If you go to Holon-News, it appears (see the colored chart on the right) that I am a blog of very high altitude. I am very blue.
I am a bear of little brain, and I’ve barely had my coffee, but I noted that Holon News has sent me hundreds of hits in the past twelve hours, and I thought I’d try and figure it out. I think I should be complimented. I’m higher than Andrew Sullivan.
Not to diminish your accomplishment or anything – but is that a cult or what?
I don’t know! I am worried that they want to take me to comet Hale-Bopp.
Ha! No, it doesn’t come from a cult, but rather from an integrally-informed community. Any person who has achieved enough growth and depth (or altitude, as it were) to see the world from many perspectives simultaneously, interrelatedly, is already a member of that community. So I’ll bet that many readers who resonate with what you write here will easily recognize the world as it is described by Integral theory. If they want to find the “community center†(which is truly large enough to encompass literally everything), they can give Integral a try at integralinstitute.org.
Ah, thank you! That makes much more sense. “Holons” sounded like something out of an L. Ron Hubbard novel!
It sounds like they’re really smart. Can they fix my TV (maybe for free?)? My TV is broken again.
Chris, somehow you haven’t dissuaded me from my orignial thought.
Sara: There are important differences between ‘cult’ and ‘weird but well-intentioned new age-y types’.
It sounds, to me, like another pass at the old problem of progressions of identity, solidarity, altruism, and perceived mutual interest from ‘me’ to ‘my family’ to ‘my tribe’ to ‘my nation’ to ‘humanity’ to ‘everything’. It’s not unknown territory, but it’s very important stuff, and I wish them the best of it.
Hi Hugo,
I don’t think Integral Institute is a cult (and certainly not comparable to Scientology). I worked there for 3 1/2 years, so I know it pretty well from the inside. It’s more like a spiritual “think tank” that’s attempting to address a very wide range of issues — not just politics, but human development, cultural studies, science, religion, etc. It does this from a TRANS-rational (meaning that it includes rationality), not PRE-rational (meaning that it doesn’t, like typical new-age stuff), perspective.
Integral Institute claims to have an intellectual framework that integrates all the above systems of thought. It’s called AQAL (which is just a technical/abstract term). Holons is basically a first-grade version of AQAL applied to culture. Don’t dismiss it before you learn more about it. AQAL is actually pretty complex and rigorous once you study it more deeply (and I can say this too because I have a degree in philosophy and have studied the classics as well as modern and postmodern thought — Habermas, Foucault, etc.). A good introduction is Ken Wilber’s book “A Brief History of Everything. (Note: Ken Wilber founded I-I and I’ve worked with him on a number of projects.)
Anyway, I’m doing my own thing now (http://zoosphere.net), but I’m still editing Holons on a freelance basis. Joe Perez (http://until.joe-perez.com) recommended your site to me, so I decided to include it in Holons.
Just thought I’d pop in here and let you know.
Take care, and happy blogging,
Marco