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| Credit: Kanzeon Zen Center |
Some disjointed thoughts on Ken Wilber.
Wilber claims to know both Bill Clinton and Karl Rowe. During the 1990´s, Clinton was widely considered to be "to the right" within the Democratic Party. He supported globalization, wanted to "end welfare as we know it" and talked about "family values". At the same time, Clinton had a somewhat unconventional public image for a politician. He played the sax on TV and recorded a self-ironic video of himself hitting a vending machine. It struck me that Slick Willy´s cavorting with Wilber may have been part and parcel of this unconventional image. As for Rowe, he was of course George W Bush´s campaign general (as in election campaign).
Wilber´s Integral Theory was probably adapted to those portions of the privileged middle classes which were more conventional and "centrist". Perhaps they benefitted from both Clinton´s and Bush´s policies. It´s interesting to note that Wilber attacked New Age and political correctness, despite being (broadly) New Age himself and not particularly "based". Perhaps this was his way of signaling to the mainstream middle classes that he was just as respectable as they were. He consciously placed himself in the center. He also rejected conspiracy theories and apocalypticism.
Wilber´s Integral Theory is clearly inspired by Theosophy, but the societal optimism is much more explicit. Soon, globalization will propel a select few into a new form of consciousness, which represents the next stage in human and spiritual evolution. Regular liberals are better than the reactionary, nationalist and intolerant sectors of the population, but they still need to break free of certain shortcomings (such as fanatical identity politics) to reach the loftier global heights of integral understanding.
Now, why oh why would this be appealing to privileged middle class people in Amerika circa 2000, do you think? Because it probably rather faithfully reflects their self-understanding.
Note also that Wilber supported "Bright Green" politics (really no Green politics) and that some of his erstwhile disciples are high on Bjorn Lomborg, climate change denial and such. The whole thing unravelled rather spectacularly with Trump´s election victory in 2016. Wilber´s response, "Trump and a Post-Truth World", was to berate the West Coast liberal elites for their arrogance - which had paved the way for Trump - but offering no particular alternative. I´m not sure what Wilber says today, but in the real world, not even Biden´s defeat of Trump solved America´s problems. We seem to be spiralling downwards on the evolutionary scheme...
So what´s the point of the above? No idea, except that it´s interesting that Wilber´s timeless theory of everything was so firmly situated in the *material* realities of turn-of-the-millennium United States. However, Wilber´s system also has an escape clause of sorts: the world-soul will never find what it´s looking for within evolutionary samsara anyway, necessitating a clean break into a purely spiritual dimension.
Maybe it´s high time for that break. Or at least the preparations for it!
