A whole new worldview is emerging
Post-postmodern days have come, and they are integral. They integrate many points of view and are holistic. Gone are the days of black-and-white thinking, of categorising people into friend or foe. This kind of thinking is replaced by the insight that nobody can be wrong all the time. Every side has a truth that deserves attention. And nobody has the whole truth. Integral theory is a school of philosophy that seeks to integrate all of human wisdom into a new, emergent worldview that is able to accommodate the gifts of all previous worldviews, including those which have been historically at odds: science and religion, east and west, pre-modern, modern and post-modern. - See more at this website.
The integral point of view is a big jump in the development of human consciousness, comparable only to that from the middle ages to modern days about 500 years ago. Integral philosophy itself has evolved over the last century through the work of Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, Jean Gebser, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Ken Wilber, and others.
Many researchers have studied the development of human consciousness through the millennia. Of special importance are the contributions of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, Clare Graves, Susanne Cook-Greuter and Jane Loevinger. At every higher stage complexity increases, at the same time including all the former stages. A spiral of consciousness builds up (Spiral Dynamics). A good survey of Integral Theory can be found here.
Applied to present-day problems, this worldview can be very helpful, as illustrated by this example:
Am I Charlie Hebdo? - The answer is yes as long as we realize that we are also the Muslims, and we are also the police. And we are also the fundamentalist mothers who worry about honor and salvation when they see their daughters wear bluejeans and take on Western ways. We are also the daughters, young women learning about the world through internet videos. And the alienated young men who find meaning in the romantic militarism of jihad. And all of the people that are struggling in these ways. And to the degree that we can feel into their worlds and see things through their eyes, then we evoke the larger space of consciousness that can hold multiple perspectives. In that space there is a wisdom and intelligence and a heart that is really new to the cosmos. So we are creating the new kosmic grooves that are leading the way. (Jeff Salzman)
Source and full text: https://www.integrallife.com/daily-evolver/am-i-charlie-hebdo
Key works by Ken Wilber
- Integral Spirituality
- A Brief History of Everything
- A Theory of Everything. An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality
- Sex, Ecology, Spirituality