The Integral Model Is Not Dialectical

Classical liberal analyst James Lindsay has been offering a series of podcasts on the Hegelian roots of Marxism and its various hydra-headed offspring that front the Marxist counterrevolution against modernity.  In this first of this series, “Hegel, Wokeness, and the Dialectical Faith of Leftism,” Lindsay does a deep dive into Hegel’s understanding of dialectics.  It is important, he asserts, to have a robust appreciation of this concept, for it is “the operating system of leftists,” a “method of worship in a broad religious movement that started primarily with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,” dated from the publication of The Phenomenology of Spirit in 1807.

The familiar formula “thesis—antithesis—synthesis,” Lindsay says, is actually a Kantian formula; Hegel instead asserts the progression is “abstract—negative—concrete.”  The emphasis on negation is the foundation for the Marxist’s love of relentless critique, for all abstract understandings of reality fall short of completeness and therefore are subject to “improvement” that will now be demonstrated as a concrete (and presumably dependable) emergence.  

Informing this notion is the belief in the perfectibility of reality in general and humanity in particular—what we could call the utopian temptation.  The universe is always becoming and therefore whatever we perceive and hypothesize as real is always transforming.  There is nothing to which we can hold; we are victims of a process we can never control.  But we are entitled to rebel against this inexorability and to do whatever we can to reverse it.

Integral theory, as a “both/and” proposition, holds that the universe both is and also is evolving.  To use Ken Wilber’s term, Spirit is simultaneously immanent and transcendent.  This insight should humble us immediately, for like all koans the seeming contradiction is impossible to understand conceptually.  As Wilber forcefully demonstrates in The Marriage of Sense and the Soul, we must be open to a different science of understanding than is available to us at orange, the current leading edge of evolution.

The Integral Model makes room for the Hegelian thesis without embracing it as absolute Truth (which Hegel would no doubt decry).  We examine it and the various resulting Marxist religions as versions of Spirit unfolding Itself—as are all inquiries into the nature of reality.  Still, we start an integral analysis of Hegel’s thought and influence by noting that he is writing at the very beginning of the modern period in central Europe—i.e., in first tier culture.  Whether Hegel himself had an integral perspective, surely most of those he influenced did not, emphatically including Marx.

Stage Emergence is Sloppy and Violent

My hypothesis is that all elements of the counterrevolution against modernity stem partially from the natural defense that each stage of consciousness necessarily has against emergence.  From Amber’s perspective, modernity’s introduction of individual identity and sovereignty threatens its very existence.  Individuality absolutely undermines the hegemony of the tribe, for if its individual members can make their own way for life, what purpose does the tribe serve?  

Towards an Authentic Integral Politics

There will be no authentic integral politics until a critical mass of humanity makes the momentous leap into second tier consciousness.

Until then it might be valuable to strengthen our cognitive hypothesis about the nature and contours of a potential integral politics, because the practice of seeking to take and embrace multiple perspectives could very well contribute to the necessary transcendence.  

Some, including a number in the Boulder orbit, have made the noble attempt to step into a hypothetical integral politics, but never quite develop a perspective that satisfies the demands of the Integral Model.  While we will take note of some of these deficiencies for the purposes of looking more deeply into the matter, we do this collegially and affectionately.

The biggest challenge, illustrated by the various Boulder efforts that miss the mark, is to note the distinction between what will arise politically in the second tier versus what we think that might be from here in the first. Green is not integral regardless of our capacity to think about it.

Ken Wilber illustrates the dynamics of this structural disparity when he noted that the Constitution of the United States offered a “stage 5” method of governance in a “stage 3” society.  By that he meant that the founding principles of the nation set forth in both that document and the Declaration of Independence reflected the possibilities of self-governance developed out of the centuries-old English tradition of limited government as improved by the insights of the Scottish Enlightenment with its commitment to individual liberty and sovereignty.  These were principles for a nation whose citizens had developed to the moral understanding of the stage 5, postconventional worldcentric perspective.

But the United States did not become a stage 5 society on June 21, 1788, the day the Constitution was formally ratified.  Indeed, even after the Civil War and adoption of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments eradicating slavery and guaranteeing the political rights of all citizens, the U. S. continued its evolution toward the orange rational/industrial stage 5 nation it finally became after World War II.  It wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th century that the majority of the citizenry made it to stage 4, and it was only in the 1960s that the possibility of mass stage 5 consciousness emerged.

The Boomer Banality of Barack Obama

During commencement remarks delivered yesterday at University of California at Irvine, President Barack Obama demonstrated yet again how thoroughly and banally ensnared in the Boomeritis wave he is. 

According to an article by Mark Landler published in the New York Times,

Speaking in gleefully sarcastic terms to a commencement ceremony at the University of California, Irvine, Mr. Obama likened those who deny climate change to people who would have told John F. Kennedy, at the dawn of the space program, that the moon “was made of cheese.”

He saved his most scathing words for lawmakers who say they are not qualified to judge the issue because they are not scientists. These people, the president said, recognize the truth but will not utter it for fear of being “run out of town by a radical fringe that thinks climate science is a liberal plot.”

“I’m not a scientist either,” Mr. Obama told this young audience, “but we’ve got some good ones at NASA. I do know the overwhelming majority of scientists who work on climate change, including some who once disputed the data, have put the debate to rest.”

For Terry Patten, Jeff Salzman, and the other Obama acolytes in the Integral Institute, this should put paid to the fantasy that the President represents the possibility of an integral transcendence in the Democratic Party.  Obama and all his yes men have never evinced anything but the impoverished depradations of the narcissism that has, so far, eviscerated green’s powerful potential.

More Boulderdash

That which we call Boomeritis by any other name would still reek of narcissism.


Jeff Salzman, who calls himself “an integralist, an evolutionary, and now a public commentator who, swimming against the current of prevailing culture, is heartened by the state and future of things,” offers a weekly broadcast called “The Daily Evolver,” during which he works hard to offer an integral look at daily events.

The problem is how to arrive at a common understanding of “integral,” something I’ve written extensively about.  I am sure that Mr. Salzman is a fine person and really does consider himself an integralist, but the actual content of his talks reveals him to be more of an integral wanna-be.  He tends to be so uncritical of the Boomeritis assumptions that permeate his network in Boulder that he presumes much that is not actually in evidence.  Like so much of what comes out of the “integral” networks around Ken Wilber, the rigor necessary for achieving escape velocity from the first tier is sadly lacking.

This detracts not one iota from the honor we should give to Mr. Wilber and his circle for their willingness to tackle the evolutionary opportunity that Spirit, visible via the cognitive line at teal, appears to be calling forth. Our capacity to witness the elements of the Integral Model and to explore how to assess today’s experiences thereby is a truly remarkable gift, and we acknowledge the courage it takes to be willing to be commanded by its insights.

In his most recent broadcast, Mr. Salzman spends time attempting an integral analysis of the George Zimmerman trial and its aftermath.  For the most part, he is on solid but very conventional ground when he begins by noting that the “Big Three” levels of first tier consciousness that prevail in the United States—amber, orange, and green—each have a different way of seeing and interpreting the matter.

But his lack of rigor renders the balance of his presentation ineffectual (when not downright hilarious).