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ARTICLES

A list (still under construction) of online articles on fundamental Integral topics

Bauwens, Michel The Peer To Peer Paradigm July 2002

A specter is haunting the world: the specter of Peer To Peer. The existing economic system is trying to co-opt it, but it isalso a harbinger of a new type of human relationship, and may in the end be incompatible with informational capitalism.

Beck, Don  Sustainable Culture, Sustainable Planet -- a values sytem perspective on constructive dialogue and cooperative action, Leaps and Spirals; The Road to Sustainable Development In a National and International Perspective, June 2001

Beck, Don Stages of Social Development - The Cultural Dynamics that Spark Violence, Spread Prosperity, and Shape Globalization -- The 12 postulates

Beck, Don  The Global Great Divide -- An Integral Initiative.

Beck, DonThe Search for Cohesion in the Age of Fragmentation - From the New World Order to the Next Global Mesh

Includes this clue to building a Third Way Integral Politics:

THIRD WAY POLITICS. Traditional Republican thought in the US is classic Blue (rule of law) and Orange (free- market economy). The Democrat Party joins Purple-Red "victims" with Green "rescuers," setting up the bipolar, two party political impasse. A legitimate "third way" policy would place the Spiral right in the middle of the left-right wing political spectrum. One could then cobble elements from both wings and apply them at different levels within the developing Spiral. This is neither a centralist or compromise position, but an entirely new direction in national politics. Both Bill Clinton's "vital center" champions and George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatives" lean in that direction but without an All Quadrants/All Levels perspective, they will not get there. The political thinkers who grasp this concept will dominate for decades to come. The focus shifts from horizontal position(s) on the Spiral -- they are called "whorls" -- to the "DNA" codes on the spine of the Spiral. Herein lies the essence of this Global Mesh strategy, one that deals with the the producer of worldviews, the dynamics that shape governance models, and the generator of complex, adaptive intelligences. I was asked during the South Africa's search for a new constitution whether that emerging society should be a unitary state, a federal structure, or a confederation. I said "yes." That country is the global microcosm.

Cook-Greuter, Suzanne A Detailed Description of the Development of Nine Action Logics.Adapted from Ego Development Theory for the Leadership Development Framework, 2002-11-14

A Fascinating 33-page article outlining Cook-Greuter’s model of human development, and comparing it to Wilber’s and Torbert’s. Stages move from Impulsive to Opportunist/Self-defensive to Diplomat/Conformist to Expert/technician/Self-conscious to Achiever/Conscientious to Individualist to Strategist/Autonomous to Magician/Construct-aware to Ironist/Unitive.

Harris, Ray  The V-Memes at War: Part 1 What is the Integral Response  : Part 2 Blue Returns; Part 3 The Red Brotherhoods and the New World order

Jordan, Thomas Is it Integral?

A checklist for assessing political reasoning

Nielsen, Joyce McCarl  Feminist Fusion or Fission? Ken Wilber meets Feminist Theory

Roose, Kris  Methodos, The Levels of Functioning Model

The Functioning Levels Model gives a general description of the levels, transited by an intelligent system, as well individuals (humans, higher mammals) as groups (societies, cultures, companies). Those systems try to achieve some subjective goal in a not necessarily complying environment, and evolve from non-adaptation towards the highest form of integration. This model explains some hitherto more isolated models, including Freud's developmental stages of personality and society, stages of bereavement, psychiatric illnesses, and some recent models.

Ross, Sara  An Integral Public Practice For Community Work on Complex Issues, 2002

Ross, Sara A Letter of Intervention and Invitation to Ken, Don, and the Inetgral Community, 2003

This paper attempts to disrupt certain assumptions that sustain, within the Integral Community, a largely un-integral culture. It is a well-argued effort to dislodge and confuse certain entrenched assumptions inherited from SD’s presentation. It offers integral methodologies that can gradually transform individuals along with the culture and practice. It closes with the invitation, ways, and means for the community to launch itself into a new integral age.

Ross, Sara Learning Issue Framing for Deliberation of Complex Questions in Public or Organizational Settings, 2003

The Objective is to understand and be able to apply the concepts of (1) Achieving tensions among and within framed approaches, (2)Listening for and distinguishing the perspectives or deep motivations underlying the things people hold valuable, (3) Listening for and including “who isn’t in the room” and (4) Formulating “trade-offs”

Ross, Sara and Fuhr, Reinhard Health from an Integral Perspective

Stambolovic, Vuk  The Case of Serbia/Yugoslavia: An Analysis through Spiral Dynamics, Medicine, Conflict and Survival, Vol 18, 59-70 (2002)

Wilber, Ken Introduction to Volume 7 of the Collected Works - The Integral Vision at the Millennium

Great introduction to Wilber’s work - pretty much the first part of his book A Thery of Everything. Read the Intro. to Vol 8 for the second and final part.

Wilber, Ken Introduction to Volume 8 of the Collected Works

This extract -- which looks pretty much identical to the second part of A Theory of Everything -- includes Wilber’s first outline of Integral Politics -- a must-read.

Here’s how he begins it:

Politics. I have been working with Drexel Sprecher, Lawrence Chickering, Don Beck, Jim Garrison, Jack Crittenden, and several others toward an all-level, all-quadrant political theory (in addition to working with the writings of political theorists too numerous to list). We have been involved with advisors to Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Tony Blair, and George W. Bush, among others. There is a surprisingly strong desire, around the world, to find a "Third Way" that unites the best of liberal and conservative--President Clinton's Vital Center , George W. Bush's Compassionate Conservatism , Germany's Neue Mitte , Tony Blair's Third Way , and Thabo Mbeki's African Renaissance , to name a few--and many theorists are finding an all-level, all-quadrant framework to be the sturdiest foundation for such.
Here is what I consider to be my own particular theoretical orientation, developed largely on my own, which has then become a framework for discussions with these other theorists, who bring their own original ideas for a cross-fertilization. I will first indicate my own thoughts, and then the areas where these other theorists have helped me enormously.
In the last chapter of Up from Eden ("Republicans, Democrats, and Mystics"), I made the observation that, when it comes to the cause of human suffering, liberals tend to believe in objective causation, whereas conservatives tend to believe in subjective causation.

Wilber, Ken On the Nature of a Post-Metaphysical Spirituality -- Response to Habermas and Weiss

Wilber responds here to the publication by the great German philosopher/sociologist Jurgen Habermas’ of Post-Metaphysical Thinking and to an article by Hans-Willi Weiss about Wilber’s work. He explains how is view -- like Habermas’ -- is a reconstructive science, looking at the patterns of development of individuals today into stages beyond what is typical, in order to predict future development for all of us. “This is NOT metaphysical speculation…” Wilber explains; it is not the ‘Perennial Philosophy’ ? the details of which he mostly rejects. Wilber also points to Habermas’ to one of Habermas’s limitations: failing to include the higher, postrational states and stages of consciousness. Defending Habermas’ use of moral development theorist Lawrence Kohlberg, Wilber  points to evidence that “no major exceptions” to Kohlberg’s stages have been found. He also talks about the difficult future task of developing an Integral critical theory, when currently all attempts at an Integral theory are “very preliminary and sketchy”.

Wilber, Ken Kosmos Trilogy Volume II Excerpt A: An Integral Age at the Leading Edge

An initial excerpt from the second volume of Wilber’s three-volume masterwork, the Kosmos Trilogy (Vol 1 titled Sex, Ecology, Spirituality -  the Spirit of Evolution). Wilber begins by describing how two percent of the population might be at Integral waves now ? with the number likely to swell soon. He then moves into some dense discussion of non-foundational, non-metaphysical spirituality, Whitehead, Sheldrake, Graves etc. Also an interesting discussion of Marx and the nature of revolutionary social  transformation. Wilber’s ever-evolving understandings continue to break new ground.

Wilber, Ken On Critics, Integral Institute, My Recent Writing, and Other Matters of Little Consequence: A Shambhala Interview with Ken Wilber.

Readable Q and A discussion of -- amongst other things -- Wilber’s departure from the factionalised transpersonal psychology movement; and the antagonism resulting from his first use of critical comments about unhealthy Green/Mean Green Meme. Includes a brief introduction to the value memes of Spiral Dynamics. Also some -- hard to swallow, for Green meme -- comments hoping Bush’s election will see a rebuilding of needed Blue infrastructure. Of course the real goal of a truly Integral politics, a genuine Third Way, is still probably a long way off: “Ideally, of course, we would have a green-to-yellow politician who also embraces red to blue to orange, or the entire spiral… but I don’t see that anywhere on the horizon.”

Wilber, Ken Who Ate Captain Cook? Integral Historiography in a Postmodern Age.

Wilber, Ken  Sidebar C: Orange and Green: Levels or Cousins?

An online footnote to Wilber’s novel Boomeritis discusses some of the divergences between Wilber, Beck and Wade on the exact nature of the stages of human development. Wilber suggests that people can move through every one of the different levels/stages of development with either and individualistic/agentic or communal leaning -- in contrast to Spiral Dynamics which sees a pendulum between more individualistic and more communal levels. For example, the individualistic achievement-focused Orange value meme is followed by the communitarian-focused Green meme, redressing some of the problems caused by Orange. Wilber here also explains that his movement through the pluralistic Green meme was in an individualistic/agentic manner. He adds: in fact, most of the second-tier people I know went through the pluralistic stage in an agentic  fashion (they went through hot green), for the simple reason that if you go through the pluralistic stage in a more typically communal fashion -- cool green -- then in this day and age you almost always get caught in the herd mentality of politically correct thinking, the mean green meme, and the epidemic of boomeritis, and therefore you never make it to yellow, because cool green, accounting for probably 60 per cent of green, dominates the cultural and academic scene. Includes responses from Jenny Wade and Don Beck.

Wilber, Ken The Deconstruction of the World Trade Center -- A Date That Will Live in a Sliding Chain of Signifiers

Long article on how different value memes responded to Sept 11. Includes, in part 2 especially, Wilber’s longest outline of Integral Politics to date (much more depth than in A Theory of Everything). A must read.

Wilpert, Greg Dimensions of Integral Politicsor on Visser's site

Wilpert, Greg  Integral Politics - A Spiritual Third Way

In this time of ideological upheaval, when the old ideologies of left and right, of socialism, liberalism, and conservatism, no longer capture the political imagination the way they once did, new political visions are required. Some have tried to formulate a "Third Way" between social democracy and conservatism. Others, such as Michael Lerner, have proposed a more spiritually-oriented approach to transcend left and right. In what follows, I would like to present another vision, that of Integral Politics, which is very compatible with the approach of Michael Lerner but is based on the work of Ken Wilber.