Evolutionaries: Unlocking the Spiritual & Cultural Potential of Science's Greatest Idea by Carter Phipps

 

Copyright 2012. Still relevant; perhaps more so

This book by Carter Phipps is an outstanding work of intellectual journalism. That is, it’s intended for a general audience. It provides basic explanations of key terms and examines thinkers within its field with enough depth to whet the appetite of the curious. (Like yours truly.) The book explores the wider implications of the theory of evolution. Of course, the theory was grounded in the biological insights of Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace, but the concept of development, of change through time in response to changing circumstances, including the course of the history of humankind, came before the two biologists. This new way of thinking is most widely known through the writings of the early nineteenth-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. (The full name just seems so appropriate.) Thus, while evolution is best known in the sphere of biology, it’s branched off into other fields, including psychology, sociology, politics, philosophy, and spirituality. Some argue that this is a bastardization of the theory of evolution and that it's fraught with problems (it can be and has been; see Darwinism, Social). But the primary idea of change through time that more often than not reveals a pattern of increasing complexity and sophistication, provides a tonic for thinking in other fields, too. Centering his reporting on (more or less) contemporary figures (with a few backward glances I’ll mention later), Phipps shares how this core concept ignited new and important trains of thought in many fields. 

Before diving in further, I should share Phipps’s definition of evolution: 

Evolution, as an idea, transcends biology. It is better thought of as a broad set of principles and patterns that generate novelty, change, and development over time.

Phipps, Carter. Evolutionaries (p. 27). Harper Perennial. Kindle Edition. 

With this perspective, Phipps goes on to provide his first take on what defines an evolutionary: “Evolutionaries are those who have woken up, looked around, and realized: We are moving.” Id. p. 38. The “moving” here is not so much physical (although it certainly includes physical movement), but it primarily addresses behaviors, actions, ideas, and culture. To borrow from the Buddhists, all is impermanence. But impermanence with an attitude, as it were. And this includes not only all the diverse species of life, but also individual humans, their societies and cultures, and even the Universe as a whole. We’re all dancing a dance to rhythms that only whisper to us and that bring us together and then apart in new, unexpected patterns. But let us return to Phipps’s descriptions of his subject matter. 

Clearly there is much overlap between Evolutionaries and evolutionists. But as I implied in chapter 1, I intend for Evolutionary to mean more than that. Evolutionary is a play on the word “revolutionary,” and I mean it to convey something of the revolutionary nature of evolution as an idea. Evolutionaries are revolutionaries, with all the personal and philosophical commitment that word implies. They are not merely curious bystanders to the evolutionary process, passive believers in the established sciences of evolution, though all certainly value those insights. They are committed activists and advocates—often passionate ones—for the importance of evolution at a cultural level. They are positive agents of change who subscribe to the underappreciated truth that evolution, comprehensively understood, implicates the individual. Indeed, an Evolutionary is someone who has internalized evolution, who appreciates it not only intellectually but also viscerally. Evolutionaries recognize the vast process we are embedded within but also the urgent need for our own culture to evolve and for each of us to play a positive role in that outcome.

He continues: 

With that in mind, I would like to outline three critical characteristics common to Evolutionaries. This is hardly an exhaustive list, but I hope it manages to capture the essential spirit of this designation. First, Evolutionaries are cross-disciplinary generalists. Second, Evolutionaries are developing the capacity to cognize the vast timescales of our evolutionary history. Third, Evolutionaries embody a new spirit of optimism.

Id. p. 40.

It is this final characteristic that makes these Evolutionaries so important: optimism. I’ll shock no one in opining that there's a dearth of hope these days. We humans, as a species, are lighting our own funeral pyre. Even rudimentary issues that shouldn’t create division or fear do so. If we can find legitimate grounds for optimism, we should grab firmly ahold of them. My opinion is that we’re headed for some remarkable and in some (perhaps many) ways severe changes, but can we as a species come out ahead on the other side? Maybe, but any predictions aside, we should set our course for the best possible outcome, and many of the thinkers given voice in his book provide suggestions along these lines. Carter provides a concise description of what he’s asserting: 

Evolutionaries are deep optimists. I’m not talking about a naïve optimism, a forced optimism, a superficial optimism, or even a hopeful optimism but an informed confidence in the knowledge that evolution is at work in the processes of consciousness and culture, and that we can place our own hands on the levers of those processes and make a positive impact. It is a subtle but powerful current of conviction that lifts the sails of the psyche and propels it forward into the future. Evolutionaries don’t just believe that the future can be better than the past; somehow they know it—like a great leader knows that she can make a difference; like a great athlete knows that he can compete and win. I would suggest that the unique flavor of this evolutionary optimism cannot be attributed to a mere personal feeling, inspiration, or belief. It runs deeper than that. Evolutionaries evince a confidence that is different from the brashness and bluster that flows out of the personal ego. It carries with it a conviction that reaches beyond any quality found only within the boundaries of the personality. And they transmit that confidence to others. We tend to transmit to others how we feel about life at a fundamental level. When one spends time with a great mystic or saint, there is a quality to the personality that is recognizable, whatever the particular tradition of that individual or belief system—a quality of ease, of deep peace, and of transcendent being that we experience in the company of those whose source of confidence lies far deeper than the individual psyche.

Id. p. 51. 

But lest you conclude that Phipps’s Evolutionraries are simply a bunch of Pollyannas, he quickly disabuses the reader of any such conclusion: 

It is important to note here that the evolutionary optimism I am speaking about does not equate to a conviction in an inevitable positive outcome, or a belief in a miraculous “shift” that is just about to happen. We see this kind of thinking all too often in spiritual-but-not-religious circles—whether it be a Mayan prophecy, the Harmonic Convergence, or some sort of “Earth Change” that will pave the way to the future. Such ideas are often held by individuals with the best of motives, who look out at a world of climate change, terrorism, corruption, overpopulation, and financial disaster, where billions live in poverty, and conclude that things are not getting better at all. Or if they are, they aren’t improving fast enough. And then they pray, hope, meditate—for some event; some change of consciousness; some immanent convergence, emergence, or resurgence of love, light, peace, and compassion to deliver us from the darkness and ignorance that has a hold on our collective soul. And too often, they invoke the term “evolution” to describe this shift in consciousness. Such thinking has nothing to do with evolution as I understand it. In fact, I would suggest that it is not a faith in evolution that leads one to embrace such naïve or exaggerated hopes but, in fact, a lack of faith. It is an insufficient appreciation of the power of evolution and a failure to understand how it works, at a cultural level, that leads some to start reaching for super-historical forces to emerge and save the day. When we begin to appreciate the true dimensions of the vast evolutionary process that we are a part of, our optimism becomes grounded in the slow but demonstrable reality of actual development.

Id. p. 52. 

One should note that no one, Evolutionary or other, can predict the future with any accuracy. Imagine a variety of futures? Yes. But predict accurately? No. But then the outcome of any process arises in part--and perhaps in large part--from the vision of those who act to influence it. (And by "act," I would include imagining a future.)

Following these introductory remarks, Phipps takes his reader through a gallery of Evolutionaries, some via personal interviews and some through explication of their works. Whatever the medium, his tour is a who’s-who of key figures that includes biologists Lynn Margulis, David Sloan Wilson (all-too-briefly in my opinion, but then Wilson has done a lot even since 2014), Simon Conway-Morris, and Rupert Sheldrake; generalists (a term that Carter uses to define Evolutionaries) Robert Wright and Howard Bloom; complexity theorist Stuart Kaufmann; techno-futurists and transhumanists Ray Kurzweil and Kevin Kelly; economist and complexity theorist W. Brian Arthur; lawyer-turned-integral theorist Steve McIntosh and integral theorist Ken Wilber; philosopher and social theorist Jurgen Habermas; Gary Lachman, historian of Western thought; Don Beck of Spiral Dynamics fame; Michael Dowd, fundamentalist preacher-turned-evolutionary teacher; Thomas Berry, Catholic monastic and cultural historian; cosmologist Brian Swimme; and process theologian Phillip Clayton. I've listed only those with whom I had some prior acquaintance (some fleeting; some extensive) and who are contemporary (I think only Thomas Berry (1914-2009) on this list is deceased). And this is only a partial list of contemporaries! Phipps does his homework and pounds the pavement to get his stories. 

But in addition to those with whom he spoke or who are still active among us, Phipps discusses key figures from the past: Hegel; James Mark Baldwin, Henri Bergson; Charles Saunders Pierce; Alfred North Whitehead; Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000!); Jean Gebser; and others. And among the others are two figures who seem to be the guiding minds of the Evolutionary brigade: the Indian independence activist, philosopher, and mystic,  Sri Aurobindo (1972-1950), and the Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). Indeed, if we were to be compelled to identify one guiding spirit in the train of evolutionary thought, it would have to be that of Teilhard, followed closely by Aurobindo. (Alas, I must confess that I’ve not read the original texts of either of these two giants, even as Aurobindo was recommended to me by a young Iranian-Spanish-Irish chest master at a meditation retreat; and I’ve known of Teilhard since my undergrad years. Perhaps having enjoyed Phipps’s treatment of them, this will be the year!) 

I would be remiss, I think, not to note that much of Phipps’s work with this book was in connection with the periodicals What Is Enlightenment, later re-named EnlightenNext, for which he served as executive editor from 1999-2010. (I was a frequent reader of those periodicals and will attest to the quality of their product.) The periodical was associated with the teachings of Andrew Cohen, an American spiritual teacher, whom Phipps describes as his “friend and mentor.” Phipps discusses Cohen and his relationship with him in the book. However, the book was copyrighted in 2012. In 2013 Cohen withdrew from public teaching amid criticisms from students (followers) who accused him of abusive and authoritarian behavior, and he issued a public apology for his actions in 2015. (In distinction from many self-styled “enlightened” teachers, these allegations didn’t involve sexual misconduct so far as I can tell.) However, having noted all this, I don’t believe that it negates the arguments Phipps makes in this book. And while I suspect that Cohen's fall may have had caused some personal consternation for Phipps, his work has continued to prosper. He went on to become the co-founder and Managing Director of the Institute for Cultural Evolution, a nonprofit social policy think-tank based in Boulder, Colorado inspired by the insights of Integral Philosophy. And via The Institute for Cultural Evolution, he became associated with the Post-Progressive Alliance, an off-shoot of the Institute for Cultural Evolution (and of which I am a member). The Post-Progressive Alliance seeks a path out of our current “culture wars” and its attendant political dysfunction via a better understanding and appreciation of current world views and envisioning new sets of values that incorporate the best of existing values with new perspectives. (For a complete consideration of the thinking that prompted the Post-Progressive Alliance, see Steve McIntosh's Developmental Politics: How American Can Grow into a Better Version of Itself.) Also, in 2020 Phipps and co-authors Steve McIntosh and John Mackey published Conscious Leadership: Elevating Humanity Through Business. So whatever disruption Phipps may have suffered from the downfall of Cohen, he seems to have come out ahead. 

Before closing, I should also note that Phipps steps from behind the authorial curtain on many occasions, all to my delight. His comments and revelations (of personal experiences and beliefs) allow the reader to better know their guide, where’s he’s been and where he might be headed. His questions, doubts, and experiences enhance the narrative and serve as a contrast and commentary upon the ideas considered in the book (valuable as they are). For instance, Phipps notes his change in demeanor during Sooner football games while discussing Don Beck and Spiral Dynamics: 

[W]hen I watch football, especially University of Oklahoma football, I undergo a rather startling personality change. Temporarily, I leave behind my mild-mannered exterior and a whole subpersonality comes to the forefront of my consciousness. It’s as if I’m getting in touch with my tribal roots, with warriorlike values of power, will, and domination that are not so prominent in my everyday personality. A whole new attitude emerges in my consciousness, which I suspect is more related to ancient tribal wars than anything I’m engaged with currently.

Id. p. 202

As someone whose wife fears for her safety because of my sometimes wild gesticulations and verbal outbursts during Hawkeye games, I can relate. His report impresses me with a point about Spiral Dynamics that's more visceral (and therefore more memorable) than it otherwise would have been.

The only shortcoming of the book is that it ends, in a manner of speaking, in 2012. What's gone on with Evolutionaries since 2012? Who has joined the ranks? What new developments are there? Have the ideas of Evolutionaries gained wider acceptance in academia and other fields? And how do the Evolutionaries see themselves in relation to other contemporary trains of thought? Of course, every book must end and all knowledge arises over time. We can't blame an author for an inability to escape the constraints of time. But that being said, it does provoke in me a desire to further explore the thinking of those that Phipps has identified and to consider who, present or past, may have a place in this pantheon of exploratory thinkers. An intriguing project to consider!

Thoughts: 28 October 2021

 

Last Best Hope

George Packer

The great danger of equality is atomization. If we’re all side by side on the same level and constantly in motion, there’s no fixed relation between us. “Aristocracy links everybody, from peasant to king, in one long chain,” Tocqueville wrote. “Democracy breaks the chain and frees each link.” Equal and independent people will satisfy their own desires with no obligation to others outside their narrow circle. The chance to be anything or anyone gives them the idea that they don’t owe anything to anyone. They grow indifferent to the common good and withdraw from others into the pursuit of personal happiness, especially wealth. Tocqueville called this “individualism.” It explains how the American passion for equality can lead to extreme inequality, even a new aristocracy, but one without links between people.

This quote and the following one from William Ophuls direct our attention to the shadow side of democracy, it's inherent defects that must receive our continuing attention and course corrections. Also, consider this quote in light of our failure to take actions for the common good in response to the pandemic.

Apologies to the Grandchildren

William Ophuls

As in a Greek tragedy, democracy’s virtue is also a fatal flaw. For it is in the nature of democratic polity to foster increased freedom, and as freedoms compound they eventually produce an unstable, ungovernable society in which anything goes.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Neil Postman

Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.

Consider in light of the preceding quotes from Packer & Ophuls. Since Postman published this book in the early 1980s, the American people (never a majority) voted in sufficient numbers to elect an utterly unqualified, undignified rich kid (old at the time, but still . . .) made most famous by "reality" (staged) TV. How prescient--sadly.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Robert M. Pirsig

The real cycle you’re working on is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be “out there” and the person that appears to be “in here” are not two separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from Quality together.

The Life of the Mind

Hannah Arendt 

This truth—a-lētheia, that which is disclosed (Heidegger)—can be conceived only as another “appearance,” another phenomenon originally hidden but of a supposedly higher order, thus signifying the lasting predominance of appearance. Our mental apparatus, though it can withdraw from present appearances, remains geared to Appearance. The mind, no less than the senses, in its search—Hegel’s Anstrengung des Begriffs—expects that something will appear to it.

The Inevitability of Tragedy

Barry Gewen

Heidegger’s philosophical vision may have been cogent and powerful, but it was time-bound and partial, and so too was his notion of humanity itself—which [Leo] Strauss called “narrow.” There was neither tenderness to his thought, nor a consideration of love or charity, or any of the other finer impulses in humanity. Heidegger appealed to anyone who embraced a “tragic sense of life” as the only, or at least the most sophisticated, outlook, but he had nothing to say, Strauss observed, about “laughter and the things which deserved to be laughed at.”

One doesn't read Heidegger (if at all) for laughs, for humor, for kindness, or a sense of human warmth. A sound critique from Leo Strauss.

A Brief History of Everything

Ken Wilber

Calculations done by scientists from Fred Hoyle to F. B. Salisbury consistently show that twelve billion years isn’t even enough to produce a single enzyme by chance.

The Enigma of Reason

Hugo Mercier

A simple first-pass way to define intuitions is to say that they are judgments (or decisions, which can also be quite intuitive) that we make and take to be justified without knowledge of the reasons that justifies them. Intuition is often characterized as “knowing without knowing how one knows.” Our conscious train of thought is, to a large extent, a “train of intuitions.” Intuitions play a central role in our personal experience and also in the way we think and talk about the mind in general, our “folk psychology.”

A Short History of Decay

Emil M. Cioran, Richard Howard (Translator), Eugene Thacker (Foreword)

“Once man loses his faculty of indifference he becomes a potential murderer; once he transforms his idea into a god the consequences are incalculable. We kill only in the name of a god or of his counterfeits: the excesses provoked by the goddess Reason, by the concept of nation, class, or race are akin to those of the Inquisition or of the Reformation”

Cioran was a mid-20th century Romanian writer.

The Principles of History and Other Writings in Philosophy of History

R. G. Collingwood, W. H. Dray, and W. J. van der Dussen

The student of historical method will hardly find it worth his while, therefore, to go closely into the rules of evidence, as these are recognized in courts of law. For the historian is under no obligation to make up his mind within any stated time. Nothing matters to him except that his decision, when he reaches it, shall be right: which means, for him, that it shall follow inevitably from the evidence.

So long as this is borne in mind, however, the analogy between legal methods and historical methods is of some value for the understanding of history; of sufficient value, I think, to justify my having put before the reader in outline the above sample of a literary genre which in the absence of any such motive it would, of course, be beneath his dignity to notice.

An intriguing point if one is, like me, a lawyer and a student of history. I find a lot of overlap. Both deal with the past when the lawyer is involved in resolving--as opposed to trying to avoid--disputes.

Thoughts: 11 October 2021

 

Published Sept 2021: Extraordinary analysis

Shutdown

Adam Tooze

It was the most spectacular surge in debt ever recorded in peacetime [the Covid response]. In conventional preconceptions, a flood of public debt on this scale presented a giant challenge to the balance between private saving and private investment. Government borrowing would suck scarce savings out of the economy, driving up interest rates, thus crowding out private investment. This was the economic complement to the naive conservative vision of the welfare state as being for poor people and the government as being a racket run by civil servants at the expense of the rest of society. What fiscal policy gave, the financial squeeze would take away. If this logic held water, 2020 should have witnessed gigantic crowding out. In fact it was the reverse. A huge surge in debt coincided with a historic collapse in interest rates for both public and private borrowers.

The Wages of Destruction

Adam Tooze

The first priority of German rearmament [by the Nazi government] was to escape the overwhelming threat posed by France and its Allies, who might intervene at any time. The longer-term objective was ‘possibly the struggle for new export possibilities [i.e. colonies], possibly–and probably better–conquest of new Lebensraum in the East and its ruthless Germanization. Certain that the current economic situation can be changed only with political power and struggle. Everything that can occur now . . . mere makeshift.’

Wicked & Wise

Alan Watkins, Ken Wilber

The first person perspective is very passionate, it’s powerful and engaging, but it can also be dogmatic and unyielding. It is based on personal experiences in the world, things the stakeholder has witnessed and ‘knows’ to be true because they have seen them with their own eyes. This is often the approach of religion or faith, as well as certain die-hard political positions.

Hannah Arendt

Anne C. Heller

The “hair-raising superficiality” of evil as displayed by Eichmann suggests that evil is infectious.

The Road to Unfreedom

Timothy Snyder

The machines [communication devices like smart phones, etc.] that were meant to create time were consuming it instead. As we lost our ability to concentrate and recall, everything seemed new.

The Shape of Ancient Thought

Thomas McEvilley

Combining this with Xenophanes’ analysis of relativism, one could say that “gods and men” exist through some kind of psychological projection of themselves: They are their own delusion. This idea, common in Hindu and Buddhist thought, occupies a position somewhere between philosophy and mythology; its philosophical status consists in the fact that it does not posit a beginning, but a moment-to-moment indwelling principle. Logical priority has replaced temporal priority; structure has replaced narrative—though the mythical subject is still present.

Developmental Politics: How America Can Grow into a Better Version of Itself by Steve McIntosh

 

2020 publication

I have to admit that it took some internal prodding to get me to finally read this book. I'd been aware of it from around the time it was published in March 2020 and back in 2015 I'd read and appreciated his The Presence of the Infinite: The Spiritual Experience of  Beauty, Truth, and Goodness (2015). But perhaps like a good many of us, I've suffered from a bit of burnout from trying to understand and to promote a cure for the current fever in American politics and culture. But then I realize that if we don't properly diagnose and cure this raging fever, then the American experiment in democracy, self-government, and the rule of law probably won't survive. Also, I know well that life, politics, history wait for no one; politics is an ongoing endeavor that involves a constant struggle to arrive at decisions and to take the actions needed to maintain a functioning democratic polity. In times like these, one can better understand the temptation of authoritarianism, the destruction of politics. But I also know that such thoughts put one on the road to perdition, if not plain-old hell. One must continue to fight the good fight.

I was also promoted to read this book now by learning that McIntosh, along with his confederates Jeff Salzmann (of the Daily Evolver podcast) and Carter Phipps (author of the book Evolutionaries that I've read), were launching a new endeavor through their organization The Institute for Cultural Evolution. The new endeavor, labeled "The Post-Progressive Project" via its website provided a guide to what these three and others had in mind as a political project. I like what I read, and decided to dig deeper. I'm glad that I did. 

I should also say that I might have been a little skeptical of McIntosh's aspirations in this book because of my having read The Presence of the Infinite: The Spiritual Experience of  Beauty, Truth, and Goodness. After all, one doesn't usually identify American politics with beauty, goodness, or truth. But then, on the other hand, I contend that we do sometimes find--or should I say generate--diamonds in the muck. I knew that McIntosh's first three books dealt with evolutionary thought, metaphysics, and other high-altitude topics through the lens of integral philosophy as re-incarnated in its contemporary American form starting with the project of Ken Wilber. (I say reincarnated in deference to the earlier project of integral philosophy espoused by Sri Aurobindo.) So my concern upon embarking upon this book was whether McIntosh could successfully shift from high-altitude reconnaissance flights to serving as a ground-level scout who can accurately report on the fighting ongoing in the jungle of American politics. The answer is "yes," and he does so not by abandoning his high-flying ideas, but by incorporating them into his ground-level observations and recommendations. Indeed, given McIntosh's appreciation of dialectics and polarities, I should have expected nothing less. 

One insight that McIntosh identifies early in the book is a key point that many "modernists" (in McIntosh's terminology, or more broadly, I'd say "liberals") don't appreciate. That is, that all politics lies downstream from culture. Modernists, including both contemporary liberals and Marxists, tend to believe that all politics lies downstream from economics--or at least it should be this way if only the "traditionalists" (McIntosh's term) weren't so indifferent to their economic self-interest. ("What's the matter with Kansas?") Contemporary American conservatives have known this for a long time--and they have exploited this insight--to create the culture wars that keep Republican candidates afloat even as their economic program favors the wealthiest. (Traditionalist-"conservatives" are abetted in this by the apparent ignorance of so many modernists about this insight.) A large share of American voters favor the policies and programs of the Democrats but they love the culture of the conservatives and Trumpists. (Not all conservatives should be tarred with the Trumpist brush, thank goodness.) With this insight in hand, McIntosh identifies three bundles of cultural "worldviews" currently dominant on the American scene, which he labels "traditionalist," "modernist," and "postmodern." Each of these groups holds a distinct (although not always conflicting) set of values. Each group has certain strengths (good values if you will) and certain negative "values." McIntosh argues that each of these groups can be seen on a developmental continuum. Within such a developmental continuum one would ideally see the incorporation of positive values from one level to the next. Hence, a liberal society depends on the more fundamental--shall we say conservative--values of loyalty to family, group, and country, as observers from Tocqueville to David Brooks and Patrick Deneen have argued. The "post-moderns" (political "progressives") tend to scorn the "modernists" (liberals) for the emphasis liberals place on tolerance, open debate, the use of markets, and adherence to institutions and rules. Such critics don't appreciate that these modern, liberal, democratic doctrines and values undergird the economic, legal, and political institutions that allow a postmodern, progressive perspective to receive a hearing. Without these liberal institutions, we can expect that the rise of illiberal regimes similar to those that scarred 20th-century Europe and Asia. Not a happy precedent. The program that McIntosh presents here is the try to end the culture wars in American politics (or at least take it down several notches) by recognizing and incorporating the positive values from each perspective while jettisoning the unique negatives that each worldview entails. Needless to say, this is easier said than done, but McIntosh is on the right track. 

Here's how I would describe the gist of McIntosh's prescription: (Spoiler Alert!): The only way of out is up. That is, the only way out of our current political dysfunction is by taking our value system "up" a notch. This path would retain what's worth keeping among the values entailed in each of the three worldviews while disposing of the junk. McIntosh dubs this new level of consciousness "integral consciousness" as in the integral philosophy that I referenced above. 

McIntosh's program presents us with a daunting challenge. As he recognizes, the path forward is like negotiating a mountain trail that never goes straight up but dips and climbs and switches back and thereby allowing the climber to ascend to the higher peak. Course corrections and setbacks are a part of the human story. There's no true tale of uninterrupted progress. (McIntosh includes a useful meditation on the idea of "progress" in our thinking.) McIntosh is also realistic enough to identify the strange twists that often occur in politics and between worldviews. His comment on Trump's relationship with the traditionalist worldview is choice: 

Although clearly not a traditionalist, Trump has positioned himself as an enemy of postmodernism. Traditionalists therefore hired Trump as their “bouncer” or cultural bodyguard. And when hiring a bouncer, one may be inclined to overlook his arrest record.(Location 1097, Kindle ed.)

 McIntosh packs a great deal into this book. In addition to his political and cultural analysis of the contemporary American scene, he also details the (integral) philosophic background to his thinking. The full details of McIntosh's program are too much to consider in this review (read the book!), but a couple of items caught my attention that I want to take point-out. The first item involves McIntosh's description and deployment of "polarity theory." I'd not heard of this theory before, although the idea behind seems intuitive and easy enough to grasp. The example of the application that McIntosh shared and that caught my eye as a former athletic team member, coach (volunteer level), and spectator, as well as from my career as an attorney, is contained in this quote:

In the case of the competition-cooperation polarity, for example, unrestrained competition, in the absence of a larger agreement to play by the rules and cooperate, can quickly devolve into a dog-eat-dog condition wherein defensiveness saps productivity. Conversely, cooperation by itself, without the incentive or opportunity for individual excellence or creativity, can similarly devolve into groupthink or stifling bureaucratic mediocrity. But when competition and cooperation are brought together in a mutually correcting relationship that provides for both challenge and support, the value-creating potential of each side is maximized. (Location 1210)

Anyone who's been a member of an athletic team understands the challenge of competing for playing time and "glory" while also understanding the need to pull together and work as a team. Teams require cooperation and sacrifice for the good of the team. I've always thought that the most successful coaches have learned how to maximize both sides of the competition-cooperation polarity to get the most out of their players as individuals and as a team. (McIntosh has recently posted a useful series of visuals identifying different polarities at work in our lives.) 

The other topic that I want to note is McIntosh's introduction of "virtue ethics" into his integral thinking. Some years ago (okay, on the order of three decades ago) I read Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue. Honestly, I didn't get it, but after reading McIntosh's promotion of this line of thinking, I'm ready to sign-up for the remedial program. McIntosh cites the work of Aristotle and Aquinas as well as more contemporary thinkers like Elizabeth (G.E.M.) Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, and Alasdair MacIntyre as developing the virtue ethics perspective. McIntosh also mines the traditional virtues theological (faith, hope, and love) and classical (justice, prudence, temperance, and courage) for their usefulness. He also provides a list of "alternative and somewhat more secular terms for the virtues" that includes loyalty, compassion, fairness, integrity, creativity, determination, and enthusiasm. This alternative way of considering morality, so different from deontological and utilitarian theories, is an intriguing and practical way of thinking about how we conduct ourselves. 

Before closing (and I've left many topics unaddressed), I should note that partway through the book it struck me how well organized and well-written this book is. Knowing of McIntosh's training and experience as a lawyer, I couldn't help but think of this book as a well-written brief. McIntosh makes his case systematically and methodically, supporting his contentions and anticipating objections. A winning brief from my perspective. (And believe me, not all briefs are well-written well-argued, or persuasive, all to the consternation of judges and their clerks.) 

Has McIntosh provided us with a roadmap out of (political) hell? Yes, at least a rough one. Not the only one, certainly, but his map provides enough guidance to allow us to commence our journey with the hope of arriving at our promised land of relative political tranquility. The challenge will be to spread McIntosh's political and developmental good news among the people. I'm on board. I'm now a member of the Post-Progressive Alliance that seeks to implement the principles of McIntosh's book and the insights of his confederates. I say, "Onward and upward!"

Thoughts for the Day: Friday 2 July 2021

 

Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic

B. Alan Wallace

Even though they [the subtlest discursive thoughts, mental dialogues, images, memories, desires, and emotions] go undetected, they may strongly influence our minds and behavior. Unconscious mental processes, as Freud discovered centuries after Buddhist contemplatives, can actually exert deep and lasting influences in our mental lives. This practice is a path of self-knowledge, as subconscious influences are gradually identified via increasingly refined qualitative vividness.

Age of Anger

Pankaj Mishra

History, largely experienced previously as a series of natural disasters, could now be seen as a movement in which everyone could potentially enlist. Intellectuals and artists rose as a class for the first time to lend a hand in the making of history, and locate the meaning of life in politics and art rather than traditional religion. The balance in European culture shifted from the religious to the secular – a momentous process that is still ongoing in many parts of the world.

Essays in Understanding, 1930-1954

Hannah Arendt

For whatever the historian calls an end, the end of a period or a tradition or a whole civilization, is a new beginning for those who are alive.

A Secret History of Consciousness

Gary Lachman

From the beginning, the clear, decisive, directed thinking that we associate with rationality is linked to aggression and force.

A Brief History of Everything

Ken Wilber

The tricky part . . . is how to do two very difficult things: one, to reasonably decide just what are the major differences between the male and female value spheres (à la Gilligan), and then, two, to learn ways to value them more or less equally. Not to make them the same, but to value them equally.