[Dialogue] Wilber

[Tim Wegner]

First, I am not exactly a Wilber fan, but I took it upon myself to 
catch up on most of his books about a year ago and led a three 
session adult class on WIlber. What a challenge!

I have seen the polemical link that Marshall Jones quoted, and agree 
with Marshall that it did not reflect well on Wilber. But it would be 
unfair to judge Wilber on that one essay. Wilber has a thing about 
wanting to speak for himself, chooses his words cartefully, and 
nothing makes Wilber madder than having a critic say "Wilber said 
this" and then tear it apart. Wilber's usual defense is "I never said 
it!" These kind of debates about arcane details of a huge edifice of 
thinking and philosophy are lost on me.  I'd rather just read WIlber 
and take what I can for myself.

My approach to reading anyone is to first understand them as best I 
can, and second of all place them in my mediatative council and do 
loobattle with the others gathered there, and finally look for truly 
useful concepts or better yet life-changing perspectives. I don't 
require perfection from those I read, I don't need to like them, or 
even agree with everything about them. In some cases really bad 
writing has wonderful nuggets. For example, "Celestine Prophecy" has 
a truly awful metaphysical premise and is poorly written, but it 
contains this nugget: everyone you meet today may be the one bearing 
today's cosmic message. Literally this is (to me) nonsense, but 
metaphorically, what a wonderful way to take everyone you meet 
seriously! (In fact, *this very email* may contain YOUR cosmic 
message!!!) This is the kind of idea that if you can keep it in mind 
can transform your relationships.

Wilber does repeat certain ideas over and over, but having recently 
read many of his books, his ideas do evolve and and each new book 
covers significant new ground.  

John wrote:

> The thing I least appreciate about his work is his emphasis on 
> "developmental" in such a way that we all get cubby holed in a stage 
> of development. Or, development becomes hierarchical, often leading 
> to "I'm more advanced than you," or "I'm more spiritual than you," 
> which to me is over the line: how can anyone be any closer to the 
> mystery than anyone else? This leads to misplaced and 
> arrogant righteousness and is a fundamental source of divisiveness in 
> society and the universe.

Wilber makes it clear in many places (sorry I can't quote one) that 
he does not take the levels that rigidly, that anyone can experience 
flashes of insight from any level at any time.  He has gotten this 
criticism a lot and has stated clearly that taking the levels rigidly 
is not his approach. (This could be a change from his earlier 
thinking.)

One can't do justice to Wilber in a paragraph. Suffice it to say if 
one of the things Mathews did was create comprehensive screens, 
WIlber went much farther. To get the whole picture, look at 
everything from the inside and the outside, from the individual and 
the group (that's four possibilities so far), and withing each of 
those quadrants, look at the "holarchy" of successively including-but-
transcending realities.

One important reason we should read Wilber is he has a withering 
critique of the "mean green meme" from a non-conservative point of 
view. That's us, folks, just read this mailing list :-) We can't 
stand militarism or conservatism. According to WIlber the next stage 
beyond "geen" is the first transpersonal stage that has integral 
consciousness that fully appreciates all the stages. I struggle with 
this a lot, and am not sure I get it, but I think it's a good 
struggle. 

Wilber addresses our malaise in  "Boomeritis". It's a novel not a 
lecture, but let me warn you that the main character (a twenty-
something guy whose name is "Ken Wilber") does attend a lot of 
lectures. While Wilber isn't the greatest novelist, this is a very 
original funny book in which Wilber (partially at least) pokes fun at 
himself. There's a great spoof underlying the whole book that comes 
out at the end.

Our biggest fault, as "mean green meme" liberals, is, according to 
Wilber, Narcissism.

Tim