Of Pandits and Bandits: A Meandering Ride through the UnIntegral Wild West
Boy howdy, word-slinger Ken Wilber got a nasty burr under his Integral saddle a few weeks ago, so he reared up on his high horse and bucked up a cloud of dust. In the rant posted on 8 June, Ken identifies himself with old west figure Wyatt Earp as he self-congratulates on his intellectual quick draw (no surprise) while kicking out at critics that rile him. (They – real or contrived - just don’t get it, of course. "Tier-challenged, poor ole' thangs.") This time we were included by name – partially – and tacked up on an UnWanted poster next to others accused of being enemies of the Integral people: "No Reward!" Oh, the shame of it; charged with ruffling the feathers of the fearless leader, Marshal Ken, and with raising uncomfortable questions and bucking the Integral establishment, then missing the stage coach out of town after bein' warned to 'git.' Does an Integral lynching follow? Integral shunning? Integral tar and feathers fer bein’ agin the herd mentality of some of these folk?
Briefly taking off the marshal’s badge to play act the role of Judge Roy Bean instead, Ken rules on our “professional writing” in his blog entry thusly: “…anger laces every word, acidly, unrelentingly, eating away at the reader, as it surely must its author.” Whoa doggie – must’ve chewed on that one for a while to get it so smooth and melodious - like a fine Kentucky bourbon rollin’ softly across the tongue, only to be wasted in an online spittoon. So if, gentle rider, you’re nervous about getting snake-bit by the venom dripping off "every word" to come, you’d best unsaddle your pony right now, pat her down, put her in her stall, give her some oats, and head back to the bunk house. If not, get ready to head ‘em up and move ‘em out into the Wild, Wild Wilberian West – unrelentingly, acidically.
Pardner, we don’t have a clue who or what triggered this sad display of horsiness on Ken’s part – we’re way out of their Integral loop and don't follow his trail, though we cross it now and then. Simply looks to us like he’s done a danged good job of discrediting himself and his posse with this High Noon demonstration of buck-naked petulance. The leader o' the Integral pack is callin’ out critics like an over-stimulated pistolero hankerin’ for a show-down at the I’m OK, You’re Not-OK Corral. "Toss one more criticism up in the air - I dare you - so I can shoot a hole through it with footnotes," yelled the marshal with a smirk. More in line with Kenny-the-Kid behavior or a poor man's Blazing Saddles than a pandit or polemicist. To read the Integral sheriff’s words for yourself, just mosey on over to http://www.kenwilber.com/blog/show/46 and have a gander at the show he puts on. There's ropin’ and dancin’ and all manner of yippee-kay-yay foolishness and generalizations, along with naked bits unprintable in a family newspaper and not fit for Buffalo Bill, to boot. A whole pack of trained coyotes comes out yippin' about how it's all second, maybe third tier brilliance, and that ambushin' critics in the box canyon of his own blog somehow took real guts and was way past due: "You go, Marshal, and clean up Dodge once and for all! Three yips for Integral Newspeak!"
Why somebody who claims to be doing so well with so many devout followers would get down and dirty in the middle of Main Street like this is beyond us – sort a’ like stompin’ on your own hat - but we haven’t been able to figure out the shenanigans in Integral-land for years. [Punch line of an old joke: the difference is that the pig enjoys it.] Despite the attempted homage to Wyatt Earp, the quick-draw repartee is sluggish in Wilber's rant, what with all the narcissistic whining mixed with mad dog snarls. If the slow-draw word play was supposed to be clever westernized wit and more post-post-modern tongue-in-cheekiness to slap critics around with some linguistic swagger, seems like the old tongue lost its wag and somebody’s trippin’ on his spurs – or just wildly shootin’ blanks. The coyotes would disagree, of course: "Why, this puts - yip, yip, yip - Sam Clemens to shame." Forget accuracy, knowing what he's talking about, and supportable claims – why bother with those now when opinions have sufficed so well, for so long, for so many?
Overall, it's a pretty rough ride on this runaway nag; maybe he lost a shoe kickin' at "first tier" gadflies and came up lame. So we seem to be looking straight at the ass end of the horse, not a rider. Heck fire, maybe this beast is just one of a well-tamed 8-horse hitch that knows ‘gee’ too well, so keeps turning harder to the right since no left-leaning ‘haws’ are allowed for a team in these here parts. Give ‘em their head and they’ll most likely wander right back to headquarters at the faith-filled Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford. "Lookit how they keep straight in line behind the leader, even when they think they're independent...now that there's training." Or programming.
When this piece was forwarded to us as an FYI after it first appeared online (telegraph office must’ve been closed so it took a while), we were plain buffaloed to find ourselves included among critics worth almost-naming by Marshal Wilber. Whoa, doggie and aw, shucks! Made it onto a second enemies list, what with our poison quill and irrational dripping anger. “Come on – let’s smash the printin’ press and run that mean-green liber’l editor outta’ this here town fer good!” yelled a loud mouth in the mob as they waved their flaming torches in front of the Dodge City newspaper office. “Free speech is only for believers in the cause!” Adjusting a green eye shade and turning up the kerosene lamp a notch, the type setter continued picking sorts out of the case and placing the wooden letters into the frame for the developing front page headline – “MARSHAL BUSHWHACKED – Mud Slung Back by Critics.” The flickering light of the oil-soaked clubs danced through the windows ominously as the shadow of an Integral noose played across the pressed tin ceiling. Thunk – a well-worn W two inches high obediently dropped into place in the line of type as the compositor reached for the next letter. Over at the jail, the marshal contemplated karmic consequences while he played with the pistol in his pocket. “Just glad to see me?” said Miss Lillie, wafting through his imagination as she had preoccupied Judge Bean’s. As the raving beauty with the flower in her hair faded, his fantasy gave way to the real life sound of smashing glass as the raging mob across the street surged to defend their hero against the critical onslaught, morphing into one collective mind. He’d get up and lead them - it - from behind in a minute – just as soon as he could strap on his gun belt and fasten it comfortably. “Ah, sweet Lillie from Jersey,” he mused. What the marshal wouldn’t give to see her swinging from a chandelier...
Bits of Ken’s online diatribe actually ring very familiar. In addition to poorly informed arguments, he, too, labels us with the stupid and dismissive "Cowan and friend." He's spewin' the same old snake oil we've tasted in nasty and threatening messages for years - nothin' new. It boils down to “I’m a’ gonna’ git y’all” – "Don't mess with the master plan" - and the famous closing last words: “Ah’ll see you in court!” (At least we didn’t get the ‘varmint’ and ‘little lady’ treatment.) In point of fact, we are mighty surprised that the high and mighty Integral honcho assumes his blog’s readers even know who we are, hence the short-hand put-down. “Gosh durn it – we’re Infamous. Seems we’ve got a reputation. Quick, head for the saloon to celebrate, and slip that Derringer with the silver-tongued bullets in y’er garter, witchy woman! I’ll grab the trusty old Winchester 73 in case his gang is really gunnin' for us. Be careful - it might be an Integral ambush – shoot you in the back from all quadrants, all levels, all at once whilst callin' you their friend.”
We do seem to be handy targets for any number of IP rustlers out to expand their herds by cuttin' fence and alterin' brands, or just stealin' pages word-for-word shamelessly. “Whoa doggie, neighbor, there goes that unrelentingly angry acid-tipped pen again. Jest holster it 'n be grateful for the attention. Ya’ ought ta’ see it as a comple-ment when people take off copyrights or rebrand yer stock. Means the ideas you bred from Dr. Graves's herd be of high quality, something worth havin’, I’m a reckonin’. Pay no mind to the second tier bull that's bustin' fences. Transcend and include, y'all."
Like many self-styled gun slingers, enemies seem to invigorate this tough-guy lawman, providing meaningful purpose and opportunity to ride around on his high white horse while pontificating about the moral decay in the world and the horrors in their nightmare vision of Green, just like Michael Savage and Rush (What Prescription?) Limbaugh of America's right wing radio paint their targets. Like them, he sometimes passes judgment on things of which he knows remarkably little, yet issues pronouncements with an absolutist Flatlander's certitude while preaching dimensionality. The devoted coyotes always yip "hooray!" without doubts, proving their own closed-circuit cleverness in the process. By demonizing others and now us, maybe the Integral groupies somehow enliven their vision of an Integral utopia because it needs enemies at the gates – “circle the wagons.” Other more-hat-than-cattle conservative pundits use the dire threat of "the liberals are a' comin'" to rally their troops into obedient, unquestioning unity; wonder what cry of alarm goes up at the Integral stockade?
All we’ve ever asked is that Marshal Wilber and his deputies do their homework to get the Spiral Dynamics® (SD) model down so they stop making such a Gol-danged mess of it, given his reputation and the number of people who believe what he says. Never mind figurin' out ol' Doc Graves - that's way too much to ask; just try to understand what's already there in Spiral Dynamics. As to the rest, Lord only knows what he’s been told, what he's chosen to believe, or why he doesn't seek facts before spittin' out judgments. Seems the marshal gathered his evidence and made up his right-thinking mind about SD early on, so he sure hasn’t bothered with clarifications from us that might challenge assumptions he really seems committed to prove are 'second tier.' Thinkin' and talkin' ad nauseum about higher levels ain't the same as being there, and many of the Integral Brotherhood don't seem able to tell the difference between expansive and intelligent fifth level and higher states: "I'll anoint you a Turquoise if you proclaim me one, then we're oh so special - masters of the invisible universe. Deal?"
Ken and his followers also seem to miss the fact that we honestly couldn't care less what he writes about - way too many city slicker words - except when he (and his hired hands) butcher SD and Graves’s work. They still haven't demonstrated an understanding of either. Yet in this latest example he takes a whack at both by trying to demonstrate his own cleverness with a well-honed tongue; instead, he chops up SD like he's using a dull ax – again! - more typology and mushing levels and befuddlement over memes and Value Systems and tiers. Then he tosses a nice slab of color-coded e-vo-lution onto the pile for seasoning. The outcome is the usual Wilberian one taste sausage ground from a hundred borrowed scraps with lots of extender and a dearth of fresh beef. More high falutin' hamburger and garnish, but no prime cuts here.
Wilber (and a few boot lickin', brown nosin' buzzards who ride with him - with all due respect) are now goin' after SD real serious-like, though aimin' mostly at straw men, women and horse flesh, plus their own inventions. Pity is, he’s not even aware that much of his fussing is self-criticism; lots of what he doesn’t like isn’t from Graves or even SD at all, but it came out of his own imagination and the people he ganged up with. We still get stuck cleaning up the horse hockey after their parade moves on, though, just as we predicted long ago. We've always said quite openly that SD is an application of a theory. It's got holes, by definition. Wilber claims to have gone through several phases of understanding; so has SD for anyone paying attention. Many of his sources are still first generation interpretations - shallow semi-Graves from pre-SD days; most are only second stage when SD was the big deal and Graves was still poorly understood. So the pity is, the harshest critics are diggin' around at dry holes in their own shallow understanding instead of where a vibrant theory springs. It's still running - not some archaic thing preserved in stone - and gets attention from the likes of the Wilberians precisely because it resonates with contemporary findings so well.
Despite some attempted barn burnings and dirty tricks, we’re bound and determined to keep at least one accurate rendition of the Gravesian perspective available - apart from the neo-spiritual medicine shows, New Age parsons' revival tents, or hustlers out to rewrite history in their favor. Not because it's sacred, but because as an organizing principle it's darned hard to beat - it was integral before Integral was a brand and before it became a holy mission among the spirituality-for-profit set. If Brother Wilber and his loyal hands are going to keep the SD model in their over-analytical stable – because it’s so useful? - maybe they can at least try to get some depth and use it more responsibly – or else stick to gussied up New Age sarsaparilla and leave this hard stuff alone.
We can’t help but wonder if people set Marshal Ken up for embarrassing moments like this posting: “Hey, Marshal, they’re calling you silly names over at the dance hall. You’re not gonna’ let ‘em get away with it, are ye?” Or was it a spontaneous cyber meltdown of some kind - an emotional "second tier" one, of course? Or maybe yet another game cycle: “See, look what we were able to create with our clever machinations! Watch the fools take the bait. They asked for it - let 'em have it, Marshal! See the dastardly bums mesmerized by the flashing lights when we pull the levers? Ha, HA! Our Integral Wizardry trumps a spiral every time! Integral rules! Bar keep: a round of your finest meta-enlightenment for the house.” Or perhaps Ken is an obedient hired hand, a water carrier working in cahoots with others to fill their trough while trying to pollute ours. “Bring me little water, Kenny, bring me little water now...” It sounds like he really hasn't a clue what he’s talking about in some respects, just playing along with an installed script – but maybe we give him too much (or too little) credit in the creativity department. Or maybe he longs for the simpler days of the pony express and taming Wichita and Dodge – or Boulder – or the world - with an Integral stampede headin' to a more marketable typology - a move back claiming to be a leap forward. Or maybe it's just who he is, and what he's got a right to be if it makes him happy.
On one thing Marshal Wilber is quite right: we definitely object to the way bits of SD have been herded into the Integral domain and false claims staked out by cyber-Sooners. Evidence suggests that the liaison has been more damaging than beneficial, sadly. (Not as much Integral pay dirt in them thar hills as some hombres thought there’d be when they signed on with the outfit? A little Treasure of the Sierra Madre Syndrome at work?) And now he shifts to a scorched earth approach to clear the ground for a take-over - quite a strategy - worthy of Custer.
As if this isn't enough, more of our opinions are laid out in on our FAQ. No doubt that's off limits to the Integal 7th Cavalry - or does it need to be the 8th since their pennant is turquoise? It's not very hard to shoot holes in some of their most dearly-held beliefs: who taught them this stuff? Still, we’re quite willing to accept some lambasting for pointing out the gaps in the Integrals' typological CliffsNotes approach to Gravesian theory; that's to be expected. But at this point it's like commenting on the emperor’s new clothes in the old fable; while most of the pack is obediently singing praises, someone finally needs to speak out – “buck naked, indeed.” Brand us outlaws and poison-dripping critics if you will; just don’t forget to give both the Integral emperor and his tailors their full due for creating a sad spectacle, as well.
Whatever the underlying motives and whatever the consequences, if the June 8 piece be Ken's best demonstration of his Integral Institute's vision of "second tier" at work or a rendition of "turquoise" as the Integral believers seem to think they embody it, we've got to say "whoa, Nelly" and laugh out loud. Do these folks think horizontal complications and lots of philosophical boilerplate equate to vertical complexity; sorry, they don't. So the marshal's tin star got tarnished by this one and he hasn't even recognized it. It’s sort of like a Westernized version of liberal-bashing AM radio and the Foxy Bill O’Reilly, both in content and style – smug urban cowpokes talking trash about sheep herders instead of figuring out how both can live together ecologically – integrally, even. Wilber’s loud-mouthed non-integral approach might get applause from his ditto-heads and sycophants who don't think for themselves, but it looks mighty like cheap-shot rhetoric and slip-shod scholarship to a skeptic. Moreover, the whole episode illustrates systems which crop up well before the eighth level of existence in Graves terms; archetypically so, in fact, as any competent SD students can see, much less Gravesians. Second tier? It's not even the upper-end of the first. So if this specimen of Wilber’s writing is deemed by the majority of Integroids to be an illustration of enlightenment and a model of the neo-Buddhist cowboy bodhisattva at his best, somebody might as well start digging a hole on Boot Hill for the Integral club ‘cause this sort of Tom Foolery can kill it off. No arsenic-tipped pens required - res ipsa loquitur for anyone but card carrying members.
“After avenging his murdered brother, Wyatt Earp became a saloon keeper and then took up gold digging, eventually staking out his claims in California after hanging up his guns for good. He died in L.A., a friend to important people and movie stars.” Is it really time for Integral Mixology for the Bar Keep: A Recipe for Everything, or the purchase of a pick, a pan, some coffee and beans, and a mule? Hubris gets gun slingers in trouble.
Dang it, we do regret that our opinions stuck in Marshal Ken’s craw so badly that he took offense and got so riled up he had to Integralize a bunch of critics into one burning flame – without being able to recognize why we have big problems with his tactics over a period of years. We haven’t said much of anything new about him or his herds of words in months. We actually try to give the K-Bar-W Ranch as wide a berth as we can - not exactly hospitable territory - so we don’t know where the burr that chapped his backside so badly sprouted from. Maybe he's of the 'best defense is a good offense' school, or determined to keep people from looking too close into SD/Graves lest they recognize all his misses and wild shots.
Ken Wilber says, “I will say that personally I have never seen any professional writing as toxic as Cowan’s…” – and whatever you say about his grasp of the meanings, the boy’s read at a heap o’ stuff. Never seen any... now that's quite a vitriolic charge for some son-of-a-gun talking about acidic writing to lay down in print. (And yet, Ken recently called us “my friend,” though we’d never met and barely even spoken by phone except in defense of NVC's I.P., trademark, and copyrights…sigh.) On the other hand, a heap of self-righteous indignation from someone chompin’ at the bit to get shed of critics who don’t play by the standards he lays down, on his terms, ain’t all that troubling. Just a little pathetic.
Shoot, the marshal acts like he’s the one being defamed, libeled, mischaracterized, and misrepresented by hired guns online and elsewhere; that his work has been confiscated by a competitive cult and load of carpet baggers and thieves; that we should feel beholden to him for brilliant contributions we sure as heck haven't seen; and like he’s being accused of interfering with someone’s business in a lawsuit fired with loco-weed while stuff like this latest bushwhacking proves its absurdity? "Mornin' marshal. Time to wake up and smell the coffee," said Miss Lillie as she ascended through his dream to slide back into the gilt frame hanging on the wall - next to the slightly larger sepia-toned Daugerrotype of himself.
Yet given all of that, we’d still prefer that the many decent Wilber fans out there, even the fanatical ones, do SD well if they’re going to depend on the lingo so much (colors and tiers seem to permeate their discussions) rather than mold it into an elitist neo-spiritual cow pie. So even if it’s like showing a claim jumper where the gold seam is 'cause he’s blinded by the shiny pyrite, we remain available for a palaver and to fact check and theory check Ken's SD-related ramblings before more bull cookies go into print. We ain't holding any breath, however.
To close this sod buster’s counter-rant – and we’re like small-time farmers working a fairly small plot of ground surrounded by a big time cattle baron who seems to be goin' all out to put 'em under so he can grab the land to expand his own spread - any competent student of SD, much less those who've read and understood our Graves book, NEQ, should be able to catch the usual theoretical blunders in the SD references in Marshal Wilber's Wild West ride: still confusing memes and vMemes; attributing specific ideas with levels - contents/structures fallacy; conflating his pet steer - Boomeritis - with Green (FS) and overlooking the mixtures and transitional stages for types; still stuck in pretentious tier-speak saturated with fifth level premises; fighting with hee-haw stubbornness to prop up the tired old MGM – “Green + Red” – yea’ right – and still missing the point that he's hung up in SD-lite and not Graves; inability to differentiate the systems accurately; trapped in color-coded typology; and the rest. Others can simply review the comments in our general FAQ section and the Clare W. Graves website to learn more about the model and the foundational work to reach their own conclusions about the theory, the model and their implications.
It is always useful to look into several perspectives and getting all sides of a story rather than True Believing in any one - ours included - or falling for rants as if they are truth just because they are shouted loudly with metaphysical certitude by somebody perched on a soap box in front of a cheering, uncritical throng. “Aren’t the emperor’s new clothes beautiful...the marshal needs an outfit just like that. Oh, good Gawd a’mighty, he’s got one. Tantric dang me – he’s naked. Child, look away; this ain’t a perty sight. This here emperor needs his se'f an honest fool, bad.” For thus is how despots, smart-ass demagogues, genius rabble-rousers, sleezy claim jumpers, unscrupulous land grabbers, desperate gurus building quasi-cults, and ‘rhythm of life’ demi-churches wrapped around imperious personas operate. It's not the path of pandits, honorable scholars, or even credible writers. So think and ask questions, gentle reader; think critically and avoid following this particular Integral horse too closely since you’ll inevitably walk into a pile of… well, you get the picture. Heck, you just did.