Integral World Forum - are any Wilberians into "mere translation"?

Integral World Forum
« are any Wilberians into "mere translation"? »

Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
May 26, 2013, 12:11am

Integral World Forum :: General :: General Board :: are any Wilberians into "mere translation"?

Author

Topic: are any Wilberians into "mere translation"? (Read 225 times)

IR
Guest

are any Wilberians into "mere translation"?
« Thread Started on May 7, 2011, 8:33am »

In his essay, "A Spirituality That Transforms" (http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/misc/spthtr.cfm/), Ken Wilber says, "at some point in our maturation process, translation itself, no matter how adequate or confident, simply ceases to console. No new beliefs, no new paradigm, no new myths, no new ideas, will staunch the encroaching anguish. Not a new belief for the self, but the transcendence of the self altogether, is the only path that avails."

"Still, the number of individuals who are ready for such a path is, always has been, and likely always will be, a very small minority. For most people, any sort of religious belief will fall instead into the category of consolation: it will be a new horizontal translation that fashions some sort of meaning in the midst of the monstrous world. And religion has always served, for the most part, this first function, and served it well."

Wilber has repeatedly implied that those of his readers who resonate with his ideas are members of this "very small minority." But is this really the case? Is it really the case that everyone who reads Wilber finds themselves aligned with his ideas is in this "very small minority"? Or might it be the case that many Wilber fans, students, or followers are caught up in what Wilber calls "mere translation," and that for a couple of reasons Wilber doesn't say this, and because of the human proclivity to cognitive illusions those who are caught up in "mere translation" are utterly unaware of it and would deny it were someone to suggest that it's so?

If this is the case, why doesn't Wilber address it? For one thing, telling your readers and students, those who buy all the products (books, audio recordings, seminars, training kits, etc.) that you put on the market that they're basically seekers after "consolation" is bad marketing. But another reason might be that Wilber honestly believes that all of the "mere translators" in his audience will benefit from considering themselves members of an elite minority, in which case his failure to speak critically in raw, honest terms about his own fan base may be, to him, a kind of noble lie of omission.

Meanwhile we have a bunch of Wilber followers running around who behave as if they are among the "elite" (an elite group Wilber's made numerous references to in various ways), and who rationalize their obvious interest in "translation" by assuming that they are into translation not for themselves but for the benefit of all the poor suckers who are not members of the elite "very small minority."

Note that even in the aforementioned essay, Wilber addresses the reader as if by virtue of merely reading the essay, the reader is a member of the "very small minority" to which he refers. For example, when he says, "even though you and I might deeply believe that the most important function we can perform is to offer authentic transformative spirituality, the fact is, much of what we have to do, in our capacity to bring decent spirituality into the world, is actually to offer more benign and helpful modes of translation. In other words, even if we ourselves are practicing, or offering, authentic transformative spirituality, nonetheless much of what we must first do is provide most people with a more adequate way to translate their condition. We must start with helpful translations, before we can effectively offer authentic transformations." [Italics in orig.]

How many Wilber followers read stuff like this and think, yeah, that's me, I practice authentic transformative spirituality, but because I'm deeply compassionate and selfless and so on, I am kind of a channel through which the BMI (Basic Moral Intuition) and Spirit itself can provide all the first-tier schmucks with a more adequate way to translate their condition? More than a few, I bet.

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

David McCoy
Guest

Re: are any Wilberians into "mere translation"?
« Reply #1 on May 8, 2011, 4:58pm »

That is one of my favorite essays..its Translative and Consoling....and it points toward the resolution of the anguish as well .. and yes I find that many are satisfied with Translative and Consoling forms of Spirituality....and are not the least interested in Transformation.......because Transformation is is a very messy and difficult undertaking..and most are not willing or able to do so.. Wilber admits that all his Writings are Translative...but will appeal to very few because in the end it all points toward Transformation...(even fewer these days because of his sometimes sloppy scholarship, his lack of skill in dealing with his critics, and his commercial Integral Empire,many of which I do have a problem with) I think he is right about this....We all have Translative world views and some are more evolved then others.....and I see nothing wrong with him pointing this out...I wish I could put the Time and energy into a Transformative practice....but till then I will fall back the translative knowing full well that I doing so...and yes I will buy and read anything he writes because his translation appeals to me more then others..not that he is the only translator ..just one of many who have helped me ....and in spite of his faults ( I have a few as well) I have chosen not to throw the baby out with the bath Water....and yes there is a lot of bath water.. All of which he admits. Which is why I find his reaction to his critics so unsettling...I guess he is Protecting the Empire....which is a shame....Perhaps I'm reading between the lines in assuming you believe your translative world view is more evolved...if so what is it? Thanks for your Post..I think your questions will provoke some thought for others as it did me..
Dave

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

IR
Guest

Re: are any Wilberians into "mere translation"?
« Reply #2 on May 11, 2011, 12:06pm »

In the essay linked to above, “A Spirituality That Transforms,” Wilber, referring to China, says that only "0.0000001 of the total population" ever "graduated into an authentic, transformative spirituality." And he goes on to write:

"...radical transformative spirituality is extremely rare, anywhere in history, and anywhere in the world. (The numbers for the West are even more depressing. I rest my case.)"

On this basis one might assume that Wilber believes that hardly any of his fans, followers, and students have "graduated into an authentic, transformative spirituality." Or, it's possible that Wilber would say that thanks to the establishment of the "Integral Community," radical transformative spirituality is less rare than it was when he wrote the above.

According to cognitive psychologists, everyone is prone to cognitive illusions, one of which is called the superiority illusion or superiority bias. Survey after survey shows that we are inclined to consider ourselves to be better than or superior to others (93 percent of people surveyed believed they were in the top percentile for driving ability, 70 percent rank themselves in the top percentile for leadership ability, 85 percent for the ability to get along well with others, and so on). We tend to believe ourselves to be better than most people, but may not admit it when questioned. (Some Wilber followers are quick to admit that they may be "highly developed" along some "lines," but lag behind in others. To me, this is kind of like saying, I'm better than most people but I have a hangnail.)

Wilber teaches his students that human beings can be divided up according to how developed or evolved they are (and yes, he accounts for different developmental "lines" and his model is "spiral" rather than linear), and he also teaches them that if they resonate with his message, they are in the top 2 percent of the most highly evolved and developed human beings who've ever lived. (For example, in the followup to his infamous "Wyatt Earpy" blog post, he writes, "But for those who heard the real message: you know who you are, don’t you? You have already seen the radiant luminosity of your very own depth, where integral clarity thrills your awareness, enlightens your mind, charges your consciousness, and electrifies your soul… and does so in spite of a world that cares not one iota for you, or who you are, or what you see and know." "You’re in the closet, aren’t you? Because if you express actual integral thoughts or ideas then the herd descends on you with a vengeance, yes? If you are in that 2%, your life is a living hell, in so many ways, isn’t it? Because the first-tier rants are all around you, aren’t they?")

No one denies that some people really are better than others in certain ways. Some people really are better than most when it comes to driving or leadership, etc. And we can demonstrate things like driving ability and leadership. But how can a Scientologist demonstrate to non-Scientologists that she is at the Operative Thetan Level of Scientology? How can a member of Heaven's Gate demonstrate to a non-member that he is at the Evolutionary Level Above Human that Heaven's Gate members believe in? Just so, how can a member of Wilber's Integral Movement demonstrate that he or she is Turquoise to non-members?

I ask these rhetorical questions not to imply that Scientology, Heaven's Gate, and the Integral Movement are similar and/or equal, but to make a point about the behavior of members of spiritually themed social identity groups who create developmental schemes and jargon to go with it. Members of the aforementioned groups would say that they can indeed demonstrate which of their members are at the higher levels in question (Turquoise, Third-Tier, Operative Thetan, Evolutionary Level Above Human, etc.), because they have ways of testing this. I take it for granted that there are people in groups like these who think, of course some non-members are skeptical about our claims to be at these special levels of development, and that's because they're not at these levels and therefore are literally incapable of getting it! Kind of like when Stuart Davis, in Wilber's followup to his "Wyatt Earpy" blog post, says, "these green shits take pot shots at 2nd tier morning, noon, and night, and they are literally not capable of registering the content, the locations, the addresses, the altitude of 2nd tier."

There is an irony to cognitive illusions, as explained by Tali Shalot (Ph.D. in psychology and neuroscience) in her book The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain. "Because we can identify these illusions and biases in others but not in ourselves, we conclude that we are less susceptible to bias than most other people. In essence, this means we hold the illusion that we are immune to illusions. This is the irony of cognitive illusion."

"Our tendency to perceive ourselves as less susceptible to bias than the rest of the human race was termed the bias blind spot by the psychologist Emily Pronin of Princeton University."

This of course applies to me as it does to everyone. And that's the point: If the psychologists and neuroscientists who study cognitive illusions and cognitive bias are right, then what they say about how susceptible we are to cognitive illusions and bias applies to Ken Wilber and everyone in the Integral Movement. And if one of the goals of the members of this movement or social identity group is to be "integral," applying what we know about cognitive illusions and bias to the Integral Movement is a must.

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

Click Here To Make This Board Ad-Free