INTEGRAL WORLD MAILING LIST http://www.integralworld.net Newsletter Nr. 645 Amsterdam, February 16th, 2017 KEN WILBER AND INTELLECTUAL HUMILITY - Narcissism, Insularity, and Tragedy - SCOTT F. PARKER This story, as I'm telling it, is meant to be a sad one. Wilber didn't start out trying to deceive anyone, and he's not trying to deceive anyone now. He was at one time—and exactly insofar as he proposed his writing as one way of looking at things—a creative and visionary thinker. At some point, though, to keep going, a con artist must buy his own con. And this works best when he is oblivious to the fact that he is a con. A move made possible in Wilber's case by insularity of his thinking and sycophantry that surround him. Wilber's case is a dire warning against taking oneself too seriously and allowing others to do the same. The challenge I'm raising here is not to the particulars of Wilber's views (that's a different conversation); the challenge I'm raising is to Wilber's assumed authority. Because he publishes remotely from the valid criticisms his work regularly receives, he has been allowed to double down on the unforgivable habit of declaring rather than arguing. This has produced the intended effect of leaving him with the audience he wants: the one that recognizes him as a genius. But it is nevertheless a deeply flawed rhetorical approach because what it earns him in disciples it costs him in terms of having an actual affect on the world. Read more: http://www.integralworld.net/parker6.html