be balanced and honored."

"No, you still don't get it," Scott heatedly replied. " Who is going to level
the playing field? The very desire to do so is a type of male intervention, a
dominating, engineering of society--it's just male values hidden in female
rhetoric."

"But why can't women have equal access to male values?"

"They can," Vanessa stepped in, "but then you must stop claiming that
women inherently have different values. Like I said, you can't have it both
ways. That's the real problem with the radical feminist approach,
however well-intentioned. One the on hand, the claim is that men and
women intrinsically have different ways of knowing (abstract vs.
immediate), different modes of being (agentic vs. communal), different
types of identity (dissociated vs. embodied), a different mode of self
(separative vs. permeable), and, in general, speak in a different voice
(autonomous vs. relational)--and so, for example, males have an intrinsic
advantage in analytic, agentic, autonomous endeavors, while women have
an intrinsic advantage in relational, communal, embodied endeavors.

"Now all of that may be true. But, on the other hand, the claim is then
made that women should have equal access to the realms that tend to be
heavily populated by males due to the intrinsic male advantage in the values
that govern those realms. That is, virtually all human activities should be
populated by 50% women. But the only way to do that is to actually cripple
the males in those fields, because according to the first tenet of radical
feminism, males on average have an intrinsic advantage in those values (e.g.,
in calculative analytic thinking, which is crucially important in fields from
engineering to being CEO of a corporation). In other words, women want
access to their intrinsic values, AND equal access to male values--a complete
self-contradiction and a prescription for social engineering of the worst
imaginable sort.
 "When that insurmountable problem is pointed out, many radical
feminists revert to liberal feminism: they say that the differences between
male and female are all socially constructed and learned, and therefore we
can teach entirely new role models, so that both men and women can have
equal access to each other's values. But since some of the sexual
differences between males and females are biological and not merely
cultural (e.g., men universally have a Y chromosome, women universally do
not), then this form of liberal feminism is forced to see every sexual
asymmetry as being created merely by oppression and marginalization, and
once that elemental error has occurred, then you can only proceed by
attacking and attempting to hobble male values in general--the social
equivalent of biologically castrating males. Most sane men and women
intuitively realize that disaster for what it is."

"There might be a way out," Kim suggested.

"Yes?"

"Fuentes and her colleagues are working on an entirely new approach

that brings together all of the schools of feminism--they call it Integral
Feminism."
"You'd never know it from her sarcastic tone," said Carolyn.

"Well, look whose sensitive little green self is showing," Scott declaimed.

"Here's the simple fact that you won't acknowledge, Scott, a fact that
drives most feminist consciousness. Males have power over females. That's
it. And in any sort of democratic society, that is radically unfair. You keep
ignoring this simplest, most unavoidable fact, and you get all involved in
rhetorical arguments that don't mean anything. Males have power over
females, and we are trying to redress that inequality, period."

"Oh really? What kind of power, for instance?"

"Many feminists feel that the ultimate power is the power of rape. Or in
general, the power of physical assault. Women live in constant threat of
physical assault."
 "So do we," said Scott. "Most of us males, especially us skinny
intellectuals, live in constant threat of having the crap beat out of us. My
entire high school years were lived in terror of Marcus Damien, the big
prick. He beat me up twice, really bad. I used to come to school an hour
early to get to class first so I could avoid him. Tell me, Carolyn, how many
times were you physically assaulted in high school?"

Carolyn stared at him silently.

"Right. None, zero. You see, you again make it out like your complaints
are somehow suffered only by women. Physical assault is not a gender
issue."

"But men assault women much more than women assault men, and that
is the whole problem! Why can't you see the obvious?" Carolyn groaned.

"Actually," Kim interjected, "it's the other way around. Have you seen
'Eight Myths about Men' [note 8 below]? It's by Warren Farrell, the only
man elected three times to the National Organization of Women. He's a
member of IC. I have a copy here, I'll read this: 'More than 50 studies of
domestic violence have asked both sexes about the degree to which they
experienced everything from being slapped to being stabbed. Each study
independently came to one of two conclusions: either that women and men
batter each other about equally; or women batter men slightly more than
men batter women. Women are the more likely initiators at every level of
severity of violence.'"

"Okay, see, Carolyn," Scott retorted angrily, "your whole argument falls
apart."

Kim again stepped in. "I think that Integral Feminism will save
the day. According to integral feminists, there are indeed differences
between the 'voices' of men and women. Men do tend to be more agentic,
analytic, abstract, and women more embodied, communal, and
relational. But both men and women develop through the entire Spiral of
development, so that there are male and female versions of red values, male
and female versions of blue values, and orange values, and green, and so on.

"So the real problem is not that male values have crushed female values,
but that both male AND female values of all of the first-tier memes cause
absolute nightmares, each in their own ways. What we need is not more
female values--first-tier female values are ultimately just as partial, broken,
and fragmented as first-tier male values. What we actually need are more
male values and female values at second tier. The problem is not male
versus female, but second tier versus first tier--and first-tier female values
are every bit as destructive, in their own ways, as first-tier male values.
Radical feminists, in promoting first-tier female values, are promoting
exactly those values that resulted in the worst problems now facing the
planet. All of the schools of feminism to date are first-tier schools,
which are actually a big part of the problem, not the cure."

6. p. 223: "Radical feminist Alison Jaggar agrees and notes that any theory of
a special 'woman's standpoint' must be able to 'explain why it is itself rejected
by the vast majority of women.'"

Kim's margin notes: " A Nation of Victims, p. 180." Carla Fuentes then said,
"From The Beauty Myth to Gyn/Ecology to The Creation of Patriarchy, women
have been portrayed by feminists as victims of clever, aggressive,
domineering, pathological males. Now Susan Faludi, in Stiffed: The Betrayal
of the American Man, brings this line of thinking to its logical conclusion: the
men themselves are also victims. Now not one of us--male or female--is
responsible, and all of us are victims: the end-game of boomeritis."

7. p. 229: "We call this 'all-quadrant, all-level' feminism... the entire spiral of
development."

Carla Fuentes added, "See The Eye of Spirit, chapter 8, for a discussion
of integral feminism. As far as we can tell, this is the first work in
history on integral feminism." Kim's margin notes say, "Cool book!"

8. p. 229: "As it is now, the green-meme feminist looks at history... she

assumes that these wonderful values were being oppressed, instead of
realizing that they simple had not yet emerged."

Carla Fuentes continued (from Kim's notes): "Let me share with you
something from a book written by one of our IC members. His name is
Warren Farrell, the book is The Myth of Male Power. As many of you know,
Warren is the only man ever elected three times to the Board of the
National Organization for Women (NOW), where he initially reflected the
party line of the professional bureaucratic feminist. But then he started
extensive research on each of the claims of boomeritis feminism and found
they simply did not hold up to scrutiny. And he furthered discovered just
what I suggested, that professional feminism today is often degrading to
women, not just to men. Let me read you only one example from The Myth of
Male Power. The question is, are women 'oppressed' in our society?, as
constantly claimed by professional feminists. Warren Farrell:

Men who are heads of households have a net worth much lower than
heads of households who are women. No oppressed group has ever had a
net worth higher than the oppressor.

It would be hard to find a single example in history in which a group

that cast more than 50% of the vote got away with calling itself the victim.
Or an example of an oppressed group which chooses to vote for their
"oppressors" more than it chooses to have its own members take
responsibility for running. Women are the only minority group that is a
majority, the only group that calls itself "oppressed" that is able to control
who is elected to every office in virtually every community in the country.
Power is not in who holds the office, power is in who chooses who holds the
office.

Women are the only "oppressed" group to share the same parents as the
"oppressor"; to be born into the middle class and upper class as frequently as
the "oppressor"; to own more of the culture's luxury items than the
"oppressor"; the only "oppressed" group whose "unpaid labor" enables them
to buy most of the fifty billion dollars worth of cosmetics sold each year; the
only "oppressed" group that spends more on high fashion, brand-name
clothing than their "oppressors"; the only "oppressed" group that watches
TV during every time category more than their "oppressors."

Feminists often compare marriage to slavery--with the female as slave. It

seems like an insult to women's intelligence to suggest that marriage is
female slavery when we know it is 25 million American females who read
an average of twenty romance novels per month, often with the fantasy of
marriage. Are feminists suggesting that 25 million American women have
"enslavement" fantasies because they fantasize marriage? Is this the reason
Danielle Steele is the best-selling author in the world?

Never has there been a slave class that has spent so much time dreaming
about being a slave and purchasing books and magazines that told them
"How to Get a Slavemaster to Commit." Either marriage is something
different from slavery for women or feminists are suggesting that women
are not very intelligent. (p. 40)

Carla Fuentes continued: "Well, that is exactly what the professional

feminist is suggesting, yes? That most women are stupid sheep. Needless
to say, I disagree entirely with these bureaucratic feminists.

"Likewise for the males as pigs. Surely you will have noticed that in the
humanities departments at most universities nowadays, there is a subtle
or not-so-subtle war on males, a quietly pervasive hatred of the Y
chromosome. What is so sad about this is how one generation, in this case
the Boomers, has foisted its prejudices on its successors, in this case you!

"We recommend, for example, Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge,

Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's
Studies; Nancy Etcoff, Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty; Nadine
Strossen (president of the American Civil Liberties Union), Defending
Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights; Christina Hoff
Sommers, The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our
Young Men; and Rene Denfeld's wonderful The New Victorians: A Young
Woman's Challenge to the Old Feminist Order--that is, a young woman's
challenge to the aggressive dominance of Boomer (i.e., boomeritis) feminism,
a book that concludes, 'For women of my generation, feminism has become
as confining as what it pretends to combat'--exactly the point of my lecture
today.

"Now, of course, none of the those particular books are yet integral, so we
are not endorsing entirely their points of view. But they help clear the
ground by deconstructing some of the many forms of boomeritis
feminism so dominant today. For the sad fact is, feminism in the hands of
boomeritis became a real piece of work. The many good tenets of feminism
were taken up and injected with a dose of narcissism that, attempting to
account for its own lack of triumph in the world, decided it was the world's
fault. And the world was the world of males, period. Latching onto the
panoply of boomeritis tools--from social constructivism to Foucauldian
genealogy to deconstruction--boomeritis feminism produced treatise after
treatise on the sheepification of women and the pigification of men, thus
ascribing to all females the lack of intelligence and lack of strength with
which emotional narcissism greets the world, and ascribing to all males the
lack of care and lack of love that resides in every narcissist's heart."

Carla Fuentes paced the stage. "As for a truly integral feminism, we
recommend Lesa Powell's book: Fifteen Feminist Fairly Tales: How Boomeritis
Feminism Fucked Females. And Carla Fuentes: Kissing the Old Order Good-Bye:
When Integral Feminism Can Be Heard. Also the first theoretical outline of
integral feminism, The Eye of Spirit. Also watch out for material by Willow
Pearson, Karin Swann, Jenny Wade, Joyce Nielsen. These are all works by
members of Integral Center.

"Finally, I mentioned Warren Farrell's books. Warren, a member of IC,

recently gave a lecture here entitled 'Eight Myths about Men Perpetrated by
Boomer Feminists.' Here is a handout summarizing his talk, with references
to the books of his which pursue each point in more detail:

EIGHT MYTHS ABOUT MEN

BY WARREN FARRELL, PH.D.

Myth 1--Historically, men have been first-class citizens; women have

been second-class citizens

It is true that women have been classified as property in many cultures,

which would seem to imply second class citizenship; it is also true that men
were expected to die before their property was hurt, which would seem to
imply third class citizenship. People expected to die in war were more likely
to be poor than privileged; more likely to be men than women. People
expected to die at work were more likely to be poor than privileged; more
likely to be men than women. Similarly, in the 18th and 19th centuries, if his
wife was insulted, a man was expected to challenge the man who insulted
her to a duel, thus warning the world that protecting a woman from an
insult was worth a man's life. Obviously, it is not the normal definition of
second class citizenship to have a first class citizen available to kill anyone
who should insult you.

Historically speaking, neither sex had rights except insofar as the rights
were related to responsibilities. If a wife spent more money than the man
brought in, the husband went to debtors' prison; he had the right to try to
prohibit her from spending, but the responsibility to possibly die of
pneumonia in prison should she overspend. Historically, neither sex had
power, both sexes had roles, and both sexes were slaves of sort to the other
sex in the area in which they were expected to take responsibility. Mothers
enforced those roles within the home; fathers outside the home. The
oppressor was no one--it was the need to survive. Rights were foreign to
both our moms and dads--their life was about obligation and responsibility,
not rights and options. Their goal was to make their children's life better
than theirs, not be preoccupied with themselves, which is why hundreds of
thousands of men indentured themselves for most of their lives--or gave
their lives in the process--to bring their wives and children to America.

Myth 2--Men care more about sex than love

A man does care more about sex than a woman, but that's no
contradiction to him also caring at least as much as a woman about love.
Men do, however, express their love more by action than by words. Women
very rarely marry a man who they believe will always earn less than they
will; a man who is in love will marry a woman even if he is expected to
support her and support children from another marriage. Similarly, if his
wife is drowning, attacked, or trapped in a burning house, a man is much
more likely to be willing to die for the possibility of saving her than vice
versa. Giving of his life, either literally or via work, is a man's way of
demonstrating love--to men, talk is cheap. Other ways are best explained in
The Myth of Male and Why Men Are The Way They Are.

Myth 3--Men care about power, women care about love

Men have misdefined power as "feeling obligated to earn money

someone else spends while they die sooner." Men who didn't earn money, or
have property or status did not receive love, respect or sex from women--or
respect from men. So one motivation for men earning money or obtaining
status was to "earn their way to equality" to women's love. Conversely, since
women rarely gave their love to men who did not offer security, a woman's
focus on love was also her way of focusing on her security. Thus, for men,
reading a business book is also reading a relationship book (there will be no
relationship if he doesn't have his business act together); and, for women,
reading a relationship book is also reading a business book. In brief, both
sexes care about both love and security, but history has taught them to
obtain it in different ways. This is best explained in The Myth of Male and
Why Men Are the Way They Are.
Myth 4--Women do two jobs, men do one

Working wives work more hours inside the home than their husbands
do, so it seems like they do two jobs to their husband's one job. However,
while working women work 11 hours more per week inside the home, men
work 16 hours more outside the home. Beyond the work hours, men
commute 2 hours more per week. Additionally, housework studies are
sexist because housework is a term that connotes more of what women do
than what men do. For example, a man remodeling a room who is asked
how much housework he did last week might say "none." In Women Can't
Hear What Men Don't Say, I identify more than 50 areas of contribution to the
home men typically make, almost none of which are measured by
housework studies.

Myth 5--Men are more likely to batter a woman than a woman is to

batter a man

Women are much more likely to report domestic violence to police than
men are; men who are victims rarely report it to the police. We only discover
it from men when we ask men directly. More than 50 studies of domestic
violence have asked both sexes about the degree to which they experienced
everything from being slapped to being stabbed. Each study independently
came to one of two conclusions: either that women and men batter each
other about equally; or women batter men slightly more than men batter
women. Women are the more likely initiators at every level of severity of
violence. Even women acknowledge this in most studies, when directly
asked. However, when men hit women with a fist, more damage is done.
Women compensate by being more likely to throw something at a man--
from a pot to boiling water--or hit him with an object when he is asleep or
drunk. All 50 of these studies are annotated and discussed in Women Can't
Hear What Men Don't Say.

Myth 6--Men earn more money than women do for the same work

Actually, when true cohorts are compared--men and women with equal
education, seniority, duties, and hours--women earn as much or more than
men.

In some situations, men do earn more money than women do, but not for
the same work (for which men and women are paid essentially the same)--
but rather for 25 different behaviors at work and for different choices as to
the type of work they do (e.g., construction work, where they suffer some
95% of job-related deaths). If men in reality earned a dollar for each 76¢ for
the same work--a patent but popular myth--then any company that hired all
men would soon be put out of business by a company hiring all women.
This is the subject of a book in progress, called 25 Ways to Higher Pay.

Myth 7--The seven-year difference between male and female life

expectancies is largely biological

Men in the U.S. in 1920 only lived one year less than women; today they
live seven years less. The more industrialized the community, the larger the
gap between the male and female life expectancy. Industrialization meant
the male role did a better job providing better homes and gardens for
women than it did to provide safer coal mines and construction sites for
men. Prior to the 20th century, both sexes died of diseases that were
contagious; plus women died in childbirth and men in war. Those led to
only slightly longer life expectancies among women than men. In the 20th
century, men and women's life expectancy was shortened largely by stress.
As stress was the greater trigger, men became the first victim. Another
factor increasing the life expectancy gap is the women's movement.
Feminism has increased women's options--women's ways of feeling needed,
respected, and loved. Nothing has done the same for men. As we have
focused more on women good, men bad, our sons' suicide rate has increased
and our daughters' decreased. Now boys in their early 20s are 6 times as
likely to commit suicide as girls. By the age of 85, men are 1350% more likely
to commit suicide. Life expectancy is more than biology. This is best
explained in The Myth of Male Power.

Myth 8--If there's a divorce, women are more likely to love the children,
men are more likely to be deadbeats

One of the fastest growing demographics in the US is the increase in the

last 20 years is the percent of single dads--from 10% to 19% of all single
parents. All fathers' rights groups are fighting for the same thing--to be more
involved with the children. Most men prefer joint custody should there be a
divorce. A man's loss of contact with his children and former wife is so
devastating that men are 10 times more likely than women to commit
suicide after a divorce. Men become deadbeats mostly when they feel mom
has badmouthed them to the children--when they feel they spend most of a
weekend with the children overcoming distrust and then, once they've made
a dent, the children return to mother again; they become deadbeats mostly
when they feel they are valued only for their money--that when they have
the children they are expected to babysit and follow mom's values or be
found wrong. Overall, men who have joint custody pay child support at
more than the 90% level. When child support payments are awarded, men
are twice as likely to pay as women. And we know that worldwide, children
raised by single dads do better on every psychological, health and academic
level than children raised by single moms. Men's role with children is largely
defined by society. If men are deadbeats we must look at ourselves. This is
the tip of the iceberg of Father and Child Reunion.

NOTA DE JIF: Con esto se me ocurre que ante un momento de decadencia

material y probreza el hombre se ve afectado más que la mujer ya que su
“valer” y además lo que a él le interesa masterizar es el manejo de la
realidad. Además está muy conectado con su seguridad en si mismo ya que
el no PODER lograr un manejo de la realidad material sobre todo hace el
hombre se considere un perdedor. En cambio la mujer en una misma
situación dura de probresa o dificultades económicas lo tomará de una
manera menos angustiosa ya que su integridad, poder y confianza en si
misma no depende tanto del dominio del mundo material y sino de lo que
ella sea en si misma como decia Ortega y Gasset. Además la mujer tiene sus
gustos, intereses y motivaciones puestos en otro lado.

9. p. 229: "We here at IC are attempting instead to forge an integral feminism

that acknowledges, includes, and joins all these memes into a rainbow
harmony... the complete spiral of development."

Carla Fuentes continued (from Kim's notes): "As Dr. Morin indicated, in
this session we are focusing mostly on the problems, not the solutions, and
therefore I have not been elucidating Integral Feminism as much as
criticizing the inadequacies of the other schools of feminism. In an endeavor
to construct a second-tier integral feminism, it is particularly important to
distinguish just what is, and is not, imposed by various power structures--on
males and females alike--and to responsibly redress cases of real oppression
wherever possible. Many of you are familiar with Janet Chafetz's books,
such as Sex and Advantage. She demonstrates that, using any number of
quality of life scales, life for males in the patriarchy is worse than it is for
females. But my point is straightforward: making assessments like that
demands a careful cataloging of the actual needs and desires of males and
females-- at each of the waves of consciousness--because male and
female values and desires change dramatically from level to level of
consciousness. It is ridiculous to make flat assertions of what either sex
'really wants' based on one-level ideology, whether of the blue-meme Right
or the green-meme Left. A truly integral feminism is a multi-layered,
multi-dimensional--all-quadrants, all-levels, all-lines, all-states, all-types--
approach to being gendered at virtually every wave of development,
drawing on responsible feminist research wherever possible.

"We particularly find that the 'four quadrants' are helpful in integrating
the many schools of feminism into a truly integral feminism. When we add
the levels of development and the lines of development, we start to get a
truly integral approach to feminism. For this, please see chapter 8--'Integral
Feminism'--in The Eye of Spirit." Kim's margin notes say, "For other
recommended reading, see note 8 for this lecture."

10. p. 231: "Newton's laws of gravity... were actually 'Newton's Rape

Manual,' as one feminist announced."

Van Cleef: "Granted monological science can distance, fragment, and

disenchant the world, but only if it is viewed as the sole mode of knowing.
Its own contributions, true but partial, are profoundly important, and have,
for example, contributed immeasurably to the safety, longevity, and well-
being of the postmodernists who have so aggressively attacked it."

11. p. 231: "'The falsely accused rapists... Those are good questions.'"

Kim's margin notes: "Quoted in A Nation of Victims, p. 185."

12. p. 233: "The lecture... is in my notebook."

Here is Lesa Powell's lecture on "The Death of the Subject and the Birth of
Narcissism":

"Much of preconventional narcissism, we at IC have been suggesting,

flourishes under the shelter of postconventional pluralism. And this
takes us directly into the heart of the great postmodern movements--from
Heidegger and Nietzsche to Foucault and Derrida and Lyotard.
 "Although there are many tenets that define the various flavors of
postmodernism, virtually all of them are united under a theme called 'the
death of the subject.'

"Ferry and Renaut, authors of French Philosophy of the Sixties, state

the widely accepted conclusion that there is a 'common element that groups
together certain characteristics, philosophical currents that derive from
orientations as different as MARXISM, on the one hand, and the
NIETZSCHEAN/HEIDEGGERIAN/FREUDIAN deconstruction of
rationality on the other. The basic theme is clearly in the project of carrying
out a radical critique of subjectivity. This project easily unites the forces
concerned, since subjectivity is assimilated by them either to monadic
bourgeois egoism or to a concept of man developed by modern
metaphysics [as a metaphysics of subjectivity, which posits man as
foundation and evaluative limit for all of reality]. They are unified in their
proclamation of the death of man as subject, a theme Foucault made
famous...' (p. 16)."

Lesa Powell continued: "As with most of postmodernism, this notion

contains a profound truth that was taken to unfortunate extremes, at
which point it aggressively supported and encouraged the confusion of
preconventional with postconventional. But the central idea is as simple as it
is important.

"Classical Enlightenment thought--foreshadowed as early as

Descartes--had assumed that human beings were a simple subject (the mind
or ego) confronting the world 'out there.' Indeed, this notion of a simple
subject attempting to grasp the world as object is as old as metaphysics and
philosophy itself (i.e., at least a few thousand years). But with modernity,
the Enlightenment, and the rise of modern humanism, this individual mind
or subject--the individual self as an autonomous agent, possessing
free will and the capacity to generate its own knowledge--took on a central
importance (see Sidebar E: 'Descartes'). This subject, it was thought, could
master the world through technical know-how; it could master itself
through will and discipline; it was the author of its own ideas and the
creator of its ethical actions. This modern ego or modern subject
was not beholden to the herd mentality of the church or state; it saw itself as
possessing a genuine autonomy; and it sought to freely extend this
autonomy and its human rights in a worldcentric and postconventional
fashion (eventually to women, slaves, children, and even animals).

"JÜRGEN HABERMAS notes that this was the historical emergence of a

postconventional ego out of the previous conformist role self (put simply, the
emergence of orange out of blue). And that was the 'good news' of the
modern ego or modern subject: in contrast with the mythic-membership,
blue, conformist, herd mentality, the modern subject sought to apply
universal, worldcentric, postconventional standards of fairness, equality,
and liberty. So far, so good.

"But no sooner had this ego-subject emerged and announced its own
autonomy (in various ways, from Descartes to Kant to Fichte) than
numerous profound and far-reaching discoveries were in fact undermining
the ego's claim to complete self-mastery. There were discoveries in biology,
which demonstrated that the ego is in fact pushed by biological processes,
drives, and instincts of which it knows little--and thus the ego is not all that
autonomous! Freud outlined the many ways in which unconscious mental
processes govern the ego's actions and desires. Linguists--starting
especially with Ferdinand de Saussure--pointed out that one's use of
language is governed by innumerable rules and structures of which one
usually isn't even aware: where is the subject's autonomy now? Marxists and
sociologists in general, starting especially with Comte and Durkheim,
pointed out that individual subjects were actually embedded in extensive
social systems (such as techno-economic forces of production) that
profoundly mold the subject's consciousness. Hermeneutics pointed out that
even the construction of everyday meaning rests on background cultural
contexts that are rarely conscious. In short, the ego is immersed in an almost
infinite number of various currents and contexts, few of which are even
known, let alone mastered, controlled, or subjected to autonomy!

"Biology, psychology, sociology, hermeneutics, linguistics--they all

concluded, quite correctly, that the modern subject's claim to autonomy
is, at best, an exaggeration. The Enlightenment ego, far from being
the master of its own fate, was the puppet of a thousand forces, most of
which it had no idea even existed.
 "And thus if 'modern' meant the claim to be an autonomous subject, then
'postmodern' writers all rallied around a central theme: the death of the
subject. This meant essentially what it sounds like: the autonomous self just
isn't that autonomous--all around it are Others, are different perspectives,
are countless unseen forces, are innumerable types of the unconscious, are
modes of being and knowing that the 'autonomous' ego has not even begun
to take into account--endless pluralistic contexts that the proudly
autonomous Enlightenment subject was in fact ignoring, repressing,
alienating. And thus all of the autonomous self's projects--from the
control of nature (as if the ego were separate from nature: Bacon and
Descartes especially offend) to traditional metaphysics (which assumed an
autonomous subject that could totally master knowledge--even Hegel got
caught in that dream) to the scientific-technical assault on the world
(which assumed that the autonomous self could totally master the objective
universe)--all of these modern Enlightenment pursuits were, with some
justification, called into question by one postmodern writer after another
(starting most famously with Nietzsche and Heidegger, and carried on by
Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, and crew).

"This critique of modernity came in two phases, roughly analogous

to the phases of structuralism and poststructuralism--that is, a mild critique
of modernity and then a radical-totalizing critique of both modernity and
the mild critique.

"The first phase is often associated with theorists such as Marx,

Freud, and Hegel, and it unseated the Enlightenment ego's claim to
autonomy by showing that the ego is actually situated in extensive
structures of which it usually knows very little. These are therefore often
unconscious structures (hence the similarity with structuralism itself,
which also belongs to this first phase). For MARX, these usually
unconscious structures include the nature of class conflict and the
structures of the techno-economic forces of production. For FREUD, the
forces of the psychological unconscious. For HEGEL, the forms of
Reason's cunning unfolding. The existence of all of these forces successfully
challenge the notion of the ego's autonomy. However, according to these
theorists, these unconscious forces can be made conscious, and thus the
self's autonomy can be salvaged to a large (or even total) degree. This is why
all of these first-phase critics were attacked by the second-phase critics, who
maintained that autonomy in any form is an illusion and who were therefore
radical and total in their assaults on modernity.

"This second phase is often associated with the names of

Nietzsche and Heidegger (although what was done in their names was
often dubious). This radical critique of modernity and rationality did indeed
tend to a be totalizing critique: all subjectivity, all autonomy, all modernity,
all rationality--all of them are structures of power, oppression, illusion, or
worse. Even the first-phase critics (especially Marx and Hegel, and all of
structuralism) were aggressively attacked as merely modernists in drag:
hence, this second phase identified itself as postmodern and
poststructuralist. (And, similarly, the Left Hegelians and Marxists were
often identified with liberalism, which the second phase also brutally
attacked.)

"For the Nietzschean line of totalizing critique--which found its greatest

postmodern champion in Foucault--the Enlightenment ego was not much
more than a series of power drives thinly rationalized. The Enlightenment
claimed it was opposing truth to power, but its 'truth' was just more power,
hypocritically concealed. Likewise, all claims of universality, truth, and
objectivity are simply forms of power of a privileged discourse. This is still
by far the dominant form of postmodernist critique (even though Foucault
himself renounced it; see below).

"For the HEIDEGGERIAN line of totalizing critique--which found its

most noticeable postmodern champion in Derrida--modernity was the
culmination of the withdrawal of Being (mystery and difference). Modernity
murdered Being and Mystery under 3 major repressions: one, the subject of
consciousness knows only what is present as an idea or representation, which
leads to the notion that this subject can have total or absolute knowledge of
the world as fully intelligible, without residing mystery (the Hegelian
system especially claims such, which is one of the great problems of
having Reason attempt to carry Being)--and thus it actually represses the
networks of difference, mystery, and otherness (this is Derrida's critique of
presence, a critique which maintains that 'nothing is ever simply present,'
since vast networks of nonpresent realities help to constitute the subject.
Because of the sliding chains of linguistic signifiers and the deferral of
meaning, nothing is ever simply present: therefore metaphysics, which
claims to know as present various realities, is a concealing and hiding of
Being and Mystery and Difference). Two, this subject is claimed to be
autonomous will, and thus it actually ignores and represses all those aspects
of Being that cannot be fitted into its practical mastery (Hegel again
attempts to make the absolute Subject a union of will and rational
intelligibility). But will is just 'the forgetting of Being,' the denial of différance
(difference), the eclipse of the Other. Three, power itself becomes its own
goal, and instrumental rationality seeks to control and dominate all that is
Other.

"Those critiques of subjective autonomy, will, and power are, in my

opinion, generally correct. But that Heideggerian line of critique, as all of
the totalizing critiques do, simply went too far, and left no room for any sort
of relative autonomy, truth, rationality, will, or subjectivity at all. What was so
shocking about these critiques--especially those of early Heidegger,
Foucault, and Derrida--was exactly their radical and totalizing
nature: an explosion of all things modern, a wild deconstruction of
everything in its path. And that, of course, is what made it an ideal magnet
for boomeritis, without which these totalizing critiques would never
have caught on as fanatically as they did in the last thirty years. Extreme
postmodernism spread like wildfire only because boomeritis had prepared
the way: and it was boomeritis above all else that carried it strategically.

"Which is why it is all the more interesting to note that each of those
totalizing theorists--Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida--eventually
retracted their totalizing critiques: which certainly took the fun out of it.
The details are well known, and needn't be repeated here. Heidegger went
through the 'turn' ( Kehre ), shifting emphasis from Dasein and its
historicity to Being and its openness. Heidegger's early work was
in fact so steeped in pluralistic relativism and
historicism that he had no way to ground truth at all: if all truth is
historically constituted, then how can we even know that, since our
own perceptions are not trans-historically true? Both HUSSERL and
CASSIRER leveled this charge at Heidegger, and his 'turn' included an
attempt to respond: 'But this response was so "Kantian" that if it had been
formulated directly it might have jeopardized the originality of Being and
Time itself' (Ferry and Renaut, p. 216). Likewise, as we will see in a later
lecture [lecture/chapter 7], Foucault went to considerable trouble to distance
himself from his early, totalizing critiques; he even ridiculed them--and their
followers. And Derrida eventually conceded, in Positions, that the
transcendental signified does in fact exist, a fatal blow to the extreme
deconstructive project.

"Likewise THOMAS KUHN, whose work was also used as a totalizing

critique of science (i.e., paradigms do not discover facts but invent them):
although Kuhn never agreed with that extremism, he nonetheless softened
his own claims so much that he is now thought to be championing a
completely trivial thesis (namely, paradigms do not create facts, but they do
color our interpretations of facts, which nobody had ever doubted in the first
place).

"In other words, all of these radical and totalizing critiques of modernity,
rationality, subjectivity, and autonomy eventually failed dramatically--and
were abandoned even by their original authors. What did not abandon these
totalizing critiques was boomeritis--for in this total deconstruction of
anything that stood in the way of its egoic desires, boomeritis had found its
happy home. Today, extreme postmodernism is championed almost
exclusively by boomeritis and the mean green meme.

"Of these two phases--mild and total--note that all of the original
theorists were German: Marx and Freud in the first phase, Nietzsche and
Heidegger in the second. Ferry and Renaut make the fascinating
observation that extreme postmodernism was basically the product of
French theorists who took these German thinkers, some of whose ideas
were extreme enough, and stretched them to even further extremes, arriving
at wildly radicalized (and ridiculous) results. Bourdieu took Marx to
extremes; Lacan took Freud to extremes; Foucault took Nietzsche to
extremes; Derrida took Heidegger to extremes. Ferry and Renaut
demonstrate how little originality there was in these French radicals, except
the extremism. 'Far from being a purely indigenous product [of France],
1968 philosophy is in fact the use of themes and theses borrowed, in more or
less complex combinations, from German philosophers, for example, Marx,
Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger, to mention the fundamental ones.... Our
intention is to pose the problem of originality. French philosophy seems to
take up the themes it borrows from German philosophy in order to radicalize
them, and it is this radicalization that is the source of antihumanism, the
thing peculiar to it...: not so much an original and creative moment in
intellectual history as simply a secondary growth...through this desire to
radicalize a gesture...' (pp. 20, 25).

"Why this secondary growth? And what was the incredibly fertile field in
which it grew? A large part of that answer is surely boomeritis (i.e.,
pluralistic relativism--the green meme--infected with emotional narcissism
of red/purple). Boomeritis is by no means confined to America or even to
Boomers, but rears its head wherever the green meme flourishes, for the
subjectivistic warrant of the green meme invites, even encourages, pre/post
confusions and narcissistic reactivations, as these French critics themselves
spotted in no uncertain terms."

Lesa Powell paused, then paced the stage. "American boomeritis took
this already extreme, radical, and ridiculous ideology... and astonishingly
made it even more extreme and radical and ridiculous. And there extreme
postmodernism rests, suckling on the breast of boomeritis, its true mother.
The sad conclusion: American postmodernism was an extreme
exaggeration of French postmodernism, which was an extreme
exaggeration of the original German ideas. In each step away from the
original ideas, the ego became bigger and bigger, and the originality less and
less.

"Well, this general aspect of postmodernism--this totalizing, extreme,

absurd critique--became known as ANTI-HUMANISM, because it
attacked the central beliefs of traditional humanism, namely, that I possess
an autonomous self or subject, which as consciousness is the author of my
ideas and as will is the author of my actions. Through cultivating my own
consciousness, and through assuming responsibility for my own actions, I
can come to find both freedom in the world and a degree of responsibility to
others in that world. But the extreme postmodern antihumanists rejected
every one of those tenets--rejected the ideas of consciousness, will,
representation, subjectivity, freedom, and responsibility--because all of them
rested on this notion of an autonomous subject, whose death they had come
to announce, if for no other reason than that its 'autonomy' was illusory at
best, oppressive and alienating at worst.
 "The 'death of the subject' contains, as I said, some very important
truths: the ego is not altogether autonomous, for it is embedded in endless
contexts and relationships, conscious and unconscious--natural, biological,
ecological, cultural, linguistic, social, and spiritual-- all of which need to
be taken into account in any truly integral philosophy. And it is quite true
that the Enlightenment ego was largely ignorant of all of these extensive
contexts and relationships, and that such ignorance was not without its
costs.

"All of the theories that assume as foundational the typical Enlightenment

ego--the monological, egoic-rational, orange, conscientious, instrumental
self--are often referred to as the 'philosophy of the subject' or the 'philosophy
of consciousness.' The latter is an unfortunate phrase, because it implies that
all attempts to redress problems of the philosophy of the subject are actually
trying to obliterate consciousness. But when various theorists deny the
philosophy of consciousness, all this means is that they are denying the
radical and total autonomy of the egoic self (this generally means the same
thing as proclaiming the death of the subject--in other words, they are
pointing out that the subject or self is not the source of total and complete
self-mastery nor the foundation of unshakable truth, but is actually situated
in extensive fields and shifting networks of relationships and processes--of
course, we at IC make this point by saying that the individual subject of the
Upper-Left quadrant is actually situated in an 'all-quadrants, all-waves, all-
streams, all-states' matrix).

"All postmodern writers in effect deny the philosophy of consciousness

and announce the death of the subject--even constructive postmodern
writers, such as Habermas (Habermas is a constructive postmodernist in that
he is attempting to take the positive gains of the Enlightenment and
supplement them with a post-Enlightenment approach that escapes the
problems of the philosophy of the subject by grounding truth in
intersubjective communicative exchange. Habermas is not, however, a
deconstructive postmodernist, such as Foucault or Derrida, and has in fact
sharply criticized them, a criticism I generally share).

"We have seen that, generally speaking, formal is to modern as

postformal is to postmodern. As a rough generalization, deconstructive
postmodernism tends to be associated with green, and constructive
postmodernism with integral: green differentiates and deconstructs, second
tier integrates and constructs.

"Any truly second-tier or integral philosophy--any truly

constructive postmodernism--must do at least three things vis-à-vis the
death of the subject. One, it must indeed acknowledge that the individual
self is set in vast networks of contexts, backgrounds, meanings, forces,
and intersubjective relationships--some of which are conscious, many of
which are unconscious--and all of these limit the so-called autonomy of the
self. Two, it must specify as best it can the nature of these vast networks,
indicating where possible how each is to be fruitfully explored and verified.
And three, it must explain the relative autonomy that will replace absolute
autonomy, because the situated self is still an agency-in-communion and
not merely a network of communions. (That is, to say that the self is always
embedded in relationships, to say that agency is always 'agency-in-
communion,' to say that being is always 'being-in-the-world'--in short, to
say that the self is situated in endless contexts--is not to say there is no
agency at all, no individuality at all, no responsible self at all. A situated
autonomy is still responsible, within its confinement, for those choices over
which it has some control--the self is still a relatively autonomous and
responsible agency set in its communions.)

"All three of those points have been covered in some detail by one of our
IC colleagues in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, especially chapter 4 and its
endnotes (particularly 27), and chapters 12, 13, and 14 (and all their
endnotes). In essence, the integral view we at IC propose is summarized as
'all quadrants, all levels, all lines, all states, all types.' which is an attempt to
explicitly take these various post-Enlightenment necessities into account to
arrive at a constructive and integral postmodernism (which acknowledges
and embraces the entire spiral of development and the full spectrum of
consciousness). A simplified introduction to this approach can be found in A
Theory of Everything and A Brief History of Everything.

"Those important postmodern truths--the ego is not altogether

autonomous, for it is embedded in endless contexts and relationships,
conscious and unconscious--unfortunately have mostly been championed in
their extremist versions. Instead of examining the manner in which the
individual self is embedded in relationships and then suggesting ways that
this relational self can nonetheless grow in its own rights and
responsibilities, the extreme postmodernists began a virulent attack that
took no prisoners at all: there is no subject, period; there is no autonomy,
period; there is no consciousness and no will and no responsibility, period!

"'The death of the author' (Barthes), 'the death of man' (Foucault), 'the
death of the subject' (Derrida), 'the death of....' In all of this bashing and
killing of the Enlightenment self, the extremist versions were the only
versions that had sufficient shock value. But the sad fact is that, in denying
all forms of subjectivity--and its correlate responsibility--postmodernism
invited, indeed exuberantly encouraged, a chaotic psychological
regression, sliding toward that destination of all regression: narcissism.
Instead of working on what a relative autonomy, responsibility, subjectivity,
consciousness, and will might look like, it simply trashed them all,
deconstructed them all, and thus ended up with its twin agendas, however
thickly disguised: narcissism and nihilism.

"But there is, common sense tells us, a middle course between total
autonomy on the one hand (which the Enlightenment often championed,
and which indeed is an illusion), and no autonomy at all (which the
antihumanists championed, and which is just as misguided).

"The workable idea of autonomy--a 'good enough' autonomy--is not that

it is a total and complete mastery of the self--for the finite self is never
completely autonomous. Rather, the workable idea is that, in the course of
development, each stage of the self has a little more autonomy than its
predecessor. The preconventional self (the egocentric self) often seems 'free'
and 'unfettered'--and thus many Romantics take it to be a type of free and
autonomous self--but in fact it is simply ruled and driven by its immediate
sensations, appetites, and urges: it is a slave to its impulses, a slave to the
beige meme. When the self develops to the conventional level, it learns to
'delay gratification' and thus it becomes, to some degree, free of the
immediate dictates of its desires: it has gained a little bit of autonomy. But it
is now a slave to the herd mentality: no longer totally dominated by its
instincts, it is totally dominated by the crowd ('my country right or wrong').
If the self continues its development into the postconventional realms, it can-
-at least to some degree--reflect on the norms of its culture and subject
them to criticism. It might decide that those norms are worth following, but
it might decide that they are not and that accordingly it must march to the
beat of a different drummer. It either case it has moved from ethnocentric to
worldcentric, and therefore it has gained even more autonomy. Not total
autonomy, just a bit more than it had at previous stages of development.

"I believe that the above approach has much merit and does indeed give
us a good enough notion of autonomy. But it should also be noted that, alas,
'autonomy' is an unfortunate word in almost every way. One, there is no
fully autonomous finite self, only a relatively autonomous self (although the
relative autonomy increases at every wave). Two, the relatively autonomous
self of every stage is set in vast networks of relationships and processes
(natural, objective, cultural, social, spiritual)--in short, agency is always
agency-in-communion--which makes mockery of 'autonomy' or isolated
agency in general. Three, the relatively autonomous self of every stage
also exists in a system of exchanges with other relatively autonomous
selves at a similar level of development.

"The latter point is particularly important. The purple self exists in a

system of mutual exchanges with other purple selves, the blue self exists in a
system of mutual exchanges with other blue selves, the orange self with
other orange selves, the green self with other green selves, and so on. (Of
course, blue also interacts with purple, red, orange, green, yellow, etc. It is
just that each level of self particularly recognizes itself in exchanges with
other selves of similar depth.) In short, the self at every level is always a
self-in-relationship-with-other-selves (and especially a
self-in-relationship-with-other-selves-at-that-level).

"This gives us purchase on the raging debate between liberals and

communitarians: both of them have an important but partial piece of the
puzzle. The communitarians are right that the self is always a situated or
saturated self--it is always a self-in-context (or agency-in-communion, or
autonomy-in-relationship). But the liberals are right in that the orange self
has relatively more autonomy than the blue self, and that relative autonomy
must be protected from the herd mentality of blue (hence liberal rights). But
the relatively autonomous liberal (orange) self is still a self-in-relationship
at that level, and it recognizes itself only in exchanges with other relatively
autonomous selves. Thus, the autonomy of one level is relatively greater
than that of a previous level, but autonomy is always still autonomy-in-
relationship (agency is always agency-in-communion--all the way up, all the
way down). Even the highly integral or 'autonomous self' (in fig. 4-1) seeks
out relationships with other autonomous selves. That is, agency seeks agency
of similar depth and depends upon that relationship for mutual
recognition, which is a genuine need of the self at every level. In the early
stages of development, those relationships are mandatory for self
formation; in the adult, those relationships are necessary for the
self's happiness and wellbeing, and for its actual existence in mutual
recognition. (Of course the adult self can live without those relationships--if
it is stranded on a d es er t is land , for example--but the self simply withers
in such aridity--and it would never have developed in the first place in such
circumstances, as cases of 'wolf boy' consistently demonstrate.)
"The typical liberal notion of autonomy correctly understood the relative
increase in autonomy of the orange self over the blue self--and correctly
demanded a system of rights to protect orange individuality from blue
oppression--but then incorrectly assumed that such autonomy was an
atomistic freedom. Liberal theory misunderstood autonomy as atomism (or
isolated agency) and thus it fundamentally misunderstood the nature of
the self--which is always agency-in-communion--and thus it likewise
misunderstood the nature of society, which is not a contract between
atomistic selves but an inescapable manifestation of the relational
exchange of agency-in-communion (although a liberal, postconventional
society was indeed a manifestation of orange selves, which itself was a new
and revolutionary type/level of social organization, which appeared to be
a 'contract' only to an atomistic misconception. Technically, all holons
intrinsically have four quadrants; the sociocultural quadrants are not
'contracts' that one may or may not form, but are inherent dimensions of all
holons; the 'social-contract' society is simply how the atomistically
misunderstood orange self pictures the form of the sociocultural quadrants
that emerges at orange: it must see oranges selves as brought together under
legal agreement, instead of seeing orange selves intrinsically and
mutually related from the start, but a relationship that takes the form of
formal rational agreements at orange, 'contractual' agreements that do not
bring the selves together but simply give voice to the form of the already-
together selves at that level).

"As described in both Sex, Ecology, Spirituality and Brief History, agency
implies rights, and communion implies responsibilities, and thus agency-
in-communion means that each self (at whatever level) is always a series of
rights-in-responsibilities or freedoms-with-duties. But the Enlightenment
liberal self (orange) identified itself only with rights and freedoms, and
identified blue only with duties and responsibilities, and thus in its noble
attempt to protect the orange self from the blue herd--which really meant,
protect orange agency-in-communion from blue agency-in-communion (or
protect orange rights-in-responsibilites from blue rights-in-responsibilites)--
the orange self severed rights from responsibilities, identified itself with
rights and blue with duties, and thus in protecting orange from blue
inadvertently imagined it could have rights without responsibilities, agency
without communion, freedom without obligations, whoopee without duties.
And in that regard, liberal notions of autonomy indeed contributed to
regressive, narcissistic, egocentric disintegration of social communion,
caring, obligation, and compassion. The communitarian criticism of
liberalism hit that part of the argument right on the head.

"Thus, one of the first items on the agenda of a truly integral politics is to
reconnect rights and responsibilities at a postconventional level (orange and
higher), without regressing to mere blue rights-and-responsibilities. For the
liberal autonomous self exists only in a network of mutual exchanges with
other autonomous selves, and that network of agency-in-communion
imposes new duties and responsibilities even as it opens new freedoms and
opportunities: both must be fully honored.

(See Up from Eden for a discussion of relational exchange at each level of

selfhood; see Sex, Ecology, Spirituality and A Brief History of Everything for a
discussion of agency-in-communion as rights-in-responsibilities; and see A
Theory of Everything for a discussion of integral politics.)

"Now, the postconventional orange self--with its very real, if relative,

increase in autonomy--is what the Enlightenment, at its best, brought into
the world on a large scale--which eventually resulted in everything from the
abolition of slavery to female rights to civil rights--which is to the
Enlightenment's everlasting credit. Thus, to say that the mature ego is
relatively more autonomous than its predecessors is not to deny that the
ego is also set in a massive number of contexts and relationships that
prevent it from being totally autonomous. The Enlightenment got the
former absolutely right, but flubbed the latter badly--which is no reason
to toss the idea of autonomy altogether, which is what the
deconstructive antihumanists proceeded gleefully to do.
 "To give a few more of the important details of autonomy in the
postconventional stages themselves: The orange self has a good deal more
autonomy than the blue self, simply because, as we just said, it can at least
begin to reflect on some of society's norms and subject them to critical
judgment (e.g., 'Is my country always right?'; this we called the
conscientious self in fig. 4-1). In turn, the green self has the possibility of
even more autonomy than the orange self, because it can take into account
more of the innumerable background contexts that impinge on the self, and
thus it can become even more individualistic (fig. 4-1). This increased
pluralistic freedom was, in fact, what the postmodern green-meme writers
were trying to offer to the world: escape the straightjacket of formal
rationality and the illusion of perfect self-mastery, and open oneself to
the multiple Others and contexts in which the self is actually
embedded.

"Finally, the second-tier integral self has the possibility of yet more
autonomy, since it can reflect on even wider contexts and their integral
patterns, and thus to some degree be free of their unconscious
determinations. This is why the integral self is usually called the
autonomous self, as in fig. 4-1 (although, as we have seen,
'autonomy' is a relative, sliding scale, and not a total mastery). Thus
autonomy in the manifest realm is judged not as a type of absolute freedom,
but simply in relation to previous selves, each of which has less.

"But instead of working with what it means to move beyond the orange
subject (or orange autonomy) and finding instead a green subject (with its
own higher forms of autonomy, pluralistic freedom and responsibility)--so
that the 'death of the (orange) subject' would have meant the birth of the green
subject--the deconstructive postmodernists simply began to attack
subjectivity in general. And thus they and their legions of followers
began to attack any form of autonomy, self-responsibility,
accountability, rationality, and ethics.

"In other words, constructive postmodernism explicitly works toward a

refurbished and reconstructed understanding of subjectivity, self,
consciousness, will, responsibility, and relative autonomy (all embedded in
an AQAL context)--and does not simply deconstruct them all, leaving only
the Cheshire cat's grin hanging in mid-air. I have on several occasions
quoted Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut, simply because they are perceptive
French philosophers working in France, the epicenter of (extreme)
postmodernism, and thus their critiques carry a certain on-the-scene
authority. But even Ferry and Renaut share with postmodernism the
realization that the Enlightenment ego--and Enlightenment humanism--is
woefully incomplete (and I agree): 'It is impossible to return,' they say, 'after
Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger, to the idea that man is the master
and possessor of the totality of his actions and ideas. Today we know the
illusions and the danger inherent in such a denial of the unconscious in
its various forms [psychological, linguistic, social, and so on]'--in other
words, the illusions of the 'fully autonomous ego' of the Enlightenment.
This is why they say--and again I quite agree--that 'this influence of the
sixties must not be lost' (pp. xvi, xxviii).

"At the same time, they wisely wish to rehabilitate autonomy in a relative
form, and not simply trash it totally. 'We dispute this logic [of denying the
subject and autonomy in any form] by demonstrating its erroneous
character. It does not follow that, having established that man is not really
autonomous (that he is open to his other), one has to go to the extreme of
withdrawing all meaning and function from the idea... of autonomy' (p. 211).
They lambaste the 'massive, brutal, and unsubtle' attempt to deconstruct all
forms of subjectivity, autonomy, and humanism (p. 30). And they call for a
type of relative autonomy that finds in men and women an openness--instead
of a closure--that allows humans to escape mere thingness. See especially the
fine chapter 'The Return of the Subject' and their 'Conclusion' in French
Philosophy of the Sixties.

"Incidentally, several Buddhist writers have attempted to see in the

'death of the subject' philosophies something akin to the Buddhist doctrine
of anatta or 'no self.' But the similarities are almost entirely superficial.
Anatta is not a philosophical idea but a direct realization in consciousness, a
realization that is the result of intensive transverbal and transrational
spiritual practice, and a consciousness that persists unbroken through the
waking, dreaming, and deep sleep states. There is nothing even vaguely
similar to that in the antihumanists and deconstructionists--they are coming
mostly from the green meme; Buddhism at is best is integral and
transpersonal.

"Now, the unfortunate result of extreme postmodernism was a

widespread invitation not just to go post-orange into green and even second
tier, but pre-orange into egocentrism, narcissism, and nihilism. This was an
engraved invitation for boomeritis to be king of the postmodern ball; the
invitation was eagerly accepted.

"The truly sad fact is that in denying all forms of subjectivity--and its
correlate responsibility--postmodernism invited, and often championed, a
psychological regression to narcissism. As the French critic Regis Debray
summarized the aftermath of the '68 student protests in both America and
Paris: 'The communion of egos on the barricades [became] generalized
egocentrism, the gift of self became the cult of me....' (Quoted in French
Philosophy of the Sixties, p. 45.)

"Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut point out that this regressive trend touched
virtually every aspect of postmodernism (in France and in America). It
wasn't just the going-beyond of the conventional ego, but its actual
disintegration, that let preconventional selves run rampant (especially
purple and red narcissism). 'It must seem paradoxical and problematical
that what passes for postmodernism... acquires the strange appearance of a
regression....

The hyperbolic affirmation of individuality set in motion a process that led

quite predictably in the direction of the disintegration of the Ego as
autonomous will [and, quoting Lipovetsky,] "would work toward the
crumbling of the Ego and the annihilation of organized and synthetic
psychic systems...." The philosophical sixties both initiated and accompanied
this process of the disintegration of the Ego.... Pulverized into tendencies no
longer seeking integration..., can this Ego, significantly called "exploded,"
really make a person?... By denouncing the illusions inherent in the ideal of a
"willed consciousness" [an autonomous subject in any form], which carried
with it the classical notion of subjectivity, the philosophies of 1968
participated in a no doubt unprecedented promotion of the values of
individualism [in the negative sense of egocentrism and narcissism. I have
juxtaposed several quotes from pages 227, 66, and 67 of French Philosophy of
the Sixties; the meanings are unaltered; italics added].

"The result, they conclude, is 'the Ego of contemporary narcissism...' (p.

65). Just that is the ultimate horror of the death of the subject in any form: for
in denying my own subject, I deny yours as well: I stop treating you as a
subject with dignity, with will and ideas and choices of your own (and for
which, of course, you are to some degree responsible, as I am for mine).
Without extending this dignity--and subjectivity--to other beings, then we are
indeed rancorously locked into our own pluralistic worlds, never to be
heard from again. Consensus is then impossible; shared human
perceptions are out of the question; deeper or higher realities binding us
together are viewed merely as an oppression of wonderful pluralism and
heterogeneity. And that is exactly what Lyotard would claim: 'Consensus
obtained through discussion? It violates the heterogeneity of language
games.'

"Ferry and Renaut are unsparing: that type of postmodernism dissolved

subjectivity into egocentrism, a regressive and narcissistic slide verging on
barbarism. 'The antihumanism of '68 philosophy opens onto "barbarism"...
insofar as all possibility of a real dialogue between consciousnesses, which
had been open to thinking of their differences on the basis of identity, is
destroyed by accusations brought against subjectivity [in all forms]: When
only exaggerated individual differences survive, then everyone's other
becomes "wholly other," the "barbarian"' (p. 120).

"Such noble intentions; such sad, ironic results. As Ferry and Renaut
themselves point out, these postmodernists ' produced exactly the opposite
of what they intended' (p. 48; italics added). They wanted to free individuals
from the prison of subjectivity, whereas they ended up encouraging its most
blatant and barbaric forms. This paradox has long been thought
puzzling, but it is, of course, simply the paradox of boomeritis: aims high,
ends low, with poststructural freedom inflaming prestructural barbarism."

13. p. 234/35: "Let me again quote the French scholars Ferry and Renaut:
'The style of the sixties... can be grouped around a pathos of
victimization.'"

Kim's margin notes: " French Philosophy of the Sixties, p. 14." Lesa Powell
continued (from Kim's notes):

"Note also that, as Cook-Greuter pointed out, the green individualistic

self tends to see orange conspiracies everywhere (see IC lecture 4). This is
not to deny that humans are involved in rich webs of relationships. It is to
deny that that is all they are. Instead, human beings are holons, or agency-
in-communion. Postmodernism denied the agency and emphasized
solely the networks of communions, either as linguistic systems or as
sliding chains of signifiers--and thus denied agency and
responsibility, and hence inadvertently ended up supporting victim
chic.

"Small wonder that postmodernism has actually been brought into the
legal system to explain why none of the various criminals are responsible
for their actions. Since in reality we are all nothing but parts of a web of
relationships, then the web of relationships is actually to blame. 'When a
suburban Philadelphia woman dressed in army fatigues went on a shooting
rampage in a shopping mall, killing and wounding several people before
being captured, [Swarthmore College psychology professor Kenneth]
Gergen insisted that society should apply a "postmodern" concept of justice
to the case. In Gergen's view, this means recognizing that "the concept of the
individual who chooses wrong loses tenability."' The death of the subject,
you see. Thus, blame 'should not be attributed to the individual alone
but to the array of relationships in which he or she is a part.'

"Gergen goes on to point out that the idea is 'to vitally expand the
sensitivity to the network of relations in which we participate'--a network
we can therefore sue the daylights out of if anything goes wrong. Gergen
notes with great satisfaction that, in the case of the woman who opened fire
on the mall, 'Lawyers have broadly extended the network of responsibility,
bringing suit against mental health officials who knew of her distraught
condition, the local police department... the shopping mall... the shop
which sold her a weapon, and so on.'

"Of course the self is embedded in endless networks of relationship, and

of course those relationships are partially constitutive of the self.
Nonetheless, the self is also a focal point of consciousness, will, and
relative autonomy, and as such, the adult self is responsible
for its general behavior (barring severe and specific dissociative
pathology, which affects, not 374% of the population, but less than 1%).
Were I Gergen, I might pause to reflect that, with only six degrees of
separation, Gergen himself, if what he is saying is true, will soon enough be
found guilty for all those shootings."

14. p. 237: "'Only genuine victims can claim "sensitivity" and "authenticity"...
in which victim status and the insistent demands for sensitivity are played
as trump cards....'"

Carlton continued reading (from Kim's notes): "'Victimspeak,' says Sykes,

'is the trigger that permits the unleashing of an emotional and self-righteous
response to any perceived slight. Victimspeak insists upon moral superiority
and moral absolutism and thus tends to put an abrupt end to conversation;
the threat of its deployment is usually enough to keep others from even
considering raising a controversial subject. Ironically, this style of linguistic
bullying often parades under the banner of 'sensitivity'" ( A Nation of Victims,
p. 17).

15. p. 237: "This implies... 'the opinions, feelings, and prejudices of private
individuals are a legitimate target of political action.... The effort to control
not only the behavior of citizens, but the thoughts and feelings of persons.'"

Kim's margin notes: "Quoted in A Nation of Victims, p. 167."

16. p. 238: "'In almost every case,' as one reporter notes...'The listed effects
of such intangible harassment include... a sense of embarrassment from
being ridiculed.'"

Kim's margin notes: " A Nation of Victims, p. 171."

17. p. 239: "Carlton threw her arms up... the audience squirmed
uncomfortably."

Margaret Carlton continued (from Kim's notes): "For example--and

people, please, look what is happening here--in the late 1980s, the University
of Michigan adopted a sweeping 'speech code.' Students were warned that
they could be suspended or expelled for any act, 'verbal or physical, that
stigmatizes or victimizes an individual on the basis of race, ethnicity,
religion, sex, sexual orientation, creed, national origin, ancestry, age, marital
status, handicap....' Because the policy was so broad--and vague--it raised
the obvious question of how it would be enforced. How would students
know exactly what constituted stigmatizing someone on the basis of, say,
'ancestry'? More important, what proof of offense would be needed? The
university's answer was direct: No proof is needed.'

"Why was no corroborating evidence required? 'Experience at the

university,' a UM publication explained, 'has been that people almost never
make false complaints about discrimination.' That included incidents where
there were no witnesses. In all such cases, the accused is presumed guilty.
Since the crime is hurt feelings, the only evidence required is the hurt
feelings."

18. p. 240: "Carlton finished... I put a copy in my notebooks."

Margaret Carlton on multiculturalism and the politics of recognition

(from Kim's notes; Kim's comment in the margin says: "This topic is
continued with Lesa Powell's lecture, note 23").

"We have seen that, according to virtually all schools of developmental

psychology, the postconventional waves of selfhood and identity (orange,
green, and integral) all rest on an ethnocentric, conventional, blue-meme
base. That is, the individual self rests upon--and grows out of--a network of
conventional dialogue, membership, and shared experiences. G. H. Mead
called this 'the generalized other,' which means that the subjective self is
actually formed in an intersubjective process of dialogue and common
recognition. (The cases of 'wolf boy'--humans raised in the wild--show that
a human being, left on its own, will not develop a personal self.) I can only
become aware of myself as a person in a community of others who
recognize me as a person. That is, I have to be able to take the role of
others--and see how they see me--in order for me to see myself as well!
Thus, my very identity is formed through a process of reciprocal
recognition with the cultures and subcultures in which I find myself.
Moreover, out of this ethnocentric blue-meme foundation, a more expansive
postconventional identity (orange and higher) can then be formed. In all
cases, a cherishing of ethnocentric roots is indispensable for further growth,
and thus a society ought to attempt to accommodate a multicultural richness
on the way to a worldcentric compassion.

"Agency-in-communion (and intersubjectivity) is true at all levels of the

spectrum, but becomes especially foundational at blue. That's an
important technical point. In this argument I am not saying that it is only at
blue that intersubjective processes become important, because
intersubjectivity itself (the Lower-Left quadrant) goes all the way up, all the
way down. But at blue, or mythic-membership, these intersubjective
structures and processes are especially crucial, because they help to define
the specific cultural forms that will mold subsequent development.

"That is another important truth contained in multiculturalism and what

has been called the 'politics of recognition.' Since my identity is formed in
part by exchanges with the surrounding culture, then if that culture treats
me in a demeaning and degrading fashion, my very identity might be
crippled from the start. As one scholar summarized this view, 'The thesis is
that our identity is partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often by the
misrecognition of others, and so a person or group of people can suffer real
damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to
them a confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves'
(Charles Taylor, in Gutmann, ed., Multiculturalism and the Politics of
Recognition, p. 25).

"All of which is generally true, I believe. But then the further claim is
made that, since the attitudes of the dominate culture can cripple the
identity of the minority, then the attitude of the larger culture must be
changed to an attitude of mutual respect--not just tolerance, but
respect. And here the multicultural argument once again slides into
extremes, driven by a noble green intention gummed up with grandiose
dreams. A society can definitely legislate tolerance, which applies
mostly to exterior behavior (I don't have to like you, but I am not allowed
to kill you). But a society cannot legislate respect, compassion, or
love, which apply to interior psychological states, not exterior behavior. In
fact, as we saw with Carol Gilligan, mutual (nonethnocentric) care and
respect come into full blossom only in the postconventional waves of
development--which is less than 20% of the American population.
(Depending on the developmental scale that is used, the percentage of the
adult American population at a stable postconventional moral level is
anywhere from 10% to 30%; the most adequate generalization is less than
20%.)

"The green meme, once again, is taking some of its own characteristics
and attempting to foist them on the population at large, without taking into
account the realities of the situation or the actual effect on most people. For
the actual affect of multiculturalism and the politics of recognition, as
generally preached, is to simply encourage fixation and/or regression to
ethnocentric blue-meme identities. Not a way to honor our ethnocentric blue-
meme roots and then from there to move into a worldcentric,
postconventional, and mutual respect for all peoples, but simply a way to
remain ecstatically mired in our ethnocentric identities and grotesque
prejudices: there is the actual effect of multiculturalism as generally
preached by the green meme and as made a rapturous religion of
fragmentation by the boomeritis version.

"If we truly want a society based on the politics of mutual recognition,

then we must not simply demand that everybody be the sensitive green
self, but rather find ways to help people grow and develop to the sensitive
green self (and even higher). This requires at least six stages of hierarchical
growth--a hierarchical growth that green aggressively denies (because green
misguidedly rejects all hierarchies). Thus green is actively fighting the path
to green--and then persecuting people who are not green!

"Well, this boomeritis version of multiculturalism has seized control

in liberal politics, in education, and in social services. It has become the
lingua franca of the mean green meme; to challenge it is to suffer the wrath
of the kindly Inquisitors. Jeremy Bernstein is surely right when he says, of
this 'ideological multiculturalism' (which champions ethnocentrism as an
end in itself and not as means to worldcentric compassion), 'The fact is
that assaulting the establishment, declaiming against the racism and sexism
of society, reiterating the approved phrases about oppression and exclusion,
promising to uncover previously neglected worlds, these require not a jot of
courage these days. These are the sanctioned activities of the counter-
establishment, the gestures and idioms that gain approval and lead to good
opportunities, to jobs, to prizes, to book contracts. It takes no bravery to be a
multiculturalist.... Indeed, courage is now required to transgress the
dictatorship of virtue' ( The Dictatorship of Virtue, p. 344).

19. p. 241: "'Today's obsession with difference is distinguished by...

"essentialists".'"

Kim's margin notes: " The Twilight of Common Dreams, p. 164."

20. p. 241: "As one critic puts it, 'Today's obsession with difference...
cultivate a rapture of marginality in the protected enclaves of the academy.'"

Kim's margin notes: " The Twilight of Common Dreams, p. 149. See
Professing Feminism, by Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, for an insightful
look at professorial feminism."

21. p. 241: "Powell paused... She smiled."

Powell added (from Kim's notes): "In all of this, isn't the regression
obvious? The regressive trend from worldcentric to ethnocentric is hard to
miss, even by reporters who do not couch it specifically in those terms:
'There was a swerve, in short, toward conventional interest-group politics,
paralleling the philosophical swerve from universalism (worldcentric) to the
denial that any but group-bounded perspectives were possible
(ethnocentric). The universalism of the early women's movement, which
sought for women the rights and powers guaranteed for all by the
Enlightenment, yielded to a preoccupation with the inner life of feminism
and the distinct needs of feminists. So, too, with people of color, especially
blacks--the swerve from civil rights, emphasizing a universal condition and
universalizable rights, to cultural separatism, emphasizing difference and
distinct needs.'" The Twilight of Common Dreams, p. 153.

22. p. 241: "... as David Berreby puts it, 'Americans have a standard playbook
for creating a political-cultural identity... changing how the group is seen by
those outside it, for instance.'"

Kim's margin notes: " The Sciences, March/April 1997."

23. p. 241: "It's just that... I attempt to salvage my ethnocentric identity in a

way that effectively sabotages, destroys, its very acknowledgment."

Lesa Powell (from Kim's notes; her margin comment says, "This is the
follow-up to Carlton's points, note 18").

"Kwame Appiah, Professor of Afro-American studies and Philosophy at

Harvard, points out that when individuals define themselves merely in
ethnocentric terms, such an identity cripples--actually sabotages--their own
growth to autonomy and full self-realization. His argument is compelling,
sophisticated, and complex--but we can summarize it simply by saying that,
if you wish to remain identified merely with your blue meme, then you will
never find your own orange, green, or integral capacities. This is not to say
you should demean blue, deny it, or oppress it, obviously; only that it
should, as always, be transcended and included in your own--and your
culture's own--ongoing growth and development. Appiah agrees that if any
ethnic groups have been disadvantaged, then that disadvantage should be
directly and compassionately addressed, which might include a type of
politics of recognition. But if that is where the story ends, then we have
simply ' replaced one kind of tyranny with another.' (In Charles Taylor et al.,
Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition.) Yet such tyranny is the
inevitable shadow of boomeritis pluralism.

"In that book-- Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition--Charles

Taylor advances an argument for multiculturalism that includes the
segregated preservation of ethnic cultures, an argument that is rejected
by Appiah and by Jürgen Habermas (in the same volume). I agree with
Appiah and Habermas, for the reasons they state, but I add another: Taylor
argues that mutual recognition is a necessary fact in the healthy formation
of identity; that any dialogues that are not mutually respectful can cripple
and deform identity; since everybody is potentially capable of a dialogue of
rational exchange of mutual respect, then everybody should be accorded
equal respect. But potential dialogues cannot have an effect on actual identity.
And it does no good to simply declare that somebody has a potential for
mutual recognition, for that is not sufficient to generate actual mutual
respect. In fact, the portion of the population actually capable of
postconventional mutual recognition is less than 20%, as we have often
seen. Therefore any democratic society cannot, at this time, make mutual
recognition a foundation for politics. Mutual tolerance, which
demands only behavioral conformity, can--and should--be a foundation; but
mutual respect--which demands interior growth--cannot be
legislated.

"Moreover, since such a small percentage of the population are at

postconventional mutual respect, such respect is clearly not necessary for
self development. In fact, truly great selves are often born from rising
above the brutalities of their origins. It is true that a self is always a self-in-
relationship (agency-in-communion; see note 12), but the self also has a
degree of transcendence, wherein lies its potential greatness. How could we
ever have produced a Martin Luther King, Jr., if mutual respect were
necessary for good development? The fact is, genuine respect is merely one
of dozens of factors affecting development. Of course I am in favor of it; but
making it the most important factor or even the sole factor is misguided.

"That all individuals would grow to a postconventional level of mutual

respect is an ideal I hope eventually comes to pass; but it is not an ideal that
can presently be the basis of a constitutional democracy, because in the
large majority of the population, this is a potential, not an actual. The only
type of politics of recognition that we can have at this point is one that is
put into play by the present democratic citizenship of equal rights and
responsibilities, behavioristically grounded, not ethnocentrically
preserving or promoting.

"This conclusion is similar to that reached by Appiah and by Habermas,

summarized by Amy Gutmann as follows: 'Can there be a politics of
recognition that respects a multitude of multicultural identities and does not
script too tightly any one life? Both Appiah and Habermas... point to the
possibility that some form of constitutional democracy may offer such a
politics, based not on class, race, ethnicity, gender, or nationality, but rather
on a democratic citizenship of equal liberties, opportunities, and
responsibilities for individuals.' I agree.

"Further, as Habermas points out, the potential for a type of respect for
multiculturalism is already in place with the system of liberal rights in
constitutional democracies, even if it needs to be continually unfolded and
correctly understood. Any further rights--such as legally protecting the
existence of certain ethnic cultures--are not only not necessary, they would
actually cripple the free choices of those ethnic cultures, thus destroying their
own authenticity.

"Again I agree. I would only add that, ideally, any multicultural culture
would be based on the Prime Directive, not originating as a legislation but
as spontaneously embodied in postconventional development
among citizens. This would encourage all individuals to grow and develop
to those waves of existence where mutual respect can become a genuine
reality, not a vague wish or cultural pretension, and such development
would eventually find its way into uncoerced substantive legislation arrived
at through procedural means. This is, in a sense, a middle way between
those who wish a procedural republic of mere rights, and those who wish to
specify a substantive form of the good life which democracies should
politically inculcate as responsibilities. This middle way suggests that the
development of consciousness brings individuals to a point where the procedural
republic will be postconventional in crucial ways, resulting in a substantive
version of the good life that protects everybody's version of the good life. We
cannot impose on people, nor legislate for, the capacity for
postconventional care and compassion. We can only provide the
circumstances--educational, cultural, political--that will allow (but not
demand) the most number of people to develop to the postconventional
waves of existence, at which point the democratic system of rights and
responsibilities will ensure, to the degree it is pragmatically possible, the
best versions of the good life available, arrived at through procedural
means, thus uniting substantive good life with a procedural republic
(without regressing to blue-meme versions of the good life that wish to
impose their versions of the good life on others. This is a postliberal, not
preliberal, substantive stance)."

24. p. 242: "True pluralism... is not ethnocentric pluralism but

universal pluralism."

Lesa Powell continued (from Kim's notes):

"Universal pluralism or integral pluralism has also been

technically called 'integral-aperspectival,' which means that rich
multicultural differences are cherished within a worldcentric universal space,
in contrast to ethnocentric pluralism or pathological pluralism--or
boomeritis pluralism--which recognizes only the aperspectival, but not the
integral, not the universal, not the worldcentric.

"The book Beyond All Reason: The Radical Assault on Truth in American
Law, by respected law professors Daniel Farber and Suzanna Sherry, is a
careful overview of boomeritis pluralism--which they call 'radical
multiculturalism'--in the American legal system, and is highly
recommended. Farber and Sherry particularly focus on critical race theory
(e.g., Derrick Bell, Richard Delgado), radical legal feminists (Kathryn
Abrams, Robin West, Catherine McKinnon), and critical legal studies. As
legal theorist Richard Posner says in his review of the book ('The Skin
Trade,' The New Republic, Oct. 13, 1997), 'The postmodern left is radically
multiculturalist, but it is more, for the 'West' that it denigrates is not
historically specific; it encompasses liberalism, capitalism, individualism, the
Enlightenment, logic, and science, the values associated with the Judeo-
Christian tradition, the concept of personal merit, and the possibility of
objective knowledge. The postmodern left is well ensconced in American
universities....'

"'The most useful service that Beyond All Reason performs,' Posner
concludes, 'is to cull from the extensive publications of the [radical
multiculturalists] representative statements, such as that "racism and the
Enlightenment are the same thing," or that "if you are black or Mexican, you
should flee Enlightenment-based democracies like mad, assuming you have
any choice."' To which Posner adds, 'Flee to where, I wonder?'"

25. p. 243: "Maya Angelou: '...This man, not born white, not born free, said I
am a human being.'"

Kim's margin notes: "Discussion in the Shambhala Sun, January 1998."

Chapter 7.
The_Conquest_of_Paradise@Myth
sAreUs.net
1. p. 254/55: "But from the very high developmental stance of the green
wave of postformal pluralism... the death and dismantling of the allegedly
evil force."

Lesa Powell continued (from Kim's notes):

"And so it came about that--just as preconventional anything was

celebrated as postconventional freedom--so, too, almost anything
postmodern fell in love with almost anything premodern. In doing so, these
theorists once again proceeded on the basis of a double confusion: they
robbed modernity of any of its liberating contributions, and they invented
for premodernity various glories it did not possess. The totalizing critique
of modernity (as with the totalizing critique of autonomy and rationality--
see note 12 for lecture 6) was carried to absurd, bizarre, and self-
contradictory extremes, thus sucking from modernity its many undeniable
honors, such as the rise of representative democracies, feminism, ecological
sciences, medical breakthroughs, and an increase in lifespan of an
astonishing three decades. And although many premodern societies were
cultures of beauty and sophistication--and extraordinary sources of spiritual
wisdom--none of them possessed the widespread characteristics of
postformal pluralism ascribed to them by the haters of modernity.

"Almost all forms of cultural studies--from boomeritis feminism to

boomeritis ecology--commit variations of this pre/post confusion. Most of
them claim, for example, that at some time in the historical past, there
existed some sort of pluralistic Eden not corrupted by oppression and
fragmentation. For deep ecologists, it was the foraging era. For ecofeminists,
it was the horticultural era. For philosophers of the flesh, it was anything
prior to Descartes. But all of those 'Edens' were preformal, not postformal.
And the freedoms that they possessed were idiosyncratic (confined to their
own systems), not pluralistic (or honoring the views of all other systems),
which is precisely why everything from feminism to the abolition of slavery
to the ecological sciences arose only in formal-to-postformal times. Not a
single case has been demonstrated of widespread, intersystemic, postformal
pluralism in foraging, horticultural, or agrarian times.

"Hence, the curious internal tension of the retro-Romantic stance that

colors so much of boomeritis: postformal pluralism existed nowhere in
history to any large degree, but since the assumption is that where pluralism
is not, oppression must be, then boomeritis is forced to see the inequality
that is inherent in preformal conditions as being the oppression of a
postformality that actually was nowhere to be found, let alone oppressed.
This forces boomeritis to advocate the recapture of precisely those preformal
items that would in fact destroy postformal pluralism. Under those
conditions, the salvation offered by boomeritis is in fact deeply reactionary.
It is a course of action that, it seems, is pulled back into preconventional
modes precisely by the narcissism lying therein."

2. p. 259: "'Human sacrifice was practiced by the Aztecs of Mexico... two

pregnant women and several children.'"

Kim's margin notes: "Keith Windschuttle, The Killing of History, p. 61."

3. p. 260: "'The killings,' reports Clendinnen, '... allies and enemies alike,
were routinely present.'"

Kim's margin notes: "Inga Clendinnen, Aztecs, p. 92."

4. p. 260: "'The victim walked or was dragged... the parts were cooked and
eaten.'"

Kim's margin notes: " The Killing of History, p. 64."

5. p. 260: "'A priest would... continue the ceremony.'"

Kim's margin notes: " The Killing of History, p. 64."

6. p. 261: "'Then,' reports Clendinnen, '... one thigh was reserved to be

fashioned into a face-mask for the man impersonating Centeotl, Young Lord
Maize Cob, the son of Toci.'"

Kim's margin notes: " Aztecs, p. 201."

7. p. 261: "It served various important functions for that meme... starting
perhaps as early as 10,000 B.C.E."

Van Cleef added (from Kim notes): "See Up from Eden. Cases of human
sacrifice have been reported in foraging societies, but it does not seem to
have been a widespread practice. Planting (horticulture) and the need to
take magical steps to insure the crops seems to have been an important
ingredient, which is why sacrifice is quite common in Great Mother
societies. See René Girard, Violence and the Sacred; Patrick Tierney, The
Highest Altar."

8. p. 261: "'Not all of those executed were outsiders... The children, who
knew their fate, also wept.'"

Kim's margin notes: " The Killing of History, p. 64."

9. p. 266: "'The deciphering of Mayan glyphs... revolved around the

obsessive need for sacrificial victims.'"

Kim's margin notes: "Patrick Tierney, The Highest Altar, p. 12."

10. p. 266: "Maya were peace-loving, deeply spiritual... (... as a typical
account put it)."

Carla Fuentes added, "See Calvin Martin, The Way of Being Human, which
is a boomeritis account of the indigenous mind, and is a good summary of
this approach."

11. p. 266: "As a recent scholar noted, with some astonishment, 'This... was
accepted.'"

Kim's margin notes: "Schele and Miller, The Blood of Kings, p. 19."

12. p. 267: "'First of all,' concludes Michael Coe of Yale University, "... they
certainly never inflicted upon their victims the degree of torture and
mutilation that were characteristic of Maya sacrifice.'"

Kim's margin notes: " The Blood of Kings, p. 4."

13. p. 267: "Schele and Miller describe one scene... In contrast, the quick
deliberate heart excision practiced by the Aztecs can be regarded as a
merciful act.'"

Kim's margin notes: " The Blood of Kings, p. 217."

14. p. 268: "... the Druids seemed to prefer a 'disproportionate number of

children'..."

Kim's margin notes: " The Highest Altar, p. 14."

15. p. 269: "'The popular assumption... European intellectuals adopted the

Inca Empire as a model of sorts for their own visions of enlightened
socialism.'"

Kim's margin notes: " The Highest Altar, p. 29."

16. p. 269: "'Scholars now believe human sacrifice played a crucial role...
from Ecuador to Chile.'"

Kim's margin notes: " The Highest Altar, p. 29."

17. p. 269: "'Once unacceptable sacrifices were weeded out... The Incas used
many methods of sacrifice, including... tearing out the heart, and burying
alive.'"

Kim's margin notes: " The Highest Altar, p. 28."

18. p. 269: "'Scholars are just beginning to realize how widespread and
varied human sacrifice was in the Andes... in case of good omens, in case of
bad omens.'"

Kim's margin notes: " The Highest Altar, p. 45."

19. p. 270: "In North America, human sacrifice was practiced by the Heron
and Pawnee tribes..."

Kim's margin notes: " The Killing of History, p. 60."

20. p. 270: "'The Anasazi... were believed to be profoundly spiritual, and to

live in harmony with nature.'"

Kim's margin notes: "Douglas Preston, 'Cannibals of the Canyon,' New

Yorker, Nov. 30, 1998."

21. p. 270/71: "'The Anasazi captured the fancy of people... seeking a

spirituality outside Western civilization.'"

Kim's margin notes: "Douglas Preston, 'Cannibals of the Canyon,' New

Yorker, Nov. 30, 1998."

22. p. 272: "The so-called American Paradise (North, Central, and South)
was... precisely like all other foraging and horticultural societies the world over."

Kim's margin notes: "See Up from Eden and Lenski, Nolan, and Lenski,
Human Societies."

23. p. 272: "I will present an overview of the wisdom in a handout."

Carla Fuentes handed out this leaflet:

The model of cultural development that is presented in Up from Eden,

written by one of our IC colleagues, has (at least) two major strands for any
culture at any given time: the average mode and the most advanced
mode. In the main lecture I am discussing the average mode. What many
people have a hard time appreciating is that societies whose average mode
included such shocking (to us) practices as human sacrifice, could also have
a few highly evolved practices and accomplishments (just like today's
capitalistic society can have a few Zen masters). This particularly includes
spiritual realizations of the elite (such as various shamans, yogis, saints, and
sages). There is suggestive evidence, for example, that a few of the Maya
understood and practiced a preliminary form of kundalini yoga. Mayan
shamans (often through bloodletting, fasting, vision quest, and other
practices) apparently could arouse to some degree the kundalini power and
use the resultant visions as a bridge to the spiritual domain. Many of these
types of practices are explained in Up from Eden. Thus, it is absolutely not the
case that we here at IC deny genuine spiritual insights to the magic and
mythic cultures; only that their attainment was relatively rare--they
belonged to the most advanced mode of that culture, not to the average
mode. These most-advanced spiritual insights are still a source of wisdom
for the modern and postmodern world. In this present lecture I am trying to
draw a more accurate and balanced portrait of their cultures at large, whose
average mode most definitely included the gruesome practices outlined in
the main lecture. See Up from Eden for an account of both average and
advanced waves in each major epoch; see the Introductions to volumes 2
and 3 of the Collective Works for a discussion of advanced-shamanic waves
appearing during average-magic times; and see Integral Psychology for an
explanation of why contacting higher altered states does NOT involve
skipping stages."

24. p. 272: "I have written similar accounts of horticultural societies around
the world, many of which practiced human sacrifice and slash-and-burn
ecology."

Kim's margin notes: "See Carla Fuentes, The Myth of Primitive Paradise:
Human Sacrifice and the Building of Civilization: A Post-Postmodern Feel of the
Evidence (New York: Pretence-Hall, 2002)."

25. p. 272: "Many of my IC colleagues have written on the topic as well."

Kim's margin notes: "See Up from Eden; Sex, Ecology, Spirituality; A Brief
History of Everything." Another note cryptically says, "See Boomeritis."

26. p. 273: "I am claiming, rather, a multi-cultural equality in barbarity."

 Carla Fuentes added (from Kim's notes): "And not even barbarity: these
types of human sacrifices were normal, healthy behavior for that meme, at
that time. Why? As one of my colleagues explained in Up from Eden, a book
that summarizes a great deal of theory and research on this topic, the magic-
to-mythic worldview (the purple-to-red meme) sees animal sacrifice--human
and otherwise--as an intrinsic part of nature's economy, a barter system of
life and blood where, if your life is to continue, somebody's else blood must
be spilled. Human sacrifice was particularly common in planting, matrifocal,
horticultural societies, because the Great Mother demands blood to
magically bring forth new crops. The pre-Colombian American horticultural
societies were somewhat unique in that human sacrifice was also to a sun
god or mountain god. But the magically divine powers--whether of the earth
or of heaven--demand blood for life and prosperity, and if you want either,
you must pay with blood--and if you don't want the blood to be yours, it
must be somebody else's, hence the ritual sacrifice."

27. p. 276: "There are two major views... the recaptured goodness model, and
the growth to goodness model."

Powell added, "See One Taste, December 10 entry, for a discussion of both
the growth-to-goodness and recaptured-goodness models."

28. p. 277: "A substantial amount of psychological research has concluded

that both of those views are, as it were, partially right."

Powell added, "See Integral Psychology for a summary of the research

bearing on this issue."

29. p. 277: "Thus therapy, in these cases, involves... the lost potentials of
childhood, which are not postconventional, but preconventional."

Lesa Powell (from Kim's notes): "As for the possible existence of
childhood spirituality, see Integral Psychology, chapter 11, 'Is There a
Childhood Spirituality?' See Sidebar D for a summary of this debate ('Do
infants and children have access to any sort of genuine spirituality?') and an
integral model that incorporates the essentials of both sides of the
argument."

30. p. 278: "In fact, he actually made fun of it... with a series of very witty
remarks."
 Kim's margin notes: "For further discussion of Foucault's retraction, see
note 12 for lecture 6."

31. p. 278: "Powell once again launched into a scathing intellectual fury of
analysis, virtually none of which I understood."

Lesa Powell continued (from Kim's notes):

"Dr. Morin previously emphasized that cultural studies committed a

double sin: it robbed modern rationality of credit for any of its emancipatory
accomplishments (from abolition to feminism to ecological sciences), and it
gave to prerationality a liberating force it does not, and never did, possess.
French historians Gauchet and Swain, in carefully going over Foucault's
early work, strongly concluded that it suffers 'a twofold illusion'--an illusion
about modernity (denying something that it actually accomplished), and an
illusion about premodernity (giving it something that it did not possess)--
precisely the double confusion Morin suggested. Their carefully researched
examples:

"With regard to mental illness, Foucault had eulogized premodern

societies because madmen were tolerated and allowed to roam free; they
were not locked up or incarcerated. But this rests on 'an illusion about
preclassical societies. If the madman was tolerated by traditional societies, it
was not because those societies were "better," more tolerant, or, if you wish,
less "metaphysical." On the contrary, it was because these societies were
fundamentally inegalitarian and hierarchical'--dominator hierarchies, not
actualization hierarchies--and thus 'the madman was indeed tolerated, but
the toleration was based on the implicit affirmation of his absolute difference
from the rest of humanity.... So children were allowed to chase madmen
through the streets, throw rocks at them, and make fun of them.'"

Powell's voice rose to an impassioned pitch. "That cruel treatment of the

so-called Other of rationality is exactly what modernity in fact halted. In
denying this, Foucault was guilty of 'an illusion about modern societies. If
madness began to be a problem with the rise of democratic, egalitarian
modernity, it was not because the madman was the Other but because... he
had to be thought of as the same, as another man'--another human being, and
not subhuman chattel. Thus, in these important areas, modernity begins the
cure of exactly what it is misguidedly accused of causing."

32. p. 278: "' Modern history is a history of integration, not exclusion.'"

 Kim's notes: "These quotes, on Gauchet and Swain, are Ferry and
Renaut's summary of their research, all from chapter 3 of French Philosophy of
the Sixties. Also, see the 'Other of myth' notes: notes 1 and 4 for lecture 6, and
note 9 for lecture 4."

33. p. 279: "... In the other direction, in a growth-to-goodness into

postconventional, second-tier, integral goodness."

Lesa Powell continued (from Kim's notes):

"The true part of the recaptured-goodness model is that at any of the

stages of growth--purple to red to blue to orange to green to integral--the
potentials of those stages can be repressed, oppressed, alienated,
fragmented. 'Therapia' then involves a recontacting, a releasing, a liberating
of the repressed potentials--a regression in service of further growth. The
main 'problem' with the Enlightenment was not the emergence of rationality
(orange)--that, in fact, was one of its extraordinary accomplishments--but a
rationality that was captured by empiricism and positivism and thus
reduced to instrumental rationality (monological, not dialogical): what we at
IC call 'flatland.' The other potentials of reason (dialogical, communicative,
moral, practical) were thus buried, became atrophied and withered. The
'therapia' for this is not regression to red or purple--recommended by
Romantics and eco-primitivists--but recontacting the lost potentials of
reason and carrying them forward into second-tier integral embrace. See The
Marriage of Sense and Soul and Sex, Ecology, Spirituality.

"Are there any aspects of purple and red cultures that were spiritual?
Certainly. See note 23 above. As for the forms of childhood spirituality, see
Integral Psychology, chapter 11, 'Is There a Childhood Spirituality?' See also
Sidebar D: 'Childhood Spirituality,' for a summary of all the relevant points
about this important issue."

34. p. 280: "'Behind the walls of the asylum... power is bad... what power is
exercised over is good, fine, rich': exactly the hurrahs of the recaptured
goodness fever."

Kim's margin notes: "Quoted in French Philosophy of the Sixties, p. 71."

35. p. 281/82: "'Those who worry that the industrial system... is actually "out
there" and not simply a "construction" of imperial egos.'"
 Kim's margin notes: " The Twilight of Common Dreams, p. 214."

36. p. 282: "Likewise, 'The most passionate critic of "male" science believes
that she should step out of the way of an oncoming bus, whether or not she
believes in the Cartesian mind-body split.'"

Kim's margin notes: " The Twilight of Common Dreams, p. 202."

37. p. 282: "That these components - objective and interpretive - can

never be separated does not mean that all facts are merely
interpretations."

Jefferson continued (from Kim's notes):

"This view is technically called 'all-quadrant,' which maintains that all

occasions actually have (at least) four aspects or dimensions: intentional,
cultural, behavioral, and social. The interior dimensions are generally
interpretive, and the exterior dimensions are generally
objective/empirical. For simplicity, we call the former 'interpretations'
and the latter 'facts'--the point is that facts and interpretations can never
be separated in reality, and all occasions have factual/objective
aspects (Right Hand) and interior/interpretive aspects (Left Hand).
Positivism attempts to have facts without interpretations, and
postmodernism attempts to have interpretations without facts: both are
broken. See The Marriage of Sense and Soul and A Brief History of Everything.
For integral interpretation--the specific ways and tools for interpreting texts,
history, symbolic meaning, art, linguistics, and so on, according to an 'all-
quadrants, all-levels, all-lines, all-states' approach (what we call an 'integral
semiotics')--see The Eye of Spirit, chapters 4 and 5, especially endnotes."

38. p. 284: "'I have always put it to my undergraduate students... that any
history they make will be fiction - not fantasy, fiction, something sculpted to
its expressive purpose.'"

Kim's margin notes: "Quoted in The Killing of History, p. 74."

39. p. 286: "But precisely 'because of this dissociation of facts... that no norms
need be imposed institutionally on the play of desire, for example, was
gradually developing.'"

Kim's margin notes: " French Philosophy of the Sixties, p. 62."

40. p. 286: "That is... 'Nobody tells me what to do!'"

Kim's notes: "See lecture 9 for a discussion of Nagel and McGuinn."

41.p. 288: "As Ferry and Renaut point out, 'From the disintegration of norms
to the rise of neonihilism... demonstrates one of the reasons for the
decomposition we saw in May '68.'"

Kim's margin notes: " French Philosophy of the Sixties, p. 62."

42. p. 288: "'It must seem paradoxical... for postmodernism acquires the
strange appearance of a regression.'"

Kim's margin notes: " French Philosophy of the Sixties, p. 227."

43. p. 288: "Had this lopsided view not been made to order for boomeritis, it
would never have taken hold in such a widespread fashion, so palpably
false it is."

Mark Jefferson's entire statement on this issue (from Kim's notes):

"On the intellectual front, this slide into word magic with no reference to
facts was sustained by a single illusion: extreme postmodernism imagined
that the verbal dimension of humans is the only dimension we have. (Hence
word magic rules, since verbal interpretations alone would constitute
reality). The claim was constantly made that there are no extra-linguistic
realities available to men and women (no realities outside of language).
JACQUES DERRIDA's famous announcement that 'there is nothing
outside the text' was taken to mean that there is no objective reality, only
our linguistic interpretations. The common battlecry was 'Discourse all the
way down'--that is, there are only linguistic interpretations all the way down,
and we never run into facts at all. Moreover, these discourses, it was stoutly
believed, always represented a particular interest, prejudice, or veiled form
of power (except for the discourses of these postmodernists, which are clean
and pure and power-free). Yet, in actuality, since every knowing contains
both interpretations and facts, then nothing but discourse all the way down
really means nothing but pathology all the way down.

"Had this lopsided view not been made to order for boomeritis, it would
never have taken hold in such a widespread fashion. Not only are there
preverbal realities, there are transverbal ones as well, and the fact that verbal
interpretation inescapably touches them all does not mean it creates them
all.

"An 18-month-old child has an elaborate conception of object

permanence; her behavior indicates that she recognizes separate objects
existing in space and enduring in time; she grasps numerous sensorimotor
objects and actual occasions--but she has no linguistic or verbal structures at
all! And she certainly has not learned the horrid Newtonian-Cartesian
paradigm. Rather, the archaic-beige worldview, with its sensorimotor
realities, is largely preverbal, and we continue to have access to that basic set
of sensorimotor perceptions all the time (as do most other animals; even a
camera will photograph sensorimotor objects--a rock, tree, an oncoming bus-
-and a camera can't interpret anything: it's a little short on discourse).
Moreover, in certain advanced states of meditation, the verbal mind
becomes still and quiet, and we are ushered into states of transverbal
awareness. That both preverbal and transverbal realities are intimately
intertwined with our verbal interpretations of them, does not mean those
realities are not there!"

44. p. 288/89: "Dening's thesis that... history is not a process in which

objective knowledge is discovered and accumulated."

Kim's margin notes: " The Killing of History, p. 75."

45. p. 289/90: "To argue that Bligh was less violent, Dening does not put
forward... his case is self-contradictory."

Kim's margin notes: " The Killing of History, p. 76."

46. p. 290: "Second-tier integralism points out that both of these positions are
important and in any event inescapable."

Jefferson added (from Kim's notes):

"There has been a concerted effort to find a middle way between facts
and fiction, history and myth, positivism and constructivism, only facts and
only interpretations. See, for example, P. Novick, That Noble Dream; J.
Appleby, L. Hunt, and M. Jacob, Telling the Truth about History; J. Chandler et
al., Questions of Evidence; L. Gossman, Between History and Literature; G.
Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century. Most offer a reduced but
workable objectivity and practical realism coupled with an understanding of
the inevitability of historical and contextual situatedness. However, what all
of those lack is an integral framework that can support their otherwise
admirably balanced approaches. I recommend an 'all-quadrants, all-levels,
all-lines, all-states, all-types' approach, which is summarized in Sidebar A:
'Integral Historiography.'"

47. p. 291: " All of that needs to be taken into account for more integral
interpretations of history."

Jefferson continued (from Kim's notes):

"But even when we claim that humans are always culturally situated--and
they are--we are making universal factual claims that are not open to
interpretation. Likewise with the sensorimotor realm itself, which is the field
of universal scientific facts (both Hindu water and Muslim water have two
hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom). But the green meme, in attacking
scientific objectivism, positivism, and empiricism, has a hard time seeing
that both empiricism and hermeneutics are important components of human
knowledge: like all first-tier memes, it tends to think either/or, not
both/and.

"The major waves of existence (red, blue, green, etc.) by no means

exhaust the interpretive repertoire. Within each wave of existence, with its
own deep syntax of interpretive possibilities, there are different surface
types of interpretive ploys. For example, many literary theorists, from
ancient Greek to Renaissance to modern structuralist (Jakobson, Lévi-
Strauss, Foucault), have maintained that tropes (figures of speech embedded
in most languages--such as metaphor, metonym, synecdoche, and irony) are
the linguistic structures that prefigure all forms of interpretation. This is an
example of analyzing various translative (or 'horizontal') types or styles, and
it is useful as long as one does not use the existence of styles to deny the
existence of facts, which writers from Hayden White ( Metahistory ) to early
Foucault attempted to do (if there are no objectively true claims, then the
claim that tropes create interpretation must also not be true, in which case
we can ignore it). But in actuality, interpretive styles (horizontal) and
interpretive levels (vertical) do not deny facts but merely situate them.

"Great historians are masters of both facts and narrative story-telling. By

contrast, empiricists are dullards, narrativists are liars; great historiography
is sensorimotor facts combined with interpretive flair, which is why it is
worth reading the great historians again and again, not for their facts but
their flair--from Thucydides and Plutarch to the more recent: Thomas
Macaulay, Jacob Burckhardt, Thomas Carlyle, Alexis de Tocqueville,
Edward Gibbon, Arnold Toynbee....

"My thesis is that in this delicate balance between fact and interpretation,
boomeritis significantly tipped the scales in favor of over-emphasizing
interpretation (because it is in the province of the ego) and under-
emphasizing or even denying the reality of facts (which are in the province
of the not ego and not controllable). Facts constrain egoic license, and
thus the very existence of facts must be deconstructed, sometimes subtly,
sometimes blatantly. But the net effect of boomeritis historicism is to put the
historian's ego into the picture to a degree wholly unwarranted by good
evidence or good interpretations. A blatant example is Dutch: A Memoir of
Ronald Regan, by Edmund Morris, where the author finds it impossible to
keep is own ego out of the history of another person, and therefore literally
inserts the character 'Edmund Morris' into the narrative in completely
fictional ways, with the net effect being that you cannot believe a single
sentence he writes (is he making it up or reporting it?). A subtler example is
Dead Certainties, where Simon Schama presents what appears to be history
and then confesses that he made some of it up (since, after all, there is not
that much difference between fact and fiction anyway). The worst examples,
however, are those many postmodern writers who have used the supposed
fictionality of all history to claim that Holocaust never occurred. Since all
history is myth, who can say otherwise?"

48. p. 292: "Morin, who had just finished a short lecture on 'The Tribal
Hijacking of Reason,' which is in my notes... 'Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Joan
Hazelton.'"

In between Jefferson's and Hazelton's presentation, Morin spoke on "The

Tribal Hijacking of Reason" (from Kim's notes):

"It soon becomes apparent that most of the horrors that extreme
postmodernists blame on the Enlightenment and on reason are actually the
result of a misuse of a reason, a pathological form of reason, a reason held
ransom by much lower and much uglier impulses. For the unpleasant reality
is that, once humanity evolved to orange reason and the various types of
technology that an incredibly powerful formal operational cognition could
create, then any of the earlier memes--purple, red, or blue--could hijack that
technology for their own ends. Put bluntly, the technological products of
reason can be used by anybody, at any stage of development. And
that explosive combination lies behind virtually every brutality and
holocaust unleashed in the modern world.

"The worst damage a purple meme can inflict on its own is with a bow
and arrow; the worst damage red can inflict on its own is with crossbows
and catapults; but orange can discover nuclear power. Yet the real
nightmare occurs when nuclear power falls into the hands of purple/red,
which could never invent it on their own but which can easily and
happily push the button: exactly the terrorism now facing the world at
large, as red war loads hijack the products of orange science. No person who
was actually at moral orange (postconventional, worldcentric) would ever
use nuclear or biological weapons of mass destruction as a means to further
their own drives at the expense of innocents. But red is more than happy to
do so--and there's the rub, there is the source of the real holocausts that have
plagued modernity from the start (holocausts that postmodernists have
misguidedly blamed modernity itself for, whereas modernity provided only
the means, not the motives).

"Max Weber pointed out that there are at least three forms of reason:
formal or mathematical, communicative or dialogical, and instrumental or
rational-purposive. Most of the downsides of rationality come from a misuse
of the latter, which is either overemphasized by certain monological
philosophes or, worse, hijacked by lower memes. The Enlightenment did
indeed tend to over-emphasize instrumental rationality, and that is
problematic in itself. Orange instrumental rationality can be repressive, as
earlier indicated, and that needs to be taken firmly into account. ( Sex,
Ecology, Spirituality contains a strong criticism of the Enlightenment's over-
emphasis on instrumental rationality and the monological gaze--see
especially chaps. 4, 11, 12, and 13.)

"Yet even then, the real problems in the modern world--from Gulag to
Auschwitz--come not from orange instrumental rationality but the hijacking
of that rationality by purple, red, or blue. And the cure, in any event, is not
less Enlightenment but more. I side entirely with Habermas in that we must
build on the positives of the Enlightenment and not merely deconstruct it.
Constructive postmodernism, in my view, transcends but includes the many
beneficial moments of the Enlightenment.
 "Todd Gitlin echoes a Habermasian conclusion, which I strongly share:

Those postmodernists who propose to discard the Enlightenment as an

excrescence of male, imperialist, racist, Western ideology are blind to their
own situation. For all their insistence that ideas belong to particular
historical moments, they take for granted the historical
ground they walk on. They fail, or refuse, to recognize that their
preoccupation with multiculturalism, identities, perspectives,
incommensurable world views, and so forth would be unimaginable were it
not for the widespread acceptance of Enlightenment principles: the worth of
individuals, their right to dignity, and to a social order that satisfies it.... The
most cogent defense of the politics of difference, that of...philosopher
CHARLES TAYLOR, [points out that] 'the politics of difference grows
organically out of the politics of universal dignity' [of the Enlightenment].

Even the ideals of perspectivism and its political equivalent, self-

determination, are the still uncompleted...unfolding of one of the
Enlightenment's major potentials.... The Enlightenment is not to be
discarded because Voltaire was anti-Semitic or Hume, Kant, Hegel, and
Jefferson racist, but rather further enlightened--for it equips us with the
tools with which to refute the anti-Semitism of Voltaire and the racism of the
others [indeed, such racism is not the result of Enlightenment reason but
of residual blue ethnocentrism]. The Enlightenment is self-correcting. The
corrective to darkness is more light.... It is from the much-maligned
Enlightenment that the idea emerges that we must all, in the philosopher
Richard Rorty's words, 'lend an ear to the specialists in particularly.' But
lending an ear does not mean turning one's face from the Enlightenment.
The fact that Jefferson owned slaves and cavalierly presided over the refusal
to enfranchise women does not justify any particular view that happened to
be held by a slave or a woman....

Today's identity theorists are properly skeptical toward imposed,

imperial, arbitrary, unwarranted universalizations. They pursue what one
feminist theorist, Lata Mani, calls the 'revolt of the particular against that
masquerading as the general.' But where did they get their skepticism? How
do they justify their revolt? Why does it seem legitimate to them? Not on
Confucian or Islamic or Aztec grounds. The revolt rests precisely on the
Enlightenment's taste for human equality and diversity, its ideal of self-
determination, its objection to arbitrary power. The business of the
Enlightenment was, indeed, to enlarge the scope of the differences that
deserved respect.... To hate absolutism was also to hate the absolutist claims
of one's own nation, tribe, family. For precisely that reason, the
Enlightenment is not to be disposed of with a wave of the moment's identity
cards. (The Twilight of Common Dreams, pp. 215-16)

"All of that tends to be overlooked by typical assaults on the patriarchy

and patriarchal rationality, assaults that are all too often driven by
boomeritis. As Gitlin says, 'The most common form of this argument today
is so-called standpoint feminism, the idea that so-called objectivity and so-
called emancipation are nothing but the trappings of imperial masculine ego
at work, consuming, obliterating, or paving over everything in its path. In
this view, patriarchy's rage to rule is the inevitable consequence of the
Cartesian illusion that the mind is separate from the body and hovers in free
space, like God's eye, treating the world as an object. At the root of male
supremacy and ecological disaster alike lies the false assumption that the
world has not life of its own but exists for the pleasure and conquest of the
(white, Western, heterosexist) male ego'" (Gitlin, p. 214).

Morin looked up and smiled gently. "That view is mistaken on virtually

every account. It's not just that standpoint feminism misunderstands the real
nature and difficulties of the Cartesian dualism (see Sidebar E: 'Descartes'),
or that it distorts the actual meaning of the mind-body problem (which is a
four-quadrant problem in every way, and not merely a version of gender
issues), or that it fails to understand the real genesis of ecological
despoliation--which is caused, not by male values, but by male and female
values at any of the first-tier memes, including the green-meme values of
standpoint feminists. That is, the real problem is not the male, patriarchal,
agentic, Cartesian ego--the real problem is the male AND female ego at any
first-tier meme. The egocentric and ethnocentric female ego is just as partial,
dissociative, limited, and despoiling as the egocentric and ethnocentric male
ego. What is truly sad here is that the first-tier feminist ego feels that she has
escaped this dissociative activity herself, whereas she merely exemplifies a
first-tier consciousness in her own attacks on all the other first-tier values.

"No wonder that Gitlin points out that, in addition to being historically
confused, these critics are factually incorrect. 'Does it follow, as Richard
Rorty writes, that "the vocabulary of Enlightenment rationalism, although it
was essential to the beginnings of liberal democracy, has become an
impediment to the preservation and progress of democratic societies"?...
Rorty has claimed that, in the real world, people act in the name of their
particular tribes; that when they have acted altruistically, for example to
rescue Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe, they have "usually" given parochial
reasons for doing so--that the Jew was "a fellow Milanese, or a fellow
Jutlander, or a fellow member of the same union or profession, or a fellow
bocce player, or a fellow parent of small children." But the political theorist
Norman Geras examined some eighty accounts of Gentiles who saved Jews
during the Holocaust. Only one failed to mention universal moral
obligations. Even those who saved their friends cited universalist motives as
well. The rescuers spoke of defending "human dignity," of helping "a
persecuted human being," of helping "because a human being ought to help
another," of "our human duty to open our home... and our hearts to anyone
who suffers"' (p. 216-17). They all spoke, that is to say, in the words of the
patriarchal, universal, postconventional, worldcentric, rational
Enlightenment.

"There are indeed downsides of the patriarchal Enlightenment, as

mentioned (see, e.g., Sex, Ecology, Spirituality). But these are corrected by
redressing the imbalances within rationality and then moving forward, not
by eulogizing preformal, premodern modes and condemning en toto the
Enlightenment.

"The rational use of rational technology does not include ecological

despoliation that is perfectly suicidal; it does not include biological warfare
that can kill the entire human race; it does not include ethnic blood cleansing
and mass homicide. No definition of rational includes any of those
grotesqueries: those are all rational technologies used by prerational
impulses--egocentric or ethnocentric, selfish instead of universal care,
tribalism instead of genuine universalism--and whether that be teutonic
tribalism or corporate tribalism matters not one wit.

"Auschwitz is not the product of reason; Auschwitz is the product of

reason hijacked by tribalism. Hijacked by the red and blue memes, by an
ethnocentric blood-cleansing ideology intent on genocide, rife with
prerational manias and premodern revivals, shot through with retro-
Romantic feelings, laced with human sacrifice, horticultural mythology,
blood soaked and horror drenched. The Nazis were not reasonable--they
were just Aztecs with gas chambers. The Gulag archipelago, Pol Pot's mass
homicides, the massacre at Wounded Knee: these are not the products of
reason, but the products of purple and red and blue memes catastrophically
using the powerful products of reason to further their brutal agendas.

"To see poor postconventional, worldcentric reason--Gilligan's wave of

universal care--blamed for these modern nightmares is a travesty indeed.
And horrifyingly worse: once reason is blamed for these prerational
catastrophes, then getting rid of reason is recommended as their cure, when
the rejection of reason is actually their cause. Extreme postmodernism--
boomeritis by any other name--thus appears to be an intrinsic part of the
disease for which it claims to be the cure."

49. p. 294: "I put Kim's notes on all this in my journal."

Hazelton's lecture (from Kim's notes):

"To begin with, it is an uncontested fact that modern industrialization is

the prime polluter of the planet. Industrialization is a product of
orange rationality; but, as we just saw, using industrialization in a way that
is perfectly suicidal is not a rational use of rationality--it is instead rationality
hijacked by red power drives and blue imperialism. Ecological disaster is
not postconventional reason in action, but reason commandeered by
tribalism--corporate tribalism, ethnic tribalism, blue imperialism, red slash-
and-burn motives, purple power and egocentric vanity drives--of which
men and women are equally guilty.

"As for you ecofeminists out there who imagine that women are
friendlier to nature, we will have a few sobering comments on that
momentarily. For the fact is, first-tier female values are just as
devastating to the biosphere as any first-tier male values. All of
ecofeminism runs aground on this simple mistake. What is required is not
an attitude that is more friendly to body, nature, relationships, and the
feminine mode of knowing--because, after all, as Carol Gilligan pointed out,
there are egocentric and ethnocentric stages of feminine knowing--but rather a
development that puts more men and women into second-tier integral
consciousness. Failing to do that, and merely emphasizing yin values over
yang values, once again contributes to the lack of second-tier consciousness
that is the single greatest threat to Gaia. And thus most forms of
ecofeminism, like deep ecology, are inexorably contributing to Gaia's
demise."
 Joan Hazelton shook her head, sighed, and continued. "To move to the
topic at hand. The central confusion of b o o m er i t is e c o l o gy is the
equating of the biosphere with Spirit, a confusion that depends, first and
foremost, upon a very slippery definition of the word 'biosphere.' On the
one hand, I realize that, in some sense, Spirit is all-pervading and all-
encompassing, so I must claim that the biosphere likewise is the great
wholeness, the great holistic Web of Life, which embraces absolutely
everything. So the biosphere, meaning the whole universe and its glorious
Web of Life, is equated with Spirit, with God or the Goddess. In short, Gaia
is God.

"On the other hand, I must also claim that humanity--or at least the
modern, instrumental-rational, western patriarchy--is destroying the
biosphere. But if the patriarchy is part of the biosphere--if it is part of the
great Web of Life, like everything else--that would mean that the patriarchy
is something that the biosphere itself is doing. And that can't be right,
because the patriarchy sucks. So I must introduce a split, an ontological
dualism, between the great Web of Life and the patriarchy, so that I can
claim the latter is destroying the former.

"So my 'biosphere' is not so all-embracing after all, since apparently it

does not wish to include and embrace Newton, Descartes, Bacon, Galileo,
and all the other criminals responsible for the death of the Goddess. So I
must select a slice of manifestation, and identify Spirit with the particular
slice that I like, and identify the enemies of Spirit as those who do not agree
with my version of the slice. Generally speaking, this means that the
'biosphere' is identified with the empirical, sensory, bodily world: the world
you can see with your senses. And anything that is human-made--from
houses to boats to villages to airplanes--is not as directly part of the
biosphere, which is why humans can hurt the biosphere.

"With this narrow definition of Spirit, this slice-and-dice notion of the

Goddess, numerous ecophilosophers have written treatise after treatise
explaining that almost every human activity is basically anti-ecological--and
therefore anti-spiritual. As soon as the first human picked up a club and hit
a bear with it, the assault on the biosphere had begun, the brutal assault on
Spirit was afoot. As soon as the first human scraped the earth with a hoe and
planted the first seed, the rape of nature had begun. As soon as the first mill
ground the first wheat, the murder of the Goddess was upon us.
 "By thus restricting Spirit, reducing Spirit, to the preconventional realm of
sensory experience, eco-boomeritis could scream 'Murder!' when any
conventional display began to emerge. By narrowing Spirit to the sensory
world, boomeritis could hold on to its own preconventional sentiments,
while claiming it was holding on to nothing less than God.

"By reducing God/dess to the sensory realm, boomeritis had at last

found a Spirit that spoke its own language: immediate feelings and
impulses, preconventional and preformal, loudly claiming to be divine, the
wonder of my own sensations. And this sensate version of salvation is the
only salvation allowed. This is yet another rendition of the boomeritis
slogan: 'Lose your mind and come to your senses,' which, although the
recipe for a terrific fraternity house party, is not exactly a philosophy of life.

"In announcing that it had 'The Way' (as a typical eco-boomeritis book
was titled), which will subvert the Spirit-destroying forces now amongst us,
eco-boomeritis claimed that it was going to save Gaia, save God, save the
Goddess, and it was going to do so by recapturing the preformal paradise
that formality (modernity, patriarchy, rationality) had destroyed. Of course,
most eco-Romantics avoid the issue of whether the original foraging tribes
of half a million years ago (whose example we are supposed to follow in
order to save the planet) did little damage to the biosphere because of the
presence of wisdom or simply the lack of means. In fact, as Dr. Fuentes
explained, many tribes practiced slash and burn and left trails of eco-
despoliation wherever they went. Moreover, in their legal and cultural
structures, the original foragers clearly did not possess inter-systemic,
postformal modes of intersubjectivity, so they clearly are not models of how
to proceed in reconciling noosphere and biosphere. It is, in fact, the tribal
mentality--me and my clan, my tribe, my nation--that most prevents the
widespread emergence of postconventional, worldcentric awareness, which
alone can recognize and protect the global commons. Once again, the retro-
Romantics are recommending a reactionary course of action that effectively
prevents their own goals.

"In this Regress Express"--to use Lesa's wonderful phrase--"still looking

for the beach beneath the pavement, many of the standard tools of
boomeritis were brought into play: the social construction of reality,
contextualism, Foucauldian genealogy, deconstruction, pluralistic
relativism, the retro-Romantic crusade. Many good truths, many sad
distortions.... Boomeritis on parade...." Hazelton shook her head, smiled to
herself, walked back to the podium.

Chapter 8.
The_New_Paradigm@WonderUs.o
rg
1. p. 312: "And therefore, what was required was a way... to underscore the
greatness of those viewing the art!"

Carlton continued (from Kim's notes): "This demand on the part of

boomeritis to subtract any greatness from anybody else--especially past
giants and geniuses--has given rise to that most insidious form of biography
known as pathography.

"You should pray that you do not do something great enough that a
Boomer decides to write a biography of you, because it will not be about the
great thing you did, but about your faults, your psychopathology, how you
beat your dog and were suspected of having sex with a chicken. Joyce
Carol Oates coined the term 'pathography' for this rather rampant form of
biographical study that is dedicated, basically, to tearing down any person
who accomplished anything of excellence in any field. Since everybody has a
shadow, this demands little effort or talent to expose, yet it offers substantial
reward in protecting your own greatness from being overshadowed by the
likes of Picasso, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf, or Frank Lloyd
Wright (just a few of the dozens of awesomely talented individuals
subjected to rancidly gloating pathographies). Recent pathographies include
Greg Lawrence's Dance with Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins and Paul
Lussier's Last Refuge of Scoundrels, but really, there are hundreds of these
pathological pathographies, which are simply boomeritis deconstruction
applied to any individual greatness.
 "If I may be allowed a personal comment. Lesa Powell and I were talking
about this topic last night. I asked her what she feared the most, and she
said, 'How I will be remembered if I accomplish anything worth
remembering.' Of course, she had in mind boomeritis and the pathography
it would do of her. There are things in Lesa's life and mine, and our life
together, that pathography would seize on to the virtual exclusion of all else.
This is truly sad, but it is simply another example of boomeritis at its best,
which is to say, most insidious, intent on destroying greatness wherever it
finds it so that, by comparison, its own self can triumph."

2. p. 312: "But boomeritis gave it the necessary narcissistic spin... as John

Passmore summarized the situation, 'The proper point of reference in
discussing works of art is... the interpreter, not the artist, creates the work.'"

Carlton (in Kim's margin notes): "Passmore is summarizing this view, not
endorsing it. See The Eye of Spirit for all references in this section."

3. p. 313: "I am astonished, astonished, at my brilliance, aren't you?"

Carlton added (from Kim's notes): "In my opinion, all of the various
schools of literary interpretation and criticism--including mimesis, original
intent, symptomatic, formalist, contextual, and viewer-response--contain
important truths that need to be honored and incorporated in any integral
theory of interpretation. One of my colleagues here at IC has made such an
attempt (see The Eye of Spirit, chapters 4 and 5). No doubt there will be many
others."

4. p. 316: "'We can see hints of an emancipatory mathematics in

the multidimensional and nonlinear logic of fuzzy systems theory... and
the putative observer becomes fatally de-centered, disconnected from any
epistemic link to a space-time point that can no longer be defined by
geometry alone.'"

From Kim's margin notes: "Carlton is quoting from both Sokal's original
paper and his reflections on it in lingua franca, May/June 1996."

5. p. 317: "On the contrary, I and many of my colleagues have explicitly

identified ourselves with constructive postmodernism, and will continue to
do so."
 Kim's margin notes: "See The Marriage of Sense and Soul and Integral
Psychology."

6. p. 318: "Because poststructuralism spoke to that 20 percent which was

green, and not the 2 percent at integral, poststructuralism was set to spread
like gangbusters. Which is exactly what happened."

Powell continued (from Kim's notes): "To say that poststructuralism was
in many ways a throwback to the green meme is not to say it is unimportant.
On the contrary, many of the essential features of postmodern
poststructuralism--such as contextualism, constructivism, and integral-
aperspectivism--are crucial components in any second-tier integral
formulations. See Integral Psychology for a full discussion of this theme. See
also lecture 6 for a fuller discussion of the relation of structuralism and
poststructuralism with modernity and postmodernity."

7. p. 322: "As Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut... point out, 'The "philosophists" of
the '68 period gained... the thinker's silence before the incongruous demand
for meaning was not proof of weakness but the indication of endurance in
the presence of the Unsayable.'"

Kim's margin notes: " French Philosophy of the Sixties, p. 6."

8. p. 324: "Richard Harlan, whose summary that is, says... 'a priority of...
Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, and Baudrillard.'"

Kim's margin notes: "All of these are from the Bad Writing Contest
sponsored by Philosophy and Literature, Denis Dutton, editor, David Myers,
moderator."

9. p. 329: "Nobody is denying that thoughts and psychological attitudes have

a substantial, sometimes decisive, effect on physical illness... my colleagues
have discussed this important topic at length."

Kim's margin notes: "See Grace and Grit and A Theory of Everything."

10. p. 329: "Most of the diseases once thought to be largely psychogenic--

such as ulcers and colitis--are now known to be caused mostly by physical
factors, such as bacteria and diet."
 Hazelton added (from Kim's notes): "This is not to deny the idea,
prevalent in the wisdom traditions, that levels of consciousness higher than
the physical--such as mind and soul--can (through 'downward causation')
cause physical illness. I believe that is true. It is simply that the majority of
illnesses in today's world are, for whatever reasons, brought on by physical
factors themselves: estimates suggest that over 80% of illnesses are caused
by environmental, physical, and dietary factors. Environmental toxins are
not directly the result of an individual's mind and soul; the cause is largely
physical, and physical remedies are called for (clean up the toxins). If you
get hit by a bus and break your leg, you are not supposed to sit in the street
and visualize your leg mending. You need to have it physically set and
plastered--then you can start visualizing. The cause was mostly physical, not
spiritual, but during the healing, psychological and spiritual factors can play
an important role. See Grace and Grit, chapter 15, for a full discussion of this
theme."

11. p. 329: "But once the physical causes are addressed, the psychological
component of cure becomes rather significant, accounting for perhaps 10 %
to 40 % of the healing process."

Kim's margin notes: "See Grace and Grit."

12. p. 330: "I believe these types of psychosomatic techniques... should be an

indispensable part of every integral medical treatment."

Hazelton added: "As exemplified in the superb work of JON KABAT-

ZINN, JOAN BORYSENKO, JEANNE ACHTERBERG, LARRY
DOSSEY, JOHN ASTIN, among many others, all of whom are valued
associates of Integral Center."

13. p. 334: "The core of New Age spirituality...is the belief that 'You create
your own reality.'"

Margaret Carlton added (from Kim's notes): "The narcissistic and

borderline disorders often operate with the defense mechanism known as
'splitting': both the inner and outer world are divided into 'all good' and
'all bad' representations, and the self oscillates between them. This certainly
seems to be true when it comes to RESPONSIBILITY: the narcissistic
self either omnipotently creates its own reality, or, when facts intrude on
that fantasy and show it to be false, it switches to the abuse excuse: it is
completely the fault of an all-powerful other. A 'culture of victims' and 'you
create your own reality' are flip sides of the same narcissistic/borderline
coin."

14. p. 340: "A small particle's location, to some degree, will always be
'uncertain.'"

Morin added: "More precisely, the position and momentum of a particle

cannot be determined simultaneously; the more one is determined, the more
uncertain the other becomes. The product of the two uncertainties is greater
than or equal to PLANCK's constant over four pi."

15. p. 342: "As best as anyone can figure out, the new paradigm is something
like systems theory... including various schools of sociology, psychology,
biology, ecology, and cultural anthropology."

Van Cleef continued (from Kim's notes):

"There are many varieties of systems theory (or holism in

general), including exterior holism (systems theory proper),
interior holism (levels of increasingly inclusive consciousness),
and integral holism (which includes both). There is a static
systems view (of late formal operational), and there is the more dynamic
dialecticism (of second-tier). None of those differences have been carefully
spelled out by Boomers writing about the new paradigm, which is one of the
reasons that it is hard to tell exactly what is meant.

"Moreover, there has always been an internal tension in the Boomer

use of 'paradigm,' because on the one hand Boomers are generally
committed to pluralism and the social construction of reality; on the
other hand, the new paradigm is mostly systems theory (and physics),
which purports to give us, not a social construction of reality, but an
objectively true description of what reality is actually like. This, too, makes it
hard to tell exactly what 'the new paradigm' really means. But, as Crews
points out, 'paradigm' is in any event a dead metaphor, and its widespread
use stands solely as a testament, a historical monument, to the Boomer ego
in all its faded glory."

16. p. 347: "'Paradigm' is at present a dead metaphor.'"

From Kim's margin notes: "See The Marriage of Sense and Soul, chap. 3, for
all references in this section."

Chapter 9.
Pluralism_Falls_Apart@DisIntegr
ationCity.com
1. p. 361: "Philosophers such as KARL-OTTO APEL, JÜRGEN
HABERMAS... have all given devastating criticisms of the self-
contradictory stance of pluralistic relativism, contextualism, and
constructivism."

Kim's margin notes: "For the central performative contradiction

inhabiting postmodernism, see Karl-Otto Apel, Selected Essays; Jürgen
Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity; John Searle, The
Construction of Social Reality; Thomas Nagel, The Last Word; Charles Taylor,
Sources of the Self."

2. p. 362: "Just as significant is the review of Nagel's book by Colin McGinn

carried in The New Republic."

Kim's margin notes: "'Reason the Need,' Colin McGinn, The New Republic,
Aug. 4, 1997."

3. p. 363: "McGinn then drives to Nagel's inescapable conclusion: 'But this...

subjectivism is refuted.'"

"My own view," Powell continued (from Kim's notes), "and those of many
of my colleagues, is that there are universal deep features with
relative surface features--what we have, throughout this seminar, also
called universal pluralism, integral-aperspectival, worldcentric compassion,
universal integralism, integral pluralism, and so on (all of which mean
pluralism set in a universal context, or aperspectivism set in an integral
space). For example, the normal human body universally contains two
kidneys, one heart, ten fingers. No postmodernist has believably
demonstrated otherwise. But what one does with one's fingers is not
universal at all: whether you use them to play baseball or plant rice is
determined by local, individual, cultural contexts.

"In making the culturally relative surface features the entire story,
extreme postmodernism (and boomeritis) has devastated human and
spiritual understanding, which often includes a universal/transcendental
component. 'The case that Nagel presents should disturb all those who have
been lulled, or bludgeoned, into the flabby relativism that is so rampant in
contemporary intellectual culture. Richard Rorty comes in for some stern
critical words from Nagel, and they are richly deserved.'"

4. p. 365: "It has become increasingly obvious that extreme postmodernism.

pluralism, and relativism are the grand refuge of boomeritis."

Lesa Powell continued (from Kim's notes):

"The standard response of pluralists, when faced with the

performative contradiction, is to claim that pluralism is a self-contradiction
only if pluralists are implicitly assumed to be pursuing a universal agenda
(so that you can in fact have a noncontradictory pluralism). But if that is the
case, and pluralists are not in fact arguing for a universal validity to their
claims, then those claims are not binding on me or on you, and thus we can
ignore them. Their claims have no validity, by their own tortured account.

"Another common ploy by pluralists is to claim that discourse can have

aims other than truth or falsity--such as expression, understanding,
playfulness, and 'concourse.' But, of course, that is a trivial point fully
conceded by worldcentric philosophers. The point at issue, rather, is that
part of discourse known as truth, which pluralists must either address or
ignore. When they address the issue, they invariably claim that they are
making statements that are true for all cultures--for example, it is true for all
cultures that reality is not pregiven but is socially constructed, that
knowledge is interpretive and not merely representational, and that values
are not eternal Platonic archetypes but culturally and intersubjectively
molded. The postmodernist does NOT claim that those statements are
merely his interpretations that are not necessarily true for other humans in
different cultural contexts; no, he claims that they are true for all humans
everywhere.

"In other words, those are all strong universal claims: the postmodernist
is claiming that all cultures are subject to certain context-transcending truths.
The postmodernist makes dozens of claims that he or she insists are true and
binding on all humans everywhere, such as the contextuality of all
knowledge, the interpretive component of all experience, the relativistic
aspect of perspectives, the pluralistic nature of values, the multiple loci of
participatory events, and the historicity of all truth. Since all of those are
context-transcending claims made by those who insist that there are no
context-transcending claims, then all of those involve deeply embedded
self-contradictions in the ways that Nagel, McGinn, Habermas, Searle,
and Taylor (among others) have demonstrated.

"At this point, clever pluralists, realizing that their stance simply will not
work, retreat to theories about meta-language. There is literally no other
course of action open to them, and they know it. Thomas McCarthy,
answering David Hoy's attempt to do so, has spelled out in detail the
insuperable difficulties of such a move. The question is whether we can do
without universal or 'context-transcending' truth claims. David Hoy--
arguably Hans-Georg Gadamer's ablest interpreter in America and a
staunch defender of pluralism--realizes that he himself is definitely making
universal or context-transcending claims. He at least does not try to deny it,
as most pluralists do, making him one of the few honest pluralists on the
planet. Rather, he moves to meta-language in order to stake his claim, as
McCarthy describes and summarily refutes:

Does Hoy think we can do without theoretical, context-transcending truth

claims altogether? Not entirely. He acknowledges the 'paradoxical' nature of
the 'metatheoretical' claims that make up the core of his [pluralistic
position], for they are themselves context-transcending claims about the
nature of truth, meaning, interpretation, historicity, and the like. That
paradox is typical of contextualist arguments generally. Hoy handles the
appearance of contradiction by distinguishing metatheories from first-order
theories or interpretations. While the former may properly claim context-
transcending validity, the latter may not. But this claim itself depends on his
metatheory being the right one, and thus is not the end but the beginning of
disagreement. Moreover, the considerations that Hoy advances in defense of
his metatheory look suspiciously like substantive claims about language,
interpretation, and so forth. That should come as no surprise, for there is a
long history of failed attempts to distinguish 'meta' from 'object' languages.
What we in fact have are two competing, substantive accounts of certain
aspects of sociocultural life, each claiming to be not just 'true for us' but 'true,
period.' And if those substantive claims can legitimately aspire to context-
transcending validity, there is no obvious reason why others may not as
well. Nor is Hoy's metatheory neutral with respect to 'first-order'
interpretations. It implies, for instance, that any interpretation which fails to
recognize the variability of forms or life or the interpretational nature of
worldviews and self-understanding is inadequate, for it conflicts with
central insights of the (one right) metatheory. (Hoy and McCarthy, Critical
Theory, p. 240)

"In short, McCarthy concludes, 'the postmodernist thinkers invariably

suppose much of what they are denying'--that is, they do themselves exactly
what they condemn in others. They then further claim a moral superiority
for this hypocrisy. What we are suggesting is that boomeritis offers the
actual structure for that duplicity: preformal narcissism hiding out in
postformal pluralism allows the ego to blame others for that which it is doing
itself in a largely unconscious or unacknowledged fashion.

"(See Sidebar F: 'Participatory Samsara,' for an extensive discussion of

what appears to be this deeply hidden self-deception.)

"I am not saying all pluralists have boomeritis. My simple point is that
boomeritis has given to pluralistic relativism a widespread popularity and
an emotional charge all out of proportion to its actual merit, and made it all
but impossible for its believers to move to second-tier integral constructions.

"An alternative to embracing either universalism or contextualism--by

enacting a dynamic, dialectical, integrative dance--is given by the author of
Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, who is a colleague of mine and a member of IC. SES
suggests three basic 'views' or 'truths' that need to be acknowledged. One is
that of Emptiness, or radically unqualifiable openness; and then, in the
manifest realm, those truths that are universal or worldcentric and those that
are local, particular, and contextual. (Actually, there is a spectrum of
perspectives from the local to the universal: those that are purely
individual, those that are shared by a group, shared by many groups,
shared by a culture, shared by many cultures, shared by all cultures--but
'local' and 'universal' are the general end points. See Integral Psychology for a
discussion of this idea).

"All three of those--Emptiness, universal, particular--are an

important part of an integral-aperspectival view. And note that Emptiness
itself is neither universal nor particular, neither absolute nor relative, neither
infinite nor finite, neither universal nor contextual, for it is radically
unqualifiable and not captured by any opposites and dualities
(including that one). Thus, in no case does SES present a foundationalism or
an 'absolutism.'

"What most pluralists do not acknowledge is how much local and

relative knowledge the universal and worldcentric philosophers allow: the
staggering preponderance of occasions are local and plural. Even Habermas,
as McCarthy points out, 'has consistently restricted the focus of his
analysis... to questions of truth and justice. He does not claim, and in fact
explicitly denies, that suppositions of like universality attach to critique or
textual interpretation, or to discussions of ethics, politics, identity, and the
good life. In such matters, differences in context and perspective do
influence the form and substance of deliberation...' (p. 238). The point, again,
is that certain features are context-transcending and universal, but most
particular matters are not--and any theory that tries to deny either of those is
almost certainly an inadequate theory.

"A common pluralist retort is that they do believe in universals, but those
universals are dialectically at play with all particulars, where 'dialectic' as
actually used simply denies universals qua universals and thus continues the
pluralist's greatest of dreams: smashing anything universal other than his
own values, which are--or he believes should be--true for all cultures.

"Just as SUNY Press is the purveyor of much of extreme postmodernism

in this country, Blackwell is in Britain. So it is fascinating to see that its most
recent A Dictionary of Cultural and Critical Theory, which one would expect to
be chock full of postmodern poststructuralist tenets, in fact contains a Nagel-
like attack on most postmodern theories of constructivism and relativism.
'Therefore it follows, supposedly, that all truth talk, whether in the natural
or more theory-prone human sciences, comes down to a choice of the right
sort of metaphor (or the optimum rhetorical strategy) for conjuring assent
from others engaged in the same communal enterprise. Scientists have
understandably considered this an implausible account of how advances
come about through the joint application of theory and empirical research.
Hence the recent emergence of causal-realist or anti-conventionalist
[universal and anti-subjectivist] approaches which offer a far better
understanding of our knowledge of the growth of knowledge. After all,
there seems rather little to be said for a philosophy of science that effectively
leaves itself nothing to explain by reducing "science" to just another species
of preferential language game, rhetoric, discourse, conceptual scheme, or
whatever. The current revival of realist ontologies betokens a break with this
whole misdirected--as it now appears--line of thought.'

"The conclusion of all of this is that a heavy or even extreme emphasis on

participatory pluralism is one of the major forms of green-meme expression
in this generation--and therefore participatory pluralism is one of the main
hideouts of boomeritis. This theme is explored at length in Sidebar F:
'Participatory Samsara'--The Green Meme's Approach to the Mystery of the
Divine.'"

5. p. 371: "Along with universally attacking universals... the archetypal

boomeritis stance is an extremely aggressive attack on hierarchy, carried out
in a hierarchical fashion."

Jefferson continued (from Kim's notes): "As with most of the intellectual
accoutrements of boomeritis, this anti-hierarchy stance stems from the
worldview of pluralistic relativism and the green meme: having heroically
differentiated numerous systems, contexts, and lifeworlds--and after having
recognized that each system must be understood in its own historical
context--the green meme fails to grow yet further and recognize that the
various pluralistic contexts themselves exist in deeper and wider contexts that
unfold across both space and time--a realization that, of course, would usher
in second-tier consciousness, dynamic dialecticism, integral pluralism or
universal integralism--call it what you will. This why we heard Don Beck
say that green often ends up doing more harm than good. (See Integral
Psychology for a discussion of these topics.)"
6. p. 381/82: "If you'd like to pursue this important topic, we will hand out a
list of books that will get you started on ways to, shall we say, deconstruct
the mean green meme and the damage it has done."

Here is the handout Carlton gave of some recommended reading, which

she also read aloud:

"For an exposé of the boomeritis art establishment, an establishment that

pretty much controls art and art museums in this country, see Exhibitionism:
Art in an Era of Intolerance, by Lynne Munson.

"For the unfortunate effects of boomeritis on medicine, see PC, M.D., by

Sally Satel, M.D.

"For the nightmares that boomeritis has inflicted on the law, see Beyond
All Reason: The Radical Assault on Truth in American Law, by respected law
professors Daniel Farber and Suzanna Sherry.

"As for the sad, even tragic effect of boomeritis on race relations, you
might start with Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America, by John
McWhorter, a black linguistics professor at Berkeley. This is a particularly
brilliant book that exposes the myth that 'white racism is the main
obstacle to black success and achievement.' The real obstacle,
McWhorter points out, is an interlocking set of three mentalities: anti-
intellectualism, separatism as a coping strategy, and the cult of
victimology (all ornaments, we note, of the MGM).

"As only a few examples of what boomeritis anthropology has done to

the past, see The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism and Other Essays, by Roger
Sandall, which documents how 'the romantic insistence on the superiority of
the primitive is increasingly grounded in a fictionalized picture of the past.'
See also The Killing of History, by Keith Windschuttle, and particularly Sick
Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony, by Robert Edgerton.

"For various types of criticism of boomeritis feminism--which is virtually

the only type of feminism now in existence with any influence (it controls
academic and political feminists)--see Daphne Patai and Noretta
Koertge, Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of
Women's Studies; Nancy Etcoff, Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty;
Nadine Strossen (president of the American Civil Liberties Union),
Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights; Who
Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women and The War Against Boys:
How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men, by Christina Hoff
Sommers; and Rene Denfeld's superb The New Victorians: A Young
Woman's Challenge to the Old Feminist Order.

"For the catastrophic effects of boomeritis on academia and the political

process, see Jonathan Rauch, Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free
Thought; Todd Gitlin, The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America Is
Wracked by Culture Wars; Richard Bernstein, Dictatorship of Virtue:
Multiculturalism and the Battle for America's Future; Charles Kors and
Harvey Silverglate, The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on
America's Campuses.

"And remember, the fact that few of those books are integral or second-
tier--they are often blue or orange--does not detract in the least from their
true points; but we at Integral Center are placing those important if limited
criticisms into a distinctively second-tier approach, as indicated throughout
this lecture series. Second-tier criticisms of the mean
green meme can be found, for example, in Jürgen Habermas, Charles
Taylor, John Searle, Don Beck, Bob Richards, Sean Hargens, Scott
Warren, Petra Pieterse, Andre Marquis, Maureen Silos, Frank Visser,
Bert Parlee, Karl Otto-Apel, Michael Zimmerman, Keith Thompson,
Fred Kofman, Jenny Wade, Karin Swann, Mark Palmer, Luc Ferry,
Alain Renaut, among increasingly numerous others."

Chapter 10.
The_Integral_Vision@IC.org
1. p. 391/92: "What are the realistic chances that any of them--Boomers,
Xers, or Ys--will make it to an integral culture?"

Morin gave an extended, highly technical discussion of the

generational divide and what it might mean for any possible, future
evolution into second-tier consciousness. From Kim's notes:
 "Now, of course, no generation is simply 'at' a level of development, just
as no society is simply 'at' a level. When we say 'Boomers were the first
green generation' or 'MILLENNIALS might be the first yellow generation,'
these are extremely simplistic generalizations. In order to grasp the
demographics more accurately, you need a 'phase-4' model of quadrants,
levels, lines, states, and types. You can then analyze much more carefully the
distribution of consciousness in each individual, culture, generation, society,
species, and so on.

"So, when we say 'Boomers were the first green generation,' we

simply mean that, compared with the previous generations, a significantly
larger percentage of Boomers--perhaps up to 30% or 40% of them--
reached the green wave as their general center of gravity. 'Center of
gravity' for an individual means that the proximate self-sense is
basically identified with that level (although many other developmental
lines might be at other levels). Thus, for example, the stereotypical Boomer
that we are discussing in this seminar has a cognitive line of development
that is at yellow; a self-sense whose center of gravity is green; numerous
subpersonalities at red and purple; and an internal recoil against, or
repression of, one's own blue and orange (which means that the
subpersonalities at blue and orange are internally alienated and therefore
projected onto others where they are aggressively attacked).
That psychograph is quite typical of boomeritis--a green alliance with
red/purple in hatred of blue/orange, and all the interior grandiosity and
outward rebellion that would ensue--as we have often discussed in this
seminar series. (This does not rule out subsequent psychological dynamics:
e.g., once boomeritis has alienated its own healthy blue, it often compensates
by reactivating a morbidly rigid blue system--we saw this with the Green
Inquisitors. But all of that is subsequent to the basic psychograph of the
GREEN/red pathology.)

"Now, the grandiosity of the Boomers had a specific effect on their

children, and this grandiosity came in two waves, reflected in the XERS and
YS. Again, we are talking generalities, averages, and stereotypes here, so
please remember that. But wave-1 of the Boomers (and boomeritis) was the
retro-Romantic phase, the original Woodstock Nation, the celebration of
'original goodness' and the noble savage, the hedonic celebration of pre-
conventional and pre-rational as if they were free and liberated (whereas
pre-rational consciousness is simply a slave to purple and red impulses).
The result of this first phase of boomeritis attitude in parenting produced
GEN X--yes, the so-called slackers: letting little Johnny 'run free' actually let
little Johnny rot. (Okay, you GEN XERS out there, don't get annoyed until
you hear the whole story....)

"When the Boomers realized that this Romantic approach to reproducing

their egos in their kids was not working, they went in the opposite direction
from 'original goodness' (let little Johnny alone so to not repress his so-called
original goodness) and switched to 'growth to goodness': run little Johnny
ragged by working him morning, noon, and night: send him to pre-school,
enrichment programs, around-the-clock supervised empowerment
programs, music lessons and soccer games, SAT study courses, you name it.
The result of this wave-2 boomeritis produced, not Slackers but Blasters,
produced the Millennials.

"The first wave of Boomer children--GEN X--were those that grew up in

the retro-Romantic wave of Boomers (and boomeritis)--let's call it wave-1 or
boomeritis-1. Here, the idea was to let little Johnny do whatever he
wanted, since as a child he was 'closer to pure nature'--a type of noble
savage that we should let alone so as to not repress his 'original goodness.'
This was the 'run free, run wild' phase of the Boomers (little Johnny was also
left alone for another reason: he was a latchkey kid). The result, of course,
was that little Johnny went to seed, and thus the result of 'let little Johnny
alone' was the Slacker generation. Boomeritis in wave-1 celebrated its own
grandiosity through its children by condemning the conventional waves and
wallowing in the preconventional waves, which, as we said, let little Johnny
rot--hence, slacker.

"Now, of course, what little Johnny the so-called slacker actually did,
under the onslaught of this retro-Romantic Boomer ego--this
BOOMERITIS-1--was to adapt to these wretched circumstances by
developing a very sophisticated intelligence--skeptical, pragmatic,
entrepreneurial, independent--and completely irreverent in the face of the
false value system of boomeritis. Think David Spade or Janeane Garafolo,
two of my all-time favorites. Gen X is a wonderful title for all this, but
'slacker' is misleading in that it doesn't give the underlying flavor of the
brilliantly adaptive intelligence involved here: how better to confound
boomeritis and its grandiosity than by developing a 'ho-hum' attitude in the
face of all that self-proclaimed greatness?

"Well, Boomers are not total idiots, and when they realized that this
'noble savage' approach to reproducing their egos was not working--and
that little Johnny left in his original goodness is a slacker (and they begin to
realize this when little Johnny hit adolescence)--then the Boomers in droves
began to switch from 'original goodness' to 'growth to goodness.' Now it so
happens that the 'growth to goodness' model is the generally correct model;
but when it became injected with the grandiosity of boomeritis, look out!
Childhood was turned from a time of, well, childhood, into a time of
around-the-clock preparation for adulthood and greatness: after all, how
better to show that I am an amazingly great person and parent than to
have kids that grow up to be amazingly, astonishingly successful. This,
however, demands enormous work--starting when the kid is a fetus--and
with this, boomeritis-2 went into full gear. Where Gen X was left alone to
rot, Gen Y was molded from the moment of conception--both by the same
boomeritis ego, but with a different method to the madness.

"The Millennials are now hitting adolescence and early college years.
Again, we are speaking generalities and stereotypes here, but unlike the
Xers, the Millennials don't want to slack the system, but succeed in it.
They don't particularly chafe against the rules, don't totally yawn in the face
of their parents, appear more generally happy with society and are ready to
accelerate in it, and tend to trust the system, more or less. The extreme
stereotypes here are not David Spade and Janeane Garafolo but Britney and
Mandy and N Sync. Whereas the Xers, following the original boomeritis
phase, had a huge distrust of blue and orange, the Ys tend to embrace blue
and orange easily, and are happy to move on from there--if they can....

"Nonetheless, what both Xers and Ys are still struggling with is the
legacy of boomeritis, in either wave 1 or 2, a legacy that has left them with a
crippling allegiance to flatland. Whether that shows up in XERS as a slacker
attitude or in YS as intense ambition without a real goal, both show the
ultimately directionless nature of flatland. We at Integral Center continue to
believe that members of both of these generations have an extraordinary
chance to move beyond green and into yellow, to become part of the first
generation in history that MIGHT have a significant percentage of its
members with their center of gravity at yellow (say, 10% or more). And, as
we point out in the lecture today, these Xers and Ys might very well be
joined by a significant number of aging Boomers who, in the second half of
life, manage to move their own center of gravity from green to yellow (or
higher). As we said, a fair number of 'geeks and geezers' might come to
inhabit a second-tier consciousness, and that would indeed have a profound
impact on society.

"This is why, finally, it is not a matter of what generation you are, but of
what waves of consciousness you can open yourself to. This is why it truly
does not matter what age you are, or what generation you are, but whether
you can find, in the openness of your own awareness, a second- and third-
tier awakening to the deepest aspects of your very own being. And, my
friends, in this venture, I wish you all the very best."

2. p. 398: "I quote [Fritz Perls]: 'It should be noted... The criticism which
galls is that which he directs against himself.... especially if someone
emotionally significant to him invites the projection by voicing similar
criticism.'"

Kim's margin notes: "This quote is from The Adjusted American, by the
Putneys, who present a teaching that is based on Gestalt therapy principles."

3. p. 398/99: "I am simply suggesting that if it is boomeritis--flatland

inhabited by a big ego--that is the major barrier to the emergence of integral
consciousness, then boomeritis, of all things in the world, truly needs to be
deconstructed."

Van Cleef continued (from Kim's notes): "What does this integral project
involve? In my opinion, it has two sides: something to do, and something to
avoid. The positive injunction is to take the insights of pluralism and move
them forward into integralism. This gesture of balance would unite the best
of premodern, modern, and postmodern insights, and would deeply honor
the entire spiral of development and the full spectrum of consciousness.

"As we have seen, a good deal of the 'high end' of boomeritis is based on
the wave of pluralistic relativism (the green meme), and thus its important--
but partial--truths need to be taken up and preserved in any further growth.
Aspects of pluralism, contextualism, and constructivism are universally true,
and need to be carried forward in that light (as part of universal
integralism). Put simply, there are some enormously important
contributions that have been made by the green meme--and by
postmodernism in general--and these are crucial components of any second-
tier integral consciousness.

"And, in fact, almost every sophisticated critic of green postmodernism--

from Jürgen Habermas to Luc Ferry--has benefited enormously from its
insights, as they themselves readily admit. As Ferry and Renaut put it, 'On
the philosophical level it is impossible to return, after Marx, Nietzsche,
Freud, and Heidegger, to the idea that man is the master and possessor of
the totality of his actions and ideas'--impossible to return to an orange ego
thought to be completely autonomous and self-mastering. 'Today we know'-
-that is, thanks to green we know--'the illusions and danger inherent in such
a denial of the unconscious in its various forms'--the danger of denying the
extensive contexts and relationships in which all subjects are embedded.
'Today it is a question of rethinking--after this [green] critique and not only
against it--the question of the subject' ( French Philosophy of the Sixties, p. xvi).
In other words, it is only because of green and after green--its is only post-
green--that we can carry this project forward into more integral and
balanced endeavors.

"Now indeed is the time to go post-green, at least at the leading edge. But
this does not mean that we will cease all green concerns. On the contrary,
they are taken up, included and embraced, in the ongoing flow of integral
consciousness. Moreover, for every person who graduates from green, three
or four enter it: the great Spiral is unending in its flow.

"Since boomeritis is getting stuck at pluralism infected with narcissism,

the positive injunction is to move forward from pluralism to integralism,
and the negative injunction is to scrub narcissism from the program as much
as possible. The negative injunction is to examine, as honestly and as
carefully as we can, the contributions of excessive egocentrism to our own
agendas, and attempt as best we can to ameliorate them. This includes a
type of historical scrubbing: looking over our past pronouncements and
fervent beliefs and seeing to what extent any of them were either created by,
or perhaps over-inflated by, a narcissistic investment."

4. p. 400: "But a level that has unfortunately gone rancid, sour, pathological."

Mark Jefferson continued (from Kim's notes):

 "I have argued in this seminar that most of extreme postmodernism is
supported, not so much by the healthy green meme, as by the mean green
meme (MGM), or the pathological version of green that carries its insights to
absurd extremes, and especially by boomeritis (green infected with
purple/red). It is not surprising, then, that extreme postmodernism,
politically correct ideology, and extravagant multiculturalism have been
attacked by four different groups: the MGM has been attacked by healthy green,
second tier, orange, and blue.

"(1) The healthy green meme itself is quite critical of extreme

green (and boomeritis). I have often tried to represent the healthy green
claim against the mean green in this seminar. Many constructive
postmodernists, as opposed to deconstructive postmodernists, have also
argued against the extreme versions of pluralism and relativism. Political
scholars such as Amy Gutmann have argued for a healthy multiculturalism
within similar green-meme guidelines. Another fine example of healthy
green's approach is Culture Wars, by James Davison Hunter.

"(2) Second-tier integral theorists have vigorously criticized the mean

green meme, as well as a fixation to even the healthy green meme. They are
arguing from an integral orientation, which finds fault with any merely first-
tier approach, healthy or otherwise (because no sustainable political solution
can be found at first tier). At the same time, second tier transcends and
includes green, and thus the essentials of healthy green are always honored
and included in any truly integral approach, even when their partialness is
sharply criticized. JÜRGEN HABERMAS takes this second-tier stance
when he rebukes merely ethnocentric multiculturalism. JOHN SEARLE
takes this stance when he deconstructs deconstruction and when he
decisively argues against the social construction of all reality. I have also
tried to take this stance throughout this seminar. The problem with even the
healthy green approach--which calls, as James Hunter does, for 'peaceable
pluralism'--is that there is no such thing as peaceable pluralism. In order for
the conflicting memes to be at peace, they must exist in a context that
transcends all of them--that is, they must be held in a cultural space of
integralism, not pluralism. All second-tier critiques of pluralism are
conducted from this integral realization.

"(3) Orange (Enlightenment) liberals have argued strenuously, and often

successfully, against the extremes of green, because pathological green does
not transcend and include the Enlightenment, but merely trashes it. Healthy
green, on the other hand, builds upon the gains of the Enlightenment and
extends its many benefits even further and more fairly. True
multiculturalism is a natural, almost inevitable, outgrowth of Enlightenment
thinking, and those green theorists who merely deconstruct the
Enlightenment are demonstrating nothing but their own inability to
integrate. Besides, the Enlightenment at its best--KANT, for example--
reached solidly into second-tier integral constructions, deeply worldcentric,
a thing of beauty and goodness, apart from whatever flaws it also certainly
possessed. Fine examples of the orange Enlightenment's response to the
mean green meme are Jonathan Rauch's Kindly Inquisitors--The New Attacks
on Free Thought; Todd Gitlin's The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America Is
Wracked by Culture Wars; and Richard Bernstein's Dictatorship of Virtue:
Multiculturalism and the Battle for America's Future.

"(4) By far the most shrill and alarmist critiques of green have come from
blue-conservatives, who have often gone absolutely apoplectic over green
anything, let along extreme green. But they, too, have a series of important
points, not the least of which is that a society that lets blue structure crumble
is simply going to disintegrate, sooner or later, one way or another. The
problem with blue, as with all first-tier memes, is that it thinks its values are
the only real values, and so its agenda tends to be coercive, occasionally
bordering on fascist. Oddly, it used to be that liberals stood for universal
rights and conservatives for ethnocentric-patriotic nationalism, but the
situation has recently reversed. As liberals have tended to abandon themes
of universal anything (under pressure from multicultural green), blue
conservatives have taken to arguing for the common good. But true
multiculturalism is an Enlightenment universal, and by the 'common good'
most blue-conservatives mean their traditional (ethnocentric) values.
Nonetheless, Bill Bennett and The Book of Virtues are not without their
relevant points.

"In other words, I agree with all four critiques of the mean green meme,
but for quite different reasons. Moreover, although all of them have spotted
the mean green meme, few have spotted the real worm in the apple:
boomeritis.

"Finally, my liberal friends have been very uneasy with the notion of
boomeritis, since it is directed almost entirely at the misuses of liberalism
(especially green pluralism). In the culture wars, the most bitter acrimony
has been between blue conservatives and green liberals (mostly in the form
of the mean green meme. If the Berkeley protests were any example, up to
60% of green pluralists are actually harboring preconventional impulses).
The question naturally comes up, which is more threatening, blue
fundamentalists or the mean green meme (MGM)?

"Take science, for example. Both blue fundamentalists and the MGM
aggressively attack the validity of science. Blue claims that science
disagrees with the Bible and is therefore wrong; 'creation science' (the earth
and the entire fossil record were created in six days) should therefore be
included in school curricula. The mean green meme also attacks science: it is
allegedly marginalizing, oppressive, racist, sexist, patriarchal, and so on;
more than that, it hurts some people's feelings.

"Which is the more alarming attack?

"Opinions vary. The green-meme theorists in general try to rally around

the cause of pluralism, even if it goes to extremes. They thus paint the
culture wars as being mostly an alarming attack by blue fundamentalists
that threatens more open and caring values. James Hunter, in Culture Wars,
takes this stance.

"Orange liberals, on the other hand, perhaps sensing that blue

fundamentalists are indeed alarming but their claims are so preposterous
that they constitute no lasting threat, believe that the real damage is being
inflicted by the mean green meme. Richard Bernstein takes this stance in The
Dictatorship of Virtue. So does Jonathan Rauch in Kindly Inquisitors. Of the
two attacks, the mean green meme, he says, 'is the more dangerous. We will
pay a heavy price if the principle takes root in our ethical code that the
offended, having been hurt [i.e., simply having hurt feelings], have the
right to an apology and redress. It is crucial to understand that
this...principle is deadly--inherently deadly, not incidentally so--to
intellectual freedom and to the productive and peaceful pursuit of
knowledge' (p. 27).

"As an African-American, I am acutely aware of the threats that the blue

fundamentalists pose; but I must generally side with Bernstein and Rauch:
the MGM is much more menacing than blue. The ideal situation, of course,
is that following the Prime Directive, the healthy and constructive modes of
both blue and green can equally be honored as they make their own
important contributions to the health of the overall Spiral. But until that
time, the MGM, by virtue of its cognitive sophistication, appears the more
dangerous threat."

5. p. 401: "An integration of liberal and conservative values... would allow a

more judicious balance of human potentials and aspirations, don't you
think?" appaloosa

"Boomeritis," Jefferson continued (from Kim's notes), "is a threat not only
to standard conservative values; my major point is that boomeritis is even
more of a threat to genuine liberal values, in both their
Enlightenment orange and postmodern green versions. By
celebrating preconventional egocentrism under the disguise of
postconventional autonomy, boomeritis invites and indeed encourages
precisely those factors that cripple blue, orange, green, and higher."

6. p. 419: "As more geeks and geezers move into yellow... we will
increasingly see the rise of social movements, spiritual movements, political
movements, educational movements, that will demand integral approaches."

Jefferson added (from Kim's notes): "The fundamentalist blue

conservative sings the praises of premodern, traditional values (mythic-
membership, conventional morals, civic virtues, family values), and lashes
out at the orange Enlightenment and its modern conceptions of self, morals,
and ends (individualism, liberal morals, postconventional). The typical
green liberal, wishing to be ever so sensitive, also lashes out at the orange
Enlightenment, this time from a postmodern stance that froths at the mouth
about the Others of rationality. What both stances miss is that, in the overall
Spiral of development, premodern (purple, red, blue) and modern (orange)
and postmodern (green onward) all have a crucially important role to play, in
both individual development and social systems at large. Only by taking a
truly integral stance can we combine the best of liberal and conservative and
thus begin to move beyond the crippling limitations of each. This is the basic
approach we try to take at IC."

7. p. 422: "Dubious as that might sound to some of you, it is nonetheless the

rather strong conclusion of an enormous amount of sober, sophisticated,
cross-cultural research."
 Hazelton added, "See Integral Psychology for the results of over one
hundred researchers investigating these postformal and transpersonal
waves of development."

8. p. 423: "Almost anybody, at any level of development, can have a

temporary experience... of third tier."

Hazelton added (from Kim's notes): "There is a difference between states,

stages/levels, and realms. In this short introduction I am not going into
those details, but they are crucial for understanding this phenomenon.
'Third tier' is just a general term we are using for any higher, transpersonal
consciousness. As we are using this generalization, third tier is a general
realm, which can be accessed via an altered state at almost any stage of
development. But when a person develops from second tier to third tier,
then those altered states have become permanent traits (or levels/stages),
and thus third tier has become a permanent stage or wave of consciousness.
At no point are real stages skipped. See Sidebar G: 'States and Stages,' for a
summary of this important topic."

9. p. 424: "And since this spirituality is now post-green, it is a post-

boomeritis spirituality."

Hazelton added (from Kim's notes): "We call this an 'all-quadrants, all-
levels, all-lines, all-states, all-types' model--or AQAL for short. See A Theory
of Everything." And then, for some strange reason, she looked at me and
winked, and that might very well be the last thing I remembered about that
seminar series.