protomattr reviewed Trump and a post-truth world by Ken Wilber
Review of 'Trump and a post-truth world' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
This thought-provoking book makes a good case for "what happened" in 2016, drawing heavily upon something called Integral Theory. This visually stunning model of human development assigns colors to memes that individuals and cultures progress through, from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric and beyond. I am reminded both of Plato's idealized hierarchy of governments (and personalities) described in the Republic, and Jimi Hendrix's "rainbow of emotions" he sings about in "Bold As Love." At any rate, it is an intriguing theory that this book uses to make its arguments, but leaves the reader with many questions.
The crux of the book is that a new cultural meme, the "green", emerged in the 60s (the counter-culture) as a more inclusive, more compassionate alternative to the establishment "orange" meme (achievement, progress, materialism). Green's quest to be more inclusive came at a price, however, that being the denial of objective truth, since acknowledging …
This thought-provoking book makes a good case for "what happened" in 2016, drawing heavily upon something called Integral Theory. This visually stunning model of human development assigns colors to memes that individuals and cultures progress through, from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric and beyond. I am reminded both of Plato's idealized hierarchy of governments (and personalities) described in the Republic, and Jimi Hendrix's "rainbow of emotions" he sings about in "Bold As Love." At any rate, it is an intriguing theory that this book uses to make its arguments, but leaves the reader with many questions.
The crux of the book is that a new cultural meme, the "green", emerged in the 60s (the counter-culture) as a more inclusive, more compassionate alternative to the establishment "orange" meme (achievement, progress, materialism). Green's quest to be more inclusive came at a price, however, that being the denial of objective truth, since acknowledging this would mean there's a privileged perspective. "That's just your opinion man" led to the extinction of facts. This is one aspect of the world we find ourselves in.
The other is the incompatibility of the memes themselves. The dominance of green setting the tone of the culture (e.g. political correctness) and dismissal of dissent (by, for example, "deplorables") clearly led to resentment by other memes, in particular the traditional "amber," which in turn favored a populist like Trump.
Provocatively, Wilber repeatedly asserts that the green meme, which should be driving our culture's evolution, has utterly failed, and Trump's election is a sort of self-correction, a way for society to fall back, regroup, and try again to progress.
I found these explanations enlightening, fleshing out what I have heretofore found to be unsatisfying self-flagellation by the Left. Moreover, Wilber's application of Integral Theory suggests ways forward, that in the end are pretty obvious. Namely,
'an attitude of outreach, of embrace, of compassion and care. Each higher stage--green in this case--inherently "transcends and includes" its predecessors. But despising them, loathing them, actually hating them is to "transcend and repress," "transcend and exclude," "transcend and ridicule--at which point one's right and one's capacity to be a genuine leading edge is forfeited.'
In short, leadership.
Since this is the first book of Wilber's that I have read, I don't know his style, but this book seemed rushed. It's fairly repetitive, and somewhat disorganized with frequent tangents and parentheticals. As mentioned earlier it relies heavily on a theory, and as such it can get jargony. But I didn't come away empty-handed, and moreover it did pique my interest in exploring the theory, so it succeeds on many levels.
