~C4Chaos

“During the many years that I have been familiar with Ken Wilber’s writings, I have often wondered what a trained academic philosopher would make of them… With Bald Ambition, we finally have a detailed answer to this question.” – Contextualizing Ken

A friend sent me a link to Andrew Smith’s detailed review of Jeff Meyerhoff’s Bald Ambition. Lots of good stuff to take note of. The review is extensive and delves into critical perspectives (where Andrew sneaked in his own criticisms of Wilber). It touches on a lot of my own personal questions on Wilber’s model. But then again, I have no illusion that Wilber’s model is the all and be all (and, um, i’m not in a “cult,” in a negative sense of the word that is.). In my opinion, when everything is said and done, it boils down to our own subjective preferences (as influenced by the collective). I personally find Wilber’s Integral Model to be comforting at my own “stage” of development. Yes, I want to see the model be thought in academia and be peer-reviewed to death. But I also like the subjective gems to be honored and practiced, integral, or otherwise.

…the real intent of my writing is not to say, you must think in this way. The real intent is: here are some of the many important facets of this extraordinary Kosmos; have you thought about including them in your own worldview? My work is an attempt to make room in the Kosmos for all of the dimensions, levels, domains, waves, memes, modes, individuals, cultures, and so on ad infinitum. I have one major rule: Everybody is right. More specifically, everybody–including me–has some important pieces of truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace. To Freudians I say, Have you looked at Buddhism? To Buddhists I say, Have you studied Freud? To liberals I say, Have you thought about how important some conservative ideas are? To conservatives I say, Can you perhaps include a more liberal perspective? And so on, and so on, and so on…. At no point I have ever said: Freud is wrong, Buddha is wrong, liberals are wrong, conservatives are wrong. I have only suggested that they are true but partial. My critical writings have never attacked the central beliefs of any discipline, only the claims that the particular discipline has the only truth–and on those grounds I have often been harsh. But every approach, I honestly believe, is essentially true but partial, true but partial, true but partial.

And on my own tombstone, I dearly hope that someday they will write: He was true but partial….