Until: a blog by Joe Perez

Ali Eteraz, writing on Huffington Post:

For many years, the United States has been suffering from political nihilism — disbelief in its institutions.

I have seen political nihilism in various countries around the world. It manifests itself as a form of futility, the feeling that one cannot recover from what is ailing the people.

Two common results occur. The people either find escape from themselves by embracing the mundane or they lash out in frustration against others. In Muslim countries, the mundane is an unhealthy obsession with the arcane points of Islamic jurisprudence, and the frustration is directed towards America, Israel and women. In the American context, the mundane is an unhealthy obsession with meaningless celebrities, and frustration is directed towards Iraq, Iran and women.

How are we to clamber out of our psychological doldrums? What is the best way to push back against our political nihilism?

The answer is to vote for Barack Obama.

I’ll grant Eteraz one thing: Obama is something of a Rorschach ink blot, and people have projected a great many things upon him. So if Eteraz is a Nietzschean himself, it’s no wonder he sees Obama as a fellow Nietzschean. If I am an Integralist myself, it’s no surprise that I see Obama as a fellow Integralist. And so on.

Eteraz overstates the foundational assumption of his post: that America is a nihlistic nation. We are a diverse country with many different colors of the evoloutionary rainbow: purple tribalists, true blue believers, orange rationalists, green pluralists. And everyone believes in something, some core principles that keep our institutions going and our democracy one of the healthiest on earth. And yet there’s no doubt that a high degree of cynicism infects our politics, particularly among the Starbucks-drinking, wne-wipping, Prius-driving intellectual elite  (Eteraz?) who comprise Obama’s political base. And the solution for cynicism is to believe in something, passionately.

Obama’s movement gives America something to believe in: ourselves, and our ability to come together as a nation to enact progress. And an action that we can concretely take to express our belief: vote for him. Eteraz unwisely focuses his attention on the messenger rather than the message, and he concludes that the solution is to vote for the candidate who makes his own meaning by forging his own biography as Art:

This endorsement is not based on personal preference, or for that matter, Obama’s policies. For this endorsement, it would not matter if Obama was a hard-right conservative or an ultra-leftist. Rather, Obama should be elected because he is Nietzschean.

That’s precisely the wrong reason to support Obama. Obama’s significance doesn’t lie in his ability to individually forge a persona as a superman, a work of Art whose signifcance lies in the creator’s own will to power. Obama’s significance lies in his creation of a movement which aligns the goals of political progressivism with an evolutionary philosophy and a movement of individuals empowered to put the common good ahead of their own individual self-advancement.

Whatever becomes of Obama the man, the direction he has forged in American politics provides a new groove for our moment of evolving consciousness. Future politicians at every level of local, state, national, and perhaps even international government can align themselves with a philosophy that is broadly Obamanian: politically progressive, temperamentally conservative, ideologically Integral, grassroots-oriented, and rhetorically inspirational.

The downsides of dwelling on the unfortunate messianic aspects of Obama’s politics (its nexus in a charismatic leader) should be obvious to everyone, if for no other reason than the unfortunate ways that Nietzschean ideologies may be co-opted by politically totalitarian regimes such as the Nazis. Obama isn’t Nietzschean, but post-Nietzschean in the manner that any Integral politician must be.

Paul Waldman deconstructs Code Pink.

What worked for the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s is not going to work today. And the truth is that comparing the civil-rights marches to a bunch of people carrying signs with “No more war!” on one side and “Free Mumia!” on the other is an insult to everyone who took part in the civil-rights movement. The civil-rights activists weren’t just looking to feel good about themselves. The political actions they undertook were carefully planned and well executed. They knew exactly which levers of mass and elite opinion they needed to press and how to do it. They weren’t trotting off for a Sunday to hang with some friends and speak their minds — they were engaged in a deadly, serious enterprise, one with enormous personal risks, and they approached it with the seriousness it required.

Any effective political movement has to engage its participants in a way that makes them feel their contributions are meaningful and redefines their sense of self. But if those contributions aren’t actually meaningful, if they amount to an extended series of circle jerks that accomplish nothing, then the movement will inevitably be confined to a small group of self-deluding members with a lot of time on their hands. There are tens of millions of Americans who want to end the war in Iraq. But how many of them see something like Code Pink protesting a Marine recruiting station and say to themselves, “I want to be a part of that“?

I haven’t had the time to blog much this week, but I do make the occasional comment or quasi-blog post at Talking Points Memo. Here are a few recent thoughts:

We Must Not Overreact to the Wright Controversy, But Renew Our Goal of Party Unity

Here we stand, Democrats facing two crucial recent developments. With the news that revotes in Florida and Michigan are extremely unlikely, it has become virtually impossible for Hillary Clinton to win the deleate race or the popular vote. At the same time, the Wright controversy has seriously wounded Obama. Could we have reached the point where the party has finally settled on a nominee, but that nominee is so tarnished that he is virtually unelectable in the fall?

Response to “Obama was not a Unifier yesterday. He was a Pied Piper doing damage control.”

I was a Clinton supporter until shortly before Super Tuesday. Obama won me over, and I’m still with him despite my chagrin over the Wright controversy. Here’s what I hope you’ll consider regarding your argument:

(a) Obama’s taken the perfect stance advocated by the Christian injunction to “condemn the sin, but love the sinner”. Everything about Wright’s extremism there is to condemn, he has condemned. But he continues to love Wright as a man who has done much good in the world despite his loopy views. Can you not consider embracing Obama, even if you may disagree with his choice of pastor?

Response to “Full Text Of Obama’s Big Race Speech: A Big Break With Political Precedent”

Loved this speech. Love Obama. I share his hope that America is ready for this level of nuance, sophistication, ready for a leader bearing this advanced form of “Integral consciousness” as Ken Wilber would say, but then again, dullness and ignorance and poor old John McCain may yet win this battle. This just makes me want to work harder to win this crucial election.

Just when you might have thought you couldn’t stand another vapid rah-rah-Obama missive in the blogosphere comes something far more intelligent and convincing. Obama receives a compelling testimonial essay from Cass Sunstein, a prominent law professor at The University of Chicago:

This is the Barack Obama I have known for nearly 15 years — a careful and evenhanded analyst of law and policy, unusually attentive to multiple points of view.

The University of Chicago Law School is by far the most conservative of the great American law schools. It helped to provide the academic foundations for many positions of the Reagan administration.

But at the University of Chicago, Obama is liked and admired by both Republicans and Democrats. Some local Reagan enthusiasts are Obama supporters. Why? It doesn’t hurt that he’s a great guy, with a personal touch and a lot of warmth. It certainly helps that he is exceptionally able.

But niceness and ability are only part of the story. Obama has a genuinely independent mind, he’s a terrific listener and he goes wherever reason takes him.

Jim Naughton of The Lead predicts that in the months ahead conservative Christians will begin an assault on the orthodoxy of the United Church of Christ … all as an attempt to portray Barack Obama as not “really” Christian. He’s right.

It’s now clear that Barack Obama has a secret weapon in his war for the Democratic nomination for president. He intends to remain calmly and cooly above the fray of his opponent’s daily attacks on his past, his resume, his readiness, and his plans. But he uses surrogates — some are third parties completely unrelated to his official campaign — to amp up the vitriol, hatred, viciousness, ferocity, lies, and distortion against his Democratic rival. Of course, I’m thinking about the now unreadable though ever popular blog of Andrew Sullivan, a self-styled Obamaniac who has shamefully allowed his blog to morph from The Daily Dush to ObamaCentral to Hillary Haters R Us.

I don’t know what Obama is to do with supporters like these who personify “polarizing” even while decrying the polarizing politics of the past. They are seemingly beyond rational persuasion or repentance. I only hope that their influence on real voters is very small and they won’t make a difference. Because it seems to me they are much more likely to ramp up Democratic resistance and anger towards Obama (already heightened by the widespread fear of “cultism” among his supporters) rather than sway any truly reasonable independents. Sullivan and his ilk count themselves as Obama’s friends, but if they don’t change their tone (at least during the Democratic nomination process), I’m afraid they could help to sink him.

Obama’s already accepted the resignation of one surrogate who called Hillary a “monster”. Would it be too much to ask for Obama to have a Sister Soljah moment where he asks his Sullivanesque supporters in the media and blogosphere (who virtually every day call the Clintons much worse than ‘monsters’) to rise above the politics of the past? Let’s hope so.

on April 11-15, an event which should be very close to being a must-see event for Buddhists and other spiritual enthusiasts. I would love to watch video or read transcripts of any of his speeches, though I doubt very much that I will attend … unless it is to join any gay/LGBT protesters who want to call attention to the Dali Lama’s disturbing erotophobic and homophobic teachings. (For example, in 1997, he condemned and prohibited all forms of sex other than penile-vaginal sex for Buddhists, whether between heterosexuals or homosexuals.)

Perhaps the world needs more of the compassion he advocates, but we need even more truly evolved forms of compassion that have moved beyond the anti-sex and anti-gay origins of Buddhist culture. For sure, it’s hard to see how traditional Tibetan Buddhism could be reformed to be less anti-sex without seriously challenging many centuries of its teaching. More integrally informed Buddhism will have to rely more upon the teachings of marginalized, esoteric strains of the Buddhist religion … and look even-handedly on the Dalai Lama as not only a great spiritual teacher, but a guardian of a rigid mythic-membership orthodoxy that perpetuates a variety of unfortunate cultural and social structures.

from Seattle where he is already missed by his many friend in Seattle Integral (not the least of which, ME!).

His blog has got a new name, too. I respect his choice of a name that suits his current temperament — hell, blogging’s mostly about self-expression, right? — though I must admit my befuddlement when folks who have been reading integral theory for several years start speaking mostly to only those folks already wading knee-deep in the thicket rather than attempting to meet the 95%-plus folks who still have much learning to do before they really grasp Integral for the first time. All this “beyond integral” talk seems to be too much like speaking only to the initiated and their very narrow and peculiar concerns rather than striving to reach beyond where it’s really needed. Too bad.

Robb Smith has a list of some of the qualities associated with having an integral consciousness. Including:

1. Aware of different subjective realities: Different people live in different worlds, literally. That is, we each “enact” a different worldspace in which we operate. Human beings are not delusional, but we do have fundamentally different answers to really big questions upon which our lives are based: What is real? What is good? What is true? What is beautiful? Integrally-aware people respect that human beings are acculturated in very different ways and therefore hold completely different answers to these questions, and this in turn creates different fundamental realities in which they live. (And different political views, moral views, spiritual views, etc.)

2. Capable of fluid perspective-taking: Real peace of mind calls for mental freedom, which only comes from the capacity to take different, and varied, perspectives. Fluid perspective-taking is a capacity that yields true compassion, love and ultimately inner and outer peace. Integrally-aware people tend to accept and honor other people’s view of reality while also helping to open them up to broader perspective-taking capabilities themselves.

3. Integrated (and not fragmented) in their lives: Integrally-aware people view the fragmentation that pervades all levels of life - personal, familial, religious, political, media, etc. - as the inability to hold different perspectives in order to work through different realities. Integrally-aware people tend to have a comprehensive way to integrate these different domains rather than engage in the typical “culture wars.”  

Sounds about right to me. More here…

Steve Clemons looks into the crystal ball at Huffington Post, first exploring Clinton as a VP contender and then noting:

[R]umors are afoot that “her friends” are paving the way for her to ascend to Senate Majority Leader. Some tried to engineer this before her decision to run. Now they are at it again.

And to some degree, I am hearing from senior Democrats that this move would be welcomed by most in the party — by just about everyone except the John Bolton-hugging Chuck Schumer, who wants the Majority Leader position himself. But in a contest, Clinton would beat Schumer.

Durbin also wants the job and is close to Barack Obama, but Obama needs Clinton’s support and cooperation if he takes the nomination and eventually the White House — and that can only happen if he puts her on his ticket as VP or helps engineer her move to Senate Majority Leader.

Let me add my voice to the chorus of Democrats eager to see Senator Hillary Clinton in the role of VP (on an Obama-Clinton ticket) or, even more appealingly, Senate Majority Leader.

To be sure, the VP role is an extreme longshot. Obama probably wouldn’t offer it. And she probably wouldn’t accept it. But it is beyond question that she has many assets that would accrue benefit to Obama’s campaign, including her ability to unify and heal a divided Democratic primary after a long-fought primary season.

My bottom line: assuming the nomination is Obama’s, he should have free reign to pick whoever he thinks he’s best suited to work with in that capacity. I don’t think he’ll pick Clinton, but if he does, I wouldn’t second guess his choice.

Clinton would make a great Senate Majority Leader. And this prospect, more than anything, would make me an even more enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama’s.

Why? Quite simply, my main disagreement with Obama is his failure to offer a truly universal health care proposal. Sadly, I feel he has resorted to the “old politics” of polls-over-principles and triangulation to conclude that universal health care isn’t popular enough to win the support of the American people after a concerted Republican attack on mandates. He’s wrong.

But one of the virtues of the American political system is that it’s Congress that makes policy, not the president. With Hillary Clinton as Senate Majority Leader under a president Obama, America has its greatest hope of achieving truly universal health care.

Here’s a review of Soulfully Gay by Toby Johnson. One paragraph:

Soulfully Gay is itself a work of art. It is a sort of diary, organized by date, through which Perez recounts to himself—and his readers, of course—the events that have led him from being a devout Catholic youth from a working class background to a Harvard student studying comparative religion to sexual rebel and crystal meth user to AIDS survivor and then AIDS patient himself to mental patient to mystic to philosopher. It comes as no surprise, then that one of the crucial events in his life was a nervous breakdown during which he imagined his life was being made into a movie called The Seeker. The most skillful, soulful story-telling gimmick of the book is the gradual unreeling of this narrative, building up to a final climax that is part Buddhist mystic vision and part Thelma & Louise.

Tucked within the autobiography are several very interesting discussions of Gay spirituality. Perez’s primary insight, he says—and I’d agree—is what he calls “The Importance of Being Gay.” In a series of six short essays he argues that there are four universal, archetypal patterns that necessarily play out in human consciousness. These are masculine, feminine, other-directed and same-directed. Love, he says, is not just an emotion or a sexual dynamic, but rather a manifestation of the soul’s desire to be reunited with God—and this is how God loves: in love of others (heterophilia) and in love of self (homophilia). It is these archetypal patterns that result in humans being male, female, heterosexual and homosexual. The model very nicely places homosexuality as simply part of the way things are. And that insight eases homophobia and fear. Another layer of his model includes how fear is also other-directed and same-directed. Either way it is assuaged with truth.

Picture a disembodied mind, conventionally constituted, educated in science and philosophy of the modern secular West, convinced of the universality of rationality, the dignity of its own lonely suffering, and ultimately its own moral superiority in a world of apparently inferior intellects. Sum up a short statement of its philosophy of life, put it in simple words, and you might find something beautiful yet partial, like this recent blog post of Julian’s:

There being reasons for things happening is not the same as everything happening for a reason.

Cause and effect is indisputable, yet completely compatible with chaos.

Look behind the belief in divine causation and you’ll find the denial of chaos, suffering and meaninglessness.

Yet without accepting the reality of chaos, suffering and meaninglessness, the truly organized, compassionate and meaningful cannot be fully perceived.

Thus the denial of the meaningless robs us of the ability to perceive true meaning.

The denial of chaos obscures the true wonder of intelligent organization.

The denial of suffering makes compassion appear less essential.

The denial of death dulls our experience of aliveness.

More…

Relativize that heartfelt expression, dignify its truth as an aspect of a partially valid worldview, situate it in a second discourse which identifies its own context as one that is able to transcend and include the first discourse, and then refuse the trap of either (a) dismissing the relative truth-value of the second discourse, or (b) asserting a universalized and metaphysicalized superiority for the second discourse, and you find something like this recent post of Balder’s, itself a response to Julian’s blog post:

The intersubjective is a constitutive part of all subjectively and objectively disclosed phenomena.

There is no single pre-given world that exists independently of all perspectives … only worldspaces enacted by sentient beings.

There are no such things as interpretationless facts or purely physical objects. 

Every “real” object in the known world is, in part, a construction of the knowing subject.

When we interpret any given worldspace (or artifact of that worldspace) as “reality as it is,” we fall prey to the myth of the given.

The myth of the given is the failure to recognize and acknowledge the Kosmic addresses of perceiver and perceived, which are constitutive factors in the enactment of any particular worldspace (and the objects “therein”).

The claim that there are “simple facts” which exist independently of worldviews and contextualizing perspectives, while an understandable attempt to provide firm grounding, is ironically a claim which is not adequately grounded because it fails to disclose (and does not consider relevant) the Kosmic address from which the claim is being made.

Simply put, the assertion that there are universally valid, perspective-free, interpretation-free foundational elements of reality is pure metaphysics. 

More…

Does Barack Obama hide his support for LGBT civil rights issues? 

Dear Editor of the SGN:

I want to thank you for Beau Burriola’s column “A Queer note to Barack Obama” (2/22/08). I think Beau speaks for many of us when he expresses his disappointment that Senator Obama, like every other major party candidate for president, has not expressed his support for full marriage equality for LGBT persons.

However, Beau makes a few points that aren’t quite as helpful or accurate as they could have been. Although I’m not affiliated with the Obama campaign, I’m an Obama supporter and a delegate from a precinct of the 43rd Legislative District. Let me set a few points straight.

The main point of Beau’s column seems to be his cllaim that Obama’s Website “omit[s] any mention of equality as it matters to the Gay community” Unfortunately, I think Beau might have missed the right page. From www.barackobama.com, click on the People tab, and then click on LGBT.

Far from hiding his support for the LGBT community, Obama’s detailed position papers are prominently displayed for everyone to see. It’s true as Beau says that the LGBT information is not displayed under the Issues tab of the Website (so far as I can tell), so I’ve written to the Obama campaign to suggest that they add cross-references to the relevant information to aid people in discovering it.

In my opinion, Obama would make a great president to advance the cause of LGBT equality. He would end the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the military, support civil unions for same-sex couples, sign anti-discrimination and hate crimes legislation. He would also dramatically improve the lives of all people living with HIV and other chronic health challenges by forbidding insurance companies to discriminate against persons with pre-existing conditions, and he would provide subsidies for disabled people living with AIDS to pay for their health insurance if they want to go back work.

I hope you’ll set the record straight regarding Obama’s support for LGBT equality, and I would encourage Beau to not stop searching for answers to his questions about Obama’s commitment to gay rights. I believe that while no major presidential candidate has a perfect record, Obama could be just the president our community has been hoping for.

Pegged as the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama seems to be relishing his new role as the soon-to-be-crowned presidential nominee. He closes the gap with Clinton on support from the powerful superdelegates. He has taken a confident, cautious tone in his recent debate with Hillary Clinton. And his campaign ignores salvoes from John McCain, right-wing bloggers, and even the Republican National Committee.

But there’s plenty that could still go wrong to derail his nomination, not to mention his general election campaign. If he loses upcoming primaries in Texas and Ohio or there is a sudden shift of a couple of hundred undecided superdelegates, Clinton could regain the frontrunner status once again. And if prominent party leaders such as Al Gore come down on the side of seating the Florida and Michigan delegations (can anyone honestly imagine Gore taking up the cause of disenfranchising Florida voters??!!), then Clinton could add 366 delegates to her column. All bets that Oprah Winfrey will be dancing with glee at the inaugural ball would be off.

What could shift Obama’s fortunes so suddenly?

First, the revelation of a major scandal. Salacious rumors that have lurked menacingly on the Internet but have remained beneath the media’s radar screen could yet wage a devastating sneak attack, if the mainstream media becomes persuaded that there may be something to them.

Second, the candidate could commit a humiliating unforced gaffe that could undermine his image as a potential commander-in-chief. While it’s hard to imagine what that gaffe might be, one should be frightened by the fallout from Michelle Obama’s recent patriotism gaffe. As bad as that one has been, imagine the fallout if Barack himself had said he’d never been proud of his country until he started beating Clinton.

Third, a major national security threat timed to coincide with the upcoming primaries could refocus the electorate’s attention on Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience. If combined with a gaffe on Obama’s part or an especially commanding response from Clinton, voters could begin to see Clinton as a stronger force to reckon with war hero McCain.

Fourth, Hillary Clinton’s campaign cannot be counted out. She has managed to score impressive and unexpected victories before, and it’s always possible she could turn the tide once again.

While I don’t consider any of these possibilities likely, it is worth stressing that Obama’s nomination is not guaranteed. Democrats hopeful for an Obama nomination ought to stop their premature victory dances, and focus instead on the challenge of winning the remaining contests and gathering support from as many superdelegates as possible. This is time for buckling down for a fight, not reveling in a win.

cross-posted at TPM Cafe.

Moses Silbiger is studying the potential uses of video games for facilitating personal and spiritual growth. Consider helping him out by completing a brief online survey.

Apparently, the penguins were impressed with his message of transcending black and white.

According to “Who is Jesus? He’s three people, says Deepak Chopra”, Deepak Chopra has come out with a new book on Jesus. The article says:

Who is Jesus? According to spiritual guru Deepak Chopra, there are three interpretations. In his book “The Third Jesus,” published this week, Chopra says there is a “sketchy historical figure,” a second “abstract theological creation” and a third Jesus with the highest level of enlightenment — what Chopra calls God-consciousness.

“I want to offer the possibility that Jesus was truly, as he proclaimed, a savior,” Chopra wrote. “Not the savior, not the one and only Son of God. Rather Jesus embodied the highest level of enlightenment. “He spent his brief adult life describing it, teaching it, and passing it on to future generations,” he said. “Jesus intended to save the world by showing others the path to God-consciousness.” …

Chopra said the Jesus created by the Catholic Church was confusing because although the religion had done a lot of good in the world, it had also taken part “in the Crusades, in witch hunts, in burning people on the stake, homophobia, depriving women of their rights, all kinds of things.”

Of course, the notion that Jesus’s primary significance is his role as a teacher of, exemplar of, and embodiment of God-consciousness is fundamental to any sort of Integral approach to the development of Christian spirituality. Indeed, the recognition of Jesus’s identity with God-consciousness, and his role as a model for human deification (theosis), has been a longstanding part of Christian soteriology since the Greek fathers.

However, there are aspects of Chopra’s argument that seem definitely suspicious, from a Christian point of view (though they might make perfect sense as a Hindu appreciation of Jesus, if that’s what Chopra is attempting).

First, a Christian understanding of Jesus would never rest with the notion that Jesus’s own spiritual realization is the sole element that teaches others about God-consciousness. That would probably be a gnostic heresy. Instead, a more orthodox appreciation of Jesus would locate Jesus’s revelation in his Christhood (including his life, crucifixion, and bodily resurrection) and participation in the Trinity. In theological parlance, Jesus is not merely a historical figure who had a great spiritual realization, but a real symbol of the fullness of God-consciousness as it was, is, and will be realized in history.

Second, Chopra’s attempt to draw a sharp contrast between the “real Jesus” and the Jesus proclaimed by historical Christianity doesn’t really wash as an authentic (i.e., orthodox) Integral Christian understanding. By the way, many theological liberals and liberationists have also drawn similar firewalls between the “good Jesus” proclaimed by [insert preferred hermeneutic of revelation here] and that “bad Jesus” proclaimed by the historical [usually Roman Catholic] Church.

But whoever is making the argument, however well intentioned and understandable as it may seem, is falling into a subtle trap. According to an Integral approach to Christianity, it is simply inconceivable that the God-consciousness could have entered into human awareness in anything other than a plethora of modes of understanding relative to the level of consciousness of the receiver. Since the level of human understanding 2,000 or 1,000 years ago was nowhere near its current level, it is best to appreciate more magical and mythic modes of faith as a necessary part of the unfolding process of God in history, not some sort of bizarre abberation wholly antagonistic to the “real Christianity”.

Properly understood, there is no conflict between orthodox Christian faith and an understanding of spiritual evolution that allows for God’s truth to be revealed throughout human history in many cultures and religions. Of course, the mythic-level orthodox will disagree, coughing up disgust with more contemporary understandings of Jesus. But orthodoxy is not merely a habit of the mythic, but a mindset that unfolds on multiple levels of psychological and spiritual development, a habit of mind that sees the unity of God’s truth where others see only superstition or heresy.

Here’s a post by Integral Institute CEO Robb Smith that should get people thinking:

If I were to reply to Brockman’s question, I’d say that I’m optimistic that more people will begin discussing ideas rather than things. Brockman’s group, not universally but in large part, is still stuck in the world of things. (I think Donald Hoffman’s entry on his optimism that science will posit a theoretical reply to the mind-body problem is a notable, and wonderful, exception.) Once one accepts a critically realistic view of science and its discoveries, they remain fascinating but only so much so. If the leading edge of the world’s thinkers are for the most part strict physicalists then any acceptance of interiority is precluded from the very start. Values, meaning, subjectivity and intersubjectivity have been rationalized away. I’ve not read one of those thinkers provide a convincing answer to the mind-body problem that persuades me that they have not presupposed an arguable philosophical foundation to all their deliberations. And they continue to bully the younger kids at the school yard: of course a mythological view of God is no longer accepted seriously by the leading edge of culture. Seventy percent of the world is still in a mythological narrative, but it is a developmental narrative. Did no one tell them? Their battle lines are being drawn before an opponent that is epistemologically weak yet the battle moved past them about 3 decades ago with research in developmental psychology.

It’s worth adding that the contours of the prominent discourse around the US presidential election gives support for Smith’s optimism. In the Democratic primary, two of the three leading candidates (Barack Obama and John Edwards) framed their campaign around ideas (grand narratives) rather than things (policies). Edwards’s populist message, which basically identified as his grand idea the notion that he would greatly redistribute money-things to more people-things and defeat interest-things in favor of monetary-interest things of the poor and middle class people-things, didn’t hold sway. Instead, Obama’s message of change and unity, which basically identifies the core idea that the American people share a common bond and a common good, and that if properly inspired by transformational leadership people can transcend differences and divisions to realize a greater harmony, is winning.

Not only has Obama’s transformational message earned him the frontrunner role for the Democratic party nomination, he seems to have inspired significant change in the political landscape in the process: greater youth turnout, energized rallies of thousands of supporters, legions of highly motivated supporters, and polls that show him defeating the Republican nominee in the general election. Obama’s message is that ideas count (i.e., words count, speeches are important, rhetoric changes the game, inspiration matters, etc.) more than things.

It’s also worth observing that Obama’s Christianity is a prime motivating factor behind his campaign, and he’s banking on it helping him to break the Republicans’s seeming lock on the committed Christian vote. Obama’s is not a mythic-level Christianity; he’s a member of the United Church of Christ, the most theologically liberal (i.e., rational level) Christian denomination, and a member of a church based heavily on liberation theology (i.e., pluralistic level). Furthermore, he is able to speak convincingly about his faith in matters that stress the common ground he shares with voters from all over the faith spectrum. Even many traditional evangelical and fundamentalist Christians have found reason to believe “he’s one of us”.

Obama’s Christianity understands that the narrative of the religion is an evolutionary narrative, bringing the wisdom of humanistic science to bear on the interpretation of Scriptures, the grounding of evolution to bear on an understanding of Creation, and the perspective of spiritual evolution to bear on the role of religion in the unfolding story of growing human freedom from slavery and oppression. In short, by virtue of both his faith and his core political outlook, he embodies the very sort of transformational leadership that our country needs in order to overcome the limits of thing-based philosophy and its spiritual and political correlates.

Regardless of the outcome of the presidential election, I’m hopeful that Obama has cut an enduring groove in the American political consciousness. If he is not the one to come to power based on his message at this time, then surely others will follow with similarly successful messages. There really is reason for optimism.

(The original from Slog via JMG. Personalized to reflect an Integral or post-postmodern epistemological vantage point.)