The following is one of the more controversial posts on this
site. Please enjoy but with a warning: without giving too much away, please be
advised that while Tom is definitely serious about the basic content and ideas,
both the tone and the language were selected for a reason, so don't get your
feathers ruffled. Read on....--The Editor
Contrary to what I said in my prior post, "Is Zaadz a Den of Rattlesnakes!?" was never intended as a test and I was never in contact with Ken Wilber.
Is Zaadz a Den of Rattlesnakes!? is a rambling, poorly constructed statement of what I believed at the time I wrote it and I support what it says now. It is about groups and that a scientist who studies groups tells us that the insular nature of groups creates friction rather than what we suppose -- that friction within society creates a need for insular groups. It is also about some creepy groups that remind me a little of Zaadz - which has a mission and plan that are cartoonish. I have no doubt that the way I wrote my essay, and defended it, tags me for being first tier. But my post has the virtue of being an authentic, straightforward statement of what I think on a topic and a situation which I believe is important. It is true that when I wrote my essay I also had I-I in the back of my mind.
I am somewhat sorry I wrote the post “The Rattlesnake post was A TEST.” The devil made me do it. But "Is Zaadz a Den of Rattlesnakes!?" is a test - an authentic, unintended one - as much as was Wilber’s semi-fraud of a post, using bloggers as guinea pigs. The response to IZaDoR!? was as feather ruffling as Wilber’s Earp post, only instead of revealing possible deficiencies and spiritual weaknesses in integral-interested bloggers, it revealed nastiness and groupthink in the heart of Zaadz. There’s no getting away from it. The lesson – it seems to me – is that groups that endeavor to be insular create groupthink that intensifies discord. We see this in Wilber's 'Real Meaning' post, where Wilber finds, naturally, that a majority at I-I agree with any fool thing he wants to do. The integral-interested blogosphere, more laudably, is a rabble of independent thinkers, swimming in the Internet Ocean instead of some inland, walled-off social-networking zoo or Maoist temple.
To the credit of the integral-interested blogosphere, in which I include myself as a marginal member, I don’t know any one of us who have committed statutory rape, and, other than ~C4Chaos, none of are insiders to a cult of personality. Also, none of us sign our names with an unlucky number and only one of us carries an octopus on his shoulder.
I am fully aware that that last paragraph, and most or all of this post, is ordinary-minded, not Big Minded in the way it's written. But I think y'all can handle it without getting your feathers mussed.
I think it is sad, but in the end a good thing, that Wilber's Earp post is chasing Bill Lalonde, Bill Harryman and me, each in different ways, away from Wilberism. I think that the Earp post and its followup is a failure from any perspective, but it would be impossible for anybody close to Wilber to tell him this.
