Dear David B.,
Referring to your 8/6 15:00 -0600 posting:
I agree that the distinction between mythic thinking and rational thinking
is an important one and is related to political positions (as you argued in
previous posts). I don't think it is wise to associate them with social
thinking and intellectual thinking (with Pirsig's quality levels) however.
They are just 2 out of at least 8 of Wilber's levels of consciousness. (They
were described by John B. 25/3 5:20 +1000: color coded as beige, purple,
red, blue, orange, green, yellow and turquoise. I copy the relevant part of
his posting underneath.) Why are you drawing the line between Pirsig's 3rd
and 4th levels between Wilber's 4th and 5th and not somewhere else? Where
would you draw the line between Pirsig's biological and social levels or
between his inorganic and biological levels in Wilber's coding system? And
which of Wilber's levels would go beyond Pirsig's intellectual level?
I think you run into problems this way. You implicitly undervalue the
distinctions between some of Wilber's levels of consciousness relative to
the distinctions you associate with distinctions between Pirsig's quality
levels. I prefer to see all of Wilber's levels of consciousness as a
subdivision of Pirsig's intellectual level of values.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
>From John B.'s 25/3 5:20 +1000 posting:
Ken Wilber has used the spiral dynamics colour coding to chart the state of
our world in terms of individual moral development. He suggests that the
archaic-instinctual level, (beige) where survival is dominant, influences
only about .1% of the adult population, which has virtually no power. The
magical-animistic level, (purple) dominant in ethnic tribes, affects perhaps
10% of the world's population, but exerts only 1% of the power. What he
calls the level of the power gods (red) where the powerful impulsive self
arises, and each person struggles to survive in a 'jungle' world, is
dominant in perhaps 20% of the population, and claims perhaps 5% of the
power. (Lila belongs here.) Mythic order (blue) dominates where there are
rigid social hierarchies, visible in such forms as religious fundamentalism,
patriotism, and the 'moral majority'. It claims perhaps 40% of the
population, with about 30% of the power. (Rigel fits here.) Corporate states
are based on the (orange) level of scientific achievement, rational,
individualistic, and competitive. While encompassing only 30% of the
population, it exerts about 50% of the power. (I would place Pirsig, 'the
captain', here, though with some provisos.) The emergence of the (green)
sensitive self which builds value communities is characteristic of many
relatively modern movements, including deep ecology, humanistic psychology,
liberation theology and human rights groups. While only 10% of the adult
world population, it exerts perhaps 15% of the power.
These levels form what Wilber calls 'first tier' consciousness. 'Second
tier' consciousness is a 'momentous leap' into levels where thinking expands
both vertically and horizontally, using both ranking and linking to "vividly
grasp the entire spectrum of interior development, and thus see that each
level, each meme, each wave is crucially important for the health of the
overall Spiral." ('A Theory of Everything', p 11) At the integrative
(yellow) level, "knowledge and competency should supersede power, status, or
group sensitivity", and excellence is the goal. With only 1% of the
population, it exerts perhaps 5% of the power. Finally the (turquoise)
holistic level, uniting feeling with knowledge, and possibly including a new
spirituality, involves just .1% of the population, with perhaps 1% of the
power.
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