On Husserl etc.

I referenced our IPS discussion of Husserl in this prior post. In the IPS discussion to which it refers I provided quite a bit of reference material (see that link) and clarified my posts with the following:

The intersubjective lifeworld is largely unconscious so to what degree can it be “intentional?” And what is the relation of transpersonal theory/practice to this lifeworld? That is, can we have intentional, direct and complete transpersonal experiences of this ground? Now if we take Protevi's definition of intentionality as “not subjective, but is the 'between' of subject and object, the middle out of which objects and subjects are constituted,” then it makes sense as long as we don't presume to fully experience or know such a between, heeding Morris: "Speaking for the lifeworld as if one could step outside of it and know it directly inevitably leads one to 'invoke a cosmology,' a 'metaphysics of the thing-in-itself.'”

Capitalism and the University

I found this article of interest, "Capitalism and the University." In the current conservative frenzy of privitizing everything for a profit they are sinking their teeth into public universities. If you want to have a private college to teach religion, for example, more power to you. But the agenda is much more insidious; to virtually eliminate any public voice of dissent and to convert government completely into the hands of the capital owners. In this case

The public university is under threat. 

Collective intentionality

Balder started a thread at IPS on Sean Avila Saiter's paper called "Husserl, Schultz and collective intentionality." Here are some excerpts from the thread:

xibalba:

That´s reminding me my college years of the 70ies. Sartre´existentialism and Phenomenology were more or less already "disclassified" by the growing structuralism of Levi-Strauss, Saussure and Jabokson in France.

Using KW terminology, if we are locating us in the ULQ in the interior of the first zone, then we can reconcile the two approches if we don´t fall back into husserlian speculations of a "trancendental subject", by being more empirically based like Shultz try to do with his sociology, more in phase with Garfinkel´s ethnomethodology. It would be fine to bring back intentionality from its  "lit de parade".

World spirituality?

At IPS Balder started a thread on The Center for World Spirituality, participants being a virtual who's who from the kennilinguist community. He shared a copy of videos of Marc Gafni selling the idea. What follows are excerpts of our discussion in the thread.

Balder:

What do you think of this?  Is this something whose time has come?  Is the emergence of a 'world spirituality' inevitable, or even 'utterly necessary'?

In principle, I see the emergence of transcultural spiritual practice traditions which are global in reach and conception as timely, and to-be-expected -- if not really 'utterly necessary' -- in our interconnected, multicultural age.  So, I don't object to something like this.  There have been other hybrid, syncretic traditions that have emerged and thrived in the past -- from Sikhism, to Bahai, to Theosophy (among many others).  And for a number of years, I've been noting the signs that Integral Theory itself was morphing into a religious path in its own right -- with a creation story, unique sets of practices, a soteriological vision, etc.  At first I was ambivalent about this, but eventually I began to see it as potentially valuable -- particularly if it could be differentiated from Integral Theory, as a unqiue manifestation of Integral thought (allowing Wilber & Crew's particular religious commitments to be made more explicit, and perhaps freeing Integral Theory to work more independently of those commitments).

More on the People's Budget

Expanding on the previous post about Reich's video on the economy, recall The People's Budget created by the Progressive Caucus in Congress. It garnered 77 votes, all Democrat. What is amazing is that 108 Democrats voted against it! So let's take a closer look at what the Bill proposed and some economic projections of how it stacks up against the Obama and conservative budgets. We have to ask, what do the latter two really want if not this humane agenda that outdoes what they purport to want, reduce the deficit?

This article notes the following about the People's Budget:

The tax cut lie

In this video clip Lawrence O'Donnell exposes the fallacy of the conservative mythological belief that tax cuts create government revenue. And of course the standard "proof" is Reagan's tax cuts. O'Donnell's provides ample examples from the conservative side to refute the myth, including his guest this evening Bruce Bartlett, former executive director of the joint economic committee in the Regan Whitehouse. O'Donnell concludes the interview noting Bartlett will henceforth have troubling getting conservative dining companions after revealing the lie at the heart of their economic policy to enhance the rich at the expense of the poor.

Keith Olbermann returns!

Tonight is his first show back since leaving MSNBC. He's on Al Gore's TV channel, Current. Tune in tonight at 8pm ET/7 Central for the long-awaited return of this sorely missed progressive media voice.

Polydoxy

Polydoxy: Theology of Multiplicity and Relation is a relatively new book edited by Catherine Keller and Laurel C. Schneider (Taylor and Francis, 2010). See sneak preview at Google Books. From their Introduction:

In recent years a discernible movement within theology has emerged around a triune intuition: the daunting differences of multiplicity, the evolutionary uncertainty it unfolds, and the relationality that it implies are not problems to be overcome in religious thought. They are starting points for it. Divinity understood in terms of multiplicity, open-endedness, and relationality now forms a matrix of revelation rather than a distortion, or evidence of its lack. The challenges and passions of theological creativity blossoming at the edges of tradition and at the margins of power have show themselves, far from being distractions from doctrinal or doxological integrity, to be indispensable to its life. And this vitality belies at once the dreary prophesies or pure secularism and the hard grip of credulous certainties.

The truth about the economy

This video by Robert Reich sums it up nicely and succinctly in under 3 minutes. Nuff said.

Bill Torbert

Balder started a new thread on Torbert over at IPS. He kicked it off with some quotes from an '02 interview (see thread). I responded with quotes in italics:

There should be a relationship not just between social science theory and professional action, but also between spiritual inquiry and political acts.

Here, here! 

Direct spiritual work is a work on attention.

I discussed this in the "real and false reason" thread:

Here is an excerpt from Torbert’s 2008 “Developmental Action Inquiry”:

“….in a figure/ground shift, the Alchemists and Ironists experienced ambiguity as the creative, ongoing element of all experience. This finding is consistent with the change from a primarily cognitive/structural approach to…a primarily attentional/spiritual approach in the shift from Strategist to Alchemist.”

  

And this excerpt from that thread using Torbert's work to make a point about a "higher level" understanding of levels themselves and how they are formlated: