The superhuman operating system

I finally listened to Ken Wilber's interview on the superhuman operating system. The first part is about ladder, climber, view. We retain the basic structures (ladder rungs) in subsequent development but the views change. That is, the self disidentifies with the old view when moving up the rungs to identify with the new. Granted there can be fixation or dissociation, where sub-personalities hang on to lower views. But as a rule the view is transitional, transcended and excluded, while the basic structure is transcended and included.

In the next section though he criticizes all the first tier views for believing that each of their views in the only view. But he just got done saying that is natural and healthy for views, given their transitional and excluded structure. Hence the 3 higher 1st tier views engage in culture wars as to which is better. But according to Wilber the higher the view the better it is, since it embraces more and more in its basic structures. It is natural for the pluralist to argue its view is better, since it is. Also see the IPS thread on ladder, climber, view here.

Of course the so-called performative contradiction is that pluralism doesn't accept higher or better views per se, but that's a red herring. Pluralism indeed sees that all views are valid for everyone at the appropriate time and context, but that there are indeed better views overall, itself being one of them. That is in fact how he describes an integral take on views. Sure, the dissociated or fixed aspect of pluralism, like any view, might get mean in completely excluding the validity of another's view. But that's a dysfunctional possibility at any rung, not just the pluralist. One might even say that's the dissociative aspect of the kennlingus view toward the green meme generally.

He then gives a description of 2nd tier. It's a shift from scarcity needs to abundance needs. We can have a harmonious coherence with ourselves and all humanity. This is because our self identity expands to all of humanity itself. Which of course can expand to cosmcentric concern for all beings, including the environment. And yet this integral 2nd tier view is also transitional in that it transcends and replaces 1st tier views: “The new humanity will have almost nothing in common with old humanity” (28:30).

While he didn't expand on this here he did in another of his writings, the War in Iraq. We can allow for all to have their views based on their rung, but their overall behavior must adhere to the highest or integral level. The highest view, while allowing for all views, still enforces its own highest view on all others, at least in how we must must behave. Or perhaps the view and the behavior are the inside and the outside, where we should control the outside but let the inside be as it is? That of course creates some dualistic problems, since certain views, healthy or not, are going to behave in certain ways despite the law. So I'm just wondering if he expands on this aspect in the superhuman OS program.

He said that this new 2nd tier is so new we don't know how it will play out yet. Whereas I and many other see it already happening in the new Commons movement. It is definitely a shift from scarcity to abundance. It integrates the lower basic structures as well as provides that each view has its place in the Commons. Yet it also has its own better ecological view, its own value judgment that its enacted system is better than previous views. It has its own set of laws restricting 'bad' behavior, requiring of participants to abide by Commons social and legal codes. That is, one doesn't have to buy the Commons paradigm per se, but by participating in it they will be inculcated in its cosmocentric or ecological values and consciousness, as those values are built into the vary nature of the socio-economic enactments. In this way it gets at both the inside view and the outside behavior.

This might be similar to Ken talking about behavioral exercises to help enact higher views, but this has yet to be translated into socio-economic behavior besides something called conscious capitalism. But as argued in the IPS anti-capitalism thread, those behaviors, while better than traditional capitalism in terms of triple bottom lines, still unconsciously enacts the top-down, command-and-control hierarchical organizational structures of capitalism. Do any of Ken's enactment exercises deal with socio-economic behavior?