KW Goes Ballistic -

 Has anyone else here been following the fallout of Ken Wilber's June 8th Blog post?

 and the follow-up to it..

My response:

Just read it! Fun to see Wilber in his less stuffy state.

I've studied SD in depth. One thing I know about the Yellow vMeme is that anger is one of its hallmarks. Often anger at the sheer blindness and distructiveness of the 1st Tier. It's basically pent up frustration. Understandable.

It looks like Wilber has "Put his anger to work for him", as the psycho-therapists might say. He's angry AND he's used it to unleash a polemic to get our attention - and get forums like this one buzzing about it. Also very Yellow. 

Another thing that therapists often remind us of is that when we list other's faults, we're really listing our own. (There was a funny scene on Huff about this recently, btw)

KW says his critics' work is "spiked with such anger, seasoned with such bitterness, laced with such self-aggrandizement, and drunk so slowly and lingeringly, this draught of deep resentiment."

Gosh, sounds like he's describing himself! ;-)

OK, I can't resist posing my next point (Call me a jerk if you want):

"The Mean Green Meme" is very judgmental about anyone who doesn't agree with it. Could this polemic really be a smoke screen for Wilber's own Mean Green Shadow? Our rejected vMemes take on shadow-like qualities.

I've always thought the phrase, "Mean Green Meme" sounds pretty judgmental, even tho 2nd Tier is supposed to rise above all that.

One thing that I know from coaching many people who are teetering between 1st and 2nd Tier vMeme stacks, is that they may hold very high memetic values, but under stress, they often express their lower vmemes unconsciously.

"Transcend and include" means you've still got 'em and in a moment of unconsciousness, you may fall into expressing something a bit below your true values and even kid yourself that you're actually being conscious. This is linked to what I call Spiritual Puberty (and yes, I do it, too sometimes!)

We're all doing the best we can. Wilber included. Being in the midst of human culture, it's hard for any of us to always have the helicopter view, especially when we're stressed, exhausted or have any of our needs unmet. (Like a need to be respected, for instance) That's got to be true for KW, too.

That's why, as a coach, I believe so strongly in Radical Self Care, because when we are well cared for, we are able to show up at our best much more consistently and for people who are anywhere near the "Great leap forward" between the 1st and 2nd Tier, this waffling can be especially dramatic. Please join my pod of the same name. (OK, I guess that was a shameless plug!)

Copyright, Julia Stewart, 2006

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