The Daily Evolver

Today Jeff and Corey consider the choice of John Bolton to become Donald Trump’s national security advisor (replacing Gen. H.R. McMaster), as well as the promotion of Mike Pompeo to be Secretary of State (replacing Rex Tillerson). The shakeup represents a major worldview shift from orange modernity to amber traditionalism in the war cabinet of a President who often operates from the red power stage.

So long status quo, which has avoided nuclear war for 75 years and brought about significant disarmament in the last 25.

The upside: a grand bargain. Kim Jong Un, knowing we really do have a bigger nuclear button, doesn’t trust Trump and Bolton not to use it any more than the rest of us do. Therefore he will be pliable in negotiations that eliminate missiles that could hit the US, and perhaps even more in return for decreasing the American military presence in South Korea, which Donald Trump would like to do anyway.

The downside: war. Bolton means what he says about the necessity of a first strike, and Trump goes along for the ratings. Can we trust Donald Trump, who has consistently decried the folly of “stupid” wars, to not get us into another one? The appointment of John Bolton radically recasts the odds.

Public intellectuals don’t get any hotter than Jordan Peterson. Virtually unknown 18 months ago, he has today amassed over a million subscribers to his YouTube channels and countless millions of views. His new book “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos” is an international bestseller, nearing the million copy milestone.

Peterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, sparked his fame by posting a lecture announcing his refusal to abide by a new civil rights code in Canada that appeared to legally require the use of gender-neutral pronouns with people who prefer them.

Through subsequent postings critical of the political and cultural left, he has become a hero for advocates of free speech, and a idol to people who are opposed to the postmodern promulgation of multiculturalism and gender fluidity.

So where does Jordan Peterson fit in the integral schema? In these two episodes of the Daily Evolver Jeff examines Peterson’s message as expressed through his book and his most popular lectures and interviews.

In Part One Jeff made the case that Peterson is tantalizingly close to integral thinking, and is making a potent contribution to a large population of primarily (but by no means exclusively) young men, who are inspired by his transmission of traditional values, starting with his exhortation to “stand up straight with your shoulders back.”

In this episode, Part Two, Jeff points how Peterson misses the integral mark by seeing postmodernity as a poisonous political ideology rather than a fully fleshed out stage in human evolutionary development, which, like all stages has its gifts and baggage. This misreading kicks off a cascade of conflict and consternation that, while stoking the culture wars, does not provide an authentic evolutionary path forward.

Enjoy the episodes and let us know what you think!

Public intellectuals don’t get any hotter than Jordan Peterson. Virtually unknown 18 months ago, he has today amassed over a million subscribers to his YouTube channels and countless millions of views. His new book “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos” is an international bestseller, nearing the million copy milestone.

Peterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, sparked his fame by posting a lecture announcing his refusal to abide by a new civil rights code in Canada that appeared to legally require the use of gender-neutral pronouns with people who prefer them.

Through subsequent postings critical of the political and cultural left, he has become a hero for advocates of free speech, and a idol to people who are opposed to the postmodern promulgation of multiculturalism and gender fluidity.

So where does Jordan Peterson fit in the integral schema? In these two episodes of the Daily Evolver Jeff examines Peterson’s message as expressed through his book and his most popular lectures and interviews.

In Part One Jeff makes the case that Peterson is tantalizingly close to integral thinking, and is making a great contribution to a large population of primarily (but by no means exclusively) young men, who are inspired by his transmission of traditional values, starting with his exhortation to “stand up straight with your shoulders back.”

Check out Part Two as well, where Jeff points how Peterson misses the integral mark by seeing postmodernity as a poisonous political ideology rather than a fully fleshed out stage in human evolutionary development which, like all stages, has its gifts and baggage. This misreading kicks off a cascade of conflict and consternation that, while stoking the culture wars, does not provide an authentic evolutionary path forward.

Enjoy the episodes and let us know what you think!

Today Jeff talks with integral teacher Terry Patten about his latest book, A New Republic of the Heart: An Ethos for Revolutionaries.

Patten is pioneering a robust and dynamic new form of activism that fuses the “inner work” of personal transformation and awakening with the “outer work” of service and commitment to social justice. He calls this evolutionary activism. Such activism can include social entrepreneurship, conscious business, community building, lifestyle innovation, and much more.

It interweaves spiritual evolution with social and political engagement and recognizes that the two are interdependent. The purpose of evolutionary activism is to create whole system change. That means transforming everything from our economic system to how we have conversations. “Changes in consciousness and culture may be as essential to our shared future as reducing our dependence on fossil fuels,” says Patten. It is with integral evolutionary activism that we can bring about the profound transformation of self and world that our era requires.

Get your copy of “A New Republic of the Heart” here.

Today Jeff and Corey talk to integral author Chris Grosso about his new book, Dead Set on Living: Making the Difficult but Beautiful Journey from F#@king Up to Waking Up, which features a number of deeply insightful encounters between Chris and various spiritual and cultural luminaries, including Ken Wilber, Ram Dass, Sharon Salzberg, Noah Levine, JP Sears, and many others.

The book pivots around Chris’s provocative journey out of the shadows of addiction and the endless empty parade of substitute gratifications, and into the light of spiritual awakening and healthy living. Most importantly, Chris offers the reader a breadcrumb trail of practices and insights to help illuminate their own path to recovery, an invaluable resource for anyone who is struggling with any sort of addiction — whether drugs, alcohol, sex, video games, or any other fixation we use to avoid the inevitable pains and sorrows of our lives.

Get your copy of “Dead Set on Living” here.