As we move from the industrial age and its nation state to an internet age with a globalized postindustrial market a question presents itself: What is the next major developmental stage of society after the liberal democracy with a balance between capitalism and welfare state?
In this book Hanzi Freinacht offers a compelling answer to this question. We are reaching the limits of modern society and we must work to achieve a metamodern society, that is, a society which goes beyond modern life and its institutions. The metamodern society of the future is a listening society; a society more sensitive to the inner dimensions of human beings.
Drawing upon an elaborate weaving of psychology, sociology, political science and philosophy this book lands in a positive vision for the future. It shows how a clear description of human psychological growth – how we grow as human beings – can also offer us key insights into how global society can and should evolve in the internet age. A politics that can help humans grow to the later stages of psychological development is also one that can be capable of meeting the staggering challenges of our time.
In the first part of the book Hanzi examines the politics and culture of the Nordic countries and shows how these progressive societies offer a fertile ground for metamodern politics. The basis of such metamodern politics is also described. In the second part of the book he turns to developmental psychology, describing how humans evolve through a series of stages – and how this matters immensely for the happiness and survival of us all.
As this story unfolds – in a uniquely provocative genre breaking manner – you will also glean insight into your own developmental stage and those of people around you.
Read with caution.
Why has the zombie become such a pervasive figure in twenty-first-century popular culture? John Vervaeke, Christopher Mastropietro and Filip Miscevic seek to answer this question by arguing that particular aspects of the zombie, common to a variety of media forms, reflect a crisis in modern Western culture.
The authors examine the essential features of the zombie, including mindlessness, ugliness and homelessness, and argue that these reflect the outlook of the contemporary West and its attendant zeitgeists of anxiety, alienation, disconnection and disenfranchisement. They trace the relationship between zombies and the theme of secular apocalypse, demonstrating that the zombie draws its power from being a perversion of the Christian mythos of death and resurrection. Symbolic of a lost Christian worldview, the zombie represents a world that can no longer explain itself, nor provide us with instructions for how to live within it.
The concept of ‘domicide’ or the destruction of home is developed to describe the modern crisis of meaning that the zombie both represents and reflects. This is illustrated using case studies including the relocation of the Anishinaabe of the Grassy Narrows First Nation, and the upheaval of population displacement in the Hellenistic period. Finally, the authors invoke and reformulate symbols of the four horseman of the apocalypse as rhetorical analogues to frame those aspects of contemporary collapse that elucidate the horror of the zombie.
Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis is required reading for anyone interested in the phenomenon of zombies in contemporary culture. It will also be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience including students and scholars of culture studies, semiotics, philosophy, religious studies, eschatology, anthropology, Jungian studies, and sociology
In the 21st century we face innumerable material and existential challenges both now and in the future, from religious fanaticism, mass migration, unfettered corporate power, to inequality, big data and climate change. Ahead of these global threats and tragedies is a common barrier to their solution—it is the spirit that has defined the age we live in: competition. The Simultaneous Policy Solution, the ‘SIMPOL Solution’ shows us how we must all come to terms with the crippling effect of global competition. Only through simultaneous action, through cooperation, can we overcome these problems.
In Trump and a Post-Truth World – a provocative work – philosopher Ken Wilber applies his Integral approach to explain how we arrived where we are and why there is cause for hope. He lays much of the blame on a failure at the progressive, leading edge of society. This leading edge is characterized by the desire to be as just and inclusive as possible, and to it we owe the thrust toward women’s rights, the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, and the concern for oppression in all its forms. This is all evolutionarily healthy. But what is unhealthy is a creeping postmodernism that is elitist, “politically correct,” insistent on an egalitarianism that is itself paradoxically hierarchical, and that looks down on “deplorables.” Combine this with the techno-economic demise of many traditional ways of making a living, and you get an explosive mixture. As Wilber says, for some Trump voters: “Everywhere you are told that you are fully equal and deserve immediate and complete empowerment, yet everywhere you are denied the means to actually achieve it. You suffocate, you suffer, and you get very, very mad.”
It is only when members of society’s leading edge can heal themselves that a new, Integral evolutionary force can emerge to move us beyond the social and political turmoil of our current time to offer genuine leadership toward greater wholeness.
We have entered an age of disruption. Financial collapse, climate change, resource depletion, and a growing gap between rich and poor are but a few of the signs. Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer ask, why do we collectively create results nobody wants? Meeting the challenges of this century requires updating our economic logic and operating system from an obsolete “ego-system” focused entirely on the well-being of oneself to an eco-system awareness that emphasizes the well-being of the whole.
Leading from the Emerging Future is filled with real-world examples, this thought-provoking guide presents proven practices for building a new economy that is more resilient, intentional, inclusive, and aware.
Presence is an intimate look at the development of a new theory about change and learning. In wide-ranging conversations held over a year and a half, organizational learning pioneers Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers explored the nature of transformational change—how it arises, and the fresh possibilities it offers a world dangerously out of balance. The book introduces the idea of “presence”—a concept borrowed from the natural world that the whole is entirely present in any of its parts—to the worlds of business, education, government, and leadership. Too often, the authors found, we remain stuck in old patterns of seeing and acting. By encouraging deeper levels of learning, we create an awareness of the larger whole, leading to actions that can help to shape its evolution and our future.
Drawing on the wisdom and experience of 150 scientists, social leaders, and entrepreneurs, including Brian Arthur, Rupert Sheldrake, Buckminster Fuller, Lao Tzu, and Carl Jung, Presence is both revolutionary in its exploration and hopeful in its message. This astonishing and completely original work goes on to define the capabilities that underlie our ability to see, sense, and realize new possibilities—in ourselves, in our institutions and organizations, and in society itself.
With his first groundbreaking book Soul Prints, Dr. Marc Gafni taught readers how to tread a lifelong path of meaning by realizing their Unique Selves. Now, in The Mystery of Love, the profound philosopher and beloved spiritual teacher invites readers to the next step on the journey, addressing with passion, wisdom, and genuine humility the all-important issues of love, creativity, and our erotic connection to the universe.
Technological development, climate change and globalization are challenging the national institutions and modes of governance we created during the industrial era. Our old knowledge and general understanding of the world do not provide sufficient answers anymore. In order to maintain meaningful lives, social calm and liberal democracy, we need to upgrade our meaning-making to match the complexity of the world we are creating. Metamodernity is an alternative to both modernity and postmodernism, a cultural code that presents itself as an opportunity if we work deliberately towards it. Metamodernity provides us with a framework for understanding ourselves and our societies in a much more complex way. It contains both indigenous, premodern, modern, and postmodern cultural elements and thus provides social norms and a moral fabric for intimacy, spirituality, religion, science, and self-exploration, all at the same time. It is a way of strengthening local, national, continental, and global cultural heritage among all and thus has the potential to dismantle the fear of losing one’s culture as the economy as well as the internet and exponential technologies are disrupting our current modes of societal organization and governance. Metamodernity will thus allow us to be meaning-making at a deeper emotional level and a higher intellectual level compared to today; it will allow us more complex understanding, which may match the complexity of the problems we need to solve. Appropriate meaning-making is the best prevention against the frustrations that generally lead to authoritarian ideologies and societal instability. Using metamodernity as the filter through which we see the world and as a template, we can create, among other things, new and appropriate education, politics and institutions for our societies of the 21st century. A vision such as this may even give hope.
Required reading.
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but please consider purchasing the book to support their work.
We are on the cusp of the fastest, deepest, most consequential transformation of human civilization in history, a transformation every bit as significant as the move from foraging to cities and agriculture 10,000 years ago. During the 2020s, key technologies will converge to completely disrupt the five foundational sectors that underpin the global economy, and with them every major industry in the world today. In information, energy, food, transportation, and materials, costs will fall by a 10x or more, while production processes an order of magnitude more efficient will use 90% fewer natural resources with 10x-100x less waste. The knock-on effects for society will be as profound as the extraordinary possibilities that emerge. For the first time in history, we could overcome poverty easily. Access to all our basic needs could become a fundamental human right. But this is just one future outcome. The alternative could see our civilization collapse into a new dark age. Which path we take depends on the choices we make, starting today. The stakes could not be higher.
Transcripts of a collection of podcasts from The Side View Podcast
The latest issue of The Side View Journal. Topics include ecology of practices, metamodernism, memetic mediation, Game B, integral philosophy, collective intelligence, the meaning crisis, warm data, meta-rationality, sensemaking, long-term thinking, & more.
An excellent primer explaining Integral Theory. The ideas have been extended since this was published, but it’s still a great place to start learning Integral Theory.
Publisher’s description:
A concise, comprehensive overview of Wilber’s revolutionary thought and its application in today’s world. In A Theory of Everything, Wilber uses clear, nontechnical language to present complex, cutting-edge theories that integrate the realms of body, mind, soul, and spirit. He then demonstrates how these theories and models can be applied to real-world problems in areas such as politics, medicine, business, education, and the environment. Wilber also discusses daily practises that readers take up in order to apply this integrative vision to their own everyday lives.
To be launched in October 2020. Pre-order is available.
“The most important question we must ask ourselves is: Are we being good ancestors?” So said Jonas Salk, who cured polio in 1953. Salk saved millions of lives, but he refused to patent his cure or make any money from it. His radical rethinking of what we owe future generations should be an inspiration to us all, but it has hardly taken hold: Businesses can barely see past the next quarter; politicians can’t see past the next election. Markets spike, then they crash in speculative bubbles. We rarely stop to consider whether we’re being good ancestors . . . but the future depends on it.
In The Good Ancestor, leading public intellectual, philosopher, and bestselling author Roman Krznaric explains six practical ways we can retrain our brains to save our future—such as adopting Deep Time Humility (recognizing our lives as a cosmic eyeblink) and Cathedral Thinking (starting projects that will take more than one lifetime to complete). His aim is to inspire a “time rebellion”—to shift our allegiance from our generation only to all humanity, present and future.
It’s also worthing taking a look here. The Tree of Knowledge component of Gregg’s work has relevance beyond psychology.
With grand, inclusive theories of psychology such as Freud’s now largely discredited, psychological enquiry is focused more narrowly and empirically. This book aims to change the status quo and offer a new, redefining and unified theory of psychology.
From a review by Herb Gintis, Santa Fe Institute and Central European University:
“Like sociology and anthropology, psychology is defined by incompatible competing schools of thought and cannot be considered a mature science, because there is no sense in which each generation of researchers builds upon the core analytical insights of previous generations of researchers… This book is written for clinical and research psychologists, and hence avoids the sort of mathematical model building and axiomatization that is characteristic of mature sciences… Henriques notes that it is almost impossible to define contemporary psychology because many psychologists consider psychology to be a theory of the workings of the mind, while others deny the notion of “mind” altogether, and limit themselves to modelling observed behavior. For this reason, Henriques takes his first goal to be that of “locating” the field ontologically. He argues that there is a Tree of Knowledge with four segments. The first is “Matter,” which is studied by physics, chemistry, geology, and astronomy. The second is “Life,” studied by biology. The third is “Mind,” which is the subject matter of psychology, and the fourth, and highest, is “Culture,” studied by the social sciences. “
From a review by Daniel B. Fishman, Professor, Rutgers University
“The field of psychology is known for its paradoxical combination of sweeping scope and impressive micro-theories, on the one hand, and fragmentation and internecine squabbling, on the other. To this state of affairs, any serious effort to provide integration and unity within psychological knowledge and understanding is heartily welcomed. And Henriques’ effort in this regard is not only serious, but one of the most cogent, scholarly, sophisticated, beautifully reasoned, clearly articulated, and accessibly written presentations of a unified theory in psychology that I have seen in my 50 years in the discipline.”
None of the four old philosophies about sex is sufficient to inspire us or even hold us in our sexuality. Sex is not merely negative or positive. Sex is not just neutral, nor is it merely sacred because it creates babies.
Erotic Mystics from the hidden tradition of Solomon’s temple taught a secret doctrine. Sex is the source of all wisdom. Sex is an expression of the erotic impulse of existence itself alive in us-the yearning for contact, pleasure, and aliveness. The Sexual, however, is not the sum total of the erotic. Rather, the sexual models the Erotic. The sexual teaches us how to live an Erotic life in all dimension of our existence.
It is these secret doctrines that were later taught by Mary Magdalene and that sparked excitement around bestselling novels such as The Da Vinci Code.
Deep understanding of the sexual becomes the portal to accessing aliveness in every dimension of our reality. This realization demands that you live sexually without shame and shows you how to re-eroticize all areas of your life.
A Return to Eros reveals the radical secret tenets of relationship between the sexual, the erotic, and the holy. They reveal what Eros actually means and share the ten core qualities of the Erotic, which are modelled by the sexual. These include being on the inside, the fullness of presence, yearning, allurement, fantasy, surrender, creativity, pleasure, and more.
American politics are badly broken. Yet to solve the seemingly intractable problem of hyperpolarization, we need to look beyond the gridlocked politics of Washington D.C. In Developmental Politics, Steve McIntosh shows how this growing rift in the fabric of American society is a cultural problem that requires a cultural solution. He offers a pragmatic yet inspiring approach to our national political dilemma through a new politics of culture―one that goes right to the heart of this entrenched, complex issue. McIntosh presents a variety of innovative methods through which citizens and political leaders from across the political spectrum can reach agreement and achieve consensus.
McIntosh’s proposals for overcoming hyperpolarization are founded on an emerging form of “cultural intelligence” that directly addresses the conflicting values underlying our poisoned politics. This new way of seeing leads to an inclusive vision of social progress―a new American Dream―that can help revive our collective sense of common cause and thereby restore the functionality of our democracy. Developmental Politics provides the fresh thinking we need to transcend America’s contemporary political impasse.
Flipping the script on climate change, Eisenstein makes a case for a wholesale reimagining of the framing, tactics, and goals we employ in our journey to heal from ecological destruction.
With research and insight, Charles Eisenstein details how the quantification of the natural world leads to a lack of integration and our “fight” mentality. With an entire chapter unpacking the climate change denier’s point of view, he advocates for expanding our exclusive focus on carbon emissions to see the broader picture beyond our short-sighted and incomplete approach. The rivers, forests, and creatures of the natural and material world are sacred and valuable in their own right, not simply for carbon credits or preventing the extinction of one species versus another. After all, when you ask someone why they first became an environmentalist, they’re likely to point to the river they played in, the ocean they visited, the wild animals they observed, or the trees they climbed when they were a kid. This refocusing away from impending catastrophe and our inevitable doom cultivates meaningful emotional and psychological connections and provides real, actionable steps to caring for the earth. Freeing ourselves from a war mentality and seeing the bigger picture of how everything from prison reform to saving the whales can contribute to our planetary ecological health, we resist reflexive postures of solution and blame and reach toward the deep place where commitment lives.
Charles Eisenstein explores the history and potential future of civilization, tracing the converging crises of our age to the illusion of the separate self. In this landmark book, Eisenstein explains how a disconnection from the natural world and one another is built into the foundations of civilization: into science, religion, money, technology, medicine, and education as we know them. As a result, each of these institutions faces a grave and growing crisis, fueling our near-pathological pursuit of technological fixes even as we push our planet to the brink of collapse.
Fortunately, an Age of Reunion is emerging out of the birth pangs of an earth in crisis. As our old constructs of self and world dissolve in crisis, we are entering a new narrative of interbeing, a more expansive sense of self, and a more ecological relationship to nature. Our darkest hour bears the possibility of a more beautiful world—not through the extension of millennia-old methods of management and control but by fundamentally reimagining ourselves and our systems. Breathtaking in its scope and intelligence, The Ascent of Humanity is a remarkable book showing what it truly means to be human.
Team Human is a manifesto―a fiery distillation of preeminent digital theorist Douglas Rushkoff’s most urgent thoughts on civilization and human nature. In one hundred lean and incisive statements, he argues that we are essentially social creatures and that we achieve our greatest aspirations when we work together―not as individuals. Yet today society is threatened by a vast antihuman infrastructure that undermines our ability to connect. Money, once a means of exchange, is now a means of exploitation; education, conceived as a way to elevate the working class, has become another assembly line; and the internet has only further divided us into increasingly atomized and radicalized groups.
Team Human delivers a call to arms. If we are to resist and survive these destructive forces, we must recognize that being human is a team sport. In Rushkoff’s own words: “Being social may be the whole point.” Harnessing wide-ranging research on human evolution, biology, and psychology, Rushkoff shows that when we work together we realize greater happiness, productivity, and peace. If we can find the others who understand this fundamental truth and reassert our humanity―together―we can make the world a better place to be human.
Two major works have been written within the framework of Integral Wisdom about the nature of Self and God. While they share important features, namely the evolutionary context of the conversation and a vision of Self beyond Ego, their interior visions of the quality of the Self beyond Ego are profoundly different. Both of these visions of Self-or key dimensions of the two versions-have been adopted, directly and indirectly by many spiritual teachers. In Self in Integral Evolutionary Mysticism – a clear and compelling work – Marc Gafni articulates the two models, their shared features, their differences and why-as we seek to articulate an Integral Wisdom-these differences matter so desperately.
Economics is the mother tongue of public policy. It dominates our decision-making for the future, guides multi-billion-dollar investments, and shapes our responses to climate change, inequality, and other environmental and social challenges that define our times.
Pity then, or more like disaster, that its fundamental ideas are centuries out of date yet are still taught in college courses worldwide and still used to address critical issues in government and business alike.
That’s why it is time, says renegade economist Kate Raworth, to revise our economic thinking for the 21st century. In Doughnut Economics, she sets out seven key ways to fundamentally reframe our understanding of what economics is and does. Along the way, she points out how we can break our addiction to growth; redesign money, finance, and business to be in service to people; and create economies that are regenerative and distributive by design.
Named after the now-iconic “doughnut” image that Raworth first drew to depict a sweet spot of human prosperity (an image that appealed to the Occupy Movement, the United Nations, eco-activists, and business leaders alike), Doughnut Economics offers a radically new compass for guiding global development, government policy, and corporate strategy, and sets new standards for what economic success looks like.
Raworth handpicks the best emergent ideas―from ecological, behavioral, feminist, and institutional economics to complexity thinking and Earth-systems science―to address this question: How can we turn economies that need to grow, whether or not they make us thrive, into economies that make us thrive, whether or not they grow?
Simple, playful, and eloquent, Doughnut Economics offers game-changing analysis and inspiration for a new generation of economic thinkers.
Choose your price. 75% complete.
This is a book about working in groups, based on 8 years experience in community projects and startups.
I’m not so interested in what you’re working on together, I’m just going to focus on how you do it. To my way of thinking, it doesn’t matter if you’re trying to build a better electric vehicle, or develop government policy, or blockade a pipeline; whenever you work with a group of people on a shared objective, there’s some stuff you’re going to deal with, some challenges. How do we decide what we’re working on? who does what? who can join our team? what are our expectations for each other? what happens when someone doesn’t fulfil those expectations? what do we do with disagreement? how do decisions get made?
I’m convinced there is not a “one size fits all” recipe, a management structure that you can take off the shelf and install in your collective or your company. But my hypothesis is that there are patterns: common design elements you can draw on as you construct a recipe that’s right for you. Each pattern in this book names a challenge that you are likely to face, and offers tools and techniques you can try in response to that challenge.
This is a book for community organisers, leaders, managers, consultants, coaches, facilitators, founders… if you work with groups of humans, these patterns apply to you.
Why publishing a work in progress?
This book is not 100% complete yet. My intention is to release it early, so I can improve it with your feedback. I’m eager to hear any comments you have after reading the book: do you have unanswered questions? are there any parts where the writing could be improved? do you want to share an insight with me? Join the conversation in our discussion group on Loomio: patterns.loomio.org
In the current era of increasing planetary interconnectedness, ecological theories and practices are called to become more inclusive, complex, and comprehensive. The diverse contributions to this book offer a range of integral approaches to ecology that cross the boundaries of the humanities and sciences and help us understand and respond to today’s ecological challenges. The contributors provide detailed analyses of assorted integral ecologies, drawing on such founding figures and precursors as Thomas Berry, Leonardo Boff, Holmes Rolston III, Ken Wilber, and Edgar Morin. Also included is research across the social sciences, biophysical sciences, and humanities discussing multiple worldviews and perspectives related to integral ecologies. The Variety of Integral Ecologies is both an accessible guide and an advanced supplement to the growing research for a more comprehensive understanding of ecological issues and the development of a peaceful, just, and sustainable planetary civilization.
Holacracy is a revolutionary management system that redefines management and turns everyone into a leader.
Holacracy distributes authority and decision-making throughout an organization, and defines people not by hierarchy and titles, but by roles. Holacracy creates organizations that are fast, agile, and that succeed by pursuing their purpose, not following a dated and artificial plan.
This isn’t anarchy – it’s quite the opposite. When you start to follow Holacracy, you learn to create new structures and ways of making decisions that empower the people who know the most about the work you do: your frontline colleagues.
Some of the many champions of Holacracy include Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com (author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Delivering Happiness), Evan Williams (co-founder of Blogger, Twitter, and Medium), and David Allen.
Does the science of evolution really prove that life, humanity, and the universe as a whole are meaningless accidents? On the contrary, as science has shown how everything in the universe is subject to evolution, including matter, life, and human culture, these very facts reveal that the process of evolution is unmistakably progressive. And, as Steve McIntosh demonstrates, when we come to see how evolution progresses, this reveals evolution’s purpose-to grow toward ever-widening realizations of beauty, truth, and goodness. McIntosh argues that the purpose of evolution is not intelligently designed or otherwise externally controlled; rather, its purpose is being creatively and originally discerned through the choices of the evolutionary creatures themselves. Without relying on spiritual authorities, the author shows how the scientific story of our origins is actually a profound and sacred teaching compatible with many forms of contemporary spirituality. Evolution’s Purpose: An Integral Interpretation of the Scientific Story of Our Origins presents a fresh and compelling view of evolutionary science and philosophy, and shows how a deeper understanding of evolution itself can lead directly to a more evolved world.
In most organizations nearly everyone is doing a second job no one is paying them for—namely, covering their weaknesses, trying to look their best, and managing other people’s impressions of them. There may be no greater waste of a company’s resources. The ultimate cost: neither the organization nor its people are able to realize their full potential.
What if a company did everything in its power to create a culture in which everyone—not just select “high potentials”—could overcome their own internal barriers to change and use errors and vulnerabilities as prime opportunities for personal and company growth?
Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey (and their collaborators) have found and studied such companies—Deliberately Developmental Organizations. A DDO is organized around the simple but radical conviction that organizations will best prosper when they are more deeply aligned with people’s strongest motive, which is to grow. This means going beyond consigning “people development” to high-potential programs, executive coaching, or once-a-year off-sites. It means fashioning an organizational culture in which support of people’s development is woven into the daily fabric of working life and the company’s regular operations, daily routines, and conversations.
How do societies go through major technological, economic and structural changes peacefully? The Nordic Secret explores how Denmark, Norway and Sweden went from poor feudal agricultural societies to rich industrialized democracies thanks to the German educational concept of Bildung. The book also investigates the close relationship between Bildung and contemporary developmental psychology, i.e. the concepts of “ego-development” and “transformative learning”. The Nordic Secret concludes with a discussion about what we can learn from this positive transformation and how to apply it in the current global crises.
Based on over twenty years of research and spiritual practice, Essential Spirituality a groundbreaking and life-changing book.
In his decades of study, Dr. Roger Walsh has discovered that each of the great spiritual traditions has both a common goal and seven common practices to reach that goal: recognizing the sacred and divine that exist both within and around us. Filled with stories, exercises, meditations, myths, prayers, and practical advice, Essential Spirituality shows how you can integrate these seven principles into one truly rewarding way of life in which kindness, love, joy, peace, vision, wisdom, and generosity become an ever-growing part of everything you do.
Using the designing and building of The Clock of the Long Now as a framework, this is a book about the practical use of long time perspective: how to get it, how to use it, how to keep it in and out of sight. Here are the central questions it inspires: How do we make long-term thinking automatic and common instead of difficult and rare? Discipline in thought allows freedom. One needs the space and reliability to predict continuity to have the confidence not to be afraid of revolutions Taking the time to think of the future is more essential now than ever, as culture accelerates beyond its ability to be measured Probable things are vastly outnumbered by countless near-impossible eventualities. Reality is statistically forced to be extraordinary; fiction is not allowed this freedom This is a potent book that combines the chronicling of fantastic technology with equally visionary philosophical inquiry.
The Zen of You and Me explains how to deal with interpersonal conflict–from a Zen perspective.
The people who get under your skin the most can, in fact, be your greatest teachers. It’s not a matter of overlooking differences, as is often taught, but of regarding those difficult aspects of the relationship with curiosity and compassion–for those very differences offer a path to profound connection. Diane Hamilton’s practical, reality-based guide to living harmoniously with even your most irritating fellow humans—spouses, partners, colleagues, parents, children–shows that “getting along” is really a matter of discovering that our differences are nothing other than an expression of our even deeper shared unity.
Beyond the Basin achieves what has rarely been attempted before – to reconcile the ineffable ego-dissolving experience of psychedelic drugs with written language, all the while maintaining the pace and structure of a more traditional novel.
In Nordic Ideology, the anticipated sequel to The Listening Society, the great philosopher Hanzi Freinacht strikes again from his refuge in the Alps—now with a yet bolder mission: to write social and political theory as a page-turner.
This book can be read independently of the first one and it outlines a path to a metamodern society, emerging from the Nordic countries—one that emerges from, but ultimately cancels and outcompetes modern society as we know it, while saving the world-system from collapse. How can this be achieved?
Here, things get real.
Not only do you get an overview of how society develops—what is higher freedom, deeper equality, a more intricate order of self-organization?—you get an actual plan-of-action for how to transform all of society and the people in it; indeed, even a strategy for how to organize and take charge of political development.
Loved and despised, Hanzi leaves few readers untouched. No issue is too controversial, no source of knowledge taboo; while committed to deep democracy and freedom, Hanzi does not shy away from learning from the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century. And indeed, the power of his vision, and the six new forms of metamodern politics introduced in the book, compels readers to act—to actualize the vision, or to stop the metamodernists at any cost.
Serious meets fun, as sincerity meets irony, as politics meets poetry in this magisterial work of a unique and dangerous rebel scholar.
With 800+ pages, this is not a light read. It’s been both very highly applauded and significantly criticised. Yet it remains a foundational, must-read work for anyone with a serious interest in consciousness and evolution.
Publisher’s Description:
In this tour de force of scholarship and vision, Ken Wilber traces the course of evolution from matter to life to mind and describes the common patterns that evolution takes in all three of these domains. From the emergence of mind, he traces the evolution of human consciousness through its major stages of growth and development. He particularly focuses on modernity and postmodernity: what they mean; how they impact gender issues, psychotherapy, ecological concerns, and various liberation movements; and how the modern and postmodern world conceives of Spirit. This second edition features forty pages of new material, new diagrams, and extensively revised notes.
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The first part of the book justifies it’s positioning as being about politics, although the substance of his conception of a new politics comes in Book Two. But Hanzi also breaks new ground in this first volume by proposing an enhanced – and very compelling – model of human development. Those familiar with Spiral Dynamics, other stages models and the states and stages ideas from Integral Theory will be delighted/dismayed/incensed or otherwise emotionally impacted by his critiques and his new model. (But be warned – you need to get through the barriers he throws up in the early parts of the book.)