Reply to last post

DavidM58 replied to the last post at the IPS forum, reproduced below:

I like that phrase, "the material unconscious." I also agree that Wilberian AQAL thinking tends to emphasize the Upper Left quadrant, and that we would profit from putting more attention on developing a more wholistic approach to the right hand quadrants of materiality.  In the Lower Right quadrant, for example, we need to pay attention to the energy and ecology that makes possible our techno-economic structures.

Alfred North Whitehead, who lived from the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century (1861-1947), noted in his first book on philosophy in 1926 the "fatal" effects of Cartesian thinking with the rise of the industrial period. I see some parallels here also to what Gebser later referred to as the deficient phase of the mental-rational structure. Some excerpts from Science and the Modern Mind:


"The doctrine of minds, as independent substances, leads directly not merely to private worlds of experience, but also to private worlds of morals."

"Also the assumption of the bare value-lessness of mere matter led to a lack of reverence in the treatment of natural or artistic beauty... The two evils are: one, the ignoration of the true relation of each organism to its environment; and the other, the habit of ignoring the intrinsic worth of the environment which must be allowed its weight in any consideration of final ends."

I would say that "environment" here means the natural environment, but also the built environment, and the socio-cultural environment.

And so I would agree with Rifkin that we need to develop our ecological consciousness, and with you about getting more involved with a "politics of things."

The tools for this that I personally find to be very valuable, that I think really make a great balance to the left hand emphasis of integral, is permaculture (hence my Integral Permaculture blog), and the great potential of PatternDynamics (which grew out of both integral and permaculture thinking).
I'm bringing Toby Hemenway to town next week, excited about what he offers in his new book, The Permaculture City: Regenerative Design for Urban, Suburban, and Town Resilience. He's now emphasizing the application of this materially oriented whole-systems design approach to our social systems. He describes permaculture as a decision making tool.

Back to Bryant's post, I'm reminded also of this David Whyte poem.

Working Together

We shape our self
to fit this world
and by the world
are shaped again.
The visible
and the invisible
working together
in common cause,
to produce
the miraculous.
I am thinking of the way
the intangible air
passed at speed
round a shaped wing
easily
holds our weight.
So may we, in this life
trust
to those elements
we have yet to see
or imagine,
and look for the true
shape of our own self,
by forming it well
to the great
intangibles about us.
  -- David Whyte
      from The House of Belonging
      ©1996 Many Rivers Press
Written for the presentation of The Collier Trophy to The Boeing Company
marking the introduction of the new 777 passenger jet.