The Daily Evolver

Today on Post-Progressive Inquiries I explore the contours of the next stage of human development with psychiatrist and futurist Charles M. Johnston. Charles has just released two new books exploring an emerging way of thinking that he calls the “integrative meta-perspective”.

As Charles explains, “Our work today is to bring big-picture, long-term perspectives to the human condition. While these kinds of insights can initially stretch people’s understanding, with time, most people find them seeming like common sense. What is new is that this is a degree of common sense that before now we could not have fully grasped — or tolerated. It would have overwhelmed us. Today, it has become essential.”

I hope you enjoy our conversation and check out his latest books:

Post-Progressive Inquiries is a co-production of the Institute for Cultural Evolution and the Daily Evolver Podcast. Steve McIntosh will join the series in the next episode.

Part 1: I look at a front-page story in the New York Times about how psychedelic drugs, such as ecstasy and magic mushrooms, are poised to reshape psychiatry. I make the case that this is a significant move in the evolution of human consciousness.

Part 2: I play excerpts from a fascinating conversation between John McWhorter and Bill Maher on race relations, and imagine how an understanding of developmental theory would have improved it.

Here’s to another week in cultural evolution!

~ Jeff Salzman

In this episode, I look deeper into the Integral project of ”worldview diversity,” where we seek to befriend, appreciate, and be influenced by people and cultures who inhabit different world-spaces (altitudes of development). Topics I hit on:

Plus, I welcome Integral teacher and coach Lee Mason to tell us about his new program, The Essence of Integral Flourishing, now available at Integral Life. Enjoy! You can learn more about Lee on www.practicalintegral.com.

This week I explore an essay published in Israel’s newspaper Haaretz that The New York Times said “shook the Israeli left like an ideological bunker-busting bomb.”

In it, Nissim Mizrachi, former head of the department of sociology and anthropology at Tel Aviv University, describes what he calls the blind spot of liberals, who, he says, “do not see themselves as ‘classifiable’ from the outside.”

“I think the most blatant phenomenon in world politics today is the resounding defeat of the liberal vision,” Mizrachi says. “It’s a double breakdown: one involving the government, in the sense of the left’s inability to gain a political foothold among the masses; and more deeply, one involving an inability to imagine an order that accommodates opposition groups.”

Integral theory shows us that all first-tier worldviews, not just liberalism, are stuck in their ideological bunkers. And that the way forward is to explore and open to the world of others, particularly our political opponents.

In the second part of the episode, I apply this thesis to the culture war currently being fought within the African-American community, where the antiracists, led by Ibram X. Kendi, are sparring with the anti-antiracists, led by Glenn Loury and others.

What does a diversity of worldviews look like? It’s deceptively simple, says Professor Mizrachi, “We think the other side’s concerns are not mine, but they should be because I care about him or her. We share something in common here. We are sharing this land and this nation. It sounds horrible, but he or she needs to become part of us. Because they are part of us.”

Sounds kind of beautiful to me, but getting there sure ain’t pretty. I hope you enjoy the episode!

All living processes exist in a rhythm of opposing forces which create conflict, resolving into either cooperation or domination. This dynamic of tension is the subtext of most human activity.

The good news is that in the long run friending wins. In this episode of The Shrink and the Pundit, integral psychotherapist Dr Keith Witt explains how sociability is latent in most interactions, even those that are marked by hostility. And how human beings at every scale, from individual children to collective nation-states, invite constraints to provide a delineated space for new growth. Dr. Keith’s insights help us normalize – and realize the potential – in the inevitable conflicts of life.

NOTE: We apologize for the buzz you might hear at times from Dr. Keith Witt’s mic.

Every stage of development brings forth new territories in the evolution of human consciousness and culture. A few days ago we witnessed a move into postmodernity (green altitude) in Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Harry and Meghan, the renegade Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Harry and Meghan are exemplars of postmodernity’s most powerful creed: to relieve human suffering that has been unseen in previous structures …

To some, the interview was a display of hypersensitivity and self-indulgence; to others a noble challenge to right the blind spots of history. In this episode, I explore this latest skirmish in the culture war. With a burst of sunshine by John Denver!

Good rationality demystifies the world and bad rationality disenchants it. This week I look at two examples of the casual blindness of mainstream culture to all things divine.

Along the way, I look at how a divine Other can be brought through modernity, cleansed of fundamentalism, and experienced directly as the 2nd Person of Spirit. The deep meaning this brings to life (and death) is the ultimate antidote to anxiety and depression. Enjoy the episode!