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18 comments

• Comment Link Tuesday, 30 November 2010 17:24 posted by Jonathan

  Great thoughts Trevor. Chris is definitely someone I look to read every few weeks. The guy is a much-needed moral compass, getting right to the root of a lot of lurking bullshit/evil out there.
• Comment Link Saturday, 04 December 2010 02:56 posted by Trevor Malkinson

  Thanks Jonathan. He has a new article that you've probably seen:
  
  http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/power_and_the_tiny_acts_of_rebellion_20101122/
  
  Listen to this opening salvo:
  
  "There is no hope left for achieving significant reform or restoring our democracy through established mechanisms of power. The electoral process has been hijacked by corporations. The judiciary has been corrupted and bought. The press shuts out the most important voices in the country and feeds us the banal and the absurd. Universities prostitute themselves for corporate dollars. Labor unions are marginal and ineffectual forces. The economy is in the hands of corporate swindlers and speculators. And the public, enchanted by electronic hallucinations, remains passive and supine. We have no tools left within the power structure in our fight to halt unchecked corporate pillage".
  
  Wow, that man is swinging for the fences. He's a force to be sure.
• Comment Link Friday, 17 December 2010 21:01 posted by Trevor Malkinson

  From new article by Chris Hedges: "All energy directed toward reforming political and state structures is useless. All efforts to push through a “progressive” agenda within the corridors of power are naive. Trust in the reformation of our corporate state reflects a failure to recognize that those who govern, including Barack Obama, are as deaf to public demands and suffering as those in the old Communist regimes. We cannot rely on any systems of power, including the pillars of the liberal establishment—the press, liberal religious institutions, universities, labor, culture and the Democratic Party. They have been weakened to the point of anemia or work directly for the corporations that dominate our existence. We can rely now on only ourselves, on each other."
  
  http://www.alternet.org/world/149171/hedges:_every_act_of_rebellion_helps_tear_down_our_corrupt,_sick_system?page=entire
• Comment Link Thursday, 13 January 2011 06:07 posted by Trevor Malkinson

  Here's Chris Hedges with a pretty compelling case for why Americans should protest both wars:
  
  http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/even_lost_wars_make_corporations_rich_20110110/
  
  "We are spending, much of it through the accumulation of debt, nearly a trillion dollars a year to pay for these wars. We drive up the deficits to wage war while we have more than 30 million people unemployed, some 40 million people living in poverty and tens of millions more in a category euphemistically called “near poverty.” The profits of weapons manufacturers and private contractors have quadrupled since the invasion of Afghanistan. But the cost for corporate greed has been chronic and long-term unemployment and underemployment and the slashing of federal and state services. The corporations, no matter how badly the wars are going, make huge profits from the conflicts. They have no interest in turning off their money-making machine".
• Comment Link Thursday, 13 January 2011 06:17 posted by Vanessa Fisher

  Hey Trevor, I just saw this post and wanted to thank you for it. I've been turned on to Hedges this past few months and I've deeply enjoyed his perspective. I still haven't read the Empire of Illusion yet, but can't wait to hear his views on pornography. Can you give me a capsize of his views on this just to give me a sense until I have time to read it?
  
  I look forward to reading your other article on Hedges as well.
• Comment Link Friday, 14 January 2011 18:45 posted by R. Michael Fisher

  So glad to see good "Green" thinking, if I could say so in terms of v-memes, is being addressed seriously by integrals. I too have recently been admiring, not totally agreeing, with much of the solid argumentation of Hedges but more than that, I am floored-to-tears watching an American (white man) so sober(ing), without being depressing. Something like that. His voice is prophetic but speaks to 'reality' I have sensed for a long time--long time. I'm an old boomer (Canadian now living in the US)--critical theorist-pedagogue cum critical integralist.
  
  I appreciate Trevor in particular for bringing his work forward to us all here. What's an integral take on his discourse? That would be interesting to pursue. With limited space now, I'll leave folks with my own writing on Hedges in my blogpost (http://fearlessnessteach.blogspot.com)a few months back ("Transformation of American Liberalism" Nov. 17, 2010 and "The American Holon is Drunk" Dec. 22nd, as part of a four part series).
  
  Special mention, that Chris Hedges is interviewed by Michael Moore in the "Extras" (only) for Moore's film "Capitalism: A Love Story"-- that's a stunning dialogue they have on film, eye to eye. I won't forget it. My blogpost shares some of that experience (Dec. 22nd).
• Comment Link Friday, 14 January 2011 20:06 posted by R. Michael Fisher

  "one of the most life transforming books I've ever read", is not a light statement Trevor makes about Hedges's work... I am most curious Trevor to hear you say more on what Hedges's "fearless" discourse brings to you--especially, as a relatively young integral thinker and someone looking at your (and our) future... a la Hedges lens. Oh, I got the male-macho part of how you're impacted (Tom Cruise samurai bit)-- now, can you share more. I think our "image of the future" is potent in shaping worldview and visa versa, and Hedges's is hitting us right at that location-- and I keep thinking what would it be like to have a liberal-type 14, 16 or 18 year old hear Hedges? Is Hedges destroying "future hope" for young people, or could he, or could they, depending on their developmental level and interpretation? So, what's your take, or other young integrals out there?
• Comment Link Saturday, 15 January 2011 23:59 posted by Trevor Malkinson

  Hi Michael (or R. Michael?), thanks for the words and the prompt to go deeper about what Hedges' work brings to me. I sat with your question yesterday afternoon, esp. with the 'transforming' impact that his book War Is A Force had on me, and lots was coming up, but not everything is fully formed yet. I'm going to sit on it for a day or two, take a couple of walks down by the ocean, and then I'll come back and try and do your inquiry justice.
  
  It's been great having your (insightful, intelligent, mature) voice around Beams. When the core contributors built this site, our intention was to build a platform to engage with a plethora of folks like yourself, to really try and utilize and dive into the collective mind together. So great to now be engaging in that process in real time.
  
  Thanks again, I look forward to the contemplative exercise around Chris Hedges' work and the questions you raised.
• Comment Link Sunday, 16 January 2011 21:39 posted by R. Michael Fisher

  Alright. I appreciate the route you've chosen and also the Beams team and its aims... I think it is working to include like some other Integral groups have not done so well. I'd venture to suggest, you folks are the first integrals actually practicing postmoodern integralist work as a 'collective'--and that's what encourages me to participate. Maybe the inquiry into post-postmodern (integral) needs to 'ground' for awhile in postmodern--that is, developing a rich and wide postmodern sensibility with a certain degree of mastery (albeit, not "mastery" as modernist might interpret it). Look forward to hearing your reflections on Hedges. -Michael
• Comment Link Tuesday, 18 January 2011 22:23 posted by Trevor Malkinson

  Hi Michael, thanks again for the exchange and the contemplative exercise.
  
  The first point I'd want to make is I appreciate you pointing out (and supporting) the need for more healthy postmodern/green thinking in integralists. I completely agree. As I'm sure you know, there's an understandable enough history that seems to have led to this blind spot. At some point integrally minded folks wanted to push back against a certain postmodern critique of capitalism/business/modernity that was too one sided, too cynical, too totalizing in its bleak and dismissive critique. There was a push in the broader integral community (as I experienced it) to re-engage business as a source for growth and positive evolutionary change in the world. I personally learned a lot from those folks pushing back into that territory, and think a lot of great work is still being done at the organizational/corporate level with all sorts of great tools in the toolbox (from Bill Torbert and Susanne Cook-Greuter's work, to Otto Scharmer’s etc.).
  
  However, when this strenuous push back was added to Ken Wilber's rather robust and consistent attack on "the mean green meme", or the shadow side of the postmodernity, in my view a sort of vacuum was created where a truly healthy postmodern perspective/practice/critique could not sufficiently grow into its fullness. And that's certainly one reason why I want to get Hedges' work into the discussion, because I think he brings a mature, sophisticated and well-argued understanding of power and how it operates in the modern world-system, particularly the United States.
  
  At this years Integral Theory Conference, the organizers Sean Esbjorn-Hargens and Mark Forman gave an opening night speech talking about the state of Integral theory as they see it. One point they mentioned, and kudos to them for this open self-critique, is that Integral theory is being criticized on many fronts these days for not having a sufficient enough understanding/analysis of power and how it operates in the modern world-system. Again, I think Hedges is a trustworthy figure whose work can act as a much needed corrective to this lack. So could many others, but his work and voice is a good place to start. So Michael thanks for your general insight into and support for a more fuller grounding in a postmodern sensibility.
  
  You also asked me: "I am most curious Trevor to hear you say more on what Hedges' "fearless" discourse brings to you--especially, as a relatively young integral thinker and someone looking at your (and our) future... a la Hedges lens".
  
  There's a certain moral force in Hedges that I admire and identify with, and his courage gives me more strength to speak (and act) from my own heart about the injustices that gnaw at me inside. The French mystic-philosopher Simone Weil had a short saying that has impacted me powerfully over the years. She writes, "To know that this man who is hungry and thirsty really exists as much as I do, that is enough- the rest follows of itself". It's this basic yet deep moral recognition that I hear Hedges speaking out of. From it he somehow manages to cut through all the claptrap, all the ways we delude ourselves from truly seeing how others are being deeply harmed by economic and/or military decisions (etc.), and he holds up very real hurting people and says, "this isn't good enough". To what most of us habitually turn our gaze away from, Hedges peers into steadfastly and unflinchingly.
  
  I'm also reminded of that powerful scene in the movie Platoon, where several American soldiers are raping a young Vietnamese woman, and Charlie Sheen's character tells them to stop. They tell him that she's "just a gook" or something like that, and he screams, "She's a fucking human being" and starts ripping them off of her. It's this type of core universal moral heart connection that I hear Hedges coming from, and it inspires and moves me. There's more than a bit of Old Testament prophet in Hedges, and I also appreciate how he's unafraid to consistently call out other Christians on the deep hypocrisy of their acts.
  
  There's also something in Hedges' spirit that is willing to risk it all, to put himself out there in a way that's raw and exposed, both in his views and in his body (he was just arrested in front of the White House in December during an anti-war protest). This is something I've admired in figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Allen Ginsberg, John Lennon and others. I recently just saw the Christian contemplative Cynthia Bourgeault give a talk, and I was blown away by her courage (as she tries to transform Christianity). Sitting in front of her was like sitting in front of a massive blast of air. I want to continue to learn from all these people how I can myself find the courage and moral fortitude to risk everything too, so I can more fully help with and participate in the evolution of world and culture, and our relation to the earth.
  
  There is indeed something truly bleak and uncompromising about Hedges’ view of the current state of Western societies, particularly the US. But somehow I find this empowering. It’s like the veils have been ripped off and, as dark and ugly as what’s revealed, I feel somehow this is tilling the soil for something else to grow. On your blog about Hedges you write:
  
  “Hedges, a progressive himself, and an American--in the core--sees through and says it like it has to be said. I so appreciated that honesty. I so appreciated to hear one liberal-type leader speak about taking responsibility and moving out of denial… He's telling us what we need to hear. Blunt. No hope. No cheer-leading. No empty prescriptions. And he has good reason for not offering that”.
  
  I love that, and I really like the notion of “moving out of denial”, this seems bang on to me. As I mentioned in my original piece, Hedges has a strong understanding of psychology, particularly psychoanalysis, and as such has a deep understanding of the many (unconscious!!) psychological mechanisms we posses that help us delude ourselves, lie to ourselves, intentionally falsify and distort reality. I think the situation is probably close to as bad as Hedges describes here:
  
  "There is no hope left for achieving significant reform or restoring our democracy through established mechanisms of power. The electoral process has been hijacked by corporations. The judiciary has been corrupted and bought. The press shuts out the most important voices in the country and feeds us the banal and the absurd. Universities prostitute themselves for corporate dollars. Labor unions are marginal and ineffectual forces. The economy is in the hands of corporate swindlers and speculators. And the public, enchanted by electronic hallucinations, remains passive and supine. We have no tools left within the power structure in our fight to halt unchecked corporate pillage".
  
  Yet we continue to delude ourselves with distractions or false reformist narratives about how things might be bad but will somehow slowly get better. I'm not so sure. What I hear from Hedges is one loud (hopefully final) clarion call that we must start to get our hands dirty and actively take part in the world/community/society around us. We must take risks. Only through OUR actions will anything change, will we be able to divert and transcend this particular moment in history where vast amounts of power and resources have been overtaken by a global elite. We cannot sit back like Nietzsche’s Last Man, that modern bourgeois character whose only desire is “to have an untroubled sleep”. The regime of the Last Man (as Nietzsche predicted) is one of complacency, where one’s place in life, one’s safety is protected at all costs, no matter what narcotic or lie has to be ingested to maintain this soothing illusion. Hedges manages to pierce through that dream and wake us up to something that is brutal, yet very, very real.
  
  Lastly Michael, as this is already a long response, but you also asked about why Hedges’ book ‘War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning’ was so “life transforming” for me. I’ve been having a hard time formulating this one, as my response seems to register somewhere at a more emotional/spiritual level than a cognitive one. But I’d have to say it had something to do with having the masks pulled off of war, leaving it to be seen as the grotesque and horrifying event that it is. Hedges reveals (from experience on the front lines) the many deceptions and lies that leaders perpetrate in order to manipulate our lowest natures (and unconscious desires) into supporting and fighting wars. Balloon after balloon of falsity was popped, and I was left with what Allen Ginsberg called a “naked lunch”, a “moment where everyone sees what’s on the end of every fork”. The on the ground reality of war that Hedges left me with was both devastating and heart breaking. And yet, somehow, I felt empowered by this feeling of being stripped bear. Not sure why that is, but Hedges’ work seems to work on me that way.
  
  As I mentioned, I found Hedges’ use of the Freudian concepts of Eros and Thanatos in relation to war very moving and insightful. This is a rather large point to throw out at the end here but here it is- Hedges recognizes that much of our destructive nature is a displaced spiritual impulse. Thanatos untethered from Eros can feel like (to the soldiers and leaders carrying out war) the totality and wholeness sought in the spiritual pursuit, but it never finally is. But the core impulse is still there!- it’s just displaced, and that was a transformative and enlivening revelation for me. If we can learn to tap and direct that impulse properly, and reject the false idols along the way, the future could be very bright indeed.
  
  In closing, I chose a couple of passages to share from that final chapter of ‘War Is A Force’. Here they are:
  
  “The Thanatos instinct is a drive toward suicide, individual and collective. War celebrates only power- and we come to believe in wartime that it is the only real form of power. It preys on our most primal and savage impulses. It allows us to do what peacetime society forbids or restrains us from doing. It allows us to kill. However much soldiers regret killing once it is finished, however much they spend their lives trying to cope with the experience, the act itself, fueled by fear, excitement, the pull of the crowd, and the god-like exhilaration of destroying is often thrilling…In the beginning war looks and feels like love. But unlike love it gives us nothing in return but an ever-deepening dependence, like all narcotics, on the road to self-destruction”.
  
  “When a heavy shell landed in Sarajevo, or an assassination took place in the streets of San Salvador, or a suicide bomber blew himself up in Jerusalem, mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, and children pawed through the onlookers seeking physical reunification with those they loved. This love, like death, radiates outwards. It battles Thanatos at the very moment of death’s sting. These two fundamental human impulses crash like breakers into each other. And however much beyond reason, there is always a feeling that love is not powerless or impotent as we had believed a few seconds before. Love alone fuses happiness and meaning. Love alone can fight the impulses that lure us toward self-destruction…Love has power to both resist in our nature what we know we must resist, and to affirm what we must affirm.”
• Comment Link Friday, 21 January 2011 07:01 posted by R. Michael Fisher

  Thanks Trevor for your sincere and insightful contemplation on my questions. Thanks. I was curious to hear all the love-talk by him, as he didn't seem to be that kind of person as I have heard him and watched him (still haven't read his books).
  
  I appreciate your experience and it has helped me understand personal impact Hedges' work has had on you. You answered some of my questions and yet left a couple unanswered, particularly the way we might bring an integral critique to Hedges and his work, and even bring to ourselves as commentators; and, you missed my educational question.
  
  I've written my full response on yours at my blogsite and addressed the unanswered questions to some degree. Maybe you and others will find that valuable to continue this thread. Go to "Chris Hedges: A Second Critical Look" (21/1/11 at http:www.fearlessnessteach.blogspot.com)
• Comment Link Saturday, 22 January 2011 23:37 posted by R. Michael Fisher

  Noticed if you press the link address I've given it won't take you there. So, better to just type the title of the piece and/or "World's Fearlessness Teachings" and you'll get there.
• Comment Link Sunday, 23 January 2011 01:01 posted by Trevor Malkinson

  Michael, thanks for the words and the great bit of critical reflection over at your site. Other readers can, if interested, click this link and go directly to that work:
  
  http://fearlessnessteach.blogspot.com/2011/01/chris-hedges-second-critical-look.html
  
  I found your "critical integral approach" to Hedges and his work some of the most sophisticated and nimble integral thinking I've come across, it was really great to engage with and absorb.
  
  I suppose I didn't answer your other two specific questions mainly out of time, and because the other ones seemed like a massive enough undertaking already, but I really appreciate the insights in your reflections on those topics.
  
  Just one quick point of response. You ask in your piece, "Is Hedges too dogmatic?", and "Is he open to debate?". I was just curious, did you watch the debate I linked to at the end of my original piece (I think you did, given your piece)? I personally felt like he handled himself well there, I didn't feel the dogmatism you speak of. He's definitely a very capable debater and very skilled at defending/backing up his views, so maybe this comes off as dogmatic. But I got to ask, if he thinks he's right, and he's got the facts and analysis to back that up, what else can he do but argue strongly about that view (esp. when it has so much suffering riding on it)? Is that necessarily dogmatism?
  
  Perhaps this is more a question of skillful means, and you have some thoughts as to how he might speak differently to better get his points across (and here I'm not talking about your pedagogical question around teaching youth, I thought that was right on), but I really just find him kind of fed up and blunt and full of ammunition. There's an almost brutality with which he lays out the situation as he sees it, and I honestly feel that this voice is needed to both confront and pop the delirious delusions perpetrated and believed by the neo-liberal right.
  
  The answer to this question might in many ways ride on how right Hedges finally is in his views. At any rate, you asked your readers to engage you on that point, so I'd thought I'd offer my views on that one. I'm certainly open to further nuance around this point.
  
  I must say that I took exception to your treatment of my/Hedges use of Eros and Thanatos, but perhaps I'll come over to your page and we can work through that great topic there. Thanks Michael!
• Comment Link Sunday, 23 January 2011 23:22 posted by Diana Kastelic

  I just caught the tail end of Chris Hedges' University of Toronto lecture re: Death of the Liberal Class on TVO (Ontario's version of PBS, which also airs 'The Agenda' mentioned in Trevor Malkinson's article). Mr. Hedges definitely has some very valid points, and is likely spot-on in his analysis of the crisis we now face. So what are we going to do about it? We need leadership and an action plan with concrete ideas of what can and must be done in the real world to start turning this titanic around -- before we all sink. Critical thinking is all well and good, but unless we move on to the more practical next step of problem solving, we're nothing more than a group of (obviously highly-educated) navel gazers.
• Comment Link Tuesday, 25 January 2011 03:09 posted by R. Michael Fisher

  "Strategists" (re: self-identity stage in Cook-Greuter's model) is one way to locate an integralist (and their approach, or action-logic as Torbert would argue). This locating oneself, or a 'speaker' is something postmodern critique has asked us all to consider and a good integral (post-postmodern) critique would push that locating of identity to examine not merely race, age, sex, gender, class biases but developmental biases (i.e., structure stages as Cook-Greuter, Torbert, Kegan, Wilber and others have offered). So, any commentary I make, while practicing an integralist approach in my critique of Hedges and his work, will carry this intention and application of theory and experience. If I suggest a "dogmatism" quality in Hedge's discourse, even if he can debate well in the classical sense (which no doubt he's very good at), I am suggesting that claim based on it being one of the significant shadows of first-tier Pluralist (self-identity stage) by developmentalists in the integral world of analysis (as above). I've called it "Green" (using Spiral Dynamics) but it also is Pluralist-- mind you I'd guess Hedges (more specifically, his discourse bias) is coming from an advanced form of Pluralist (prophetic), which is wonderful for its 'punishing' critique with lots of truths, yet partial. When Trevor suggests above that Hedges could have all the right "facts" and so can back them up he ought to speak as he does (i.e., teach as he does), that's not an integralist view but more an "Achiever" (self-identity stage) and rationalist. I'm not suggesting that ought to be ignored in any discernments we make about Hedges or any speaker, it merely is not convincing criteria that there is such "facts" in all quadrants on any issue, never mind the varied perspectives of the different self- identity locations (i.e., developmental levels interpreting).
  
  My challenge, from this developmental nuance, integralist as I can be in the moment, is that "Strategists (integralists) easily change frames of reference when they deem it resourceful .... Strategists see that others must make their own mistakes as surely as making these will contribute to growth.... Strategists are open to rethinking their positions or frames of reference (1) [and invite such feedback ongoing]" for what Torbert calls double- and triple loop learning (i.e., transformative learning for vertical stage shifts).
  
  I have not seen evidence for this Strategist embrace and/or transformative pedagogy in Hedges and his work, as limited as my study so far has been. Again, this is only to point one way an integralist critique could be useful, and then from the contrasts, and including of Pluralist (and Achiever) perspectives and approaches, I'd then look to launch something more comprehensive spinning off Hedges important voice and data, and interpretations. That's just another way of re-stating my educational bit.
  
  Diana's comment 'hits home' to me in that as a Strategist action-logic, I do not wish to stall out on thy sacred navel or thy sacred pen. A good Strategist wouldn't do that but would integrate the "action" orientation of the Achiever, yet, with the nuanced calibrations of the Pluralist and Strategist, and other "later" self-identity action-logics as well. I would suggest that's best done by ensuring we are talking about "integral praxis" (in a critical theory way). Praxis is not just analysis but action, and then both feeding into each other in an ongoing self-reflective action-based inquiry and "doing" that goes out into the world-- and I won't even get into suggestions of what is the 'real' world, because this is not my interest, nor really interests the Strategist that has seen all worlds as 'real' (partial truths) more or less. Again, this is the guiding integral principles I have learned and am using as a framework. Maybe others, don't care to use such a framework. Fine. See what happens. I put this out on this website because of the purpose of the site which is exploring post-postmodern inquiry (I love the "inquiry") because I'm pretty convinced we need new approaches to inquiry that include and transcend Achiever and Pluralist ones-- that's really my point. But the tough part is getting enough folks that can embrace this with sincerity to study and apply integral theory and principles (as well as argue about them) with ongoing commitment.
  
  That said, I will keep spreading the word of Hedges in my 'circles' where I live and see if I can figure out how to get them interested in his work, and its implications, and then, ideally, see if I can swing them on a journey to also explore a Strategist approach to "teaching" and "promoting" in action-based ways in the wider world.
  
  [p.s. And of course, I wouldn't want to put a tonne of effort into this unless I was getting paid as an adult educator and human development consultant-- as I'm still not making ends meet financially in the world-- as much as I'd love to just volunteer my ass off for all good causes]
  
  [p.s.s. and Trevor, the "exception" you take is interesting and surprising, perhaps, as I didn't think I was being too hard on you or old Freud, or Hedges. But goes to show ya, what do I know when I send out text into cyberspace. Sure, raise what you'd like on my own website, this is important stuff. Thanks.]
  
  Notes
  
  1. Ingersoll, R. E. (2010). The self-system and ego development. In R. E. Ingersoll & D. M. Zeitler (Eds.), Integral psychotherapy: Inside out/ outside in. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. (p. 114)
• Comment Link Wednesday, 26 January 2011 01:35 posted by Trevor Malkinson

  Diana and Michael, thanks for the words, and when it comes to action, I couldn't agree more. The thought of simply sitting around and "navel gazing" while all this happens around us, gives me a horrible rash.
  
  I like the way Michael described an "integral praxis", where analysis and action both feed into one other. I agree with that. Beams is sort of the analysis wing, and I personally don't discount the significance of entering into public discourse in this way. But on the ground action is critical too of course, and I personally spend most of my "action" time at the moment with issues of food (moving to a post-industrial food culture), and progressive Christianity. I feel those two issues intersect with many others, and have broad legs in affecting change (not to mention I'm passionate about both), so I currently direct my energy there. But it's true that analysis is also ongoing alongside that process and in a constant feedback loop with that work.
  
  Michael, I continue to love the nuance of your writing, I can feel my own understanding of these things complexifying in real time as I read your thoughts, so thanks for that gift. Upon reflection, I agree with your statement that, "I have not seen evidence for this Strategist embrace and/or transformative pedagogy in Hedges and his work". I can more fully see what you were getting at now, and can see the wisdom in Hedges taking a more strategic and flexible approach as he communicates his message.
  
  I look forward to working through some of the Eros/Thanatos issues with you, I've never really had a true interlocutor on that topic, so I'd appreciate an exchange with someone else familiar with the territory. cheers, :)
• Comment Link Wednesday, 26 January 2011 02:59 posted by Trevor Malkinson

  @Diana, you seem fired up, do you have any sense for the type of "action plan with concrete ideas" that you mention?
  
  Chris Hedges is pretty convinced that the only thing left that'll create any lasting change in the situation is social movements, on the ground movements that are pressuring power structures. He makes a pretty compelling historical case for how such movements have been successful, and how they're almost never vying for actual power, just pressuring power to implement the changes demanded. What you do think of this approach, and its suitability to the current moment?
  
  I'm not as convinced as Hedges that institutional/organizational change is impossible at this point. I know a few people working in this area (including Juma who writes for this site) and am very encouraged by what I hear.
  
  I'm of the mind to tackle all sorts of things- diet, health, spirituality, corporate/institutional change, cultural values, consumption patterns etc. etc.- all at once, working in a collective networked fashion. I'm very interested, as are many others these days, in "multi-agent distributed systems of intelligence". Social media and sites like this can be a play a big part in that, and one of our intentions for Beams (as described in the About Us) was to be "a place to initiate action", so thanks for the prompt for us to focus on getting that leg up and running. If you have any projects that desire collaboration, or could use some promoting, let us know.
  
  Lastly, I took a first pass at trying to conceptualize what a collective course of action might look in a recent essay if you're interested. You'll find it in Section titled "Conclusions and Solutions".
  
  http://beamsandstruts.com/essays/item/85-to-what-end-are-we-living?-instrumental-reason-and-the-problem-of-the-good-life-in-modern-times
  
  Probably the three most relevant three paragraphs to what's being discussed here begin with "But this is just the individual orientation/practice". I'm not saying it's necessarily any good or fully formed, but I have been trying to envision how this might work going forward.
  
  Thanks Diana, good to hear someone so fired up!!
• Comment Link Monday, 03 October 2011 18:30 posted by Bruce Sanguin

  Thanks Trevor, Michael, and all
  
  Great conversation. It is really speaking to where I'm at right now.
  
  Michael, I appreciate your contextualizing of Hedge's perspective and agenda, in particular your inquiry into his pedagogical strategy (or lack thereof) from a developmental/integral perspective. I do wonder if he considers that he has a responsibility for articulating a vision of the future that isn't bleak or premised upon the apocalypse.
  
  I'm a United Church minister, steeped in the postmodernist culture of this liberal/progressive church that has a tendency to divide the world up into us and them, good/bad, right/wrong, for all of its claims to "inclusivity".
  
  I resonate with the healthy Green energy of Hedges. I also resonate with Trevor's appreciation of Hedge's clarion call for transformation.
  
  And Trevor, you nailed (as in elucidated) my experience of the "push-back" against the postmodernist trashing of all things modernist, compounded by Wilber's consistent attack on the "mean green-meme". It did leave a void for the healthy development of the green meme. But what does that look like? That's my question right now.
  
  I myself spent the first 20 years of ministry trashing modernism, discovered integral, and then more recently find myself wondering how to take a stand that isn't merely ideological. And I have to say, I'm in a period when I have suspended the use of the prophetic mantra of "speaking truth to power". In retrospect, I realize that rarely have the "stands" I've taken sufficiently considered all the facts, let alone all the perspectives.
  
  But I'm left with the dilemma, how does one act and what is the practice when one becomes convinced that a system needs to evolve? How does one speak into it? What is the nature of the conversation? Even asking all these questions can seem indulgent while Wall Street strengthens its hold on the Washington.
  
  I too read Hedge's, War Is a Force...and found it incredibly gripping. Now I wonder what he would do with a book like Pinker's, A History of Violence, in which he lays out the case that violence in the human species in undeniably decreasing. And that one of the key reasons for this is the spread of commerce, which required that we cooperate across tribal/ethnic/religious differences. It's what helped homo sapiens sapiens survive when the Neanderthals died out, despite our brains being the same size. (At least this is one theory).
  
  But would Hedge's, or any of my postmodernist colleagues, even read the book? Sometimes it seems like any non-apocalyptic narrative/perspective holds no interest for these good people. Why is that?
  
  Part of me wants to join the Wall Street protests, and part of me wants to find a way to sit down with the architects of this economic disaster, and help them to examine their core assumptions about reality—which, I admit, is naive. Maybe we can do both.
  
  Maybe we can't take "stands" anymore, as though only an unmovable position will be effective. Maybe, we join the dance, have multiple partners, but realize that it's a dance of transformation. In sports, there is an athletic position, feet shoulder width a part, and weight balanced, knees slightly bent. In this position you will neither be a "push-over" , nor will your feet be cemented to the ground. You are poised to effectively move in any direction.
  
  Thanks again.
  
  
  
  I