In a recent Integral Naked dialogue, "Escaping Flatland, Part II", Wilber discusses the contours of Integral Politics as he sees it. He gives a good summary of the points he has made in the three chapters published so far of his The Many Faces of Terrorism manuscript. These chapters, unfortunately, lack focus. If this, after all those years, is Wilber's choice of genre for conveying his vision of integral politics, we're really lost.
Wilber's conclusion and implicit advice to presidential candidates of the Democratic Party: if Green attacks Orange, Blue wins. Decrypted into normal political language: if left-wing politicians alienate the rationalist, industrialist, secular sections of society by their anti-America rethoric, they will turn to the Republicans and cause them to win the elections. Or as Wilber says it in his usual caricaturistic way: You can't win the elections by saying "I hate my country, vote for me".
However, with all its claim to universality, it is still very much directed at the context of US politics, which has a two-party system of Liberals/Democrats and Republicans. It's high time to turn to other countries for a wider view. In the Netherlands, for example, the liberals are on the right-hand side of the political spectrum, and usually conservative. On the left-hand side we have, of course, the socialists (and even communists). And in the middle, we have the Christian party. Currently we have a Christian-Left government.
A few years back, we had a "purple" cabinet, which was a joining of both left (red) and right wing (blue) parties (our socialists and conervatives) -- integral politics in action! Its architect was a very small party called Democrats '66, which, led by the charismatic Hans van Mierlo, had starting arguing in favor of such a venture since the sixties). It lasted for 2 terms, until the Dutch population got tired of the rationality of the whole construction (yes, half-truths generate more passion!). When the death of Pim Fortuyn occurred, the Christian party took hold of the vacuum and presided over 4 terms.
So integral political analysis has to move from a US based 2-party to 3-party or multi-party analysis. It also seems to have no realistic idea of Left Wing politics. Does the US really have a Left? The democratic party would still count as conservative over here (and the Republicans as ultra-conservative). And as to the US situation, a bigger problem seems to me that, given the 50/50 nature of the division between Democrats and Republicans, as evidenced by the last election, any third party arriving on the scene wil only weaken the one closest to it, and so give victory to the opposition (e.g. a really Left wing party will weaken the Democrats, by stealing their votes). Same story on the Right wing of the spectrum (who remembers Ross Perot?).
And please, please, please, when can we finally read about these parts of integral theory WITHOUT having to wade through adolescent prose, giggling dialogues, and self-congratulatory praise ("we are decades ahead of everybody")? Can this be fleshed out in a serious way, that attracts the attention of those who really know about politics, both in theory and in practice? Without the AQAL jargon, endlessly discussed, summarized and explained, the color coding terminology, which doesn't make sense to and even offends outsiders, and the inside jokes?
Wilber's conclusion and implicit advice to presidential candidates of the Democratic Party: if Green attacks Orange, Blue wins. Decrypted into normal political language: if left-wing politicians alienate the rationalist, industrialist, secular sections of society by their anti-America rethoric, they will turn to the Republicans and cause them to win the elections. Or as Wilber says it in his usual caricaturistic way: You can't win the elections by saying "I hate my country, vote for me".
However, with all its claim to universality, it is still very much directed at the context of US politics, which has a two-party system of Liberals/Democrats and Republicans. It's high time to turn to other countries for a wider view. In the Netherlands, for example, the liberals are on the right-hand side of the political spectrum, and usually conservative. On the left-hand side we have, of course, the socialists (and even communists). And in the middle, we have the Christian party. Currently we have a Christian-Left government.
A few years back, we had a "purple" cabinet, which was a joining of both left (red) and right wing (blue) parties (our socialists and conervatives) -- integral politics in action! Its architect was a very small party called Democrats '66, which, led by the charismatic Hans van Mierlo, had starting arguing in favor of such a venture since the sixties). It lasted for 2 terms, until the Dutch population got tired of the rationality of the whole construction (yes, half-truths generate more passion!). When the death of Pim Fortuyn occurred, the Christian party took hold of the vacuum and presided over 4 terms.
So integral political analysis has to move from a US based 2-party to 3-party or multi-party analysis. It also seems to have no realistic idea of Left Wing politics. Does the US really have a Left? The democratic party would still count as conservative over here (and the Republicans as ultra-conservative). And as to the US situation, a bigger problem seems to me that, given the 50/50 nature of the division between Democrats and Republicans, as evidenced by the last election, any third party arriving on the scene wil only weaken the one closest to it, and so give victory to the opposition (e.g. a really Left wing party will weaken the Democrats, by stealing their votes). Same story on the Right wing of the spectrum (who remembers Ross Perot?).
And please, please, please, when can we finally read about these parts of integral theory WITHOUT having to wade through adolescent prose, giggling dialogues, and self-congratulatory praise ("we are decades ahead of everybody")? Can this be fleshed out in a serious way, that attracts the attention of those who really know about politics, both in theory and in practice? Without the AQAL jargon, endlessly discussed, summarized and explained, the color coding terminology, which doesn't make sense to and even offends outsiders, and the inside jokes?
