On Barack Obama’s politics of unity

Thank you for giving this new Weblog your attention.

Blogging is often the ultimate medium for narcissistic self-indulgence. But I don’t have the illusion that you came here because you care so very much about my life, my concerns, and my opinions on matters spiritual, cultural, philosophical, or political.

Perhaps you have come here because I, like you, have started to walk a journey as a supporter of Barack Obama for president of the United States. The Senator from Illinois once gave a short speech on why he decided to run. He admitted it was an audacious — perhaps even presumptuous — quest. He appealed then to our belief in the possibility of transcending ourselves in hope for a greater unity:

In the face of war, you believe there can be peace. In the face of despair, you believe there can be hope. In the face of a politics that’s shut you out, that’s told you to settle, that’s divided us for too long, you believe we can be one people, reaching for what’s possible, building that more perfect union.

Senator Obama is not only asking Americans for their vote. He is asking that we each renew our faith in our potential to be united as a people, and cooperate to achieve great things again. I believe we can change our selves (and I have seen change happen in my own life). We can change our communities, our country, and our world. But to do so, we must believe in our own capacity to be agents of the change that we want to see beyond ourselves. Otherwise, we will not rise to the full potential of the moment.

Whatever our political convictions, we can work together to realize practical solutions that reflect the best of our democratic values. Whatever our spiritual beliefs or religious traditions, we can mutually explore the possibility of a common oneness that joins us all and motivates us to bring about the increasing unfolding of liberation and perfection. Whatever we believe ourselves to be, we can challenge our assumptions to discover a higher, deeper, and wider reality.

This Weblog is my effort to play a modest part in this movement, to shape its logic, and to expand the conversation around the nature of real change. As this journey unfolds, you can explore my contribution to the message of change, offer your insights, and ask the questions that need to be asked.

On this Weblog, I will explore the contours of the theory and practice for bringing about real change in all dimensions of self, culture, society, and nature. My claim is not that Obama adheres to this particular philosophy or exemplifies its practice. Rather, I will articulate a vision that makes sense of his politics of unity, and let readers decide for themselves if it helps them to make sense of this progressive movement for change.

Toward a theory of Fourth Way politics

Most commentary on American politics assumes a dichotomy between left and right, liberal and conservative, “red” and “blue”, and Democrat and Republican. That the nation is divided into strongly opposing camps is assumed, leading political thinkers to explain the differences between competing ideologies and leading political activists to work for conflicting causes. Pundits often disagree about the nature of the differences between the various factions, but most suggest that politics is a winner-take-all game. There is little common ground or potential for coming together.

In contrast, at least since the 1990s, various attempts have been made in the United States and elsewhere to overcome the stark traditional political divide. Often called Third Way politics, these efforts strive to build bridges, identify overlapping agreements, and forge acceptable compromises. Proponents of the so called “radical center” work to establish moderate policies within existing political parties or as independents. Both Bill Clinton’s “New Democrat” style and George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservativism” have been associated with Third Way schools of thought.

Another school of thought – not yet widely known or practiced — rejects both the divisive politics of left and right as well as the moderate voices of the Third Way. Although there is not yet a universally accepted label for this movement, some have called this approach “integral politics”, “vertical politics”, or a “politics of meaning”. This Weblog calls this new style of politics the Fourth Way.*

What sets it apart is that it takes an evolutionary look at American values, situating the spectrum of common political arguments within an understanding of how human beings arrive at their values systems according to universal stages of moral development as revealed by decades of scientific research into psychological growth and cross-cultural processes. Thus, stated very generally, the goal of political thought is to understand the forces at work in the ongoing evolution of values in society, and the goal of political activism is to protect and defend the integrity and holistic well-being of all persons at every level of development.

Fourth Way politics is actually easier to grasp than you might guess. In my book Rising Up (Lulu.com, 2006), I presented a basic framework for how taking an evolutionary understanding of values alters the nature of political discourse. The key is to include in any analysis of values as many stages, typologies, states, perspectives, and lines of development as practical. Here’s how it’s done:

Let us assume the truth of someone else’s vision of reality, and then explicate (as best we can) just what they’re missing in their picture of the world, where they are more blind than they need be, where they are partial in their apprehensions, where they are less comprehensive than they could be, and how they could consider taking a few steps down the path of greater integration from whatever point they’re at.

If we do nothing else in our criticism, then let us at least do this one absolutely indispensable thing: situate the object of criticism into its most appropriate locations in a more comprehensive worldview than is given by the object itself …

Thus, Fourth Way includes a sort of meta-theory, or a theory about the theories of politics. When you assume that the aim of civic leadership is to bring about various forms of social reconciliation and integration, then you will offer solutions based on an understanding of the common good. Nevertheless, Fourth Way leadership does not impose any particular vision of what constitutes human flourishing on society as a whole or any individual. Indeed, the hallmark of this politics is that it fosters respect for values important to persons at every stage of development, and demands that society not interfere with individual choices and lifestyles unless absolutely necessary to prevent others from imposing their own values illegitimately on others.

Taking the idea of development seriously

The psychological theorist Ken Wilber, one of the few truly comprehensive public intellectuals of our time, says it’s important to imagine how it is possible that “everyone is right”. More precisely, everyone’s perspective is partial but true. What a challenging paradox for a political thinker! Whereas conventional politics assumes insurmountable differences, a Fourth Way politics believes something quite different about values. This approach challenges the thinker to imagine the possibility an underlying coherence in our radically inchoate universe. Political leaders should work to make this vision of unity real by forging pragmatic solutions that bring about greater social harmony and well-being while adamantly respecting democratic safeguards of individual liberties.

It is easy to see how Fourth Way may seem inherently elitist or arrogant. After all, it assumes that human beings develop from less adequate to more adequate stages of consciousness, and that policies derived by leaders at higher levels should be favored. Admittedly, Fourth Way can easily sound condescending, as if it tells more conventional thinkers that they should stop dragging their knuckles on the ground! Indeed, Fourth Way thought does use labels as markers of stages of consciousness – as we will soon see – and any such labels may seem to some as divisive. But this criticism is not entirely valid. Virtually all political punditry uses labels, and then argues that views described by the preferred labels come out on top. In other words, when we theorize about right and wrong, we are all elitists.

Fourth Way labels stem from a developmental orientation to values, whereas conventional labels such as left and right ignore the fact of ongoing evolution in human consciousness. When Fourth Way thinking uses labels, they are nothing more than ideal types. Of course, no individual thinker or leader fits only into one type or another. When labels are used, it is because various arguments contain certain themes, values, and ways of communicating that are endemic to one or more particular stages of development. By calling attention to the presence of an underlying dynamic, this Weblog seeks to raise awareness of the hidden dynamics of evolution itself.

For the purposes of this Weblog, stages are seen as markers along the process of development from more rudimentary systems to more complex systems of values. The psychologist Clare Graves describes stages of consciousness as a dynamic spiral when he talks about the order inherent in the development of behavior systems:

[T]he psychology of the mature human being is an unfolding, emergent, oscillating, spiraling process, marked by progressive subordination of older, lower-order behavior systems to newer, higher-order systems as man’s existential problems change.

Values and political outlooks are only one of many contingent aspects of human nature that develop in progressive stages. According to a large body of cross-cultural psychological research, separate developmental lines exist for such attributes as values and worldviews, cognition, self-sense or identity, religious faith, and even athletic and aesthetic abilities. Instead, individuals and societies possess a variety of attributes that may grow quite independently of one another.

Among the most important labels used by Fourth Way – and its most distinguishing feature – are those describing the stages of consciousness. Different theorists use many different labels to describe different things. Examples include Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol Gilligan’s hierarchies of moral development, Jean Gebser’s model of consciousness, Don Beck’s and Chris Cowan’s Spiral Dynamics Integral, James Fowler’s stages of faith, Teilhard de Chardin’s theology, Michael Lerner’s spiritual progressivism, Sri Aurobindo’s hierarchy of spiritual realization, and Ken Wilber’s integral theory.

This Weblog will employ a variety of development labels as appropriate to the context. These labels and descriptions aren’t unique to this Weblog, by any means, but something like this scheme is often used by contemporary Integral writers. Stated most generally, these labels include:

• First stage – A survival-oriented, archaic, even animalistic way of existence. Values are staying alive, securing food, sex, safety, and comfort. “I will survive!”
• Second stage – A tribalistic, us v. them mentality. Values are obtaining safety and glory for the group, respecting duty to the group, and obeying directives stemming from magical thinking, emotion, and sexual profligacy. “They are not us; get them!”
• Third stage – An egocentric, impulsive, hedonistic, and aggressive stance. Values are breaking free of guilt, ascending to the top of the pack, go-it-alone heroism. “Might makes right.”
• Fourth stage – A purposeful, authoritative mode of being based on traditional collective myths. Values are seeking purpose in life, believing in transcendent causes, building character, and maintaining order based on conformity to law and discipline. “Fit in.”
• Fifth stage - A rational, modern, achievement-oriented stage. Values are self-interest, self-reliance, vigorous competition, achieving success and accumulating wealth, progress by scientific inquiry and reasoned debate.
• Sixth stage – A pluralistic, postmodern, emotionally connected stage. Values are eliminating greed, dogma, and conflict, and affirming, feelings, sensitivity, and a private sense of spirituality.
• Seventh stage – An integrative, post-postmodern worldview. Values are flexibility, responsivity, and recognizing a developmental flow and transcendental unity to existence, living fully and responsibly, and dissolving differences into natural flows and synergies.

Although this Weblog is concerned primarily with social and political values stemming from the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh stages, this list of human potentials is not exhaustive. It is very important to stress that stages do not progress automatically and hierarchically in some sort of rigid fashion. Human development is complex and unpredictable, and many mysteries remain regarding how exactly people and societies change over time. Various theologians and philosophers have argued that higher stages (sometimes called “the third-tier”) of consciousness exist, such as permanent modes of existence attained by shamans, saints, sages, and enlightened masters. Fourth Way political thought is open to the evidence regarding the existence and nature of higher stages of consciousness; however, belief in them is not required.

Conclusion

Fourth Way thought understands that human nature is difficult to categorize by simple labels such as optimistic or pessimistic, individualist or collectivist, conservative or radical. The two key insights are: firstly, human nature evolves in history (i.e., our nature is not static); and secondly, all insights regarding human nature (including this one) are partial but true, dependent on irreducible multiplicities of contexts. Moral and political views are relative, and that’s a fact. However, they are not absolutely relative. The concept of development, derived from empirical cross-cultural research (not metaphysics), provides an overarching framework for understanding the similarities and overlapping patterns underlying the differences between cultures over periods of time.** In short, genuine progress towards universally true, good, and beautiful goals is possible — for individuals and societies — but such progress is not assured. Indeed, the very survival of our species is threatened today owing to the gravity of such threats such as climate change and nuclear warfare. The human story is not assumed to be a success story or a tragedy, but an incomplete drama whose authorship is our collective directive. As I wrote in the Introduction to Rising Up:

Our contemporary situation is seen most clearly as a comedy of horrors: unintentional slights, impulsive obsessions, mistaken premises, unspoken judgments, unrecognized biases, and unconscious actions lock us into kaleidoscope patterns of suffering that we do not intend but would not change even if we could. The harm perpetrated by the well-intentioned is usually done not contrary to the highest values we hold—but because of them.

Why is Fourth Way politics important? Simply put, it is the only school of thought advocating a fully comprehensive approach to politics and tackling the problems of the world. Because no other philosophy adequately accounts for all the dynamics of our contemporary “comedy of horrors”, conventional politics results in short-sighted, incomplete, futile, and counterproductive actions. The old politics of left and right create tyrannies that inhibit freedom and the possibilities for real transformation. Even the supposedly superior Third Way politics of moderation often gives us only compromises between two equally limited approaches. Fourth Way politics is no panacea, but it gives us new insights and practical solutions for facing the critical problems of the world today.

If you want to join me by learning more about the Fourth Way and want to contribute to this discussion, then we can assist each other in our own journeys of transformation. Through this Weblog publication, we can discover and improve upon our own shared dreams, ideas, and plans for action. Let’s make real change happen.

---

* My use of Fourth Way to describe an approach to values and politics is not related to G. I. Gurdjieff’s use of the term to describe his approach to self-development.

** A lengthy discussion of the relationship between Fourth Way thought and metaphysics is outside the scope of this brief introduction. Simply put, I agree with the view that all value systems and worldviews presuppose various unprovable first principles. The distinguishing feature of this philosophy is that it assumes that theories with the fewest possible unprovable assumptions are superior to those requiring many. Arguably, the only metaphysical first principle needed to defend the integrity of Fourth Way thought is the notion that evolution has a purpose (telos). The converse of this assumption, that involution also has a purpose, is also deemed true.