Ken Wilber — “an enlightened nazi”

[lmfao]

19 hours ago, Yali said:

According to Ken Wilber, an “enlightened nazi” is not a contradiction in terms. How is this possible?

Now I don't necessarily believe any of this, I'm just typing it out. 

Ken Wilber says that there are two different aspects to a person that they can develop along.

One aspect is "waking up". This is often referring to as spiritual progress, enlightenment, and it is describes well in eastern religion. Eastern religions also have their various models for enlightenment. Iirc, Ken Wilber formulates waking up with a sequences of stages ("gross, subtle causal, empty witness, non-dual").*

Second aspect is "growing up". Now this is about spiral dynamics, western and jungian psychology, integrating the shadow and the unconscious. 


So the idea here is this. You can be high in "waking up" but be low in "growing up". That's the enlightened nazi. 
--
Personally, I stopped finding this spiral dynamics theory to be helpful. That's technically lie, I think it's moreso that once you've integrated from it conceptually what you needed to, it becomes counterproductive to think in those terms. 

SD has sometimes been like a religion on this forum. 

*Need it be said that defining "enlightenment" is a shit topic.

Edited December 29, 2020 by lmfao

[Leo Gura]

Hannah Arendt famously interviewed and studied Nazi officers after the war.

What she discovered was the shocking "banality of evil." None of them was really evil. They were just being good profressional stage Blue rule followers. Mike Pence types.

Your average Nazi was just a pawn in Hitler's schemes. Similar to your average Trump voter.

Many German intellectuals, scientists, and philosophers were supporters of the Nazi party. Like Martin Heidegger. Because few people think for themselves about anything. Even awakened people are fucking sheep for the most part.

You can be awake but social pressure will still drive you to delusion. People underestimate the power of culture and ideology. Awakening does not make you immune to cultural biases.

In 500 years spiritual people will be asking, How could someone have been enlightened and still a capitalist? The same way ya'll asking about Nazis.

[Carl-Richard]

32 minutes ago, lmfao said:

Personally, I stopped finding this spiral dynamics theory to be helpful. That's technically lie, I think it's moreso that once you've integrated from it conceptually what you needed to, it becomes counterproductive to think in those terms. 

What terms do you think in?

[lmfao]

53 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

What terms do you think in?

Well that depends on what you're thinking about or doing right? 

If I have a problem, I have the specific problem in front of me. If I'm talking to a person, I have that specific person in front of me. Imagining them as a colour does nothing. 

Edited December 29, 2020 by lmfao

[lmfao]

43 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

What she discovered was the shocking "banality of evil." None of them was really evil. They were just being good profressional stage Blue rule followers. Mike Pence types.

Woah, that's pretty interesting. 

[Lyubov]

50 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Many German intellectuals, scientists, and philosophers were supports of the Nazi party. Like Martin Heidegger.

and carl jung 

Edited December 29, 2020 by Lyubov

[Natasha]

@Yali Because enlightenment is not about morality, it's about Truth. 

[How to be wise]

2 minutes ago, Natasha said:

@Yali Because enlightenment is not about morality, it's about Truth. 

That’s not very accurate. There certainly is a correlation between enlightenment and morality, but it’s not a direct one. Enlightenment will improve your morality unless there are obstacles like strong cultural inclinations. 
 

Enlightenment helped people like Mother Teresa and Peace Pilgrim to do some very kind acts.

[Carl-Richard]

38 minutes ago, lmfao said:

Well that depends on what you're thinking about or doing right? 

If I have a problem, I have the specific problem in front of me. If I'm talking to a person, I have that specific person in front of me. Imagining them as a colour does nothing. 

So you're just not thinking about politics, psychology, and culture anymore?

[Natasha]

@How to be wise Morality is a survival tool of the ego. Nothing wrong with that, ofc, we all want to survive. Including Catholic church (thus Mother Theresa). Just saying 

[Leo Gura]

50 minutes ago, lmfao said:

Woah, that's pretty interesting. 

https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/02/07/hannah-arendt-the-banality-of-evil/

[Leo Gura]

36 minutes ago, Natasha said:

@Yali Because enlightenment is not about morality, it's about Truth. 

Because enlightenment does not guarantee an developed mind.

Developing the mind, and proper use of the mind, is a very separate thing from enlightenment.

You can be enlightened and still use your mind improperly. I've seen many enlightened people do that.

The trap here is that once you become enlightened you get the silly idea that now your mind doesn't matter and that you can use it flawlessly. Nope! You cannot escape the mind and its trickeries no matter how enlightened you get.

[Vrubel]

@Leo Gura If you were a 1930's German would you be a Nazi? (;

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, Vrubel said:

@Leo Gura If you were a 1930's German would you be a Nazi? (;

Not necessarily.

If you were a conscious and independent-minded German who took epistemology and philosophy seriously, you might be like Einstein -- who was very outspokenly anti-Nazi and anti-nationalist. He was even against Jewish nationalism while being a Jew.

Did you know that the Jews nominated Einstein to be the president/leader of Israel but he declined?

Why did he decline? Because he said Jewish nationalism was as dangerous as German nationalism. And he was right. Today Jewish nationalism is leading to all sorts of evils.

You don't have to fall into the delusions of your culture. But in order to do that you must truly contemplate reality for yourself and have the courage to stand for your convictions, not just being a sheep. Most scientists, philosophers, doctors, academics, and intellectuals are sheep. A few aren't. That is what distinguishes a true genius.

[lmfao]

30 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

So you're just not thinking about politics, psychology, and culture anymore?

Psychology can be entirely devoid of referencing spiral dynamics. Psychology is extremely large. Handling emotions, shadow work, thats all best done from first principles, you don't need spiral dynamics.

Also, you don't need spiral dynamics for classical psychology like Carl Jung or Freud. 

 

Spiral Dynamics is very helpful for politics and culture. It even helps with understanding individuals sometimes, what traps or pathologies they're in. SD somewhat describes what people's metaphysics are. 

SD is a good descriptor, but it's just one factor to keep in mind out of many others. It should be like one tool or trick you have up your sleeve, among many other tricks. 

If I label someone as orange, I stop paying attention to them as they really are, and I'm engaging with a false image I have of them. I project my personal history of associations called "orange". 

And so then, I'm just being selfish, I don't actually care about or am engaging with the other person. 

It would be better to be like "okay, so using SD this might be one place or angle to send them in". But SD theory itself won't tell you about that individual, how you get them to grow. 

Edited December 29, 2020 by lmfao

[Vrubel]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Not necessarily.

If you were a conscious and independent-minded German who took epistemology seriously, you might be like Einstein -- who was very anti-Nazi.

Einstein was Jewish though so he wouldn't be accepted if he wanted to with his "wicked Jewish pseudoscience".  (But yeah he had very high integrity) Thank god he escaped.

Edited December 29, 2020 by Vrubel

[Bodhitree]

The ‘banality of evil’ and the fact that most Nazi officers were just following rules as they saw them says a lot. I associate that pattern with a relatively low degree of awareness. As I understand enlightenment, it comes with the understanding that your path was unique, and with a well-rounded knowledge of your place in society and the power of your own voice. Those attributes mean that when you become enlightened, you will no longer want to be a Nazi. I’m not sure if Wilber understands that.

My experience is that a fairly talented mind is necessary to make progress towards becoming enlightened, even if education isn’t necessary (and may be a hindrance). Beyond words, beyond the mind. 

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, Vrubel said:

Einstein was Jewish though so he wouldn't be accepted

He rejected Zionism too.

Which just goes to show how thoughtful he was.

[Vrubel]

@Leo Gura Do you think that Jews do not have the right to their own state?

Edited December 29, 2020 by Vrubel

[Natasha]

22 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Because enlightenment does not guarantee an developed mind.

Developing the mind, and proper use of the mind, is a very separate thing from enlightenment.

You can be enlightened and still use your mind improperly. I've seen many enlightened people do that.

The trap here is that once you become enlightened you get the silly idea that now your mind doesn't matter and that you can use it flawlessly. Nope! You cannot escape the mind and its trickeries no matter how enlightened you get.

Exactly. High morality doesn't necessarily mean someone's enlightened either.