Thoughts for the Day: Monday 16 August (that most august date) 2021

 

N.B. The following quotes are taken from Naomi Oreskes Introduction.

The problematic assumptions are thus three-fold: (1) that everything is here for our use, and whoever can find and market that use is warranted in doing so; (2) that the system that created these problems will somehow also solve them; and (3) that technology, enabled by science and fostered by the profit motive and consumerism, is the foundation of progress, prosperity, freedom, and even happiness.

(Location 130)

What [Pope Francis] rejects is the logic that sees the marketplace as the solution to all problems, that prioritizes profits to the exclusion of other considerations, and that privileges individual desire over the common good.

(Location 135)

The failures of communism are taken as total refutation of any attempted intervention in the marketplace, any attempt to guide technological development towards more humane ends. But theirs is the ideology of no ideology. Thus it is significant that the pope’s critique is based not only on theological foundations, but on empirical ones as well. It is based on the simple fact that the system as it currently operates has failed in three important ways. The first is a failure of equity. . . . The second failure is environmental damage. The champions of our current system often say its benefits have simply not yet reached the poor—and therefore we must continue (and even strengthen) the practices that have made the rich rich [sic] until they reach all. . . . The third failure is the spiritual impoverishment of the rich. The cheerleaders of capitalism insist that free markets are not just the best means of delivering goods and services, but the only means that protect our freedom.v In the aftermath of the Cold War, this can be a hard argument to refute, but the pope is a brave man and he takes on the challenge: Our paradigm leads people to believe that they are free “as long as they have the supposed freedom to consume.”

And now for some other voices to round-out our diet: 

Commanding Hope

Thomas Homer-Dixon

The claim that capitalism is the cause of our environmental problems is only partially true, at best. Historically, non-capitalist economies, like that of the Soviet Union, have also caused massive environmental damage; and environmental problems like climate change always have multiple causes— such as people’s psychological tendency to discount future costs— many of which have nothing to do with capitalism.

Plato's Revenge

William Ophuls

Socrates’s aim is to teach political moderation and philosophical dispassion to his young interlocutors—that is, to incline their minds to wisdom and virtue instead of ambition for wealth, honor, and power.

Conservatism

Edmund Fawcett

Liberalism promised the boons of protection from power and equal respect for all, whoever they were. It said little about who was to enjoy such boons. It fell silent about how far “all” stretched. Democracy, by contrast, insisted on liberalism’s boons for everyone. Democratic liberalism, that is, demanded that protection from power—the power of state, wealth, or social pressures—be available to everyone, whoever they were. The “everyone” here included not only majorities—the less educated, the less well-off—it also included minorities, be they rich or poor, upon whom majorities might prey.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Robert M. Pirsig

A classical understanding sees the world primarily as underlying form itself. A romantic understanding sees it primarily in terms of immediate appearance.

Conservatism

Edmund Fawcett

Although derided by Democratic liberals as a golf-playing do-nothing and by Taft’s followers as a risk-blind globalist, Eisenhower (1890–1969) presided as a skillful chairman over the post-1945 consolidation of American economic and strategic power. As former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and then US president from 1953 to 1961, the changes he made to New Deal tradition were more in pace than direction.

Thoughts for the Day: Sunday 15 August 2021

 

[Naomi Oreskes from the Introduction]  What is a surprise—and a serious challenge to our global political and business leadership—is his attention to the set of mentalities that he variously calls the myths of modernity, the myth of progress, and the technocratic paradigm. 

Perhaps the most radical part of the letter (and the part that has already proved disturbing to some readers) is its powerful critique of our “models of production and consumption.” The pope addresses head-on our prevailing economic practices and the modes of thought that insist—despite considerable evidence to the contrary—that we just need to let markets do their “magic.” 

While the word “capitalism” does not appear in the letter, the word “market” (or its variants) appears nineteen times, usually in a critical context.

. . . . 

He [Pope Francis] is asking us to reexamine the creed of “individualism, unlimited progress, competition, consumerism, the unregulated market.”

. . . . 

[Quoting directly from the encyclical] "The basic problem … is the way that humanity has taken up technology and its development according to an undifferentiated and one-dimensional paradigm. This paradigm exalts the concept of a subject who, using logical and rational procedures, progressively approaches and gains control over an external object … Men and women have constantly intervened in nature, but for a long time this meant being in tune with and respecting the possibilities offered by the things themselves. It was a matter of receiving what nature itself allowed, as if from its own hand. Now, by contrast, we are the ones to lay our hands on things, attempting to extract everything possible from them while frequently ignoring or forgetting the reality in front of us … This has made it easy to accept the idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology. It is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth’s goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry beyond every limit. It is the false notion that “an infinite quantity of energy and resources are available, that it is possible to renew them quickly, and that the negative effects of the exploitation of the natural order can be easily absorbed.”" (Quoted from the encyclical.)

Pope Francis. Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality . Melville House. Kindle Edition. 

And now for a bit of variety: 

Apologies to the Grandchildren

William Ophuls

A two-hundred and fifty year-old industrial civilization is also entering its terminal phase. It is mostly failing to come to grips with the problems occasioned by its success, and it exhibits all of the major contradictions that have driven past civilizations toward decline and fall—ecological stress, overpopulation, resource exhaustion, excessive complexity, loosened morals, burgeoning indebtedness, social strife, blatant corruption, and political dysfunction.

William Walker Atkinson Premium 7 Book Collection

WILLIAM WALKER ATKINSON

Desire is the motivating power behind all actions – it is a natural law of life. Everything from the atom to the monad; from the monad to the insect; from the insect to man; from man to Nature, acts and does things by reason of the power and force of Desire, the Animating Motive. "

The Principles of Art

R. G. Collingwood

To a person who knows his business as scientist, historian, philosopher, or any kind of inquirer, the refutation of a false theory constitutes a positive advance in his inquiry. It leaves him confronted, not by the same old question over again, but by a new question, more precise in its terms and therefore easier to answer.

The Wedge

Scott Carney

Success doesn’t happen if you only act when you are sure of a positive outcome. Real success means risking failure. We succeed only after we accept that we might fail and plan for the worst.

Thoughts for the Day: Saturday 14 August 2021

 

N.B. All quotations within the quotes below are to Laudato Si. 

“Often, what was handed on was a Promethean vision of mastery over the world, which gave the impression that the protection of nature was something that only the faint-hearted cared about. Instead, our ‘dominion’ over the universe should be understood more properly in the sense of responsible stewardship.”

(Location 66)

We are not God. The earth was here before us and it has been given to us. This allows us to respond to the charge that Judaeo-Christian thinking, on the basis of the Genesis account which grants man “dominion” over the earth (cf. Gen 1:28), has encouraged the unbridled exploitation of nature by painting him as domineering and destructive by nature. This is not a correct interpretation of the Bible as understood by the Church. Although it is true that we Christians have at times incorrectly interpreted the Scriptures, nowadays we must forcefully reject the notion that our being created in God’s image and given dominion over the earth justifies absolute domination over other creatures. The biblical texts … tell us to “till and keep” the garden of the world (cf. Gen 2:15). “Tilling” refers to cultivating, ploughing or working, while “keeping” means caring, protecting, overseeing and preserving. This implies a relationship of mutual responsibility between human beings and nature. Each community can take from the bounty of the earth whatever it needs for subsistence, but it also has the duty to protect the earth and to ensure its fruitfulness for coming generations.

(Location 72)

Clearly “the Bible has no place for a tyrannical anthropocentrism unconcerned for other creatures.”

(Location 85)

To the extent that God has given man a special place, it is the place of “cooperator with God in the work of creation.” But that is a responsibility as much as a right, “a splendid universal communion” that entails an obligation of care: “We do not understand our superiority as a reason for personal glory or irresponsible dominion, but rather as a different capacity which, in its turn, entails a serious responsibility stemming from our faith.”

(Location 86)

If this encyclical were only intended to reach the faithful, the pope might have ended his discussion there. But his intent to reach further becomes clear in the second part of his argument: that current attitudes and behaviors are not only wrong in a moral sense, they are also wrong in a practical sense. They have not worked. They have given us a world that is broken and unjust: where the wealthy worry about obesity while the extreme poor have next to nothing, and the whole planet (in what is destined to be the most quoted phrase of the letter) “is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.” This is no accident, for when “nature is viewed solely as a source of profit and gain, this has serious consequences for society.”

(Location 90)

Thoughts for the Day & A Special Announcement: Friday 13 August 2021

Pope Francis, author

Starting today and running until I decide not to, I'll be pulling quotes from one work. Normally, I receive (somewhat) random quotes from my Readwise app. It pulls my highlights from my Kindle reading and popular highlights from paper books that I've read and recorded in my Goodreads account. But now I'm pulling my quotes only from Laudato Si, the 2015 encyclical (fancy word for formal letter) issued by Pope Francis. The subtitle (all via an official translation from the Vatican) tells readers what it's about: On Care for Our Common Home. It addresses climate change, environmental degradation more generally, justice, and our common humanity and the creatures with whom we share this Earth. 

Why Pope Francis? 

Because he's the leader of the Catholic Church? No. 

Because he's a prominent figure in contemporary Christianity as a whole? No. 

Because he's a prominent figure among the leaders of various religious traditions in the world today? No. 

Of course, he's the leader of the Catholic Church, a prominent figure within Christianity as a whole, and he's one the most prominent religious figures in the world today. But I chose his encyclical to share because (just today) I sat down to read it and found (not to my surprise) that it's not addressed only to Catholics or Christians or the religious in general. It's addressed to all of us. Many papal encyclicals and Church-approved positions about morality are based on "natural law" (a somewhat dated and controversial notion), or in more contemporary language, upon arguments that arise from our common humanity and that apply to all of us. While the Pope's arguments are certainly grounded in Christianity and reference Catholic doctrine, ideas of the divine, and the Western tradition, as well as contemporary science, his arguments and prophetic voice are addressed to all of us. His argument should be judged by this standard: Do his arguments make sense to persons from diverse backgrounds from around the world? I think so, at least having dipped into the work. If I find that his arguments become parochial or unpersuasive, I'll change the channel. But until then, let's hear him out. 

The first set of quotes (sampled below) are taken from an "Introduction" written for this edition by Harvard professor the history science, Naomi Oreskes, who's written about climate change. (My review from 2014 of  The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future by Naomi Oreskes & Eric M. Conway.) The introductory remarks and quotes by Oreskes provide a useful overview of what is to come. 

Two lines of thought particularly stand out. The first is an affirmation of our interconnectedness and mutual responsibility toward one another, as well as toward our common Earthly home. The second is a denunciation of the aspects of modern life that have led to our current predicament. The essence of the critique is that our situation is not an accident—it is the consequence of the way we think and act: we deny the moral dimensions of our decisions and conflate progress with activity. We cannot continue to think and act this way—to disregard both nature and justice—and expect to flourish. It is not only not moral, it is not even rational. (Location 34)

 The wide-ranging character of the encyclical is consistent with its central, anti-reductionist argument, which is, quite simply, that everyone and everything is related because it is all part of Creation. (Location 39)

[Pope Francis] also invokes a theme that has been common in the history of science: that nature is “a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness. ‘Through the greatness and the beauty of creatures one comes to know by analogy their maker’ (Wis 13:5); indeed, ‘his eternal power and divinity have been made known through his works since the creation of the world’ (Rom 1:20).”

(Location 54)

The core of the argument is that because human dignity finds its roots in our common Creation, caring for our fellow citizen and caring for our environment are the same thing. It is not a question of people versus the environment and choosing which is more important. It is a question of abandoning the notion of “versus” altogether. Respect for creation and respect for human dignity are two aspects of the same idea. (Location 60) 

Thoughts for the Day: Thursday 12 August 2021

 

The Constitution of Knowledge

Jonathan Rauch

Somewhat surprisingly to Americans today, [Johan Stuart] Mill held that the most dire threat to freedom comes not from state repression but from social conformity, which leads to a shortage of diversity—diversity of inclination and interest and talent, but especially, he implied, diversity of opinion. “Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric.” His stark conclusion: “That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.”

The Constitution of Knowledge

Jonathan Rauch

[Jonathan] Haidt likens trolling to terrorism, inasmuch as they both exploit the emotional dynamics of outrage, baiting us to overreact. Rationally, we may understand that rising to the bait makes the trolls (or terrorists) more visible and influential. But emotion rules.

The Constitution of Knowledge

Jonathan Rauch

Instead of being pluralist, [some on the political left] are purist. Instead of seeking to pit biases against other biases and prejudices against other prejudices, they seek to eliminate bias and prejudice from the get-go—an Augean task which first polices culpable words, then culpable ideas when different words are recruited, and finally culpable minds when bad ideas keep popping back up.

The Price of Peace

Zachary D. Carter

But Keynesianism was also developed to prevent war, and it remains one of the great tragic ironies of intellectual history that the very catastrophe Keynes had attempted to avert for nearly two decades would be the event that finally demonstrated the viability of his economic ideas on the world stage. Both The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money and The Economic Consequences of the Peace achieved their political apotheosis in the same calamity.

The Inevitability of Tragedy

Barry Gewen

What did Strauss mean by philosophy? Not what it was commonly understood to be. Philosophers were not to be found teaching in colleges and universities around the country because instructors in philosophy departments were no more likely to be true philosophers than instructors in art departments were to be true artists. Philosophy wasn’t an academic discipline or the stepping-stone to a career defined by the structures and customs of higher education. It was a personal commitment, a way of life, inspired by a sense of wonder, much like a religion though without the dogma. Philosophers were devoted to wisdom but didn’t propound doctrines or claim to have discovered the Truth. Their wisdom, like that of the prototype Socrates, consisted of an awareness that they knew nothing. Insofar as they could be said to possess knowledge, it was of the questions, not the answers, and philosophers ceased to be philosophers, Strauss said, when certainty replaced Socratic doubt.

Prometheus Rising

Robert Anton Wilson

[Q]uantum leaps, in outlook ala Teilhard de Chardin, occur with a fantastic jump to a new horizon or level of perception. This insight usually comes from a revolutionary overview which realigns or transforms former thinking into a new and more enlightening frame of reference.

Habits of the Heart

Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, Steven M. Tipton

The calling is a crucial link between the individual and the public world. Work in the sense of the calling can never be merely private.

Book by Book

Michael Dirda

(We do tend to forget, as the poet Randall Jarrell quipped, that the people who lived in a golden age probably went around complaining how yellow everything was.)

Age of Anger

Pankaj Mishra

Ultra-nationalism and imperialism were a corollary of this hatred of ineffective democracy, liberal individualism and materialism.

Thoughts for the Day: Wednesday 11 August 2021

 

A Thousand Small Sanities

Adam Gopnik

I’ve been saying since the beginning that liberal humanism is a whole, and it is. But it is a whole because we have made it a whole, and it can only continue to be a whole if we go on doing it. That’s the liberal task, the liberal project, the liberal preoccupation. Humanism may historically precede liberalism—but liberalism can’t mechanically produce humanism. It’s a task of mental effort, adjusted to new circumstances. The reality of science doesn’t guarantee the primacy of love. What science shows us is the world as it is. We choose to make the world as we want it.

Developmental Politics

Steve McIntosh

Like the civil discourse approach, this psychological-rhetorical persuasion strategy for building political agreement is also well-meaning. But in practice it can quickly become condescendingly manipulative and even disturbingly Orwellian in its implications. Because of its inherent deviousness, this approach is ultimately misguided. Increasing sympathy for a wider spectrum of values requires a persuasion strategy that is fundamentally transparent and sincere.

N.B. I find this too pejorative toward the rhetorical tradition. Rhetoric, to succeed, depends on building bridges, via logos, ethos, and pathos. It can be unethical, but not necessarily so.

Doom

Niall Ferguson

The population of the Eternal City itself fell by three quarters in the space of just five decades. Archaeological evidence from the rest of Western Europe—inferior housing, more primitive pottery, fewer coins, smaller cattle—suggests that “the end of civilization” came within the span of a single generation.99 And all this was long before the Plague of Justinian, in the mid-sixth century.

Time of the Magicians

Wolfram Eilenberger

With similar suspicion Wittgenstein may have heard, by the time of his stay in Vienna on holiday in August 1923, that his Tractatus was now also beginning to inspire seminars and discussion groups (later known as the “Vienna Circle”) at the city’s university. The Vienna group wanted to save and heal society by adhering to a strictly scientific view of the world. This certainly did not correspond to Wittgenstein’s approach, since he saw the purely scientific worldview as yet another wrong track that his era had placed itself upon, and one that was, in its supposedly value-free and enlightened clarity, based on particularly stubborn misunderstandings.

The Science of Conjecture

James Franklin

Each generation has to learn anew the importance of Aristotle and the Scholastics in the history of ideas. Each generation is as surprised as the one before, for everyone approaches the Aristotelians through certain myths. Even now, the only factoid “known” to many people about the medieval theologians is that they debated how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

The Inevitability of Tragedy

Barry Gewen

Because, Morgenthau answered, there was no such thing as an international community. Domestic disputes could be resolved—not solved—through discussion and negotiations, or when negotiation failed, by appeals to the sovereignty of the state and the authority of the law.

Age of Anger

Pankaj Mishra

In every human case, identity turns out to be porous and inconsistent rather than fixed and discrete; and prone to get confused and lost in the play of mirrors. The cross-currents of ideas and inspirations – the Nazi reverence for Atatürk, a gay French philosopher’s denunciation of the modern West and sympathy for the Iranian Revolution [Foucault], or the varied ideological inspirations for Iran’s Islamic Revolution (Zionism, Existentialism, Bolshevism and revolutionary Shiism) – reveal that the picture of a planet defined by civilizations closed off from one another and defined by religion (or lack thereof) is a puerile cartoon.

Crises of the Republic

Hannah Arendt

Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1961), Grove Press edition, 1968, p. 61. I am using this work because of its great influence on the present student generation. Fanon himself, however, is much more doubtful about violence than his admirers. It seems that only the book’s first chapter, “Concerning Violence,” has been widely read. Fanon knows of the “unmixed and total brutality [which], if not immediately combatted, invariably leads to the defeat of the movement within a few weeks”

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!"