“Growth is the willingness to let reality be new every moment.” — @DeepakChopra
Photo Credit: Elephant wearing striped pants
Helen Keller on Human Nature
“As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.” — Helen Keller
Photo Credit: mvos18
In the blogosphere, attacks on alternative medicine from questionable sources
By Joe Perez
At first, I saw no reason that I should link to this blog post by a pseudonymous blogger who calls himself Orac. He claims to be a surgeon/scientist, and I have little doubt that he is. He is skeptical about all complementary/alternative medicine, which he likens to The Secret and New Age woo-woo nonsense.
At his Respectful Insolence blog, he writes:
…CAM [complementary alternative medicine] is nothing more than placebo medicine. It makes it easier for me to remind people that intentionally practicing placebo medicine is unethical (because it requires lying to the patient) and paternalistic, just like 60 years ago when conventional doctors did actually order placebos for patients. In a perfectly Orwellian turn of phrase, advocates of “health freedom” and CAM advocates are in essence advocating a return to that sort of paternalism. As I’ve pointed out before, CAM cloaks itself in rhetoric suggesting that it “empowering” patients to “take control” of their health. In actuality it denies them the most important tool to do that: A appraisal of the rationale behind a proposed treatment, along with an assessment of its potential benefits and risks based on science, not fantasy. Instead, it substitutes tooth fairy science, pre-scientific vitalism, and utter faith in the practitioner for science and reason.
So calling advocates of alternative medicine unethical peddlers of fantasy with Orwellian delusions is “respectful insolence” now?
I’m not saying that he doesn’t make a good point about the Placebo Effect, and I’m not saying that there isn’t some flakiness to some New Age thinking and some ways in which alternative/ complementary/ integrative medicine is practiced. There certainly is, but there are also professional standards and evolving wisdom. And there is also quackery among surgeons and standards by which the inadequate must be expelled from the practice.
This post is pretty much what you would expect from many mainstream surgeons, whose occupation tends to favor individuals with a certain sort of subjectivity and way of looking at the world which biases them in ways which create blind spots to more subtle, non-rational dimensions of reality. If they can’t understand it logically or see it under a microscope, to them it ain’t real. Like I said, I wasn’t going to link to the post, which didn’t say anything new, even as it said old stuff pretty darn well. World Spirituality makes room for a spectrum of divergent health modalities — traditional, modern, complementary, and integral — based on what works, not an ideological commitment which paints all but Western approaches as “unethical.”
But then I thought: what really bugs me about this post is that he writes under a psuedonym. What an odd thing to be bothered by! While pseudonymous writing is occasionally justified (as when an individual faces political oppression or social ostracism), it is very odd that a respected scientist and surgeon would take the very risk-adverse move (some would say cowardly and unprofessional) of refusing to give his name.
The story I have about the connection between the surgeon’s anonymity and his viewpoint is that he knows that if his name is connected to his writing — what he says AND the way he presents it, which comes off a bit as an arrogant know-it-all, condescending to everyone who thinks differently — that his business will suffer and people will respect him less. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s my best guess. Pseudonyms shield writers from reality, giving us the illusion of safety when it only puts us into our own sort of “fantasy.”
But if only Orac would sign his real name, then his patients could see what he really believes, and (if they stayed with him) they could educate him about the experiences they have had with alternative medicine or faith-based healing. Then he could see that you don’t have to be ignorant or flaky in order to think that it’s all right to look beyond narrow Western medicine in terms of understanding dimensions of healing not yet well understood by the mind constituted by a narrow view of rationality.
If only.
The stunning rise of “I’m BOTH spiritual AND religious” in America
By Joe Perez
A fascinating recent analysis of data on American religiosity today shows the rise of a new ethos in the United States: a stunning 48 percent of Americans now describe themselves as BOTH spiritual AND religious, with another 30 percent preferring the “spiritual, BUT NOT religious” formula.
Now here’s the stunner: only 13 years ago, a majority of 54% of Americans described themselves as religious BUT NOT spiritual. If these surveys are correct, we are witnessing a hidden sea change whereby Americans have now largely accepted a divide between the religious and the spiritual, and the spiritual is winning in spades.
Author Diana Butler Bass sees the day coming when religion in the U.S. will virtually come to an end. In a recent blog post on the Huffington Post, she writes:
In a 2008 survey, Pew research found that one in 10 Americans now considers themselves an ex-Catholic. The situation is so dire that the church launched a PR campaign inviting Catholics to “come home,” to woo back disgruntled members. There was a slight uptick in Catholic membership last year, mostly due to immigrant Catholics. There is no data indicating that Catholics are returning en masse and much anecdotal evidence suggesting that leaving-taking continues. Catholic leaders worry that once the new immigrants become fully part of American society they might leave, too.
She does not talk about the developing world, however, where there are few signs of secularization. After describing the American decline of Protestant denominations as well as Catholic, she continues:
The religious market collapse has happened with astonishing speed. In 1999, when survey takers asked Americans “Do you consider yourself spiritual or religious,” a solid majority of 54 percent responded that they were “religious but not spiritual.” By 2009, only 9 percent of Americans responded that way. In 10 years, those willing to identify themselves primarily as “religious” plummeted by 45 percentage points.
In the last decade, the word “religion” has become equated with institutional or organized religion. Because of crises such as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Roman Catholic abuse scandal, Americans now define “religion” in almost exclusively negative terms. These larger events, especially when combined with increasing irrelevance of too much of organized religion, contributed to an overall decline in church membership, and an overall decline of the numbers of Christians, in the United States.
There may be hope, however, regarding the future of faith. Despite worry about the word, “religion,” Americans are extremely warm toward “spiritual but not religious” (30 percent) and, even more interestingly (and perhaps paradoxically), the term “spiritual and religious” (48 percent). While “religion” means institutional religion, “spirituality” means an experience of faith. Large numbers of Americans are hankering for experiential faith whereby they can connect with God, the divine, or wonder as well as with their neighbors and that lead to a more profound sense of meaning in the world. Maybe Americans once called this “religion,” but no more. Americans call it “spirituality.” (Emphasis mine.)
If all this sounds bleak for religion, she does note a silver lining:
Some Americans want to be spiritually left alone, without complications from organized religion. But nearly half of Americans appear to hope for a spiritual reformation — or even revolution — in their faith traditions and denominations. Congregations that exhibit a vibrant spiritual life embodying a living faith in practical ways succeeding, even in the religion bear market. These sorts of communities are models of what might be possible to renew wearied organizations…
Read the whole thing.
The drama in the future of American consciousness will apparently be played out not in a war between the spiritual and the religious, but between those who are BUT NOTs and the BOTH ANDs. World Spirituality must find a way to include and embrace both groups of people. Nevertheless, it’s the BOTH ANDs whose perspective probably holds the greatest promise for the rise of a more Integral worldview, one which recognizes the falsity of the distinction between spiritual and religious, and which works towards the greater integration of today’s theologies with modern and post-modern wisdom, and the revitalization of spiritual and religious organizations.
Oleg Linetsky’s open letter to Ken Wilber and other integral teachers
Oleg Linetsky
By Joe Perez
Recently the Center for World Spirituality received a welcome and intellectually stimulating letter and paper by Oleg Linetsky from the Ukraine. We’re pleased to be reprinting the letter and paper on the CWS website. These include a major rethinking of “boundaries” in integral theory and an innovative application of Unique Self.
Open letter to Ken Wilber and integral teachers
Dear Ken,
First of all I would like to express my deep love and gratitude for the light of wisdom you bring and your incomparable contribution for the good of sentient beings. Your works had a great impact on my own life, for which I am very grateful to you. On my journey through the pages of your books I experienced a true divine joy.
In this letter I would like to illuminate a side of the Integral Approach (IA) which up until now remained in the darkness, i.e. boundaries. Just like any other objects inside the quadrants, boundaries are objects that can be felt and realized, so they cannot be ignored and left outside the integral map. There are boundaries, even though also illusory for the non-dual witness.
In the natural state of non-dual oneness it becomes clear that all forms arise from the light of primordial ground, and even boundaries are a concentrated light of clarity of the nature of the mind and the final barriers on the way to the inexpressible. They are the very core of our feeling of aliveness and awakeness. They let us feel joy and suffering of life and make life meaningful. The message about boundaries (as five elements, fivefold mahabhuta or five skandhas) came to us from ancient traditions dating back thousands of years. This message is as valuable for humanity as The Great Chain of Being. There is a special method which lets us study boundaries today even in our usual waking state. Boundaries are the missing link between the absolute and the relative, emptiness and form, spirituality and religion, IA and its popularity.
Today we see that the message about boundaries actually describes the mechanism of conscious evolution, understanding of which can promote a progress of humanity towards 2nd tier and simply help us living from the deepest part of us that you and Marc Gafni call the Unique Self. Five boundaries described here are right about how to live in resonance with our Unique Self and how to resolve the problem of wise choice in everyday life using an integral approach.
I want to share my view of boundaries which arose from combining pure non-dual vision (when all boundaries are seen but seen as illusory) and integral vision. Five types of boundaries initialize the format of our evolutionary Game. Here I speak of a timeless, but not of an absolute wisdom that is also called diamond or vajra wisdom in Buddhist tradition. As you know, the state of oneness is paradoxical: everything is “I am,” but “I” remains above everything. But living in this state brings another paradox: although everything is ”I am,” “I” is not the only source of game novelty, so “I” constantly has to face challenges from a nameless source. Each of us is simultaneously the great Creator and an ordinary player on the common playground structured in a certain way.
The text below is composed as a very brief set of theses which are written in terms of IT and still have to be discussed and elaborated. I talk in detail about the message of boundaries in my book The Game. User’s guide. This message can be called “the integral approach to experiencing” as well. It is astonishing that today the wisdom of vajra is being revealed to the world again, largely through the integral approach. This letter is the expression of gratitude to you and all the pioneers of evolutionary spirituality and the integral approach. I would appreciate your feedback and hope there’s a possibility of a broad dialogue about boundaries with you and integrally oriented spiritual teachers like Sally Kempton, Marc Gafni, Terry Patten, Roger Walsh and others.
Love, light and wishes of good health,
Oleg Linetsky
20th of march 2012
Read the entire paper here.
What is the difference between a feeling and an emotion?
By Joe Perez
Recently Robert Augustus Masters wrote:
Once we really understand that there is no true escape from feeling, including unpleasant or distressing feeling, we may start, at last, to consciously and consistently turn toward such feeling, like a loving parent turning, with full presence and compassion, toward their just-hurt or badly frightened child…
I struggled to express whether I agreed or disagreed with this sentiment and ultimately concluded that much depends on the sense given to the word “feeling.” The word “feeling” is often seen as a synonym for “emotion,” but the two words have a different feeling to them, don’t they? Maybe they even create subtly different emotional responses in you?
The sound of the words are different, and getting a feel for the words through sound symbolism (the investigation of the importance of vocal sounds for meaning) is an interesting entry point to this topic. In this post, consider the similarities between the sound of the phonemes in the words, such as the “fi” sound in “feeling” and “finger.”
A “feeling” is closely connected to what we perceive through the fingers. The first definition in the dictionary says it’s related to the “function or the power of perceiving by touch.” Feelings tend to be warm or cold. Feelings are not responses that are linked to sight, hearing, taste, or smell; thus, feelings have less precision than emotions. Feelings are often vague, and more frequently flow down than up, just as liquid flows downhill but never uphill. People feel bad more than they feel good. They feel pain more than they feel pleasant. Feelings are rarely complex.
On the other hand, “emotions” are very complex. Like feelings, they are connected to the life force or ch’i; however in emotion, the ch’i is more directly referenced, not mediated through touch. Emotions take life energy and move them from one place to another, swaying like the tides in the ocean from incredible, tsunami-like highs to waves crashing against cliffs. Emotions involve such things as joy, sadness, fear, hate, love … emotions that may be loosely called “feelings,” but which are much more complex than more tactile feelings like warm and cold, good and bad. Emotions can be easily agitated, and once disturbed they tend to flow in negative or neutral directions.
Yes, “feeling” and “emotion” may be roughly equated, but there are subtle differences. From a spiritual perspective, we must understand that both emotions and feelings enact a process which directly or less directly stirs the life force, making it loose and liquid as with feelings or putting it into motion in ocean-like waves as with emotions.
You may hear spiritual teachers tell you that there is no need to escape from feelings, no matter how unpleasant or distressing, but this is subtly off base. Feelings can be avoided if they are unpleasant or distressing, much as you would remove your finger off a hot stove or remove your foot from an icy pool. There is no need to wallow, no need to lose peacefulness unnecessarily.
It is the emotions that can’t be avoided, and ought not be.
Emotions begin with ch’i, unmediated, not with an ephemeral bit of friction. It is their nature that they must be encountered; there is no getting around them whatsoever. The only question is where they can be moved, not whether.
Like the ocean, they can rise to the surface or fall to the depths; they can stay out in the wide blue yonder or crash upon shore. And when they crash, they may find their way to soft, sandy, white pristine beaches or jagged, mountainous fjords.
With Robert August Masters, I believe there is wisdom in not bypassing emotions. But I’m a stickler for finding the right word. I do not see the point to “consciously and consistently turn toward … feeling,” which risks distracting our equanimity with pointless diversions. It is better said that it is emotion that we must consciously and consistently turn towards, so that we may open ourselves to Love and allow Spirit to move the oceanic waves within us to their most auspicious resolution.
Photo Credit: Meredith_Farmer
Show up! Know your Unique Gift and give it away…
By Joe Perez
The practice of World Spirituality can be summed up in only five phrases. How easy is that!
Wake Up, Grow Up, Lighten Up, Show Up, and Open Up!
From Marc Gafni’s “Showing Up: Unique Self and Unique Gift”:
It is the matrix of waking up, growing up, cleaning up and opening up that allows you to show up as Your Unique Self. It your Unique Self that gives birth to Unique Gift. As mentioned earlier in the book, Your Unique Gifts are what enable you to address a Unique Need that needs to be filled.
The core realization of a world spirituality is that every human being is both part of the whole and at the same time a high priest or priestess in their religion of one. The core obligation, joy, and responsibility of the Unique Self is to give its Unique Gift which fills a unique need in the kosmos that can be met by them and them alone.
There’s a common sense way of understanding “unique gift” and then there’s the more subtle, intellectually serious meaning intended by World Spirituality teaching. It’s common sense… plus a dose of Integral rigor!
The Unique Gift is described in Marc’s Your Unique Self, which is coming out this summer. Hope you’ll be running, not walking, to the bookstores!
Photo Credit: Ndee
Man changes name to Tyrannosaurus Rex, citing desire for distinctiveness
How much is having a cool, unusual name worth to an entrepreneur? Enough to change Tyler to T-Rex. The socio-economic value of distinctiveness is highlighted in a story today by NPR:
Tyler Gold of York, Neb., is now officially named Tyrannosaurus Rex Joseph Gold, the local York News Times reports.
But there’s no sign that Tyler … er, Tyrannosaurus Rex … is rethinking his choice because of any breaking news about breaking wind.
According to the News Times:
“In Gold’s official filing with the court, he said he wanted to change his name ‘because the (T-Rex designation) is cooler. Also, as an entrepreneur, name recognition is important and the new name is more recognizable.’ He verbally repeated his reasoning during the court proceedings, while on the witness stand [Monday].”
Commenting on the Good Men Blog, Joanna Schroeder adds:
Folks these days are naming their kids more, shall we say… creatively. Cracked.com has a great list of the top 20 unusual celebrity baby names that includes my favorite: Pilot Inspektor, child of Jason Lee.
Personally, I love it. I like that kids don’t get teased for their names being unusual anymore – because almost all the names are unusual.
Our names are all written together in the Cosmic Scroll, to use an image popular with Marc Gafni and other students of Kabbalah. Meaning, in other words, that the Cosmic Scroll, seen as our True Self, is only manifest in the world when it appears with a Name, with a Unique Self.
Each name is already unique, whether it is John, James, Mary, Patricia, or Tyrannosaurus Rex Joseph. But T-Rex’s decision demonstrates spirit’s next move: as individuals strive to build careers for the 21st century, defining their personal brands in a crowded marketplace of individuals with impressive resumes, they are looking to milk value out of every unique, distinguishing characteristic in their portfolio.
Whether T-Rex is just a gimmick or if it will turn Tyler Gold into a mammoth entrepreneur is hard to say. But if the name captures something essential about his Unique Self that lets him be more fully who he is in the world, then let’s bless him on his journey. And then let’s get out of his way…. quick!!!
Photo Credit: Billings Productions, Inc.
Ego v. Unique Self: a lesson from Thor, god of thunder
By Joe Perez
Whatever your taste in movies, it’s hard to deny that Hollywood does a brilliant job of selling comic books to the world, illuminated with dazzling computer-powered, imagination-dazzling on-screen effects. Many adults find these action packed movies to be a guilty pleasure, and we ponder whether they have a redeeming educational or morally transcendent worth beyond a day’s entertainment. Given their prominence and durability, let’s hope that they do.
The first thing I want to say about The Avengers, Josh Whedon’s latest superhero summer blockbuster, is that it at times provoked in me surprising delight. The interactions among Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, the Black Widow and Hawkeye were intriguing in unexpected ways. These superheroes each inhabited their own excellence, their own uniqueness, with superb effortlessness … and they frequentlly argued, fought, and learned how to get along.
Superheroes, like all heroes of myth, wear their interior self on their external nature. The spirit of their uniqueness is writ large, thanks to the power of myth. Hulk’s raw, primal, Kali-like power of creative destruction; Thor’s instinctual, impulse-driven, noble brand of heroism; Captain America’s truth-oriented, duty-driven, God-loving brave soldier warrior; Iron Man’s postmodern, quip-slinging, irony-noticing, eco-technologist playboy billionaire, for starters. And all of them coordinated by the mastermind strategist of Nick Fury, the man with the power to deliver Manhattan from a nuclear blast while operating behind a veil of mystery.
The symbols embodied by the heroes fall all along the spectrum of human developmental capacities from pre-modern magical to mythic to rational to integral as spelled out in the Integral Framework, though there’s room for debating precisely how the symbols align. Personally I didn’t find myself identifying strongly with any of the characters, so much as with the feeling of the cosmic drama itself, I think, but I most admired the cunning and chutzpah of Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury. If there is Integral Consciousness on display among these characters, it couldn’t be better embodied than by Fury.
But that doesn’t stand in the way of my gushing over Chris Hemsworth’s hyper-masculine performance as Thor, god of Thunder. I find Whedon’s portrayal of the macho macho god as a being of almost child-like innocence to be an endearing expression of the ego-less, enlightened nature of the authentic power of the Unique Self. If Thor passes muster as divine, it is only because we believe that he is truly being himself — that he simply cannot be any other way — that he is not holding anything back, and that he wields power not for its own sake but only for an ideal greater than himself: the protection of the Earth and realms beyond.
Where Americans import conservatives from overseas
By Joe Perez
In certain places in America, conservatives are so scarce they’ve begun to import them from abroad. Specifically, in Tampa, Florida, where 1,000 delegates gathered for the United Methodist Church’s General Conference. While liberal American Methodists pleaded for tolerance for gay people, conservatives from overseas compared homosexuality to bestiality.
Gay rights advocates in the UMC viewed the compromise proposals as the best chance to advance their cause at this year’s General Conference, which convenes every four years. On Friday, delegates are expected to debate the church’s bans on noncelibate gay clergy and same-sex marriage.
With nearly 8 million members in the U.S., the UMC remains the country’s largest mainline Protestant denomination. But United Methodism is shrinking in the U.S. and growing in Africa and Asia, shifting the balance of power to overseas conservatives. Nearly 40 percent of the delegates gathered in Tampa live outside the U.S.
Thursday’s debate put the denomination’s wide diversity on display — as gays and lesbians pleaded for recognition of their “sacred worth” and an African delegate, speaking through an interpreter, compared homosexuality to bestiality.
The conservatives won the day, proclaiming publicly that “homosexual acts” are “incompatible with Christian teaching” in the largest mainstream Protestant denomination in the U.S.A. Of course, it’s their right to run their church as they see fit and nobody is forcing anybody to be part who doesn’t find a welcoming home there. And of course, many of us would much prefer that if the conservatives can’t at least be willing to agree to disagree, then they would stay quiet.
But then again, we aren’t really the folks the Methodist leaders are speaking to. They say they are speaking to the world, but they are really addressing only those willing to listen, mainly their flocks which are increasingly hailing from the developing world and less so North America and Europe. Thus, the fate of gays and lesbians in the “first world” is tied to the fate of gays and lesbians everywhere. There is no progress on the LGBT dignity front in America if the LGBT folks in places like Bangladesh and Uganda and Argentina are left out.
Thus, religion is providing a uniting thread linking the fate of persecuted minorities everywhere. Today there are Methodists in every country, or almost every country, where there are Christians. And where people share a common religion, if their religion leaves them out, they will share a common persecution. Fear will rule over love when love grows too weak.
Our fates are linked because in the final analysis We are Them and They are Us: there is only one True Self, and it expresses itself (sometimes in beautiful or expaseratingly crazy ways) through homophiles and heterophiles, heterosexuals and homosexuals, and in all the ways that Love does its thing, same-to-same or same-to-other or what have you.
And our fates are linked because we cannot know Love unless we also stand in the unknowable, the Fear which does its own thing, other-fear or same-fear, homophobia or heterophobia. As each of us heals our homophobia, one by one, Spirit releases a bit more Fear and evolves a little closer to an even more radical expression of Love.
Ultimately gays will find liberation only in the most difficult, blessedly difficult, of paths: by linking gay/human rights to the quest for recognition of their “sacred worth” in every religion in every land. Until then, we can expect conservative religionists to gain clout not only abroad where they are more abundant, but also in the U.S., where their leadership is imported by groups like the United Methodists with deep international linkages.
Religions which intertwine internationally link people deeply and profoundly towards a common goal on the human adventure. The news about the United Methodists may suggest that this is a bad thing, that somehow foreigners have a veto over the collective consciousness of American Christians.
But the reality is more complex. The internationalization of spirituality is a good thing when it lifts the boats of people in distress, requiring religious adherents in privileged countries to work on behalf of international development, forcing those invested in the gay rights struggle in one country to seek universal human rights worldwide.
World Spirituality participates in such global linkages, helping to build the bonds which one day can be tunnels for human liberation to emerge out of fear. An Integral approach to gay rights requires a global view, invested as it is in expanding the degree to which we are all more deeply accepting of our humanity and sexuality.
Photo Credit: Religion News Service
Not at all a horror story: Stephen King and the virtues of patriotism
Stephen King
By Joe Perez
Patriotism is often taken as the virtue of virtue by conservatives (and by politicians posing as conservatives to win right-wing votes). Mitt Romney, for example, has made patriotism the centerpiece of his book No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, his campaign, and his attacks against the president Barack Obama as “apologizer-in-chief” for statements made overseas admitting to the imperfections of the United States.
On the other hand, liberals and progressives have often demonstrated an allergy to patriotism and some of the things associated negatively with it (xenophobia, ethnocentrism, simple-minded acceptance of the ruling party, foreign policy aggression, etc.). It’s almost as if patriotism is a litmus test dividing the ethnocentric from the more worldcentric views of the world.
But this isn’t quite that simple. An Integral approach does not tell us that patriotism is good or bad, more developed or less developed. It tells us to honor all the ways of relating to patriotism that contribute to the greatest good for the greatest number of people. And when talking about patriotism, it is the case that progressives who can honor patriotism often make the best case for its virtues, and conservatives who argue against the downsides of patriotism are often its best critics.
Stephen King, the world famous author of thrillers, horror, science-fiction, and other literature, is also believed to have a net worth of $400 million. Despite being “filthy rich,” as they say, he’s now written an article in The Daily Beast criticizing rich people who don’t want to pay more taxes and the ideologues who reinforce their beliefs and block legislation that would make the rich pay “their fair share” in taxes.
What’s more, in making this courageous and unusual argument, King tells us that it’s patriotism that ought to motivate the rich. He writes:
I guess some of this mad right-wing love comes from the idea that in America, anyone can become a Rich Guy if he just works hard and saves his pennies. Mitt Romney has said, in effect, “I’m rich and I don’t apologize for it.” Nobody wants you to, Mitt. What some of us want—those who aren’t blinded by a lot of bullshit persiflage thrown up to mask the idea that rich folks want to keep their damn money—is for you to acknowledge that you couldn’t have made it in America without America. That you were fortunate enough to be born in a country where upward mobility is possible (a subject upon which Barack Obama can speak with the authority of experience), but where the channels making such upward mobility possible are being increasingly clogged. That it’s not fair to ask the middle class to assume a disproportionate amount of the tax burden. Not fair? It’s un-fucking-American is what it is. I don’t want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share. That our civics classes never taught us that being American means that—sorry, kiddies—you’re on your own. That those who have received much must be obligated to pay—not to give, not to “cut a check and shut up,” in Governor Christie’s words, but to pay—in the same proportion. That’s called stepping up and not whining about it. That’s called patriotism, a word the Tea Partiers love to throw around as long as it doesn’t cost their beloved rich folks any money.
This has to happen if America is to remain strong and true to its ideals. It’s a practical necessity and a moral imperative. Last year during the Occupy movement, the conservatives who oppose tax equality saw the first real ripples of discontent. Their response was either Marie Antoinette (“Let them eat cake”) or Ebenezer Scrooge (“Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”). Short-sighted, gentlemen. Very short-sighted. If this situation isn’t fairly addressed, last year’s protests will just be the beginning. Scrooge changed his tune after the ghosts visited him. Marie Antoinette, on the other hand, lost her head.
What I want to highlight here is simply King’s brilliant move of honoring patriotism and making the case that people who say they are patriotic are hypocritical for not being true to its ideals. Although his position might be debatable, it is certainly Integral in the best and widest sense of the term: open to truth wherever it can be found, taking the virtues upheld by “the enemy” and explaining not how wrong they are, but how the virtues actually demand a more compassionate and loving stance than is being offered. Fairness, King says, is an American virtue, and Americans who are proud of their country ought to stand up for all its ideals, not cherry-pick the ones that make their bank accounts the fattest.
World Spirituality based on Integral principles is not based on dividing people up into “the people who are right” and “the enemy,” which is something that King arguably does in his article, so it isn’t the case that King speaks for a truly authentic World Spirituality. But it is definitely the case, I think, that World Spirituality does not tell people that in order to take a more worldcentric spiritual view they must lose their patriotism. Love your self, love your family, your neighbors, your city, your state, your country, your country’s allies, and ultimately your country’s enemies and the people of every nation on the planet.
Patriotism as a partial identification of the self and the state is not an evil. Like any limited sort of self-identification, it removes us from the True Self, the Ultimate Identity of which of there is truly only one. But it is part of our Unique Self as a station on the way to a wider and ultimately truer identity. Love calls us out of narrow conceptions of self into larger wholes, and it is also love that can lift our nations into larger frameworks that solve global problems.
Why disgust is important from a spiritual perspective
By Joe Perez
One of the most important insights of the Integral Framework is that it helps us to integrate psychological research regarding the basis for our worldviews with our spirituality. For instance, when we learn that many (but not all) liberals and many (but not all) conservatives are more likely to hold a common psychological type or structure-stage which per se is neither good nor bad, and for which they are not morally accountable, then we become less judgmental of them.
Thereupon we learn to dis-identify with exclusively liberal or conservative impulses as we locate within our own psyche the basis upon which liberals and conservatives usually hold out their warring worldviews as the only one worth belief. This change in political beliefs is associated with the arrival of a more expansive identification of the self and the world it inhabits. The self holds more of a both/and perspective rather than either/or.
Now it turns out researchers are constantly giving us greater understanding of how this all happens. Writing on Towleroad, Chris Mooney reviews the evidence to substantiate the fact that there appears to be no rational basis for the belief that children are harmed by same-sex marriage and unions. But Mooney’s main point is not political, but psychological. He argues that there is a psychological basis for differences in belief among liberals and conservatives regarding gay marriage, and it has to do with feelings of disgust:
There are a small number of Christian right researchers and intellectuals who have tried to make a scientific case against same-sex marriages and unions, by citing alleged harms to children. This stuff isn’t mainstream or scientifically accepted — witness the APA’s statements on the matter. But from the perspective of the Christian right, that doesn’t really matter. When people are looking for evidence to support their deeply held views, the science suggests that people engage in “motivated reasoning.” Their deep emotional convictions guide the retrieval of self-supporting information that they then use to argue with, to prop themselves up. It isn’t about truth, it’s about feeling that you’re right — righteous, even.
And where, in turn, do these emotions come from? Well, there’s the crux. A growing body of research shows that liberals and conservatives, on average, have different moral intuitions, impulses that bias us in different directions before we’re even consciously thinking about situations or issues. Indeed, this research suggests that liberals and conservatives even have different bodily responses to stimuli, of a sort that they cannot control. And one of the strongest areas of difference involves one’s sensitivity to the feeling of disgust.
A recent study, for instance, found that “individuals with marked involuntary physiological responses to disgusting images, such as of a man eating a large mouthful of writhing worms, are more likely to self-identify as conservative and, especially, to oppose gay marriage than are individuals with more muted physiological responses to the same images.” In other words, there’s now data to back up what we’ve always kind of known: The average conservative, much more than the average liberal, is having visceral feelings of disgust towards same-sex marriage. And then, when these conservatives try to consciously reason about the matter, they seize on any information to support or justify their deep-seated and uncontrolled response — which pushes them in the direction of believing and embracing information that appears to justify and ratify the emotional impulse.
The key takeaway, for my purposes today, is that when we look at our beliefs and those of our neighbors about important subjects of concern to us all, we are not looking at beliefs formed strictly out of either emotional or rational bases. Beliefs can also be almost instinctual, rooted in primordial feelings planted deep in the reptilian brain. In a sense, debates about gay marriage can turn into a show of force between a mature human perspective and a reptile perspective rationalized with human defense mechanisms.
Perhaps disgust is not something quickly changed, but it is a conditioned reaction that can be changed given the right amount of time, inclinations, and technique. But anyone concerned with making positive changes in the world needs to know this information and develop strategies smart enough to account for more of reality. And that is one way to characterize the Integral perspective on which World Spirituality is grounded: it is based in reality, and a commitment to continually embrace and include as much of it as possible… and perhaps, by extension, be disgusted by as little of it as possible.
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