I received a stimulating comment from a regular reader who wrote, “We don’t talk enough about the ‘one step back’ that often precedes the ‘two forward’”. He writes, “Germany’s Third Reich was a nation-state’s ‘one step back,’ and illustrates the suffering and calamity that comes from lack of vigilance and courage-in-action, but also the pain inherent in progress.”
There’s a lot in that statement, and I attempt to address it in the following video. My basic thesis is that we probably worry more than we need to about the “one step back” that cultures sometimes take.
A good example is the US response to the World Trade Towers attack in 2001. In the aftermath of that event, we did slip from a center-of-gravity modernist country to a center-of-gravity traditionalist country. We became more nationalistic and aggressive and probably launched one war too many (the war in Iraq) as a result.
But what we did not do was round up American Muslims into internment camps.
Of course, internment did happened to Japanese Americans after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in the middle of WWII. But that’s my point. We have evolved since then; there was a far larger percentage of people with modern and postmodern values around in 2001 than in 1943, people who are able to see more complexly, and who have more sophisticated responses to crises. 9/11 pushed us back into nationalism but not all the way back to ethnocentrism.
So while events may knock a society back one stage of development, we’re not likely to be knocked back two or three stages. In other words, I see very little danger of the US or any first world country devolving into totalitarianism, which is two or three levels previous to our current developmental center of gravity. Or human sacrifice, which is four or five levels previous. Or cannibalism, which is five or six levels previous. Aside from an exogenous event, such as an asteroid hitting the planet, which could take us right back to survival values (including cannibalism) the biggest risk postmodernists have is reverting back to the shadow expressions of modernity, which include mindless exploitation and consumerism. It’s a real danger, and indeed happening as we see economic issues rising in the polls of things people are worried about and concerns about climate change falling. Now that’s a real step back. Let’s worry about that instead of grand dystopian fantasies.
Hi Jeff,
I thought this was an interesting commentary following in the wake of your visit to Germany. A lingering question I have, though, is: don’t you think that violence persists even in the developed world through coercion and predatory capitalism? Especially when it comes to third-world nations that are forced to open to multinational businesses that give them the short-end of the stick, and often treat their countries, and their environments, parasitically? In undergrad, we called this “neo-imperialism” – and despite the fact that multinational corporations are no longer conquering the world with guns and navies (thinking of Japan getting its borders forced open by the US in the 19th century), empires persist in the form of McDonalds, Walmarts, and of course the oil companies. I don’t see how this is necessarily “better.” Rather than militaristic empires, we now appear to have hegemonic forces built explicitly on parasitic capitalism.
Anyway, just thought I’d throw this question out there. Let me know what you think!
-Jer
Hey Jeremy, great question, one I get often. Inspired me to make a video response. Check it out …
Devolution in the realm of law and justice
If there is a positive in the gridlock we see in our national politics here in the U.S., it’s this. Yes, Democratic and progressive forces are being stymied in their efforts to advance public welfare programs (no single-payer) and to preserve and protect the commons (no action on climate change). But so, too, are revanchist Republican efforts to rollback virtually all the progressive gains of the last century — women’s rights, civil rights, voting rights, environmental protection, banking reform, the New Deal, and so on. Some gains, some loses, nationally and in the states, but an overall stalemate generally speaking. Perhaps sensing the beginning of the end of their political power, conservative forces seem to have doubled down in their efforts to both prevent change and “restore” some fabled version of “what we used to be.”
The shock and horror of the monstrous attacks on 9/11 certainly put us back on heels. And while the terminology, defense of the “Homeland,” rankles a bit, there has been something wholesome at the core of our national response to the murderous belligerence of Salaphist jihadism and the like. All the while, there is certainly some element of “dirty hands” on our part. We have dodged outright internment camps. And on the following points, some might say, “Same as it ever was.” But we have lost critical ground in the realm of the rule of law.
Some among us, self-selected saviours and defenders of “the American way,” have exploited our collective grief and outrage following 9/11. They have engaged in some good old-fashioned market-penetration-by-military-means, effecting the re-colonization in Iraq – clearly a war of aggression, “the supreme international crime,” as ratified after World War II — and in so doing, perpetrated the biggest and most-deadly armed-robbery of this nascent new century. They exploded the use of renditon, including rendition for torture. They systematized the use of cruel and degrading treatment throughout U.S. military detention facilities and C.I.A “black sites.” They commanded the use of torture, far beyond the use of “mere” waterboarding against three of the most-notorious belligents. Dozens of captured prisoners have been tortured to death, their fates plainly spelled out in released Department of Defense autopsy reports that record their “manner of death” while in captivity as “homicide.” Mammoth surveillance and eavesdropping eforts gobble up every conceivable communication, everywhere, far outside the bounds of our legal traditions. Unmanned drones now scour the planet, raining down death upon “enemy combatants,” including U.S. citizens, and anyone else – “guilty or not – unfortunate enough to be in that vicinity. This and more “official” chicanery, both foreign and domestic, continues; counterfeiting the U.S. Constitution, it’s Bill of Rights, and even eroding the more-fundamental cornerstones of U.S. jurisprudence, the 13th-century Magna Carta and its companion Charter of the Forest.
Similarly, while distracting us with war and torture, the same or allied cast of characters enabled and have allowed to go unaccounted for the biggest unarmed robbery of all time, the so-called Financial Collaspe of 2008 – a montrosity of greed and an exhibition of the stronger preying upon the weaker that some have likened to “cannabalism” – trillions upon trillion lost or stolen. And there is also the “Citizens United” decision.
There is no measuring our relative evolution or devolution without close attention to our fidelity to the rule of law and, as is chiseled into the neo-classical frieze of the U.S. Supreme Court building, the matter of “Equal Justice Under the Law.” Not to to discount other advances, some quite phenomenal, I’m scoring recent evidence in this realm as devolutionary.
Note to Joe Perez ~ http://www.facebook.com/i.am.joe.perez
Hey Joe,
One of my favorite “in box” discoveries is any new edition of Jeff Saltzam’s Daily Evolver! In a July 27, 2012 post, Jeff contemplated “The Risks of Cultural Devolution.” And I submitted a comment there that concluded:
There is no measuring our relative evolution or devolution without close attention to our fidelity to the rule of law and, as is chiseled into the neo-classical frieze of the U.S. Supreme Court building, the matter of “Equal Justice Under the Law.” Not to to discount other advances, some quite phenomenal, I’m scoring recent evidence in this realm as devolutionary.
I returned to the Evolver today to read other comments and, frankly, hoping to find a reply. (Alas, there was none.)
In the back of my mind, I recalled a piece of a Jim Corbett post on Integral World, “Social Transformation: Toward a More Just Kosmos.” That remembered piece:
“[I]s Justice a part of the shadow of Integral Theory, a kind of repressed aspect of its existence?”
This lead to some further searching which lead to your remarkable blog post, “On Integral World, Joe Corbett calls Ken Wilber not-so-nice things.”
Cognitively and otherwise, I don’t fly at the same altitude or velocity as you or Corbett or Jeff, and certainly not in the same atmosphere as Kenjushri. Relatedly, I can fairly ask: Is there any Integralist who can be all things to all people, in every situation, all the time? And I can confidently answer: No.
Do I expect Ken Wilber to stand on the steps of some courthouse demanding a just verdict in a pending case; expect him to file lawsuits; search in vain for the amicus brief he filed in the case of ____ v. ____? Of course not.
It is arguable that Kenneth Earl Wilber has given humanity the Keys to a New Kingdom. What more might anyone ask? It is up to you and me, second, third, and suceeding generations of Integralists to put these Keys to good use.
In a recent dialogue* at the Enlighenment Conference, Amy Feldman, of EnlightenNext, shares her remarkable reflections on the “cloistered” and “exclusory” period of time that the Evolutionary Enlightenment community has gone through on the way toward becoming stable and mature in their realization. Undoubtedly, something similar is transpiring in community Integral. We are still filling out this new suit of clothes.
Still, in all, I wonder if there isn’t maybe a speck of true-but-partial validity to Corbett’s query.
Just made the ultimate, contemporary, social commitment and “liked” your page here. I look forward to receiving your future posts.
Peace and much love, Robert
*http://www.theenlightenmentconference.com/posts/translineage-awakening-meeting-on-the-path-%E2%80%93-lynne-feldman-and-amy-edelstein
P.S. Thinking I might tag this on to my comment at the Evolver.
Thanks Jeff ~
I’ve appreciated listening to the inquiries & insights put forth by yourself & David Riordan @ The Daily Evolver for quite sometime now and find this additional VLOG personally attended to by you as equally contributive to generating & sustaining integral perspective on the planet. Your presentations are friendly & accessible.
Have you considered Evolving The Daily Evolver by applying Daily posts??? 😉
Warm Regards from the Coast of Maine ~
MagiGwen
Thanks MagiGwen, I’m getting in the groove and posting more often these days. Glad you’re reading!
This reminds me of chapter 14 of the Grapes of Wrath:
“The western land, nervous under the beginning change. The Western States, nervous as horses before a thunder storm. The great owners, nervous, sensing a change, knowing nothing of the change. The great owners, striking at the immediate thing, the widening government, the growing labor unity; striking at new taxes, at plans; not knowing these things are results, not causes. The causes lie deep and simply — the causes are a hunger in a stomach, multiplied a million times; a hunger in a single soul, hunger for joy and some security, multiplied a million times; muscles and mind aching to grow, to work, to create, multiplied a million times. The last clear definite function of man — muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need — this is man. To build a wall, the build a house, a dam, and in the wall and house and dam to put something of Manself, and to Manself take back something from the wall, the house, the dam; to take hard muscles from the lifting, to take the clear lines and form from conceiving. For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man — when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back. This you may say and know it and know it. This you may know when the bombs plummet out of the black planes on the market place, when prisoners are stuck like pigs, when the crushed bodies drain filthily in the dust. You may know it in this way. If the step were not being taken, if the stumbling-forward ache were not alive, the bombs would not fall, the throats would not be cut. Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live — for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And feat the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live — for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken. And this you can know — fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.
The Western states, nervous under the beginning change. Texas and Oklahoma, Kansas in Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona, California. A single family moved from the land. Pa borrowed money from the bank, and now the bank wants the land. The land company — that’s the bank when it has land — wants tractors, not families on the land. Is a tractor bad? Is the power that turns the long furrows wrong? If this tractor were ours it would be good — not mine, but ours. If our tractor turned the long furrows of our land, it would be good. Not my land, but ours. We could love that tractor then as we have loved this land when it was ours. But this tractor does two things — it turns land and turns us off the land. There is little difference between this tractor and a tank. The people are driven, intimidated, hurt by both. We must think about this.
One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the highway to the West. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I’m alone and I am bewildered. In the night one family camps in a ditch and other family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen. Here’s the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here “I lost my land” is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate — “we lost our land.” The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from his first “we” there grows a still more dangerous thing; “I have a little food” plus “I have none”. If from this problem the sum is “we have a little food”, the thing is on its way, the movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are ours. The two-men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side-meat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It’s wool. It was my mothers blanket — take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning — from “I” to “we”.
If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into “I”, and cuts you off forever from the “we”.
The Western states are nervous under the beginning change. Need is the stimulus to concept, concept to action. A half-million people moving over the country; one million more restive, ready to move; 10 million more feeling the first nervousness.
And tractors turning the multiple furrows in the vacant land.”
——
I love his language about taking a step forward, but slipping back only a half step. And also how some of these are awkward mis-steps to begin with. Almost Steinbeck expression of sociocultural evolution. Powerful stuff.
Thanks always,
Michael
Wow, Michael, thanks for this. BEAUTIFUL exposition of the evolutionary impulse. I’ve never actually read Steinbeck. You have me wanting more.
Most welcome. There is a lot going on there. Steinbeck was no less than prophetic — definite required reading for social change makers.
There’s a lot to meditate on though for evolutionaries.
He says fear the time when we won’t suffer and die for a concept. Would an Integralist do this? Is this just an expression of a lower level of consciousness? Or have there been always peoples who so strongly embodied their beliefs that they chose to lay themselves on the line? Are Integralists just soft on social action? Or do we just come from comfortable conditions?
A classic critique is that the severe poverty of the Dust Bowl or Depression era are historic relics that inspired a real urgency of necessity — life or death. But couldn’t we almost say the same for things like global warming today? Is evironmental collapse our Dust Bowl or Depression? I think it might be — our generation’s crucible — through which we have no choice but to force that full step forward.
You could easily change Steinbeck’s warning: “If you who have the things people and the planet need, we may preseve ourselves.”
What would we Integralists die for?
If modernity had its swastika, postmodernity (pluralism on steroids) has its ten thousand swastikas. The upcoming movie “Branded” (http://brandedmovie.com/) shows how this postmodern pathology has now entered the popular imagination as well.
Joe
Thanks Jeff!
Here’s a more in-depth discussion of the phenomenon I’ve posted to Integral Life:
http://integrallife.com/node/200765
Joe