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Dr. R. Michael (The Fox) Fisher, critical integral theorist, fearologist, educator

In this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cTaMtO-45c  RM Fisher is searching for possibilities for a healthy Green v-Meme [1] politics and political leader(s)--no matter what country. Of course, in this video he is focusing on his well-researched topic [2], and now adds his expertise re: Marianne Williamson, who at the time was running for leader of the Democratic Party and for President of the USA. For more on Fisher's Post-Nov. 5th era philosophy and visioning for politics etc., go to his recent video talk. 

What is a healthy Green v-Meme politics is a healthy postmodern politics, by any other name [3]? What is an unhealthy Green politics? [4] What kind of political regimes and leaders and activism are required as the postmodern era opens up and the modern era is starting to fall apart and/or be less relevant to handle the postmodern problems and crises we face as a species. Again, in the North America case, at least, and especially in the USA as a case study, Marianne Williamson stands out for me as the perfect political leader--although, hardly perfectly Green v-Meme or postmodern. In fact, I find she fails on a lot of postmodern aspects, and is anti-postmodern too. But for argument sake, I would say she is at least 50% healthy Green (using Spiral Dynamics [5] and Integral Theory classifications). There are many other aspects and other authors [21 as a matter of fact] I could bring to the table, in order to argue for what a healthy Green meme politician/leader might look like in the near and distant future. I'll leave that for another blog at some point. I just wanted to start this thread on this topic. 

There was a comment on my comment about MW recently: 

  

End Note

1. v-Meme = value-meme, according to Spiral Dynamics. A "meme" is analogous to a "gene" but the former is applicable to the Cultural Sphere, the latter to the Natural Sphere. See the Internet for more information on meme theory. 

2. I have many articles and youtube videos published on Marianne Williamson as well as a book in 2020--see the Internet. 

3. There are many, not always consistently harmonious, definitions and meanings of "postmodern" (or "post-modern") amongst theorists and historians. You can do your own initial research on that if you wish. But, I have always thought Wilber's (1998) definition of the "truth in postmodernism" very helpful because he identified nicely the 3 core assumptions that operate (motivate) postmodernism: a) constructivism, b) contextualism, c) integral-aperspectival[ism]" (pp. 120-1). Wilber, K. (1998). The marriage of sense and soul: Integrating science and religion. Random House. 

4. To pursue any transformational political agenda as I am doing here, one has to ask how are we going to analyze and discern healthy from unhealthy? What tools assist this? And, suddenly the conversation and project of the search becomes complicated, complex and is an ever-searching of critical inquiry. Wilber and others have identified more so the pathological side of Green v-meme (i.e., postmodernism, pluralism, equalitarianism, Boomeritis, flatland ontologies)--and its ideologies, hidden or not so hidden. That's would require a longer analysis than a short blog like this. I am interested in applying to this critique of the unheatlhy Green, a further and unique fearanalysis (2nd-tier perspective, or critical integral view) which no one else seems to be doing. 

5. Spiral Dynamics (integral) Technology, originated with the psychologist-futurist Clare Graves some 50 years ago, and then was advanced by Don Beck and Cowan and then Ken Wilber, etc. I have trained in SDi Techology at Levels I-II, taught by Don Beck in 2002-03. 

[note: the percentages, are given based on testing values, and they approximate the % of USA population roughly operating in that worldview] 

With our current "Culture Wars" re: Value and values, and political debates on which is the better way to go for society--there, is a need to step back and look at the bigger picture of value-memes (as one form of worldview analysis [1]). The diagram above is an integral theory mapping of 3 major worldviews (or value-memes). This diagram is useful on many levels, although, I understand it would need a much more nuanced discussion and teaching around what are wordviews and/or value-memes (in Spiral Dynamics theory and Integral Theory). That said, it is still a good quick map for seeing what has been going on in the world of conflicts, "Culture Wars" and "Paradigm Wars" etc. in the last 50 years or so. There is a dangerous heating up in conflicts between these worldviews. There is fear-based thinking and values in each of these worldviews shown here, and there is also good healthy non-fear-based thinking and values. The issue is understanding perspectives that they each bring to society and our problems. How will we work with this conflict and fear in each of these? I find that a really interesting and serious issue, and I have studied Integral Theory for over 40 years. 

The next diagram shows a fourth worldview (value-meme) called "Integral" (perspective)--that is, where "Developmentalists" as thinkers are attempting to analyze and solve the world's big problems from. This is where I've situated my thinking and theory, i.e., the location of Fearlessness (as aperspectival-integral consciousness or Fear Management System-7). This next diagram shows the way to approach dealing with all the differences and conflicts, and similarities, in the other worldviews (value-memes), and how an integral-developmentalist approach is probably the best way to go overall--which, would be non-fear-based. A larger topic... but here is the diagram offered: 

Acknowledgements

Thanks to those at the Institute for Cultural Evolution for the summary diagram above, from their website. 

Endnotes

1. Note, that worldview analysis comes in many varieties and this is only one way shown here. Another powerful critical postcolonialist worldview theory is proposed by Four Arrows (Dr. D. T. Jacobs) where there are only two meta-worldviews operating "Dominant worldview" (global and Western)--and, "Indigenous worldview." The latter, as Four Arrows argues is really the only foundational worldview that offers a healthy, sane and sustainable worldview. Developmentalists (integralists) typically avoid integrating such a critique. Four Arrows agrees, as would many integralists, that "fearlessness" is the basis of the worldview that is propogated as emancipatory. 

With all the different emotional reactions on either side of the political spectrum, especially in the U.S., since Trump's presidential victory, we need to find larger perspectives for analysis and not merely be caught up in the either/or binary of arguments and aggressive fighting back n' forth.

So, the other day, thanks to Dan McKinnon in Calgary, I received a copy of a draft that Ken Wilber, the integral philosopher, has been sending out to some people on his application of Integral theory (and Spiral Dynamics beneath it), of why there is an evolutionary correction going on that had to come out eventually, and it came out in the 2016 US presidential elections. Like it or not.

Wilber, is one of my mentors, and as a philosopher he understands cultural evolution, especially in America, like no one else I know of, especially with his meta-theory and contextual worldcentric and kosmocentric view. His arguments I find very compelling, and always have in his critique of postmodern excess and pathologies (e.g., narcissism and nihilism via relativism). Anyways, I won't say more but I'll post his 90 page document here KEN%2BWILBER%2BTrump%2Band%2Ba%2BPost-Truth%2BWorld.docx

I only got to page 6, I haven't read the rest. And on page 6 I found the "truth" I was expecting would be in his argument, but I love the way he said it. This may not make full sense to the rest here on the FM ning, but I'll put it into the perspective of fear, and the culture of fear which I study.

Basically, Wilber is saying that cultural evolution had gone forward on a leading edge for quite awhile, at least in human terms, since the 1960's especially (in the Western world). This was the time of radical cultural (r)evolution, and the Love Generation. I grew up in that too. We thought Love would take victory over Fear basically and make the world a better place.

Wilber, using Integral theory, tells how the leading-edge of cultural evolution (i.e., postmodernism) got twisted and extreme (especially in academia in the humanities and arts) but also in the general popular culture. The idea was in this Love culture of equality and pluralism (Lower Left quadrant reality) and all the good stuff of postmodernism there was an problem with what I call Culturalism, in that cultural ideas (media) had taken over casting a better view of life than was actually being had. This is the virtual (unreality) of Culturalism and people believed it until the structural social reality (Lower Right quadrant reality) was so grossly out of synch with the Culturalism view, because greater disparity of health, income, and freedom, etc. was occurring as the "middle class" myth collapsed (especially, in the US). This gulf or gap between Cultural and Social Reality, to use Wilber's analysis, really brought the whole System into such contradictions that something big had to change.

Wilber says on page 6 "the culture was lying" (and had been for about 60 years, more or less). This, from my perspective, is because we were living in a growing culture of fear (as many critics have recently claimed) not a culture of love. Darn! This has brought the evolutionary system into a bit of regression and chaos, and who knows what else... but Trump rode the falsity of it all, the anger and frustration of the contradiction. And, he led with contributing and flying along the waves of the culture of fear not the culture of love--and, his predecessor Pres. Richard Nixon, once said exactly that-- it is not love that changes people but fear, that is, if you are a leader and want your way to dominate. Welcome to the power-game. Trump is riding in there well suited, more than any other candidate to play that game. But what will the next (r)evolutionary correction be after Trump's time in office? We'll see...