My 5-hour conversation with Ken Wilber
On September 18th, I had the privilege to meet integral philosopher Ken Wilber, at his home in Denver for what became an exciting non-stop 5-hour conversation. A legendary and friendly moment in his panoramic flat, where I briefly felt at the top of the world with him.
I wanted to share some excerpts of this wonderful discussion, for which I feel very grateful. Thank you Ken!
How his vision of the 4 quadrants was born
Ken told me how he developed his famous vision of the 4 quadrants. In the mid-nineties, after his wife died of cancer, he had not written a book for 10 years as he had been busy taking care of her. But lots had accumulated in his mind. When he started writing the first paragraph of what would become his famous “Sex, Ecology and Spirituality”, he realized the rise of postmodernism obliged him to find new vocabulary as many of the words he started to put on paper (e.g. hierarchy) were becoming difficult to communicate with. At the same time, he was working on synthesizing different developmental stages frameworks. He had more than a hundred of them written on yellow post-it papers, all over his place. Each day, Ken read over them, trying to understand how they could fit together. One day, he realized that some seemed to refer to inner realities while others have more to do with the outer world. A few months later, he realized that some were dealing with individual perspectives while others focused more on the collective. The 4 quadrants with his two dimensions (Individual/collectives, inner/outer) were born and Ken found soon that this map was very helpful in making sense of many different realities.
Clarity of thought and the awareness of the fundamental emptiness of the world
We had a great discussion, infused with Buddhist philosophy, about how thinking can best describe the world or “historical reality” without being too attached to the description itself, aware there is an ungraspable “ultimate truth”. Ken shared that his Zen training in search of the ultimate truth – through koans and getting familiar with a “Mou” sound as the most common answer of zen masters to any questions – brought him to experience some of this “ultimate reality.” This brought a different quality to his writing, as if the awareness of ultimate reality (and the fundamental empty nature of all historical realities) shone through the words he put on paper to describe the world. In the language of the Buddhist Diamond sutra’s, this could be for example translated as “I know developmental stages are not developmental stages, that is why I call them developmental stages”! He shared that the main quality that he hears most often associated with his work is a fundamental clarity. This statement made me gasp as it is exactly the same I have been told regarding Politics of Being. Long ago I also became aware how not being too attached to the description of the outer world (as it is only words and concepts – a map, not the actual territory) created a certain kind of freedom that enabled me to describe it more accurately. While I was writing my PhD (some 10 to 15 years ago), I was inspired by Toltec teachings about how one could master this common reality (the “tonal”) – and thus thinking – by not taking it too seriously, by not being attached to it, thanks to the awareness of the other reality (the “nahual”). While Ken’s Zen practice was focused on the ultimate truth (“Mou”), he later on turned his meditation into tantric practices that aim at expressing this absolute source into form. He feels this also affected his writing.
Cultural and social evolution
Integral philosophy describes cultural and social evolution but I asked Ken if he thinks moving towards what he calls “higher” stages of development (e.g. traditional, modern, post-modern, integral worldviews and values), always translates into real progress for societies. I told him I have seen for example how western modernity can negatively affect traditional societies, through increased materialism, consumerism, etc. Ken mentioned that “good” and “bad” are relative and recognized that new stages can bring more problems through the extra power they can bring. Societies also need to skillfully integrate previous stages (e.g. the problem of western modernity throwing away spirituality with religions) to flourish.
On this topic, I mentioned the importance for integralists to recognize what every stage of development got right. For example, some integralists consider the belief in magic in some indigenous cultures as a mere prerational illusion. Ken said that he himself thinks that “magic” exists (e.g. the capacity of the mind to impact reality) but that only some special people can make this happen. He thinks the vast majority of people in these societies live a prerational delusion as they fail to understand causality and distinguish themselves from the outer world. I mentioned that these people could well have first-hand experience of magic, though witnessing the effects of their shamans’ works.
I also expressed my concern about integral theory suggesting the same kind of evolution for every culture and society and that these typologies and categories, which are often constructed by westerners can make us blind to other cultural and social potentials. Ken agreed on both statements, recognizing that cultures and societies can evolve differently with different emphasis on different lines of development (e.g. cognitive, aesthetic, emotional, spiritual) for example.
Spiritual teachings and development
Ken emphasizes that experiencing higher states of consciousness (what he calls “waking up”) does not necessarily translate into other areas of personal development such as our worldviews (“growing up”) and other lines of development (e.g. cognitive, aesthetic, etc.). Japanese Zen or Tibetan Buddhist teachers can be ethnocentric and bear a lot of unprocessed psychological issues (if they have not done the “clean up” work). Understanding of the “ultimate truth” does not necessarily translate into understanding “historical realities” and Ken even seems to say that spiritual traditions do not have much to offer in terms of understanding “growing up”. I told Ken to me this is strongly related to how he conceptualizes “growing up” through development stages (worldviews). It seems to me that spiritual teachings do provide guidance on how to integrate spiritual experiences in our daily lives, and how they should help evolve practitioners’ personalities and the way they operate in the world.
Ken’s legacy
In our conversation, I brought up the importance of Ken’s ideas being handled with nuance and wisdom (something I appreciated in our dialogue, especially when using them to guide applications in the real world. A study (Stein 2010) found that many “integralists” lack the ability to deal with these ideas in a complex enough manner and tend to use developmental stages as stereotypes. Ken said he was in general fine about how his work was understood and confident about how the basis he established will remain and become more commonly accepted in the future as it was based on evidence. He was happy that in his books he could also promote many works he himself appreciated.
The main challenge he foresaw for integralists in the future is the multiplication of knowledge. Integral thinking requires some knowledge of the main references in many areas, something Ken has been able to do. Yet he wondered if integralists of the future will be able to keep up with fast-growing bodies of knowledge in multiple areas. I sowed the question of what would be his advice to future integralists. He replied he still has to think about it.
I understood Ken to be relatively optimistic about the future, trusting that the consciousness in us that had spurred human evolution will keep propelling us towards higher stages. He seemed confident about our capacity to deal with the climate crisis (in particular through prioritizing investments in the R&D of new technologies) and found that our economic systems, despite obvious problems, overall are doing OK.
Disclaimer: this my personal take on Ken’s ideas based on our conversation, which I often convey in my own words ((i) for not remembering exactly the words he used, (ii) as I mentioned ideas we agreed upon but which he did not reformulate in his own language, and (iii) for the sake of comprehension). While Ken agreed I could share the fruits of our dialogue, this text has not been revised nor validated by him.
Stein, Z., (2010). Now you get it, now you don’t: developmental differences in the understanding of integral theory and practice. In Ebsjörn-Hargens (Ed.) Integral theory in action : applied, theoretical, and practical applications of the AQAL model. (pp. 175-203). SUNY University Press.
