As most of you will realize in reading my blog, I spend more time talking about our collective cognition as the problem and not just the technological problems we create through our lifestyle choices. Environmental Educator David Orr talks about how we try to tweak ourselves out of our problems through rules, laws, and educational changes without dealing with the underlying problems of how we think (google Walking North on a Southbound Train). I’ve said this often, it’s that saying by Einstein again – we can’t create solutions from the same place we created them. Regularly readers will know that I am keen on understanding worldviews to produce change for a sustainable world.
In a recent post I introduced the concept of Worldcentrism (Finding sustainability and a life path without the Labels: part 3 – Becoming Worldcentric {Oct 2020}) by philosopher Ken Wilber who writes about transpersonal psychology and his own integral theory. It is a systematic philosophy integrates all of human knowledge and wisdom into a new, emergent worldview. In this post, I am explaining the theory to get you to see just how all of humanity is literally shifting its collective consciousness at this time in creating a different world. What this new world looks like depends on what stage of consciousness we end up in within just the next few years. For instance, we could get a new kind of repressive feudal society or a sustainable and equitable world – either is literally ours for the choosing if we allow ourselves to stop and recognize how our ethical frame is changing.
Human consciousness has been evolving for tens of thousands of years. We have reached a point where it has reached another stage of connectedness. As always, I’ll keep it simple. As we look at our socio-cultural evolution, we see that humanity has many worldviews, but they can be condensed into one specific kind of frame. For instance, all most world cultures contain some major religion or philosophy that guides their behaviors and ethics, and they have been at odds for hundreds of years. Consider religion, science, and politics, eastern and western schools of thought, and the more numerous pre-modern, modern and post-modern worldviews that exist today. Most currently exist within an Ethnocentrism stage of consciousness (about 70% as given in my previous post). That is, we exist within our boundaries of groupings focused on religion, state or tribe (Ethnocentrism means to judge another culture based on the standard of one’s own culture instead of the standard of any other culture). But 30% have already evolved to the Worldcentic stage. There is no good or bad, or ‘better’ stage. It is merely a growth in complexity and ethos.
Evolutionary growth is simply the way a species adapts to the existing environment. We like to think humans are better than protozoans, but while our ability to survive extreme environmental conditions is limited, protozoans have an amazing ability to exist in many extreme conditions. Similarly, when we talk now about human consciousness, the stage we are at is simply a way we see and adapt to the world. What may have worked for one era is no longer appropriate for another era. Integral theory stipulates that that evolution is not just about physical adaptation to external environmental triggers, but also to the internal cognitive spaces of reality such as conscious ethos through culture and society.
Wilber lists the four main stages of consciousness as Egocentrism, Ethnocentrism, Worldcentrism, and Kosmocentrism. Each older stage is enfolded within the new stage. As primitive humans, our consciousness began in the egocentric stage. It was all about individual survival of ourselves. While we may have included other humans within tribes as a means to assist each other in survival, our own survival was dominant in our individual thinking. What changed as we moved to the next stage of ethnocentrism was that we started thinking less of ourselves and more about the common good of all the tribe. The egocentric aspects remained within our ethnocentrism, but we were now able to sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of the group. But the group had its set defined boundaries, whatever they were, from religious, socio-cultural, and/or political definitions of that group. And that’s where we have been for thousands of years.
Now control of human consciousness was set by a hierarchy who use greed, control, manipulation, fear, and divide to keep us egocentric while promoting the numerous groups (ethnocentrism) as the unit of identity (consider the many wars fought between groups over the many millennia). Being ethnocentric isn’t a negative, only if it is used to manipulate the masses by a small controlling number (e.g., The Cabal). They do this through the use of exoteric information – the external, limited and defined information imparted as a way to control thinking and behavior. We have reached a point in the last decades where esoteric information is now becoming widespread (that once held in secret or limited sources) and we are moving into the worldcentric perspective as many now strive to define themselves as citizens of the world. Biocentrism and ecocentrism of this 30% are also becoming more the norm (see prior post Richard’s Research on Worldviews and why he is optimistic about a transformation {June 2018}).
As Wilber states, “An integral view of history maintains that the collective consciousness of the human race has evolved through pre-modern, modern and post-modern structures, and is emerging into a new structure of consciousness, the integral stage, which is characterized by an ability to think and act from multiple worldviews.” But the key is that we have to become aware of how our thinking. We can be worldcentric, yet the ethnocentric and egocentric aspects are still present in our consciousness. We empower ourselves through choosing the worldviews that match our evolving consciousness.
Before we start thinking that modern civilization is better than an indigenous tribal system, remember it is about consciousness not technological achievements. Many indigenous peoples had already reached the worldcentric stages long ago with some even possibly having reached the Kosmocentric stage. So, will we make it into a Nova Renascentia?
To Be Continued ………………….
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