Dis-Integralism

Averroes posted this over at DD. I thought I'd post it over here since it's in regards to Integralism and DD will be closing down soon.

Averroes wrote:

www.strippingthegurus.com/stgsamplechapters/kenwilberonmeditation.asp

Above is a link to a site that is critical of Ken Wilber and his New Age philosophy. Below is a link that exposes all the Eastern Sages that've come to the West only to pillage and plunder, defile the women, and destroy the beacon of reason and individuality and subdue it to the casue of mysticism and rigid hierarchies coming out of the their meditative minds.

www.strippingthegurus.com/

A further detailed look at Integralism:

http://normaneinsteinbook.com/index.html

I'm sorry but that strikes me as extremely reactionary and without a clear basis in historical precedent. Besides being culturally biased to a point where the West's pillaging and plunder of the East is ignored because a great percentage of Westerners whom are disenfranchised with the revealed dogma of Christianity have found something spiritual and affirming in the ideas of the East. For every one Eastern Sage in the West we can count tens of thousand of indigenous people in the colonial world whom were subjugated, exploited, or outright murdered in the name of Western expansion. The fact that there are greedy fakirs on both sides of the cultural aisle exploiting the faithful for material gain is a non-issue.

I took a quick look at the links and from what I've seen there's really nothing new there.

I really don't understand how it relates to Integralism? Even Wilber goes over the differences in multiple intelligences and how great heights in one line does not necessarily translate to the others.

-TC

I also read his crtique of Wilber, the guy sounds like a postmodernist hack to me. He crticized Wilber because he admits studies are open to valid crticisms? Isn't that the scientific method? Always question the results? He's critical because a group actually attempts to do scientific research in this area and might be biased. Exactly what unbiased group is doing large scale experiments that we should be listening to? It seems to me, if they want scientists to study it, but they don't, it does little good to be critical simply because of bias.

-TC

Travis wrote:

I also read his crtique of Wilber, the guy sounds like a postmodernist hack to me. He crticized Wilber because he admits studies are open to valid crticisms? Isn't that the scientific method? Always question the results? He's critical because a group actually attempts to do scientific research in this area and might be biased. Exactly what unbiased group is doing large scale experiments that we should be listening to? It seems to me, if they want scientists to study it, but they don't, it does little good to be critical simply because of bias.

The guy is a rationlist and a skeptic. The author of "Norman Einstein: The Dis-Integration of Ken Wilber", was a former fellow traveller of Integralism. If you read his entire book you'll see that defects of modern day mysticism inspired by the yogis and maharishis comming out of India. The fact is that Wilber, to the extent that he blindly endorses their beliefs and claims, is essentially a narcissist Hegelian; and the entire edifice of his Integral philosophy is created upon false ontological premise.

The structure of Wilber's philosophy can be encapsulated in the writings of the following thinkers:

Hegel's Dialtectical Historicism
Piaget's Cognitive Development
Habermas' Hermeneutic Critique
Plotinus' Great Chain of Being
Shankara's Advata Vedanta (Non-dual monism)

Aside from Piaget (and Campbell), I have problems with the rest of his foundational sources.