In this episode we look at the continued emergence of postmodern consciousness (green altitude), using a current example from the U.S. financial sector. Last week Laurence D. Fink, founder and chief executive of BlackRock, the world’s largest investor fund, informed business leaders that if they want any of the the $6 trillion he invests they are going to have to serve a social purpose.

“To prosper over time,” he said, “every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society.”

This is a sentiment that was anathema to the business community a generation ago, and actually opposed as counterproductive by respected economists such as Milton Friedman. But yesterday’s financial heresy is going mainstream today. What’s up? Emergence, the one thing we can count on…

Donald Trump has just completed the first year of the most unlikely, outrageous presidency in modern history. What do we make of it? In this episode Jeff looks at Trump’s impact on the exterior aspects of American life (actual policies and their effects on people) as well as his impact on the interior aspects (the culture and individual consciousness).

Today Jeff responds to Harry, a listener who offers a critique often heard within and about the integral world.

Harry writes:

There’s an unspoken, and unconscious, assumption that integral was just invented a few years ago by Wilber, Gebser, et al., and that anyone exhibiting similar insights and behaviors earlier, or anyone currently exploring similar turf who languages it differently, is “proto-integral.”  I believe there have been integral (and beyond) sages since time immemorial. Jesus, Gautama Buddha, Lao-Tzu, the list goes on. I think there’s a shadow of hubris that dogs the integral narrative that’s worth dragging into the light.

So is integral arrogant? Jeff explains how integral theory itself helps to answer the question.

Illustration:  After Hubris Comes Nemesis by Theodore Gericault

Today Jeff welcomes his friend Diane Musho Hamilton to discuss the latest turnings in the #MeToo movement and the cultural education we’re all receiving regarding sex and power.

Diane and Jeff look at the upside of the movement, as well as its inevitable overreach. They look at how it heals historic patterns of abuse, and what it is blind and hostile too. And they look to integral consciousness, the ability to hold multiple perspectives, as a way forward.

Diane Musho Hamilton is a teacher of Integral Spirituality and Zen, as well as a mediator, facilitator and author. Her latest book is The Zen of You and Me. See her new blog post: #MeToo: On Perspectives, Listening, and Risk Taking.

Let’s welcome 2018 with the recognition that in terms of human flourishing – nutrition, health, lifespan, peace, freedom – we are living in the best of times.

Acknowledging this fact is not to turn away from the suffering of the world or to minimize the dangers we face.

The integral move is to include all of it, and to take heart even in the midst of a cultural narrative of anger and despair. Jeff notes that more people seem to be able to hold both perspectives more fully, including thought leaders like Nicholas Kristof and Andrew Sullivan. It is a quality of integral consciousness worthy of practice and development.

A conversation with Doshin Michael Nelson, founder of Integral Zen.

The upside of the Green postmodern stage of development is astonishing. After countless centuries of brutality, culminating in the horrors of World War II, this new leading edge of consciousness emerged with an ethos of sensitivity and a mission to rehabilitate the victims of history, including the slaves of the Red power stage, the sinners of the Amber traditional stage and the losers of the Orange modern stage, as well as to grant a new moral status to the domains of animals and nature.

The downside of the Green altitude is that it has lost faith in humanity. It is allergic to truth claims, it ridicules convention and is deeply suspicious of power. It’s role is deconstructive, which it often plays so thoroughly that there is nothing left for its adherents to hold on to.

Welcome to the cutting edge of human evolution in the 21st-century! In this episode Jeff is interviewed by Doshin Michael Nelson, founder of Integral Zen, about the nature of Green and the Integral way forward.

Hey Folks, I hope you’re having a happy Holiday season!

In this encore episode, I talk with Corey deVos of Integral Life, and Episcopal priest Fr. John Forman about the message of Christmas and how we can enjoy a deeper experience of the season.

Father John Forman answered the call to priesthood in mid-life, after a career in business (he was a co-creator of the original Integral Institute business seminars) and is now Rector of the Episcopal Church in Burion, Washington. He was drawn to the Episcopal / Anglican lineage for its commitment to, as he puts it, “the protection of the mystery of God”, and his teaching emphasizes direct experience over belief.

I love visiting with my old friend Father John and am grateful to join with him as we celebrate the birth of Christ and the perpetual rebirth of love in the world.

Enjoy the podcast!

In this episode Jeff looks at yesterday’s victory of Democrat Doug Jones over Republican Roy Moore in the special U.S. Senate election in Alabama. It is a vivid show of integral stage theory and represents the waning of the state’s Old Testament and Old Confederacy identity, as more Alabamans resonate with modern values that demand respect for minorities and women. Though the election was state-wide the implications are national — and ominous for President Trump. As the Wall Street Journal writes, “The GOP voters who ignored Mr. Trump and rejected Mr. Moore also want a President who acts presidential.”

Jeff starts the episode by checking in on Puerto Rico, as political and business forces align to create a state-of-the-art, low-carbon power grid.

Today we look at the case, heard last week in the U.S. Supreme Court, of the Colorado baker who refuses to bake a cake for a gay couple’s wedding.

The case pits competing American values of freedom of speech (and freedom from compelled speech) and the principle of tolerance and equal access in the public spheres of life.

It’s a very significant case, the first to deal with on-the-ground ramifications of the 2015 ruling that legalized gay marriage nationwide, and it will lay out a powerful precedence going forward. Jeff and Corey have a split decision. What do you think?

The rise of capitalism, starting a couple hundred years ago, has been a spectacularly positive development for humanity, creating enormous material wealth that raised billions of people out of poverty. In the last 40 years, however, it has been gamed so that the vast majority of economic growth flows to the elites who own and manage the systems of wealth creation.

The Republican tax plan doubles down on that trend, reducing taxes for corporations and the rich at the expense of social programs that help the poor. Jeff and Corey discuss the ramifications.