The mother of First World problems: an integral look at capitalism

What this episode covers

I start this podcast with some observations about the big Republican win in the U.S. midterm elections. For an Obamapologist like me it is a sad day, marking the end of the Obama agenda. It is not necessarily the end of the Obama era, however. By soundly winning the Senate and bestriding Congress the Republicans have stopped Obama cold, so the question now becomes…will they offer an agenda of their own? If they do I’ll bet they find that Obama still has the bipartisan spirit that launched him into the Presidency in 2008. It’ll be in both their interests to accomplish something, because over the long haul in politics something will always beat nothing. But obstruction can be a good short-term strategy, and has been for the Republicans so far. Stay tuned… MONEY, POWER AND JUSTICE In my main story I address the mother of all first world problems: global capitalism, by responding to a piece written by Joe Corbett entitled Jeff Salzman, Ken Wilber and the Missing Link between Integral Theory and Practice , in which he offers a critique of a conversation I had with Ken Wilber and posted a few weeks ago: The World According to Wilber . Corbett’s essay reveals a fruitful friction often found among integralists. First let me address his opening theoretical argument that when justice is not included on par with the primary human values of goodness, truth and beauty it is a “glaring omission of the L-R [lower right] quadrant”, and therefore the conversation Ken and I had is “entirely devoid of any structural analysis or acknowledgement of social institutions and the prevailing forms of justice within society.” This is nonsense of course; suffice it to say that Ken WIlber, author of AQAL Theory, didn’t just – ooops! – forget about the exterior collective dimension of reality. Indeed Ken and I both talk about the structures of society all the time, including in our conversation. I wouldn’t know how to discuss current events without doing so. Part of the confusion may come from a misreading of AQAL Theory where Ken relates the four quadrants that make up a human being to the three native perspectives a human being can take: first person (I and me), second person (you and we) and third person (it and they). So how do four quadrants flow into three perspectives? Ken situates both the upper right-hand quadrant (U-R) and lower right-hand quadrant (L-R) in the third person world of “its”. Quadrantly speaking, the individual human body (in the UR) and the power/economic systems of societies (in the LR) are respectively the individual and collective exterior dimensions of reality, and can be seen and measured by the senses. Thus third person. Ken goes on to associate the first, second and third person perspectives with what he calls the “big three” philosophical values of goodness, truth and beauty. First person is the domain of beauty (which is deeply subjective), second person is the domain of goodness (how we treat each other) and third person is the domain of truth (what is objectively verifiable). The philosophical relationship between the fundamental values of goodness, truth, beauty and those of justice is a discussion that’s been ongoing at least since Plato. If you’re interested in this sort of thing, check out Steve McIntosh’s terrific thesis on the subject, The Natural Theology of Beauty, Truth and Goodness . PRIMARY VALUES: MOVING TARGETS What Corbett is really saying in his critique is that Ken and I didn’t talk about the L-R quadrant in a way he agrees with, so let’s move on to Corbett’s argument that Ken and I give shor...

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