Integral Philosophy and Transition

To date, our focus has tended to be more about the exterior dimensions or actions required to respond to the current ecological crisis – as shown in either our individual or collective behaviours ( recycling, food growing, bio fuels etc). However, as our ecological balance is shown to be increasingly out of sync, there’s been an accompanying revelation that there is also an imbalance in our economic, financial, political, health, communication - and belief systems. This ‘teetering on the edge’ of whole systems collapse has sparked the desire – and many would say, the necessity, for a more reflective, philosophical and spiritual response and it’s here that Integral Philosophy offers a fresh perspective on sustainability and transition. The interconnectedness of all of our environments - whether internal/ external, individual/collective, worldly/spiritual or local/global necessitates that we grapple with new paradigms that stretch our current view of reality. Its time to take the ‘bull by the horns’ and understand how we can effectively influence a shift that encompasses an overarching perspective on transition……not just about our external behaviours but also about our individual and collective intentions and motivations. Paradoxically, the influence of Ken Wilber’s complex Four Quadrants AQAL Theory may help us get our heads around this paradigm shift. However, we need to tap a stream that helps to bring clarity to this fresh perspective and for those of you who have witnessed my own fuzzy attempts to walk upstream and against the current with this I’m sure you’ll agree that creating simplicity with complexity is a challenge… not my challenge but our challenge.
As we have noted, sustainability to date has been focused on exteriors – on the actions we take either individually or collectively. Integral Philosophy gives us the tools to identify that our behaviours are only the tip of the iceberg within view. We know that what’s underneath - the depth… that holds the power – the threat/splendour of the iceberg as a whole. Any response to sustainability that doesn’t take into account the whole view is likely to have the effect of a band-aid placed over a deep and septic sore.
So how do we deal with the interiors? Integral Life Practice helps us to align the interior with the exterior. Sustainable Life Design acknowledges the contribution of ILP but attempts to predict the inter-relationships between individual and collective motivations and practices particularly between the environments of the four quadrants. As we view evolution and development in Ken Wilber’s four quadrant model we can begin to glimpse how we might intuit/predict effects in one quadrant when a cause is apparent in another – or conversely when a cause becomes apparent in one quadrant we can be given a ‘heads up’ on the potential effects in another. The sustainability comes from the preventative model of placing a fence at the top of a cliff rather than an ambulance at the bottom. Of course, there is no guarantee that fences will always do the trick but they’re likely to diminish the number of accidents.
So far, we’ve explored how culture, internal perspectives, systems and behaviours are constantly in motion and constantly changing….. this has brought up some challenging ideas about our belief systems – particularly to those of us who just want to do stuff to address impending crises, and yet we are already beginning to understand that addressing external behaviours in one quadrant without a corresponding shift in the other three quadrants will only scratch the surface.
Where do we begin to address the shift required in the Interior quadrants (or views on reality). Is TT only interested in dealing with the toxic bits that are evident on the outside or are we also interested in the motivations, intentions and indeed pathologies that both individually and collectively drive us?
....No one said that this would be easy