Marcus Anthony from the University of the Sunshine Coast of Australia recently wrote a paper called “Not-So-Integral Futures” (PDF) about his experiences at the November 2005 conference ‘Global Soul, Global Mind, Global Action’ at Tamkang University. The conference was organised under the guidance of Sohail Inayatullah. If I had the money I would have been there, as Sohail had asked me to present a paper – something akin to Huamnicide (PDF) published in the Journal of Future Studies in 2005 or an updated Meta-Analysis of Futures Journals (and trust me, it needs an update! Hence no link;)
While reading through Anthony’s paper I found my self with symmetrically opposing sets of reactions.
Now I could go into detail, but the interesting idea for me was his claim that being an integral futurist seems to mean that you make 'spirituality' as your preferred bias rather than 'matter' as per modern western sciences. How integral is that? Good point. But perhaps not so true. Well, maybe Anthony just forgot to read the rest of the articles about integral futures that have been published. Perhaps he even forgot to read Wilber himself. Or, maybe there's a contextual factor at work here in the zeitgeist? Ignoring the ignorant claim that Wilber's model is simply based on mystical data no one can verify (actually it's largely based on western psychological data that's been repeatedly verified) perhaps the whole Wilber version of integral, and in large measure the integral futures domain, is slanting the other way (inner-dimensions of reality) because of the imbalance in the rest of Western knowledge and praxis. Might that not be a very integral response?
At any rate, he's right. You can get stuck in either "flatland" or "fantasia." But it's not to say that integral futurists are stuck in either. Perhaps just choosing where they put their limited energies as they try to stimulate more sain, sustainable and desirable futures.
Another angle worth considering, of course, is that Anthony has just provided a wonderfully integral embodiment: exercising two opposing aspects of him self in public, in attempt to record the achievement, and also encourage in other's, the integration of some serious shadows;) In which case, thanks Anthony!
Comments (2)
Oddly enough, from reading other papers in the Journal of Futures Studies by Mr Anthony I get the impression he's pretty aware of integral.
Does anyone want to collaborate on a response to him for a future issue of JFS?
My 2 cents worth would be to critique one of his arguments that the integral futurists who attended the conference weren't integral in their inclusion of Dr Kaku in the conference discussions. IMHO Mr Anthony has misunderstood the applications of integral practices in futures studies.
Posted by Andrew Wynberg | March 5, 2007 10:03 PM
Posted on March 5, 2007 22:03
Hey Andrew - yeah, I think Anthony is pretty integrally informed, and hence my comment of thanks at the end of the post. I also think his piece was worth having in JFS - at the very least it is a point of reflection where the integral futures community can check themselves... so, I'd be shy of saying anything more than the above;)
Posted by Chris Stewart | March 6, 2007 7:35 AM
Posted on March 6, 2007 07:35