Watch the full presentation here:

https://integrallife.com/meta-ideological-politics/

In a time where information is abundant, society faces the unintended repercussions of ideological rigidity, tribalism, and deep-rooted discord. The initial promise of social media to nurture connections and global understanding has, in many cases, led to the opposite effect. Rather than bridging gaps, these platforms often widen them, creating ideological echo chambers where individuals are only exposed to congruent views, thereby reinforcing and intensifying their existing beliefs. This tribal mindset not only hinders genuine dialogue but also exacerbates societal divisions, leading to a polarized world where anything like a “middle ground” seems harder to find than ever.

Ryan’s presentation delves into the complex nature of ideology and its profound impact on our perceptions, interactions, and behaviors. He underscores the human brain’s inherent tendency to seek patterns, elucidating how ideologies aid us in deciphering the world but can also misguide us. Ryan describes three definitions of “meta” to elucidate the concept of meta-ideological politics: “meta” as transcending, “meta” as between, and “meta” as self-aware or self-referential. He then defines ideology as “a constellation of foundational premises about politics and society, often which are contested by others, that form the basis for normative prescriptions.” Through interactive exercises and discussions, Ryan emphasized the necessity to transcend (and include) our entrenched beliefs, and to approach political and social issues with greater maturity, empathy, and nuance.

Ryan calls us to rise above the conflicts and limitations of conventional ideological frameworks. By recognizing the pitfalls of tribal thinking and the distortions of social media, there’s an opportunity to foster a more inclusive, more understanding, and more holistic worldview. Embracing this meta-ideological approach can help us extend our empathy and more fully inhabit each other’s point of view, while paving the way for more constructive dialogues and a more unified approach to addressing the pressing challenges of our time. Through the lens of meta-ideological politics, individuals and communities can navigate the complex ideological landscape with confident humility, avoiding the pitfalls of homogeneity and fragmentation, and fostering a culture of open dialogue and mutual respect.

Listen to the full discussion here:

https://integrallife.com/integral-perspectives-on-alcoholism/

Alcohol addiction is a deeply entrenched issue that affects a significant portion of the population, with around 10% of children being raised in a family with at least one alcoholic parent as of 2019. In this episode of Witt and Wisdom, Dr. Keith Witt and Corey deVos undertake a comprehensive exploration of alcohol addiction, its effects, and the recovery process through the lens of Ken Wilber’s integral theory, which encompasses all four quadrants – individual (internal and external) and collective (internal and external). This approach facilitates a deep understanding of the issue, shedding light on the personal experiences of the addict and the broader societal implications, and offers a more holistic view of the complexities involved in alcohol addiction.

The conversation is not just a deep dive into the negatives associated with addiction, but also offers a hopeful perspective on recovery, emphasizing the transformative power of integral awareness in finding more fulfilling and healthier solutions. By examining the effects, addiction, and recovery through all four quadrants, Keith and Corey offer a rich and nuanced understanding of the issue, encouraging a more inclusive and empathetic approach to dealing with alcohol addiction. This discussion stands as a vital resource, not just for those grappling with addiction, but also for their families and society at large, fostering a deeper understanding and highlighting pathways to healing and recovery. It calls for a collective effort, urging everyone to be more aware and to actively participate in the transformative journey from addiction to recovery, thereby nurturing a society that is more understanding, compassionate, and equipped to handle the complexities of alcohol addiction.

Watch the full discussion here:

https://integrallife.com/from-socrates-to-social-media/

In this episode of Integral Justice Warrior, hosts Mark Fischler and Corey deVos are joined by Nadine Strossen, a renowned advocate for free speech and former president of the ACLU, to traverse the rich history and the evolving frontier of free speech — a legacy that reaches from the philosophical debates of ancient Greece to today’s postmodern social media platforms. Together, Nadine, Mark, and Corey illuminate the critical importance of free speech, celebrating it as a beacon of individual rights, a testament to the unyielding human pursuit of truth and self expression, and a crowning achievement of the rational Orange stage of individual and collective development.

Freedom of speech is not something to be taken for granted. It is, in fact, the cornerstone of democracy itself, and a principle that needs to be fought for and renewed with every new generation. As speech itself continues to evolve, so do the sorts of challenges that come along with it — and in today’s information age, those challenges have become as complicated and entrenched as ever:

- the propagation of hate speech, misinformation, and propaganda,

- “flooding the zone” with speech that normalizes extremist views and values,

- undermining trust in our academic, media, and political institutions,

- the paradox of tolerance and the delicate task of delineating the boundaries of acceptable discourse.

These issues require solutions that are at least as complex and nuanced as the problems themselves. To many, it seems that censorship represents a quick and easy way to cut through those challenges — but of course censorship typically gives rise to far more severe problems, stifling open dialogue and eroding the foundational principles that uphold democratic societies. Drawing from the profound insights in her book Hate: Why We Should Resist It With Free Speech, Not Censorship, Nadine Strossen articulates that the remedy to things like “hate speech” is not suppression, but instead fostering a richer, more inclusive discourse. She advocates for a greater embrace of free speech, seeing it as a pathway to understanding and social harmony.

We find ourselves at a pivotal juncture in history. In a world transformed by the digital revolution, offering unprecedented avenues for self-expression, there are more flavors and varieties of speech than ever before — and also more efforts to silence that speech. We can see this schism running throughout the American political landscape, where both major parties perceive themselves as the last guardians of free speech who are defending this sacred right from the opposing party, a testament to the deeply polarized nature of contemporary discourse.

The conversation deepens as Nadine, Mark, and Corey examine a number of landmark Supreme Court rulings, including Brandenburg versus Ohio, New York Times versus Sullivan, and Buckley v. Valeo, each a pillar supporting the intricate architecture of free speech in America. These cases beckon us to engage more profoundly with the nuances of free speech, urging a deeper understanding and commitment to this fundamental right.

This episode invites you on a journey of reflection, urging a renewed commitment to the principles of free speech — a commitment grounded in understanding, respect, and the unyielding belief in the transformative power of words. Tune in to be part of a conversation that spans centuries, yet is as relevant today as it was in the time of Socrates. We hope you enjoy.

Toward an Integral Meta-Psychotherapy [HIGHLIGHTS] by Integral Life

Listen to the full discussion here:

https://integrallife.com/pearl-jam-restoring-idealism-to-rock-and-roll/

Every now and again, pop culture reinvents itself. Our collective tastes are born, destroyed, and reborn again, swinging like a massive pendulum from one aesthetic extreme to the next. As a new cultural niche becomes more and more popularized, fierce artistic independence eventually devolves into reckless overindulgence, and creative novelty slowly bleeds away until all that is left is a formulaic husk used to manufacture tomorrow’s next fads. It is usually at this point, when a particular scene becomes so over-saturated that it can no longer support the weight of its own excess, that the entire scene dies an often-humiliating death, bloated and alone on an unflushed toilet.

In the 1980s the music scene in America was dominated by the glut and theatrics of “glam metal.” For nearly 10 years, most of popular music was defined by sex, drugs, and machismo-in-drag, and an entire generation of youth nearly lost themselves within a cloud of hairspray. There was a void in the cultural heart of the musical mainstream that was dying to be filled—an utter lack of artistic interiority, emotional depth, and authenticity. Untold millions were craving artistic substance, and were only offered artificial decadence.

Then along came grunge, taking the entire world by storm in the early 90′s. From the rain-soaked streets of Seattle emerged a new voice for American youth. In much the same way that punk music arrived just in time to offer salvation for our Disco-era sins, grunge music promised to completely cleanse our cultural palette, placing an aesthetic imperative upon more simplicity, more spontaneity, and more sincerity. And so bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Pearl Jam crashed into the mainstream, forever changing the landscape of American music. From behind a tsunami of massively distorted guitars, hallowed vocals, and countless acres of flannel, appeared an unmistakable return to introspection and idealism — even while cloaked by themes of angst and despair, the natural result of our collective interiors being ignored for almost a decade.

Few bands of the era embody this move toward introspection and idealism as strongly as Pearl Jam. As the grunge scene continued to explode, it was becoming apparent that the inherent iconoclasm of the scene was ill-suited to handle the immense pressures of fame, and many artists found themselves circling the drain of inevitable self-destruction — for many, Kurt Cobain’s suicide was a morbid reminder of what can happen when artistic ideals are reduced to mere currency for the status-sphere. One by one the originators of grunge began to fall away, and an impossibly huge body of talent was forever lost to suicide and drug addiction.

Not many bands survived as the industry began churning out the newest grunge-inspired fads, marketed (ironically) as “alternative rock.” Pearl Jam was one of the few who did make it through this period of intense commodification. Unlike most others from the Seattle era, they were able to prevent themselves from being crushed by the enormous pressure that their celebrity brought to their personal and professional lives. While they did in a sense try to distance themselves from their own fame, they were also simultaneously using their celebrity as a platform for their idealism, soon finding themselves fighting “on all fronts” for initiating real change in the world. From their famed battle with the corruption of the Ticketmaster venue monopoly, to publicly berating the policies of George W. Bush, to expressing pro-choice sentiments in concert, to promoting awareness around Crohn’s disease — Pearl Jam was helping to return rock and roll to its roots, in terms of both the profoundly personal and the deeply political. And they continue to do it to this day, more than 30 years since the band first formed.

Brendan Graham Dempsey is a writer whose work focuses on the meaning crisis and the nature of spirituality in metamodernity. Brendan is also very active in the Metamodern community, which many people recognize as an “integrally-adjacent” constellation of hearts and minds that are trying to usher in a more meaningful and fulfilling way to participate with humanity’s unfolding — not just to navigate the extreme complexity of our times, but also striving to find the simplicity on the other side of all that complexity.

Sound familiar? Metamodernism and the integral paradigm share a lot in common, yet also differ in important ways. To what degree should these terms be conflated or kept apart? What unites them, and what constitute the meaningful distinctions? What role do things like sensibility, generation, emphasis, and epistemology play?

This gathering provided an opportunity to dig into this topic. To this end, metamodern thinker Brendan Graham Dempsey offers some history and a bit of compare/contrast perspectives on the topic.

So is metamodernism integral? Is integral metamodern? Watch this discussion with Brendan Dempsey, and let us know what you think!

Watch the full discussion here:

https://integrallife.com/sex-identity-gender-beyond-wokism-and-trumpism/

Following Keith’s table-setting discussion of sex and gender last month, in this episode we push even further into the front lines of the culture war skirmishes that have become so plentiful over the last several years. Corey deVos joins Keith to discuss how our notions of sex, gender, and identity apply to some of the most contentious and pressing issues of our time — gender education in schools, men’s rights issues, the banning of drag shows, trans people participating in sports, the availability of gender-affirming care for young people, the impact of social media on gender identity, and more.

In order to answer the question “what is a man” (or “what is a woman”), Keith and Corey carefully track sex, gender, and identity as fundamental aspects of the self that can exist in a state of fusion, differentiation, dissociation, or integration, depending on the developmental stage(s) the question is being asked from. This is one of the most common causes of conflict around this issue, as people have very different meanings of words like “gender”, which can refer to biology, identity, or the various social constructs we have inherited, depending on where we are in this sequence. Which is why, when it comes to the question of gender, people are constantly talking past each other, and why the conversation often stalls at the level of ideological doctrine and debate, which we see so often in the culture wars. How can we elevate the discussion into a more fruitful dialogue, discourse, and dialectic? By properly differentiating and integrating these factors into a more coherent vision of sex, gender, and identity.

In a world where these topics often generate more heat than light, our aim is to bring clarity, insight, and a spirit of inclusive dialogue to the conversation. Our focus, as always, is bringing our most integral hearts and minds to these conflicts, so that we can provide the greatest opportunities for happiness, fulfillment, and freedom of expression for the greatest number of people, while also minimizing harm and promoting understanding, empathy, and respect among all parties involved.

Watch the full discussion here:

https://integrallife.com/sex-identity-gender-beyond-wokism-and-trumpism/

Listen to the full discussion here:

https://integrallife.com/its-not-easy-being-turquoise-jim-henson-muppets-and-art-integral-puppetry

Steve Whitmire spent 14 intense and creative years with the extraordinary Jim Henson before his passing. As of 2008, Steve has been the animating force behind, most notably, Kermit the Frog, for nearly two decades. This was not something Steve planned for in any way. Jim passed away at the age of 53 from an infection that no one could have seen coming—although it later became revealed that Jim had been considering Steve for the puppeteer of Kermit, so that Jim could explore other creative endeavors.

However, their connection had started decades earlier. When Steve was a scant 10-years-old, he wrote Jim a letter to express his appreciation for his work, and to ask if he had written anything on the construction of puppets. In fact, Jim had not written anything on the construction of puppets at that time, but responded personally to Steve’s letter, and directed him toward some simple Muppet patterns that had been published a few years ago in a magazine.

Thus started the career of a life-long Jim Henson puppeteer, aided by Steve’s mother’s sewing machine. As Ken comments, puppeteering can be, and has been, looked at by the world’s great Mystical Traditions as a metaphor for ultimate Spirit being the transcendental Puppeteer of all worldly phenomena. And there is much truth in that observation. Spirit, if nothing else, inhabits a massive number of multiple perspectives, and in order to perform puppeteering successfully, one literally inhabits, and becomes one with, the puppet’s personality. It is a minor re-enaction of what Spirit does moment-to-moment spontaneously, throughout the entire Kosmos.

As with Jim Henson, Steve Whitmire is a very humble soul. If nothing else, Steve is honored to carry on a tradition started by a modern-day master, by whatever name. Jim’s productions have been among the most successful television series in history: Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, and Fraggle Rock were all international sensations. Sesame Street alone has aired more than 4,100 episodes over a 38-season run, winning 109 Emmy Awards in the process—and it’s still going. To say that Steve is a modern-day backbone of the Muppet tradition is in no way an exaggeration. You may not see his face, but you can see Steve animating Kermit the Frog in a musical duo with Kylie Minogue on YouTube, along with many other notable appearances.

Kermit the Frog was, and is, a public, (inter)national expression of the pluralistic, green worldview—but always with a subtle reminder of how multicultural expressions can be reconciled and brought together with an Integral View. It may not be easy being green, but it’s ever harder being teal (where an Integral understanding begins and expands). With the spirit of growth that Jim Henson embodied and intuited, and that Steve Whitmire carries on in an evolutionary context with a clearly Integral perspective, we invite you to celebrate this artistic and creative dimension of puppetry, and the “taking the perspective of other” that it implies, in this one-of-a kind-dialogue….

Listen to the full discussion here:

https://integrallife.com/its-not-easy-being-turquoise-jim-henson-muppets-and-art-integral-puppetry

Listen to the full discussion here:

https://integrallife.com/the-art-and-science-of-the-intentional-love-affair/

Our intimate relationships are typically the most important, challenging, transformative, frustrating, and fulfilling parts of our lives. Every relationship is a testament to the “miracle of we” — somehow, out of billions of people on the planet, we find each other, we share all of our hidden parts with each other, and we create entire new realities between us.

And these relationships are never static. They are constantly shifting, morphing, and evolving as we both grow together, or as we grow apart from each other. And the more intentionality we can bring to our relationships, the greater the chances that our intimacy can not only survive the inevitable challenges and frictions of our lives, but actually thrive because of them.

In this thought-provoking episode, Dr. Keith Witt and Corey deVos delve into the intricacies of intimate relationships, exploring the concept of “intentional love affairs” and how they can be cultivated to deepen connection and intimacy. They discuss the importance of fostering better friendships, nurturing love affairs, and developing the ability to solve problems so effortlessly that they may not even appear as conflicts to others.

Listen to the full discussion here:

https://integrallife.com/the-art-and-science-of-the-intentional-love-affair/

Watch the full episode here:

https://integrallife.com/what-is-a-man/

What is a man? Vulnerable? Gentle? Powerful? Big biceps? Tall? Strong? Innovative? Loyal? Logical?

On the Left, more and more say a man is whatever you want it to be — penis or vagina, boobs or pecs, loaded with testosterone or almost none of it, masculine or feminine — it makes no difference. A man, or a woman, is a form of self-identity, freed from any biological constraints. If you say you’re a man, it’s my job to accept it and society’s job to validate it.

On the Right, more and more say that a man, or a woman, are constrained by their biology if not outright defined by it, and all of this talk of “identity” runs the range from irritating to an existential threat on traditional gender roles. Conservatives say that a man and woman are defined by their biology first and foremost, and that there is no burying or obfuscating that truth.

Who should we believe?