DANIEL GUSTAV ANDERSON is presently a graduate student in Cultural Studies at George Mason University. His interests include critical theory, ecology, and European and South Asian traditions of dialectical thinking. He is the author of "Of Syntheses and Surprises: Toward a Critical Integral Theory", "Such a Body We Must Create: New Theses on Integral Micropolitics" and "Sweet Science:" A Proposal for Integral Macropolitics", which have been published in "Integral Review".I think Anderson has some good ideas, and I also agree with him that none of us can engage with integral theory and not acknowledge the immense contribution and influence Wilber has had on the philosophy of integral. However, as much as I agree that we need to look beyond Wilber in the continuation of our formulation of an integral philosophy, I am not as quick as Anderson to dismiss Wilber's incredible importance to the ideas with which we must grapple.
INTEGRAL THEORY AFTER WILBER
The Spearfish Position Paper
DANIEL GUSTAV ANDERSON
Introduction:
I have claimed elsewhere ("Nonviolence") that the time has come to consider what integral theory after the intervention of Ken Wilber looks like, or could and should look like. This paper outlines one way to move forward.
Disclosure: I distinguish carefully between the work and the methods of Ken Wilber inclusive of its reception in integral studies as historical artifacts as the particular object of consideration at present, and not the personality or the biological person named Ken Wilber, who is not under consideration here.
1. Rationale:
Contrary to some appearances, the terms "integral studies, integral theory," and Ken Wilber" are not synonymous or conterminous. They are not the same thing and should not be equated. They should be considered instead as distinct from one another, and their relationship should be examined. How are they different?
Integral studies and integral pedagogy existed practically, theoretically, and institutionally well before Ken Wilber took up the term "integral" to describe his own work, as in the pioneering labor of Haridas Chaudhuri at California Institute of Integral Studies. Whatever one's evaluation of it, one must recognize that Ervin Laszlo's work lies squarely in the field of integral studies, but it is not an extension of Wilber's in any obvious sense. Historically, these objects (Wilberism and integral theory) are distinct. More abstractly, I have proposed that oppositional means of making knowledge arise in relation to different forms of social formation since capital began taking over the world ("Such a Body"), which would mean that something like or analogous to integral praxis is also as old as capitalism, which is to say, as old as modernity (of which more in a moment).
Secondly, Wilber's project is not producing new concepts anymore or participating on equal terms in the integral conversation. In a representative instance, Tomislav Markus's incisive review of the book "Integral Ecology", "Pitfalls of Wilberian Ecology", published at the Integral World website, shows how Wilber's metaphysical claims are repeated as a kind of catechism presented as science, instead of advancing a properly scientific method. Broadly, Integral Life is a means of selling integral products, commodities of conviction; not new concepts or new knowledge, but repackaged and recontextualized Wilber in the form of self-improvement products, for profit (Integral-brand coaching, Integral-brand spiritual practice, Integral-brand whatever-comes-next). Selling people your ideas as though they are uniquely epoch-making hardly constitutes the basis of a reasonable, good-faith conversation or debate. All this is a dead end for integral theory, profitable as it might (or might not?) be for Wilber and his circle. If knowledge-production is to be a form of service to a public or a world, it ought not to be singularly proprietary but instead a gift in an exchange, a free and open conversation among responsible persons.
Consequently, the presupposition that integral equals Wilber, that to do integral theory is to be a devotee of Ken Wilber, must be cut through and disposed of as so much spiritual materialism to make room for more productive work. Further, if my idea that oppositional means of knowledge, provisionally defined as forms of personal and cultural resistance to systematic injustice, unkindness, irresponsibility, and insanity in and out of one's mind-space constitute the historical birth of integral theory in a recognizable form has any merit (I admit it may or it may not), then it follows that one future for integral studies may lie in such critical practices. I make this claim with the qualification that not all oppositional practices and methods bear useful fruit; Stalinism, say, is a curse and not a blessing (and is not in my view oppositional at all, another debatable point); for this reason, analytic care and sober judgment are required in making positive claims about this or that method in any context. [Further, I will bracket the predictable counterargument that canonical integral writers such as Aurobindo, Gebser, Teilhard, or Wilber are not necessarily consistently or clearly oppositional in the sense I describe here, because this canon has yet to be justified except as a selection of writers Wilber and his followers tend to cite, that in itself surely an invitation to further inquiry.] So: forget "Spiral Dynamics", forget "The Passion of the Western Mind", take a pass on "The Integral Life Practice Starter Kit"? Instead reach for "Education for Critical Consciousness" and "The Arcades Project"? Yes, but not exactly that. Read the whole article.
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