Hey Mary,

Can always count on you for an extremely cogent response. And also, to point out things that I did not see.

In fact, that may help move my response in a possibly semi-productive direction. (And NO I did not mean to use the word "productive!" )

What you pointed out was the use of an emotionally charged anecdote.  It's funny, because that both was and wasn't my intent. I might say that better by saying -and here is the rub - I indeed intended for a 3rd person discussion about a situation, which would seem to imply as highly rational and objective and non-emotional, just looking at the facts, as possible.

But what happens, is that that is no such thing as 3rd person just lying around out there in a vacuum in space. There is always, right there with it, 1st person and 2nd person . . . where the emotions and meanings are.

That said, I really get and understand your counseling not to do that, and understand why it might be . . . not so good.

But what I really mean by that is - I understand how using an emotionally charged anecdote can be too agentic.

And with that I will begin to move back in that direction I mentioned I was thinking about above.

It's not hard to figure out.

In my story, clearly, this woman was just simply too overly agentic. And there is nothing to stop her. And she obviously can not stop herself. Her agency, always in communion, was just simply deeply, deeply, overstepping it's (holonically) healthy bounds. Clearly, overstepping it's moral and ethical bounds and my complaint (more or less) is that there is then no or little agency to stop that misuse of power. This hyper-agency was/is completely free and in this case to the great detriment of many other people. (and we are talking lasting detriment. Detriment that will last a life time -literally, posibly kill people . . .um, yeah, I meant not just . . . and is causing a serious -it's alsmost like a black hole in the Kosmos; stripping, sucking out of it with massie gravitational pull all worth and meaning and love and possible care . . .)

Including her children. I mean, think of the depth of overly agentic harm -your own children, your own mother . . . . My opinion on that story is not hard to grasp either. Or at leat the very simply off the top of my head, first moral impulse, opinion . . . .

This UL has simply no regard for anybody. None. This zone#1, UL has simply no care about anything whatsoever. This UL needs some kind of a serious wake up call. How? Don't know, it's not my family or my kid. But that is not the point. This UL needs to understand in whatever sort of even primitive way that she is not an island but a holon. A holon of agency in communion. This UL has no understanding or CARE for the other three quadrants. No care for the UR, clearly, NO care for the LL and the most intimate relationships within it-the one's that created her, gave her life, allowed her any agency in the world at all to begin with - and of course, there is simply nothing in the LL holding this agency accountable in any way.  I don't care what age you are. There is no age statute for raping somone. This is communicative rape.

That's screwed up.

Now, your story. TRUE! I have already stated my views about this. I understand why it has to stay legal. I absolutely support that.  But the essence of your story was a situation where a man had just way too much agency and the woman had simply none.

Blanket illegal potentially gives simply way too much possible agency to a man and total and utterly complete loss of agency to a woman is certain extraordinary ("") situations.

But

Blanket legal gives simply way too much possible agency to a woman, and potentially total and complete, utter loss of agency to -anyone else. The baby, the father, the grandparents, the siblings, the entire rest of her inherent and inescapable communion.

Both of our scenarios contain pathologically agentic people and situations where  . . . hold on a minute. I will stop there because . . . I think I have got it.

Agency in Communion is just another way of expressing the inescapable, primordial Kosmic law of Yin and Yang.

Obviously, Agency is the man, Communion is the woman.

But neither do either of those exist without the other.

Hyper-agency violates the laws of communion.

Your story is, to me, very clearly an example of a deep, deep violation of those laws. And as I said, earlier, all that your woman is looking for is more agency. Hyper-agency that violates must be met with agency in order for things to return to some kind of healthy balance. For all. (It is not right for your man, for his own health, that he or anybody should be allowed to get away with that! He should be shot. . . .and then we'll start thinking about restoring his health . . .)

My story is an example of hyper-agency egregiously violating communion by a woman. And my opinion is that she should be shot . . . and then we'll begin talking about her "health" and "safety." ()

before I even go further, I want to say this:

It is not oft noted that the ancient laws of Yin and Yang have a secret little hitch. they are not equal forces. One is always slightly more powerful than the other. They co-exist, but one is always slightly more powerful than the other.

And honey, guess who's one it is?

Communion. The woman. The female, the surrender, the passive, the soft, the humor -communion.

And so, yes, our bodies, our simply UR physical beings, do reflect these laws. The woman's body an expression of communion. The man's agency. (I can't remember which is Yin, etc. so I can't put it in those terms for fear of . . . gross confusion . . .)

So with that simple truth, it should absolutely be that, in the end, as even the most skeptical of posters have noted, . . . . as far as legality, communion, the woman, should have some kind of final agency allowed to it. (Which was not LL, socio-culturally the case before -and was at times a violation of the health and wholeness and harmony of all four quadrants. Remember, deeply repressed into shadows is not healthy. Deeply repressed into shadows for millenia, is not healthy.) And I say simply because, if not, it leaves open the possibility that that communion can then be too egregiously violated and removed of all agency.

But no holon is not a holon.

No agency is not already, inherently, Kosmically, eternally always, also in communion.

And the blanket legal simply leaves open too many other counter possibilitites for "communion's" hyper-agency;

in violation of some seriously deep, deep and eternally true and powerful and inescapable laws.

In my story, this person should not be allowed such agency. Period. The same as yours.

If anyone can follow that, all for now.

 Peace, Tim

 

---

"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

coppersun:

my opinion of the story is that it's about a person in serious, tragic, deep trouble.  you could plop that story into a thread about psychotherapy, about the decline of american society . . . but here it is in our abortion thread.  this is a story about a person who needs help, an intervention . . . however loving the loving family, however many abortions, however well educated, however "adult" under the law . . . those are distractions from the central issue that someone needs rescuing . . . as do millions of others in more or less dire circumstances.

later,

gene

 

 

I just wanted to add to you response here gene, that, as I was listening to this story, the only reason it came up was becasue two mothers were talking and the one was saying . . . um, you need to do something. The other was saying, how? The only soluion she saw was just more communion. (i.e. take the babt herself, facilitate another adoption . . .)

And I want to say this too; this is a person who clearly could not be responsible for her own agency. And I do believe it was a result of LL,LR American post-green culture.

 

---

"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

randomturtle:

It occured to me a while back that knowing how to help people should be elementary education, not an exclusive and expensive grad school program! We teach even young kids basic first aid, right?

Very, very good! We need to teach them about the "we." And their responsibility and care for the "we."

But that goes for this person too, no? Because, I guarantee you, she did get that education . . . 13 years of Catholic school and, I am sorry, you can not miss that education . . .

Why did it not stick for some -or, as I alluded, so many? Why it is suddenly now being so horrendously neglected?

I also wanted to say this. Mary mentioned family.

First, there is simply no argument that this person's trouble lies at the feet of responsibility of her family. There is simply no truth to that. But it also tends towards our favorite postmodern LL quadrant absolutism. If there's a problem, it's the culture's fault. And always favorite-ly the family.

(I am not saying that's what you meant Mary, I know you didn't. But cultural influence beware . . .)

At what point is the UR responsible and no longer allowed to make that excuse? At what point do I let go of my stint on Oprah or Jerry Springer and take responsibility for myself and grow up? And also, what about the "families" she is creating? Do we just continue to blame it all on preceding generations? Because, if that is so . . . then she still has some serious guilt. Ten times worse than her parents. What of her children's stint on Oprah or Jerry Springer?

"So what happend to you dear?"

Child number one -my peer: Oh, I did terrible things becasue my father abused me or died of cancer early and unexpectedly. (which is true. the cancer, NOT the abuse)

Child number two -her daughter: Well,, I just can't seem to get a handle on life becasue -my grandmother and aunt are wonderful and did everything in the world for me, despite all -my aunt even considered ending her own education becasue of me and my grandmother - but my mother killed nine of my siblings and gave two or more or I don't know how many others away. And just never seemed to care.

Blame succeeds genertions and is quadrant absolutism. Sure, obviously there are problems. But at what point do I need to grow up to some HEALTHY personal agency? Otherwise known by that old forgotten name –responsibility.

That wonderful aspect of humanity, Turtle mentioned above, which is hand in hand with care . . . and is brought about by blue.

That thing which has been seriously dismantled recently . . .

---

"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

timelody:

But that goes for this person too, no? Because, I guarantee you, she did get that education . . . 13 years of Catholic school and, I am sorry, you can not miss that education . . .

i had a catholic education, and i can tell you that blue absolutism is the opposite of compassion and care, have you heard the term "going medieval on someone" . . . they invented the procedure.  once absolutistic thinking is transcended so is "do the right thing" of absolutistic care and compassion.  if that's the only understanding of care that one has . . . it goes by the wayside, too.   getting back to abortion . . . it's the absolutism of anti-abortionists that is mostly responsible, IMO, of confusing the issue.  we can't even get to rational intersubjective dialogue if we waste our time trying to elevate blue values (of course we integral types know that that is a waste of time because you can't elevate blue via dialogue).

 

later,

gene

Going medieval on someone would be a case of hyper-agency violating communion. Interestingly, it is dialogical -just an extremely primitive brute form of dialogical. But yes, none the less, a form of agency grossly violating communion.

But that is not at all what I am talking about above. There was no medieval in our communities upbringing (certainly at least as all parties in this case, including me, were concerned.) But I am talking about such things as -you collected your money for the poor in other countries and for old and elderly and sick people and the not so well off each and every Christmas and Easter; you did your mandatory stints of community service in creative and well and gently guided ways (such as thinking up the ideas for yourself); you watched the films of missionaries working in the worst and most oppressed and and afflicted areas of the world trying to help people make their lives better; you sat in on the special school assemblies, divided by age and class (as in freshman, sophomore, etc.) that we all to talk about how you could help your friends with their deepest and worst problems . . . so on and so forth with things like that. Why was this lesson to care about other's missed?

Her is my diagnosis -using IMP.

It all comes down to zone#2, in relation to zones #3 and #4 (culture)-and #7 and #8 (society) (obviously then involving UR #5, 6 . . .) As Mary would say, something is not jibing.

As I said above, in one of my longer posts, most people are only at a conventional level of morals. There are two stages of that, obviously the second more advanced. So, I may not really be a criminalistic red . . . but I may not yet even be to the second stage of conventional level morals, much less post-conventional, conscientious -which laws of unchecked, no questions asked, personal freedom are based upon.

Thusly, when I grow up and am out of school and am now legally a free agent, well, if there is now no such thing left in certain areas as conventional level morals to hold me in place, I literally do not know what to do!

I may have been a member of the national honor society, but that says nothing for which zone#2 moral stage I am literally at. Obviously I am able to get along in situations where I 1.have less agency and 2. have some sort of conventional structure to adhere to and to follow and to check back and refer to and so on.

But without that . . . .

I simply watched this happen to so many of my peers -Gen Xers -it just simply isn't even funny. (Remember, we are the slackers. And then as a techer and care-er of young people, I have watched so much worse happen to the Gen Ys.) What went wrong?

I repeat, as far as I can tell and even knew instinctively as far back as high school, somewhere, not everybody seemed to really "get" it. They literally seemed blind. So, you give either preconventional or early conventional or even into sometimes slightly into late conventional morals - post-conventional moral agency . . . I posted it above, these earlier levels simply do not know what to do. And they need help on all four quadrants.

Not only am I confused about what do, but I happen to live in a culture that in a very lot of different ways and places, encourages and celebrates "Fuck you, nobody tell me what to do."

I may not be all the way reduced to that level . . . but it certainly doesn't help when I am looking to my culture and society (LL, LR) for guidence. Because I, at this stage of development, need to.

That is what green, does not understand.

---

"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

Going medieval on someone would be a case of hyper-agency violating communion. Interestingly, it is dialogical -just an extremely primitive brute form of dialogical. But yes, none the less, a form of agency grossly violating communion.

yup, hyper-agency = absolutism.  blue is a cool sacrifice-self level, yet "sacrifice self" in these instances is to submit to the "one right way" even if it's violent.  why do people think that being violent to people to show them that being violent to people is wrong is going to work?

you did your mandatory stints of community service in creative and well and gently guided ways . . . Why was this lesson to care about other's missed?

"mandatory" and "gently guided" don't quite fit together in one sentence for me, though i do recall that the nuns taught good behavior with a paddle oftentimes.  why do people think that using force upon people to show them that being compassionate is good is going to work?

it's a lesson alright, and i couldn't have missed it if i tried.

but we're straying from the topic of abortion . . .

later,

gene

Back on the topic...

Tim,
So after you have considered the various opinions in reaction to this situation...what have you decided to do? or not to do?

yschachter:

[I'm going way back in time here, seperately, to reply to Turtle's original three-law society proposal. This post has nothing to do with abortion.]

I think that the basic premise here is good. Those are the major principles that we want governing an society. And an Integral approach ought to go back to those bare principles as often as possible, instead of sticking to old manifestations of them.

It has a few practical difficulties that bother me. If you didn't mean it to be a practical proposal, then excuse my misunderstanding, but in case you did, let me voice a few concerns.

It was a practical proposal, but a very, very bare bones proposal. In fact, the bones were not only bare, but completely disassembled! It's definitely a puzzle. And I imagine that it would take lots of Second and Third Tier people working together to come up with a really detailed plan for a Holarchy based government/legal system. Hopefully, this is already happening. And, from what I've seen it is happening. Though it occurs to me that I might be useful in adding my talents and knowledge to the pool of Integral Intellect!

Your questions deserve to be answered Yotam. I believe that there is a Holarchy teleconference coming up where you (or someone else) could ask these questions, and open up the field for everyone to answer them. The Holacracy website still doesn't work for me, so I can't tell what the details for participating are, but it's on September 1st, supposedly. Maybe after that tele-discussion, we could bring your questions back to this forum?

Peace, Love, and Bicycles,
Turtle

Monifaye and all,

 

I brought this story up because I thought it all at once brought to light pretty much all of the fundamental issues surrounding this topic. I mean, if you really look, pick any surrounding issue (except for rape and incest) and - it's there. And a lot you also do not often think about.

 

And everybody agreed upon one thing - she needed to stop. Stop or be stopped.

 

We could put it Shakespearean language and say

 

To stop, or be stopped

that is the question.

 

But there is no question that you must stop.

 

I'm sorry if I wasn’t completely clear, this is not a situation I am currently experiencing, but something I happened upon more or less just in passing (with, of course, real people I do know) about 11 years ago, when I for a time moved back home. My action then was no action. I was in no position to do anything, really, I felt, even to comment.

 

It was me, this grandmother/mother and another mother, another mutual friend. But the second mother, in addition to saying a lot of other things about how this mother needed to somehow take agency with her grown-up daughter (and not just communion, such as raise her daughter's kids) said something which really struck with me. She went down the list that I have presented to you and said "this is immoral."

 

And I just stood there and thought, "um, yeah, . . . you really can not argue . . . it is."

 

But I did also wonder why this was just the worst of the stories I have heard or experienced (and continue to) with people who were supposedly my peers. what? You can't think that far ahead? You didn't see this coming? You . . . care about nothing! Wont be responsible for . . . anything!?

 

But that's slightly off topic.

 

The other thing I think this story clearly demonstrates is the holonic nature of all of our reality. There is no such thing as free agency. Only agency in communion. Which at the very least means, agency -freedom- with responsibility. But if you can't take that for yourself, who will? Or should? or can? or must?

 

I don't know what eventually happened.

 

But I do want to emphasize again, that from an AQAL (all quadrant, all level, all lines etc.) view, the root of this problem can not be fully reduced to shadows or pathology. Even a buried deep hurt in repression would simply had to have come out by this point! I think it has major roots in simply very immaturely developed moral capacity -let loose on and in a society that permits it and even encourages it.

 

I'm not taking care of myself (or you) because I do not know how. And the statistics on things like formal operational cognition and moral stage six and so forth the tell an extremely important part of the story.

 

And I would also like to emphasize that even education (LL) can not seem to solve the whole problem. Do ya think she didn't know? She knew. All of it. Why did it not stick?

 

Lastly, there were some interesting quad-level suggestions for a solution. One, the depo shot.

 

First, that was not available at tht time. but that got me to thinking how that can actually be used as an orange level chastitiy belt! Old time blue says -lock it up! Orange says, have sex just don’t get pregnant. But the pill requires personal responsibility. Depo - well, perhaps we'll just take of it for you.

 

This is also hand in hand with orange surgical sterilization and so forth . . . very interesting when you think of it. We seem to still need this or some kind of extreme blue . . .  but perhaps we can solve the problems in an orange way.

 

Not just for your own good, but for ours and everyone else’s as well.

 

More back on topic later.

---

"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

I think this gets to the root of your thoughts on this matter, Tim:

timelody:

...the root of this problem can not be fully reduced to shadows or pathology. Even a buried deep hurt in repression would simply had to have come out by this point!

Are you sure? How do you know?

Peace, Love, and Bicycles,
Turtle

Just by instinct and intuition and becasue I know them. You can tell when someone is hiding something and when they just simply don't "get" something. (This doesn't mean there was nothing shadow or pathological there, it just means I don't think that can explain the whole problem -and I do think that in itself is a problem in our Oprahized society. AQAL can help explain this.) I do however think that cyclical effects of self-destructive behavior can get you in a real ditch . . . but I just can't comprehend how you could see your own child everyday, after all of that . . . and still not get some kind of a clue! Most people who drive themselves into a ditch due simply to pathology reach bottom and realize they gotta turn around. This?  . . .

Maybe, I am wrong. None the less, I do stand by how the problem started. zone#2 in a culture and society that does not account for the fact that in certain lines of development you may just not be up to what post-conventional laws and cultural ideas openly allow - but also still not quite be an obvious red criminal or purple psychotic.)

---

"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

Tim,

I'm increasingly perturbed by your use of SD. It's very easy to mix a lot of typology and cultural specificity into the SD structures, and I would encourage you to take another look at that and perhaps someother stage systems to be sure you aren't 'coloring' the SD thought-structures with too much specific content. This is, of course, a good practice for all of us. Sadly ofthen I'm stopped in my tracks noticing where I've mistaken a particular trait of some vMeme for the structure itself.

Because of moments like that, I ususally try to be unsure enough of my own knowledge to let such issues rest. But this time I'm pretty bothered. Unless everyone goes through a period in their life when they have sex with five people in three days and thirteen pregnancies in two years, it isn't just a stage thing. It clearly has a certain self-absorbtion to it, but this is clearly more than a natural human process. This is a deeply unhealthy person ruining her life, and potentially the lives of some of those around her. The fact that she hasn't hit bottom yet doesn't mean it isn't pathology. Especially when there's any kind of brain chemistry component to it, people's UR limiting their UL to be unable to muster will and deal with a problem, it's very possible to just keep going with your pathology and never catch on. There is certainly a lower quadrants component to the scenario, what with things tending to tetra-arise and all, but this woman is not a good case-study for social problems. Because she's such an outlier, a solution to the social ills that is framed around cases like hers will not be an appropriate solution for most situations.

I completely argree with you that she needed to stop this behavior. Those who cared for her were not acting in such a way as to effectively help her deal with her problems. But let's not forget that they were her problems, particular to her situation, and were in a significant way distinct from the general problems in society.

And, though I think I'm mistaking your meaing here, not everyone who consistently manifests red on some line is a criminal. Not everyone who consistently manifests purple is a psychotic. Let's remember that people were exclusively Red, Purple, and Beige for a whole lot longer than there have been higher levels available, and they managed to survive without all eating each other or having sex with five people every three days.

I love how much you contribute to these conversations, Tim, and I appreciate the thought and insight you put into your work here, but this morning felt like time for a little healthy Red confrontation. Spiral Dynamics is poweful, subtle stuff. Let's just be careful how we use it.

[Speaking painting with broad SD strokes: It seems to me that the danger of avoiding Green as we often do here is that it makes Red riskier, because healthy Green can help soften the blows of healthy Red. But that's a whole other topic.]

Yotam,

Boy, I am really surprised I have to qualify this, much less to an I-I staff member and much less to "increasing perturbation."

In case I am seriously missing something, on the Integral Data page at IN it says:

"Although there are many valid maps of consciousness evolution, some of which are referred to in various Integral Naked dialogues, [and timelody posts] SDi is one of the most often used, because of its simplicity, elegance, and intuitive ease of understanding."

That, exactly, is one of the reasons why I most often use it.  Another reason-besides the fact that I have not yet memorized the new specturm colors- is that I happen find myself in complete-and I mean complete-agreement with your boss when he says in the What we are, that we see: Part I, blog, "Anyway, I personally love SD as an intro model (seriously), and we will definitely continue to use it at I-I." -a blog which was in part an answer to just these types of criticisms. (i.e. you're "'coloring' the SD thought-structures with too much specific content" or any number of variations.)

Or in the most current offering Integral Spirituality, note on page 108 says "As a simple introductory tool, it's wonderful . . ." yet another answer to the same, which points to notes in other books such as A Theory of Everything and it's notes doing, again, the same.

That said, I assume that everyone else interested in posting or dialogging on these forums has read, if not the entire corpus, perhaps at least a substantial amount of Mr. Wilber's works or the Integral framework in general, where, almost exclusively in the past six years or more, SDi is also used and the most general introductory model, and easiest way to broadly orient the conversation and/or narrative-pointing to some of the most important specifics with great ease. Which means-actually accomplish something when dealing with extremely complex issues, such as these, on these "controversial" threads, most of which comprise the short list of some of the most complicated topics facing humanity as a whole in the current day and age. (Particularly the American culture.)

Yotam, if it is okay for Ken to use SD as the single and entire framework basis for an entire book or two -including but not limited to Boomeritis and A Theory of Everything -both of which are extremely relevant to these topics, and both of which already provide the appropriate qualifications that I should not feel the need to reproduce myself here at an Integral forum- what in the Hell is the deal with your "increasing perturbation" at me?

You are reading something into my posts that is simply not there.

I could go on-sighting about 5000 other references that I have gathered since your posting of this- but I really do not have the time, nor the energy. And . . . why? These qualifications have already been made. Why, when using the exact same language, should I have to provide my own less elegant version of the exact same, quite extensive, footnotes to my already novel sized posts (which, by the way, I do really care about contributing)?

As far as the specifics of the rest, it is starting to become increasingly clear -perhaps to my perturbation -that it is just about pointless to even attempt yet another shot at making my point.

But I will say this.

In the books, in the many different models and studies by all of the different various researchers and theorists, no, you will not find a young person sleeping with five people in the span of three days as a necessary and inevitable stage of development.

But you will find that, right now, in the real world. And everyday, right here in America. And you will find it everywhere -far and wide and apart from this particular story, which I have already a half dozen or so times qualified as just one of the more extreme examples.

And no, it's not a healthy and necessary stage of development and THAT IS MY POINT.

Sincerely, Tim

---

"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

Hi Tim,

My sincere apologies. I seem to have struck a nerve, and I'm very sorry. I just asked another I-I staffer to take a look at my post, and he agrees that it was phrased more critically than the intent I expressed to him ought to be. Allow me to try to rephrase.

It isn't That you are using SD which caused me concern. For all of the reasons you mentioned and more, Spiral Dynamics is a perfectly legitimate system to bring into our discussions here. I was, rather, having trouble with How you have been using Spiral Dynamics, and it seems I didn't express that clearly enough.

What I was trying to say is that, when using SD, we all need to be careful not to forget that it deals with ways of thinking, rather than particular thoughts, and that at the end of the day, we're dealing with people and not vMemes. I am uncomfortable with the tendency I see in you to expound on what various vMemes think and do. In particular, you seemed to be presenting the issue with your peer as being an effect of her development, rather than an issue of pathology, and I wanted to move away from that. You have since clarified that, which I appreciate, and we now seem to be in agreement that this isn't a developmental issue, and so we can separate this particular woman's difficulties from difficulties built into the lower vMemes.

And your peer's situation is not necessarily unique, we on the forums do not have enough information to reach educated ideas of how to include such situations in our thoughts on more global policies vis a vis abortion. I would like to see this wonderful conversation continue, and I hope you will keep putting as much thought and care into your comments. I'm just hoping we can go forward with less emphasis on this one case which most of us know so little about, and with a greater diligence in giving unto SD what is SD's, and giving unto shadow what is shadow's (and type what is type's, etc etc. Brian Roberston, of Ternary, is apparently soon to release a paper about a variation of the Myers Briggs typology that sorts out a lot of type/level confusion he sees in SD and various other level schemas. I'm eagerly looking forward to reading it, and I think it would benefit all of us who are trying to use the five factors of AQAL appropriately.)

I'm really not trying to pick a fight here, Tim, and I'm sorry again for stating my case so argumentatively the first time. I do appreciate the time and insight you offer us here, and I certainly didn't mean to cause any offense.

Yotam

randomturtle:

[I imagine that it would take lots of Second and Third Tier people working together to come up with a really detailed plan for a Holarchy based government/legal system. Hopefully, this is already happening. And, from what I've seen it is happening. Though it occurs to me that I might be useful in adding my talents and knowledge to the pool of Integral Intellect!

I agree completely. I think one of the major challenges of the next century or so will be creating a governmental system around second- and third-tier thinking. So far, to speak in ridiculous generalization, every government in history seems to have picked a vMeme or two and dominated all levels below while alienating all levels above. A government that really uses the strenghts of all levels, without indulging any in its weaknesses, is increasingly necessary to deal with both domestic and world-wide problems. I find myself in a pessimistic phase about the future lately, so I'm worried about the chances of such a government arising, but it's possible. And if it doesn happen, I think it will involve nested layers (holarchy) of principles, with each layer meant to serve the layer above it. I think the top level might end up looking much like what you described.

Thank you for taking my questions in the constructive spirit I had intended for them. I'm apparently not doing very well at phrasing things constructively lately.

btw, if we keep this up, we should put it in a new thread.