Doesn't Integral = Growth?

If so, don't current events disprove it?

I’ve been wondering about something we’ve been talking about. You say that Integral Theory has revealed that evolution is inevitable and that, while the “arc of justice” slowly bends up, how is that showing up now?

This is a good question; on my bad days¹ I wonder the same thing. Let’s look at a concept we discussed in Development, Evolution, Hierarchy and Holarchy: how I framed the difference between development and evolution. As individuals, we develop through stages of increasing capability and maturity to deal with increasing complexity and difficulty in life. As a culture—and let’s just look at the US—it evolves more slowly through the same stages². It will take many lifetimes for our culture to get to the stage many achieve in a lifetime. The result of this “achievement gap” is akin to trying to change the direction of an ocean liner with a rowboat. Before that image gets you down, remember Michelle Obama’s advice:

“Don’t just sit around and complain. Do something!”

A Hallmark moment.

Maybe she was talking to you! Our votes might be drops in a bucket, but we have to put them in the bucket that leads to growth.

What about Barack Obama? Wasn’t he supposed to be our savior? He sure didn’t get much done.

I know a few people who now have health care insurance who would be willing to argue with you, but I think we make a lousy argument when we say he was a failure given the cards he was dealt. I’m speaking of a House and Senate that could barely pass some of his proposals and then lost their majorities for their efforts. Obama was not as skilled at legislating, which is often the case for presidents with limited prior experience. (For contrast, look at Biden’s successes.)

From a developmental perspective, I think Obama may have been too far ahead of American culture. While he was a terrific campaigner, he did not attend to or foresee the need to do the grunt work of creating strong Democratic majorities, starting in 2010 when Republicans began taking over state legislatures. That led to an explosion of gerrymandering and the resulting Republican strength in the House. It’s a long story, but Republicans did the grunt work, and Democrats have paid for it for the last 15 years.

From an Integral perspective, an Integral Wizard³ would see this issue from multiple levels:

• Blue/traditional: recruit young idealists willing to do the leg work of building infrastructure to connect with voters, understand them, build relationships, and make sure electeds provide promised services after the elections. (Democrats are learning fast, and the Harris/Walz campaign has recruited lots of fresh energy.)

• Orange/modern: recruit the analytic and communications specialists who develop the databases that support candidates and detect emerging trends. This stage relies more on data and analysis and less on emotional reactions, which can be erratic. (It appears the Democratic Parry has the advantage of people able to keep their heads better than Republicans this year.)

• Green/postmodern: Democrats have deeper relationships with minorities and women, but they are in danger of overplaying this hand. The binary thinking that drives progressives to blame white men for most of our social problems is self-defeating, especially in a year when a woman heads the ticket. Greens need to better understand and reach white voters, especially men and conservative Christians (some of whom are having second thoughts about Trump).

• Yellow/integral: the multi-perspectival understanding of each level in the populace can help develop a strategy to appeal to coalition-building across all levels. I see examples of this behavior, like the discipline of Democratic campaigns to forego reactive ad hominem attacks⁴.

OK, but the election is over soon. This is a longer-term problem than just this election, and when I consider that, I get discouraged.

You are right, and that takes me back to Michelle Obama’s instruction: “Do something.” Of course, what we do needs to be aligned with life-supporting values. And each day, regardless of whether yesterday was good or bad, we figure out what our next best step is today: try the same thing again until we get it right or try something new.

1. My version of a bad day is reading too much doom and gloom news—external stuff—or hungry, angry, lonely, tired, or scared—internal stuff.

2. It’s easy to forget that it has evolved: the abolition of slavery and women’s right to vote. Only slightly faster than the receding of the last Ice Age, but in the right direction.

3. “Integral Wizard” is my version of “Spiral Wizard,” a term from the author of Spiral Dynamics, Don Beck. This is a person who has developed Tier 2 capabilities, especially the objective and compassionate ability to accept and work with people at all levels of development.

4. This does not preclude responding to personal attacks. It just means keeping the policy interests of voters above winning “gotcha” skirmishes.