| Ken and Me |
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| Angus Douglas | |||
| Friday, 26 August 2005 | |||
My dream has finally come true. I'm sitting down and writing an article about Ken Wilbur. I've always felt that the next best thing to the gift of genius is the gift of genius recognition. After all it was me who got the whole school listening to Rodriguez - and boy did I try get people talking about Ken Wilbur... and hey presto here I am talking about him on a website. But to discover how kool Ken really is we have drop all this celebrity obsessing and find out what's going on inside Ken's rather impressively smooth cranium. Because that's one of Ken's main points - that somewhere along the line scientists got so excited about being able to measure the speed of big rocks flying through space - that now they're saying that nothing else is worth measuring. Not only that, but our universities have been taken over by radical post-modernists who want to deny any such thing as an objective stand-point but for the one that secures them tenure - and of course the adoration of all those female students. As for the rest of us, we get wedged between the shallow blue pond of scientific reductionism, and the bottomless pit of anything goes New Ageism. Ken the Krusader to the rescue. Definition of a crusader: someone armed with the rock solid conviction that "I am right and everyone else is a f**kwit." Definition of a Krusader: someone like Ken who believes that "no mind is capable of being 100% wrong. i.e. all truths need to be taken into account - and the theory that can account for the widest array of truths is the most right." So how is Ken going to save the world? To cut a very long story very short, he comes up with one theory that combines Western psychology, Eastern Mysticism, Science, Sociology and just about everything else; and that's why his great opus is titled "Sex, Ecology and Spirituality". But Ken says a lot of stuff - and most of it makes a heck of a lot of sense. And if ever you were looking for a map of consciousness - a map of human growth and development - look no further. Lest your hard earned self-improvement money falls onto the rocky ground of false promise, do take a bit of time out to check out the map. From Prozac to Pilates - the territory is vast and confusing, and to work out where you've come from and where you're headed, the map is essential. So, for a start there are the 4 quadrants. Evolutionary growth is expressed in 4 different ways; one of those ways can be measured by science - the eye of flesh - as Wilber puts it, and accounts for things like the increasing size and complexity of the human brain. But, knowing the complex structure of a brain gives no idea as to how a bigger brain affects consciousness (I domain). EEG machines and CAT scans can't throw much light onto an existential crisis; and it's nowhere near as fun as a good French movie about sex and death. Then there are the "We" and "Its" domains. As soon as a bunch of advanced brains hang out together, they start to organize themselves into groups. And these groups that started off as bands of hunter gatherers now find themselves in information age nation states: Which brings us to the present day... and beyond. According to Ken, we're headed for an ever wider embrace to some form of world community. It's all their: the difference between states of consciousness and stages of consciousness; why we shouldn't confuse pre-rational states with trans-rational states; what was wrong with pre-industrial societies; what makes men and women express different spiritual potentials, and a whole lot more. But, the best thing to do is get onto your favourite search engine and punch in "Ken Wilber." Order his books off the net. And oh yes when you're sitting at that dinner party enthusing about Ken Wilber - don't forget to mention who got you onto him.
Disclaimer: Harmonious Living is written for and read by a community of individuals with strong and independent opinions. While the publishers of Harmonious Living are dedicated to providing a forum in which views can be openly expressed, those views do not necessarily reflect those of the publishers.
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