The integral framework (part 2)

By Joe Perez

In "The integral framework (part 1)," we were introduced to STEAM, a comprehensive map of human nature, development, and potential. STEAM is what's called "a theory of everything,"--an intellectual framework that can help anyone who ever feels lost, confused, or is seeking greater clarity about how our complex world fits together.

Don't you just love theory?! Okay, fine. If you're ready to eat more vegetables, here's a tasty helping of FAQs.

• Is integral inherently arrogant?
• What does integral look like in practice?
• Is integral too intellectual?
• How do you define integral? Is there just one integral philosophy or many?
• Are you saying that we must think and act systematically? But I'd rather be original rather than follow some sort of system all the time.
• What does integral look like in practice?

Is the integral framework inherently arrogant?

David, a reader, thinks so. He left a comment that said:

Geez, thanks ever so much for deigning to step momentarily off the slopes of Olympus to correct the unwashed, unintegrated, underevolved lot of us. [You should make your] case without sounding as if [you wish] the rest of us would stop dragging our knuckles on the ground.

I’m sure this is going to be a popular sort of response to the presentation of STEAM, so I’ll try to speak to it now, and thereafter leave the subject mostly aside. This writer accuses me of being arrogant and dismissive of others’ opinions, but he seems pretty dismissive himself, don’t you think? Lord forbid anyone deign to question the almighty value he apparently places on not appearing to be arrogant.

And as for charge that I slap labels on people, it’s true. All pundits do it. And to think some pundits are actually so arrogant as to divide the world into conservatives and liberals—and then claim that their view comes out on top! How arrogant is that! We all slap labels on people: Democrat and Republican, red and blue, progressive and reactionary, the orthodox and the heretics. My labels stem from a developmental philosophy and his stem from his (flatland or non-developmental) philosophies.

I know there are various risks to using labels (egocentric, traditionalist, rationalist, etc.), but I don’t know how to effectively communicate STEAM without taking those risks. These labels describe stages of evolutionary development, aspects of all persons and cultural objects. For example, virtually every person over the age of 8 or 10 contains an egocentric level of consciousness in their psyche. So it should be stressed that we all include all of these labels, in actuality or potentiality.

From another perspective, these labels are ideal types, and no individual fits only into one type or another. When I attach a label to a person’s writing on cultural or political issues, it is because I have detected certain themes, values, and ways of communicating that are endemic to a particular stage of development, and I am calling out that objective fact in order to raise awareness of the presence of this meme (that is—an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture) in a particular writer’s work.

Finally, it should be noted that the suggestion that a given individual’s writing is at, say, a rationalist level doesn’t really tell us that much about the person’s psychology. A person’s writing may reflect rationalist values of individual success and a defense of laissez faire capitalism, for instance, but from this it does not follow that the person himself could not have lower or higher stages of development very much alive within him. All I can do as an observer from afar is to look at the publicly available writing, identify its critical memes related to values, and then point to where the author’s "center of gravity" or "base camp" might be (based on the objective evidence and my subjective interpretations). Since there is always the risk with labels of creating misunderstandings, I try to use them only if I believe that doing so is helpful for elucidating the important issues in the discussion at hand and relating those issues to STEAM. This is a far cry from making personal attacks or questioning an individual’s motivations or intentions. Of course, on some occasions, I may very well question motivations or intentions. My point is that such questions are not necessarily implied simply by linking something to a developmental level.

In my conclusions about which label to attach a given person’s point-of-view, I could be wrong or right. For example, I could form an inaccurate judgment of a person based on a limited selection of writings that aren’t representative of the person’s work as a whole. This is a risk faced by all pundits from every philosophical persuasion.

What strikes me as pernicious is the notion that it’s okay for writers with a wide variety of philosophies ranging from fundamentalist to existentialist to announce their opinions, but somehow it’s illegitimate for writers to do so from a developmental philosophy. I humbly suggest that if reading about human development is so very troubling to you that it causes you to feel as if you are "dragging your knuckles on the ground," well then—you are not ready to appreciate this framework.

Is integral too intellectual?

Some of Ken Wilber’s toughest critics aren’t found in mainstream academia or in the halls of the California Institute for Integral Studies. They’re found in the comment boxes on BeliefNet, where spiritually-minded folks from a wide variety of backgrounds encounter a holistic evolutionary model for the first time and go, "huh?"

Consider these responses to Wilber’s recent column on the integral approach to spirituality:

godisaheretic: [I]n my opinion a humble, even childlike faith is required to bring the personal spirit close to the spirit of God . . . there is a lot of brain here, but not enough heart . . .

watsy: I couldn’t find my spiritual self in a million years using that formula. I agree with godisaheritic. Too much brain and not enough heart . . . I’m just not smart enough to understand this guy. If spirituality is really this complicated then those of us who are rather dim just aren’t going to get it.

Bravo88: I will admit that at first glance I didn’t even want to try and read his article. I will give it a shot in all fairness to him and his ideas but I get the sense that some people, not necessarily him, come up with big ideas to justify themselves to others. What I like about Christianity is that most of it is relatively simple to understand.

On the same comment boxes, other BeliefNet readers of Wilber’s column respond to these concerns that integral is too intellectual:

summershine: I’ve recently read Ken Wilber’s A Brief History Of Everything which I found highly enlightening and informative. It may be a brainy approach at explaining the Kosmos, but sometimes I think we need that. We need people who think like Ken and dedicate themselves to exploring the more technical side of things. There is plenty of heart in this world. In my opinion we could use a bit more brain. Thanks Ken :O)

amilius: I don’t think Wilber’s approach is intended for everyone. It is for those who choose to examine the concepts and contextual constructs they use to appreciate observations of awareness. His is a model for appreciating such constructs. We are all One. His elaborate model of Integral Design can help one appreciate how that is so.

My own opinion is that the gist of the integral philosophy is probably no more difficult to grasp at a mental level than the essence of, say, Plato, Aquinas, Kant, or Freud. In fact, STEAM is easier to grasp because it’s been written in contemporary language with modern people in mind. Which is to say that it’s not easy, but it’s not impossible for serious students.

Godisaheretic, watsy, and Bravo88 remind us that when many people encounter integral approaches for the first time there is an immediate and visceral disconnect. It doesn’t click. They want it to be about "heart," instead of "brain," because that’s the style of being that is most comfortable to them. They conclude that they are "not smart enough" or they attack the writer for being cold and unfeeling.

These critics intuitively grasp that spirituality should be simple to understand. And isn’t there a sense in which they are absolutely correct? What good would spirituality be if it did not give a full and honored place to the heart alongside the brain? What good if its ideas could not be expressed to folks who don’t have two Ph.D.’s? If integral philosophy didn’t have heart or were, in fact, virtually incomprehensible, then this should count as a big strike against it.

But these criticisms are only partial truths. As summershine suggests, an approach to spirituality that’s all heart and no brain would be terribly incomplete. In a world where religious zealots are blowing up buildings, conducting ethnic cleansing campaigns, and trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction, it’s hard to argue against raising the level of holistic intelligence in the world.

We should also agree with amilius that Wilber’s philosophy isn’t for everyone. You don’t have to be a Torah scholar to be a good Jew, nor do you have to be a Sartre scholar to be a good atheist. Every intellectual tradition has room for the scholars and non-scholars alike; the emerging integral wisdom is no exception. It’s okay not to have read all of Ken Wilber’s nearly 20 books. Just because somebody’s philosophy appeals in good part to intellectuals doesn’t make it less true or valid (no matter what Bravo88 might prefer to believe).

My favorite response of all those on BeliefNet was the short post:

windbender: To quote Howard Stewart: "I don’t understand all I know about this quite yet."

I agree entirely. Living full STEAM ahead involves finding the humility to acknowledge one’s limitations, admit one’s errors, and open one’s self to the ineffable mysteries at the heart of the Kosmos.

Theory is cellophane over the inexpressible. It’s not much. But for some of us, it helps.

How do you define "integral"? Is there just one integral philosophy or many?

The term "integral" is vague. As a result of the vagueness of talk about the integral philosophy, questions such as these arise: Is such and such integral? Is this or that something an integral person would say or do? How do you know whether or not such and such is really integral?

Defining integral is an important step in being able to have meaningful conversations about such questions. At least the dictionary definition is clear: integral means "composed of integral parts; lacking nothing essential." If anything’s got the essentials, it’s integral.

Today integral is a word that’s getting a heavy burden placed on it. There are a large and growing number of systematic and evolutionary thinkers in many disciplines whose work is pointing toward new ways of thinking that have many broad, overlapping similarities. Different thinkers describe those connections in different ways.

Understanding Wilber’s comprehensive theories requires a depth of study that has attracted many readers since he first started writing books more than 20 years ago. However, many more people don’t have the time or inclination for theorizing; and even among those sympathetic to Wilber’s approach, there are differences of opinion about precisely what is and isn’t really integral.

"Ken Wilber doesn’t own integral," said someone angrily recently on an online forum. True enough, however that’s like saying that Kant didn’t at one time own German idealism or that Freud didn’t own psychoanalysis. It seems silly to have to rebut the notion that any individual can own such a vast cultural current as post-postmodernism, and yet Wilber’s influence is so strong that some people apparently feel it is necessary. It is sometimes helpful to distinguish between generic integral or second-tier consciousness or post-postmodernism and the specific version offered by Wilber. Some people refer to the former as integral with a "little i" and the latter as integral with a "big I." I prefer to speak of integral in a relatively generic way, but to reference AQAL when speaking of Wilber’s version of integral theory.

If something like this distinction were commonplace, then every spiritual teacher, philosopher, or writer who writes about the integral phenomenon could have her own integral approach. She could announce, "this is how I’ve fleshed out the details of AQAL," and nobody need ever get confused. If a controversy arose as to whether or not her work were truly integral, at the very least you’ve got a benchmark that allows you to say, "Well, it may or may not be integral, but it’s definitely not AQAL-compliant."

My own approach to integral has been to follow the AQAL model closely and then fill in the details as they come to me out of my own practices and observations. Since May 2005, I’ve been using the acronym STEAM as an educational aid in presenting AQAL concepts to a broad audience. STEAM is how I am fleshing out the details of AQAL in my own theory and practice; if others can benefit by building on STEAM in their own work, that’s great.

Why bother making these sorts of fine distinctions? Clarity is good for writers and readers. If I write some juicy nugget that I’m sure is going to make me a load of money—something original like "integral means never having to say you’re sorry"—well, I don’t really want to get into a back-and-forth about whether that’s true about some mythical beast that somebody from a different intellectual orientation is calling integral. Pretty soon nobody’s talking about apologies and everyone’s debating the definition of integral (and that sort of diversion gets tiresome quickly).

I think it’s better to simply talk about my approach and ideas and relate them to a broad systematic model (that is, STEAM) in a way that lets readers separately consider the various truth claims. On the one hand, readers can judge the validity of my point about apologies; on the other hand, they can judge whether my point is in integrity with the STEAM model of reality or any other integral model. Right or wrong, at least the conversation can stay focused on apologies and/or the validity of the STEAM approach, not on whose definition for integral we should use.

Are you saying that we must think and act systematically? But I'd rather be original rather than follow some sort of system all the time.

Here’s a reader’s comment related to my post on defining integral:

Joe, I applaud your independent STEAM streak . . . Orienting consciousness maps are a good thing . . . and—but :) I think following any leader’s methodology to a T restricts one’s own flow of creative juices.

Ah, that’s the rub, isn’t it? In a modern American culture that places a high premium on having an "independent streak," and on being leaders (not followers), and above all not restricting the flow of "one’s own creative juices," then how the hell do you become a truly systematic thinker? I take this comment as praise, but I think it’s a sad illustration of the dilemma of our post-postmodern situation.

Are we so strongly tied to narcissistic notions of creativity and independence that we are incapable of merging into a more encompassing and ego-shattering whole? Is "that sounds like group think" or "he’s just another ditto-head" the worst insult we can hurl at something new? Must originality be limited to how we resist something greater than ourselves and never describe the terms of our own intellectual surrender to truth? If the answer to any of these questions is "yes," then we’re in a hell of a mess.

It’s possible to be both integral and original, simultaneously independent and systematic. But to many people, this reconciliation is not obvious. One way is to claim that your version of or approach to integral is better than others, and point out how other versions leave something important out. If you’re persuasive, then perhaps your ideas will have an influence in shaping what counts as truly integral. And then you have demonstrated that you’re both an independent thinker who has advanced the growth of a new paradigm and a systematic thinker. You haven’t erected a new system or demolished the old system; you’ve strengthened the value of the system by correcting its shortcomings and enriching its level of detail.

I imagine that pretty much all good internal criticism of integral would have to look something like that. By distinguishing between internal and external criticism, I am talking about criticism launched from within a second-tier perspective versus criticism launched from a first-tier perspective. An example of second-tier critique is: "This model of reality leaves something important out, obscures valuable distinctions, or fails to incorporate the ideal number of contexts to be truly useful as it is applied." In contrast are criticisms such as "The philosophy doesn’t make central to its paradigm the act of listening to marginalized or oppressed minority voices," or "There’s no rational proof for the supposedly transrational benefits of meditation." These are perfectly valid concerns derived from a first-tier perspective. They should be taken seriously by answering them both at that level of analysis as well as from a wider and more comprehensive context.

I suspect that the sentiment that no praise is higher than to say somebody is an original thinker is a holdover from the presuppositions of an egocentric worldview rather than truly a second-tier mode of being. Transcending first-tier means finding ways of being appropriately critical and original in the right time and to the right degree. That means not spending inordinate, unhealthy amounts of one’s time and energy devoted to smashing idols and gods. In other words, as we ascend in stages of consciousness and incorporate more angles in our life-maps, we become more fully rational, not rationalists.

So I conclude that "following any leader’s methodology to a T restricts one’s own flow of creative juices" is a perfectly understandable sort of view. It makes a good point. And it’s a recipe for intellectual narcissism. At the first-tier, there’s no greater praise than to say that someone has an independent and original map of reality—and intellectuals commonly define their sense of self by the pride of achieving a peculiarly distinctive worldview. But with STEAM there is no honor merely in having a unique and special map of reality. It’s not a badge of courage, but a badge of confusion. The point is to have at least an adequate map—perhaps even a superbly competent and functional map—of the road to Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Originality is defined in terms of how we bring out our true nature by expressing ourselves according to that nature, not by how much our thoughts deviate from the highest standards heretofore reached by others.

The challenge with STEAM-powered living, as I see it, is to think about the world in a comprehensive and systematic way that defines the proper place and relation of self, other, world, and the Divine, in the context of an evolving world . . . and to live from that vision as deeply and graciously as possible. If that isn’t being an original thinker in this time and place, then what the hell is?

What does integral look like in practice?

If it’s difficult enough to define integral in theory, things get really tough when it comes to spotting what integral looks like in practice. If someone meditates and does yoga and reads books, are they second-tier by definition because their practice ranges from spirit to body to mind? If someone is seeking to live holistically, do they need to have a grand unifying meta-theory in order to count as post-postmodern?

I don’t intend to answer these questions here. But I will say that getting clear about language is a crucial first step in addressing such potentially confusing matters. If we are clear about what integral looks like in practice and what it doesn’t, then it’s much easier to provide answers to these issues.

Because there are many definitions of integral it’s also helpful for writers to use a more precise term. That’s why I’ll usually speak of STEAM in Rising Up, not integral.

Here are three relevant points:

First, to articulate what integral looks like in practice, look to exemplars. Wilber’s books, CDs, DVDs, and other materials and trainings offered by the Integral Institute are helpful in this regard. My own book, Soulfully Gay, offers one man’s vision for what integral looks like in real life. Connect with people locally who are striving to put integral theory into practice, and learn what you can from them. Search the Internet for Ken Wilber or integral philosophy meetings close to your home. Integral is taking shape in many places in this world including those who have never uttered the word "integral," but nowhere is this vision taking form with greater sophistication than among people informed by AQAL or STEAM.

Second, bear in mind that just about any specific physical, mental, or spiritual injunction can be part of a more comprehensive integral practice. But simply because somebody is combining a range of disciplines doesn’t make their approach integral. It could just be a very confusing, eclectic assortment of practices thrown together without an overarching vision (that is, an adequate mental map). Eclecticism does not equal integral.

Third, if you have to boil it down to its barest, STEAM-powered living comes down to two prime injunctions: ascending to transcendent Unity of Being (the paths to higher consciousness) and descending and fully inhabiting embodied form (the paths to deeper soulfulness)—and, most profoundly, recognizing the nonduality of the Ascent and Descent. If you are not at a minimum devoting attention to both sides—say, meditative practices for Ascent and psychodynamic shadow work for Descent—then what you’re doing isn’t STEAM and probably can’t be called integral in any sense of the word.

In part 3 of this series of articles, we'll look more closely at one of the components of STEAM: types. We'll look at how homosexuality fits into classic and modern typologies.

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Joe Perez is a Seattle-based writer and editor-in-chief of Gay Spirituality & Culture. He also writes a daily weblog called Until. This article is an excerpt from Rising Up: Reflections on Gay Culture, Politics, and Spirit, reprinted by permission of the author.