JOSEPH GELFER

Rarely a month goes by without the Wilberian Integral Machine pumping forth new evidence of its alignment with the men’s movement, as outlined in various blog posts here.

This week’s Integral Life Newsletter is entitled “The Need for Men’s Liberation” and directs readers to a conversation between Ken Wilber and Warren Farrell where they will be offered “Instant Insights” such as:

• “Power” is not defined by the amount of control someone has over others, but the amount of control one has over his or her own life
• In terms of recognizing and developing their power, men are in a similar position today as women were in the late 1950′s, at the dawn of the feminist movement

Here’s the problem: Wilber and Farrell sound quite reasonable when they speak to issues such as “the urgent need for men to begin redefining their roles for today’s world”. However, when you scratch the surface, they begin to assert some rather more problematic positions. If you read my book you will find evidence for the following “Instant Insights”:

• Wilber distorts the work of feminist scholars such as Carol Gilligan, and claims they support his view, when they do not.
• Wilber and Farrell deny the historical reality of patriarchy, suggesting instead it was there to suit everyone.
• Wilber and Farrell’s consistent reframing of “feminism” and what it “really” means is an overt act of depoliticization and masculine power.
• Far from “redefining their roles for today’s world”, Wilber imprisons men and women into “types” on the AQAL matrix, falling foul of his own elegantly-formulated pre-trans fallacy.
• Wilber relegates “feminine” spiritual values to the pre-rational, stating “more men make it into the universal, postconventional moral stages than do women”.
• Wilber states that even in noospheric realms there can be no ultimate gender parity “given the unavoidable aspects of childbearing”.

How’s that for gender equality?

I know it’s getting rather boring with me making these comments about the integral men’s movement, but it seems that over the past year the Wilberian Integral Machine has gone on something of an offensive on this issue, which should be a worry for us all.

“Two Grizzled Old Feminists” at Feministe write an interesting post about how to engage men with the issue of patriarchy.  From my experience, the issue is making sure the conversation does not become anti-male, rather anti-patriarchy: the two are very different, but men often conflate them. The final paragraph of Numen, Old Men reflects this fact:

“I have argued for the rejection of masculine spirituality due to its patriarchal nature and restrictive treatment of gender. But this does not close down in any way men discussing religion and spirituality in terms which resonate with being a man. It opens up a conversation which resonates with any number of ways of being a man (or masculine) that rejects patriarchy. It is a pro-man conversation because it is pro-person, which by necessity must involve the liberation of all people. Feminist and queer theories and theologies have done most of the work in making way for such a conversation. What is needed now is for predominantly straight men to step up and play their part in a process which will benefit the vast majority of people. This is hardly a new or radical suggestion, but its realization remains elusive. Such is the insidious nature of patriarchy. But as the saying goes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

Gaia.com is an odd place. It has lots of bold intentions, such as “by focusing our energy on what inspires us rather than what we fear, we bring about the world we desire. By keeping kindness in our hearts, we contribute to the harmony of Gaia”. However, it often suffers from a lack of critical thinking which, despite its good intentions, can result in the kind of nonsense typified by the call to “conscious capitalism”. Recently a new group was formed on Gaia, Man in the Maze: Exploring Men’s Spirituality: it will be interesting to see what comes of it.

However, sometimes Gaia.com users hit the nail firmly on the head, such as the following blog post by Sherrilene who liked the extract from Numen, Old Men. Unfortunately she deleted her profile a couple of days after posting (thanks to Google’s cache, we still have it): no doubt she got fed up with allegedly integral thinkers relegating her opinion to first tier consciousness. Anyway, this was her post:

Integral does NOT equal Truth…

I was pleased to have the opportunity to read an article entitled Masculine Spiritualities and the Problem of Patriarchy by Joseph Gelfer, who has written a new book titled ‘Numen, Old Men’; and to see him very effectively lay out his views on a number of issues I have had about the Integral Movement and in particular the methods of the ever-famous Ken Wilber and his followers.

Indeed I have been offended as a person several times, to see the manic ego-raging expressed as these persons sought to speak on spirituality and humans, clearly with no interest nor concern for how they destroyed the contributions of people who have been practising spiritual living as a matter of course and were not just ‘waking up’ to the subject, which apparently, many of these new ‘Masters’ were.

But somehow the ‘guys’ felt they had the right to impose their versions of Truth on the world and we better take it!

On distant analysis, and combining observations in different parts of the world on how patriarchy manifests itself, I’ve ultimately concluded that the Masters of Integral and other patriarchal representatives don’t know Truth, or else they would NEVER find the need to minimise another person’s experience or contribution about Spirit, IN THIS LIFETIME! Reflecting repeatedly on what somebody else has written is not an indication that YOU YOURSELF have LIVED on or followed a path, thus the Guru mindset of entitlement to tell people how to think is absolutely off-base and, I believe, quite irresponsible! It is an obvious example of patriarchy in its pure form.

Mr. Gelfer has helped me along to this expression and I’m thankful. I never had the time to sit and read through the ridiculously lengthy elaborations from the Integral posse till now [I was too busy physically helping individuals and groups out, on the ground], so I did not have a solid basis for saying it was limited; just my gut told me, ‘These guys don’t know God, or they wouldn’t have to smash people to bits like this to express their Truth!’ That being subjective and even judgmental, I tried my best not to express my opinion.

Well, as always I think my gut was right! As the Gelfer blog clearly shows, there is blatant discrimination, prejudice and stereotyping woven deeply into the Integral elaborations. It is no different philosophically than the Truth that the Catholic Church imposed and to my mind, is [was? I haven't checked in recently] simply seeking to take over as the next mind-control approach of many.

I say stay clear of any philosophy which puts people into greater or lesser states and categories for picking apart and assessment. We were all created by this Universe and all have relevance. Like in my commentary on Development, I acknowledge the role that each major thought shift takes; it has its place but it is by no means the complete picture.

Patriarchal leadership has led to such destruction of the Human Being in its pure form, I CANNOT WAIT till it has purged itself out of our lives finally by demonstrating its lack of usefulness for this time and for the future. There is only so much emotional, physical, intellecutal and spiritual abuse this species and indeed all other species that we were supposed to have ‘dominion’ over, can absorb.

Let’s hope this is the tail end of this phase being manifested and move into a state where we can be respectful of all Beings … and especially our Selves. Onto ‘Atriarchy’ and Human Freedom!