Towards an Integral Perspective on World Politics...

29

Towards an Integral Perspective on World Politics SecularismSovereignty and the Challenge of Global Ecology

Karen Litfin

Modernityrsquos emblematic faith in technology the doctrine of progressthe centrality of instrumental reason the sanctity of individualfreedom the denial of the sacred ndash all of these have been suggested assources of an environmentally destructive cultural tendency Thecommon ground uniting all of these beliefs is the secular worldview ahistorically specific story about reduction of reality to matter thetriumph of human reason over the vagaries of nature and thecolonization of space and time by material progress Rather thanreverting to a pre-modern worldview or promoting a deconstructivepostmodernism that would reduce all worldviews to mere discourseI draw upon the neglected understandings of evolutionary idealism tomove towards a new story Starting with the premise thatconsciousness is ontologically prior to action I draw upon the worksof GWF Hegel Sri Aurobindo Jean Gebser and Ken Wilber to tracethe outlines of an alternative metaphysic to secularism The integralworldview which understands history as Spirit in the process ofbecoming offers such an alternative one that moves beyond but alsoincludes the secular story within its scope

ndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndashndash

Anthropologists tell us that every culture is built upon and lives out astory about the place of humans in the cosmos A culturersquos daily life itsrituals and modes of reproducing itself its language and art its forms ofpolitical organization and economic practice mdash all are expressions of acentral cosmological story about the relationships between people andnon-human nature and forces While people generally root theirpersonal sense of meaning in their culturersquos story that storyrsquosmetaphysical underpinnings tend to be accepted tacitly and____________________

I am grateful to John Barry Bindu Fred Dallmayr John Dryzek RobynEckersley Naeem Inayatullah James Meadowcroft Chris Uhl Anya Woestwinand three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier draftsof this paper

copy Millennium Journal of International Studies 2003 ISSN 0305-8298 Vol32 No1 pp 29-56

30

unquestioningly Much like the revolutions in scientific paradigmsdescribed by Thomas Kuhn a crisis occurs when developments in theworld undercut the credibility and thus the legitimacy of the traditionalstory Because this sort of crisis threatens a culturersquos entire worldview itunfolds on a time-scale of generations rather than the weeks or evenyears we typically ascribe to crisis situations Like any crisis howeverthe potential unravelling of a culturersquos cosmological story presents asituation of both danger and opportunity Our culture of modernityrooted in a secular story about the nature of the cosmos and humanityrsquosplace in it is currently facing such a legitimation crisis Because thatculture is assuming planetary proportions the scope of both the dangerand the opportunity is also global

As people see so shall they act if vision is flawed action will be outof synch with the world and therefore destructive or ineffectiveModernityrsquos emblematic faith in technology the doctrine of progress thecentrality of instrumental reason the sanctity of individual freedom thedenial of the sacred ndash all of these have been suggested as sources of anenvironmentally destructive cultural tendency The common grounduniting all of these beliefs is a secular worldview that has its roots inWestern modernity but which is becoming an increasingly globalperspective Secularism may be understood as a historically specificstory that reduces reality to matter foresees the triumph of humanreason over the vagaries of nature and encourages the colonization ofspace and time by material progress The secular is concerned with theworldly as opposed to the sacred Its Latin root saecularis refers to thetemporal and material as opposed to the eternal and spiritual1

The sustainability of secularism as a globally viable cultural storyis called into question by a planet of six billion people deploying reasonin the service of desire Increasingly the dark side of secularism isinescapable in the ever-deepening contrast between conspicuousconsumption in the North and gruelling poverty in the South in themyriad forms of pollution that threaten air land and sea in the massextinction of species and in the feverish pursuit of security that seems togenerate only greater insecurity Whereas from a conventionalinternational relations perspective these general problems are taken asdistinct fields of study they may also be understood more systemicallyas interrelated symptoms of lsquothe global problematiquersquo Ernst Haas

Millennium

____________________

1 Mircea Eliade contrasts profane linear time a central aspect of secularismwith sacred cyclical time or timelessness His keen observation that the sacred ispresent in the profane though in distorted form is consistent with the perspec-tive of evolutionary idealism developed here See Mircea Eliade The Sacred andthe Profane The Nature of Religion (New York Harcourt Brace 1987)

31

conceptualizes the global problematique as lsquothe problem of all theproblems not merely the sum of the problems of pollution war faminealienation resource depletion urban crowding and exploitation of theThird World by the First It is a systemic construct that assumes causalconnections among these problems connections that amplify thedisturbance of the meta-systemrsquo2 From the integral approach taken herethe global problematique is rooted in a mode of consciousness that isbecoming increasingly recognized as dysfunctional Yet it is globalecology in particular with its recognition of a larger cosmos in whichhumanity is embedded that most clearly highlights the defects of thesecular story For the first time in history humanity has become ageophysical force capable of undermining Earthrsquos life-support systems3

This article links international relations theory with green theoryby situating sovereignty within the larger context of the secularworldview and showing how contemporary ecological problems posefundamental challenges to that worldview In this sense I agree withthose radical political ecologists who problematize modernity Yet I partcompany with those who would characterize modernity as somehow amistake and who would advocate a return to simply local forms ofsocial and political identity to an undifferentiated oneness of humanitywith nature or to pre-rational modes of consciousness I also agree withconstructivist international relations theorists who understandsovereignty as a historically variable set of norms and practices that iscapable of mutating in response to new social conditions Yet whilesovereignty is a social construct and can therefore be reconstructed intonew forms it has real material consequences The specifically modernversion of sovereignty embedded in the secular worldview is premisedupon the quest for material progress through the mastery of nature andthus the valorisation of human reason and autonomy Rather thanadvocating a return to pre-modern understandings and promoting adeconstructive postmodernism that would reduce sovereignty to mere

Towards an Integral Perspective on World Politics

____________________

2 Ernst Haas lsquoWords Can Hurt You Or Who said What to Whom AboutRegimesrsquo in International Regimes ed Stephen Krasner (Ithaca NY CornellUniversity Press 1983) 39

3 A strong scientific consensus anticipates that in the coming century theEarth will warm by 15 to 6ordmC as a result of humanityrsquos greenhouse gas emis-sions As a benchmark for comparison the difference between the present warmperiod and an ice age is about 6ordmC See Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange Climate Change 2001 The Scientific Basis (Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 2001) Biologists believe that in the coming century half of allexisting species of life will be extinct as a result of human activities See EOWilson The Future of Life (New York Alfred A Knopf 2002) and Richard Leakeyand Roger Lewin The Sixth Extinction (New York Doubleday 1995)

32

discourse I draw upon the neglected understandings of evolutionaryidealism to move towards a new story which I understand as an integralworldview

A key feature of an integral vision is that it embraces apparentlydisparate truths and synthesizes them into a larger and more compellingwhole While I draw upon the central insights of constructivismdepicting sovereignty as a historical construct and characterizingsecularism as a story or a discourse I am developing a rather differentperspective here an integral view of the world as the unfolding of spiritConstructivism represents an important moment of truth for an integralvision in its recognition of the interpretive and intersubjectivedimensions of reality Secular materialism by reducing the world towhat is objectively observable has chronically neglected the internalsubjective aspects of reality Consequently an integral approachunderstands the emergence of constructivism and postmodernism atthis historical juncture as part of a larger subjective turn that is seekingto counterbalance the excesses of materialism and move humanitytowards a deeper exploration of consciousness As I will propose belowthe integral approach apprehends both constructivism and materialismas representing important stages in the evolution of consciousnessDrawing from the idealist philosophical tradition I characterize thisapproach as evolutionary idealism4

Millennium

____________________

4 In addition to global ecological degradation the worldwide resurgence ofreligion also represents a deep and wide questioning of secularism a develop-ment that is beginning to gain the attention of IR scholars See the MillenniumJournal of International Studies Special Issue on Religion and InternationalRelations 29 no 3 (2000) Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson eds Religionthe Missing Dimension of Statecraft (New York Oxford University Press 1994) JeffHaynes Religion in World Politics (London Longman 1998)

5 I use these latter terms interchangeably recognizing that the reality theyseek to convey ultimately cannot be conveyed in language because it transcendsthe limits of the intellect We may have rare and profound glimpses or intuitionsof it that are perhaps alluring mystifying or bewildering and still seek to speakmeaningfully about it as people have done for millennia

6 Thomas Berry The Great Work Our Way into the Future (New York BellTower 1999) 19

7 Alfred North Whitehead Process and Reality (New York The Free Press1978) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin The Phenomenon of Man (New York Harper1959)

8 James E Lovelock Gaia A New Look at Life on Earth (New York OxfordUniversity Press 1979) Lynn Margulis The Symbiotic Planet (LondonWeidenfeld amp Nicholson 1998) Anne Primavesi Sacred Gaia Holistic Theologyand Earth System Science (London Routledge 2000)

33

I use this term with a dose of caution It is intended to suggest ametaphysics premised upon the progressive unfoldment ofconsciousness it is not meant to entail any specific evolutionarymechanism like natural selection nor does it understand idealism interms of utopian quest or the unimportance of material reality Ratherevolutionary idealism is an integral worldview that understands theuniverse as a revelation or manifestation of consciousness Spirit orintelligence5 The integral worldview draws no dichotomy betweenmatter and spirit nature and humanity objectivity and subjectivityRather mind and matter are two dimensions of a single reality thatexpresses itself in the self-organizing processes of the universe From anintegral perspective the human is lsquothat being in whom the universecelebrates itself and its numinous origins in a special mode of consciousself-awarenessrsquo6 The integral worldview displaces secularismrsquos story ofthe human as appropriator of the world with a story of people asevolving co-creators of the world Aspects of this new story findexpression in process philosophy and theology7 Gaia theory8 andconstructive postmodernism9

If the story implicit in modern secularism is ecologicallyunsustainable there is an enormous need to move towards a newstory Starting with the premise that consciousness is ontologicallyprior to action I draw upon the works of GWF Hegel Sri AurobindoJean Gebser Ken Wilber and others to trace the outlines of analternative metaphysic to secularism The integral worldview whichunderstands history as Spirit in the process of becoming offers suchan alternative mdash one that moves beyond but also includes the secularstory within its scope

Unlike the secular stance with its materialist sociopolitical andmetaphysical premises an integral approach foregrounds consciousnessin both senses First from the perspective of social and political practicea deficient human consciousness engenders ecologically unsoundpractices Recognizing that the old story is out of synch with the worldwe now inhabit we turn our attention to our individual and collective(un)conscious in order to decipher that story and move towards a newone that will entail new practices From an ontological and metaphysicalviewpoint the integral story understands the universe as an unfoldmentof consciousness a perspective that can potentially synthesize the pre-


____________________

9 David Ray Griffin ed Founders of Constructive Postmodern Philosophy PeirceJames Bergson Whitehead and Hartshorne (Albany State University of New YorkPress 1993) Charlene Spretnak States of Grace The Recovery of Meaning in thePostmodern Age (New York Harper Collins 1993)

34

Millennium

modern Great Chain of Being with contemporary science This story has several remarkable advantages over secularism On

a conceptual level it overcomes both the matter spirit dichotomy andthe human nature dichotomy It is a story that combines some of the keyinsights of science and religion suggesting a possible marriage of thesetwo realms that were divorced under the secular worldview While theintegral story conflicts with the mechanical reductionism of secularscience it is remarkably consistent with recent depictions of nature inphysics cosmology and biology In terms of its historical and politicalorientation the integral worldview is able to incorporate a critique ofsecularism while salvaging its positive aspects modernity is understoodas a developmental stage rather than a tragic error Perhaps mostimportant from the perspective of addressing the ecological crisis inpragmatic terms it offers a story of hope one which acknowledgeshumanityrsquos embeddedness in nature but which also recognizes ourspecial position and our unique responsibility at this historical juncture

Because it frames global environmental degradation as a crisis ofconsciousness an integral approach can help bridge the gap between theemphasis on collective values and institutions in political and IR theoryand the focus on individual responsibility in environmental ethics Ifaddressing the global macro-problem requires a new mode ofconsciousness then the onus is heavily upon us as individuals toconsciously evolve Yet both the study and practice of world politics areembedded in the larger culturersquos cosmological story Therefore asscholars and teachers of international studies we have a specialresponsibility to bring our awareness to that story and its implicationsOnce we begin to grasp the destructive consequences of the old story wealso have a responsibility to move our own thinking in the direction of apositive alternative And if we want our process and not just ourtheorizing to reflect our integral approach then we must close the gapbetween our knowing and our being In Gandhirsquos words lsquowe must bethe change we want to see in the worldrsquo

Secularism and Sovereignty Privileging Man and Matter

Before exploring the secular worldview as a story about therelationships between humanity and nature citizens and politicalauthority reason and progress it is first helpful to grasp something of itscultural context Secularism began as a historically specific developmenttied to the separation of political and religious authority in early modernEurope and if eventually expanded into a comprehensive ontologicaland epistemological worldview The primary significance of the Treatyof Westphalia which marked the end of the Thirty Years War and iscommonly cited as the birth of the nation-state was that it established a

35

realm of political authority distinct from the ecclesiastical authority ofRome As such the Treaty represented a critical incursion into themedieval fusion of political and religious authority and therefore a keystep in the emergence of a secular worldview Yet by granting politicalrulers lsquofree exercise of Territorial Right as well as Ecclesiastickrsquo (ArticleLXIV) Westphalia enshrined and fused the political and religiousauthority of monarchs within their own jurisdictions With the basis ofterritorial exclusivity established religiously motivated foreignintervention was delegitimized but the modern norm of religioustolerance within the domestic realm mdash a norm that is generallyassociated with secularism mdash only gradually took root The separationof church and state was an epochal process that transpired over thecourse of centuries in Europe spreading across much (but not all) of theplanet during the twentieth century10 Yet even where that separation isnot fully embraced other key aspects of the secular worldview havebeen accepted

Secularismrsquos story because it is so widely embraced is a familiarone but by clearly articulating it we can perhaps become morereflective It is a story about the triumph of human reason over dogmamyth and superstition about knowledge as power about the mastery ofnature through science and technology about history as a progressivemarch towards the material liberation of humanity about the individualcitizen as the source of political authority and about the sovereign stateas the collective expression of the ideals of reason progress and libertyThe fundamental idea of secularism is lsquothat man and not God must bethe central focus of all development his earthly freedom well-beingprogress and perfection of his body life and mind and not someheavenly post-mortem salvation of his soul must be the aim of lifersquo11

Although this story had its origins in pre-modern Western historyit did not become globalized until the modern era The secularworldview had some of its early roots in the following strands ofWestern culture the Hebrew espousal of a transcendent monotheisticGod removed from the cosmos12 the Judeo-Christian notion of linear


____________________

10 While secularism was originally a specifically Western development itsessential tenets (an emphasis on the worldly as opposed to the transcendent afaith in reason the doctrine of material progress) have been effectivelyglobalized Thus it makes sense to analyse and apply it within the generalscope of global environmental politics Nonetheless we should note thatsecularism has lsquomutatedrsquo in various cultural contexts taking on somewhatdistinctive meanings

11 Gupta GP and Srinivasan Sri Aurobindo on Democracy and Secularism(Pondicherry Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press 2000) 15

12 Herbert Schneidau Sacred Discontent The Bible and Western Tradition(Berkeley University of California Press 1977)

36

time its teleology of progress and its associated conception of nature asgiven to the service of a God-like humanity13 the Sophistsrsquo contentionthat lsquoman is the measure of all thingsrsquo14 Ironically it appears thatWestern secularism has a religious heritage Within the popularimagination of the twentieth century the scientific conception ofevolution was grafted onto these earlier Western motifs adding to thesecular story of modernity the popular belief that human beingssomehow represent the pinnacle of biological evolution

Yet only gradually did secularism become fused with materialismIn its early formulations during the transition from medievalism tomodernity secularism entailed the differentiation of political andreligious authority not the utter denial of the latter Indeed many ofmodernityrsquos primary architects including Descartes Newton andLocke were greatly concerned with upholding the validity of thetranscendental even as they simultaneously promoted secular values ofreason liberty and progress Eventually however lsquoReason History thesovereign state the sovereign individualrsquo became lsquothe great secularsubstitutes for Godrsquo in modern thought15 Faith in a transcendentDivinity was displaced onto faith in reason16 and or faith in the nation-state17 The organic worldview of the medieval period whichunderstood humans as embedded in a Great Chain of Being extendingfrom inanimate matter to God was superseded by a mechanisticworldview which saw the universe as a great machine to be discoveredand exploited by human reason According to secular materialism alllevels of reality all dimensions of experience could be reduced to matteralone Thus the modern West became the first major civilization inhuman history to deny substantial reality to the Great Chain of Being18

The pragmatic and ethical implications of this shift were enormous mdashbehaviour that was taboo for people inhabiting a living and sacred Earthdid not apply in a universe of inert matter19

The medieval story of salvation through faith in Divine grace was

Millennium

____________________

13 Lynn White lsquoThe Historic Roots of Our Ecologic Crisisrsquo Daedalus 19671203-1207

14 Daniel A Kealey Revisioning Environmental Ethics (Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 1990) 14

15 RBJ Walker InsideOutside International Relations as Political Theory(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1993) 20

16 Stephen Toulmin Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (New YorkFree Press 1990)

17 Benedict Anderson Imagined Communities (London Verso 1983)18 Ken Wilber The Marriage of Sense and Soul Integrating Science and Religion

(New York Broadway Books 1998) 1319 Carolyn Merchant The Death of Nature Women Ecology and the Scientific

Revolution (San Francisco HarperCollins 1990)

37

displaced by secularismrsquos story of salvation through material progress20

which in turn would be procured by mastering nature through theapplication of reason As reason overcame superstition and science wasliberated from religious dogma humanity would fulfil the Baconianinjunction lsquoto bind Nature to your service and make her your slaversquo21

The quest for truth shifted from knowledge of God to knowledge of thephysical universe Man rather than God became the measure of allthings worldly time (saecularis) replaced other-worldly eternal time Thestory of humanity came to be seen as a march of progress through lineartime towards greater liberty and ever more commodious living Themedieval faith in God was displaced by a secular faith in reason andempiricism22 even to the point that modernityrsquos relationship totechnology resembles a religious faith23 From the seventeenth centuryonward and from Left to Right across the political spectrum Westernthought has been characterized by an overarching faith in science Thebelief in sciencersquos ability to improve human life is perhaps thequintessential hallmark of modernity a belief that is reinforced by thematerial achievements of industrialization24

The nation-state played a crucial role in transforming medievalreligious society into a secular one by serving a quasi-religiousfunction25 With the emergence of a system of relatively autonomousstates individual identity shifted from serf to subject and eventually tocitizen Europersquos political revolutionaries and her other new humanistshoped that through lsquothe glory of the state earth might moreapproximate the perfection of heavenrsquo26 As the king lost his connectionto God the nation itself was imbued with divine status

The desacralization of politics was mirrored in the changingmeaning of sovereignty Historically the institution of sovereigntyoriginated in medieval Europe as an attribute of God and his Papaldelegate Beginning in the absolutist period divine authority devolvedfirst to monarchs and subsequently to the bureaucratic territorial and


____________________

20 Max Weber The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism translated byTalcott Parsons (New York Scribner 1958)

21 Evelyn Fox Keller Reflections on Gender and Science (New Haven CT YaleUniversity Press 1985) 36

22 Toulmin Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity 23 David F Noble The Religion of Technology The Divinity of Man and the Spirit

of Invention (New York Knopf 1997)24 Yaron Ezrahi The Descent of Icarus Science and the Transformation of

Contemporary Democracy (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1990)25 Anderson Imagined Communities 26 Ibid416

38

more or less democratic states associated with modernity27 The carvingup of Europe and eventually the entire planet into a patchwork ofmutually exclusive territorial states is modernityrsquos political rendering ofnature By itself the Westphalian model of the territorial state (or city-state) did not articulate a fully modern conception of political authorityRather the grand ideals of the Enlightenment mdash reason progress andliberty mdash eventually found their collective expression in notions ofpopular sovereignty and self-determination Secularismrsquos story ofworldly progress finds its political expression in the modern democraticstate elected by prudent and rational individuals From Hobbesonward the basis of political authority has been explicated in terms ofconsent of the governed The material basis of this consent wasconceived in terms of a range of goods that the state could be expectedto provide to the individual especially property rights prosperity andcommon defence28 Eventually the bureaucratic state would becomeadept at deploying reason on behalf of these secular goals The radicalindividualism implicit in the secular understanding of domestic politicalauthority is mirrored in an international system comprised of mutuallyexclusive sovereign states The story of secularism therefore has a crucialpolitical dimension the sovereign state is a primary vehicle for theattainment of salvation through material progress

Under the secular worldview the ideal-types of the sovereign stateand the individual citizen are analogous they are atomisticautonomous acquisitive materialistic rational sources of their ownauthority Given that these foundational social and political conceptionswere part of a larger secular worldview it is not surprising that theyresonated with emerging scientific understandings Thus theNewtonian image of particles in motion was the guiding metaphor inthe secular formulation of lsquopossessive individualismrsquo29 an image thatcharacterized both the modern citizen and the modern state Thebounded individual possessing his [sic] own person and propertyfound its collective counterpart in the territorial sovereign state havingjurisdiction over citizens and resources within its borders30

Millennium

____________________

27 Edmund Morgan Inventing the People The Rise of Popular Sovereignty inEngland and America (New York Norton 1988)

28 Karen Litfin lsquoEnvironment Wealth and Authority Global ClimateChange and Emerging Modes of Legitimationrsquo International Studies Review(2000) 129

29 CB MacPherson The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism Hobbes toLocke (Oxford Clarendon Press 1962)

30 On the close relationship between the emergence of private property andstate sovereignty see Friedrich Kratochwil lsquoOf Systems Boundaries andTerritoriality An Inquiry in the Formation of the State Systemrsquo World Politics 39no 1 (1986) 27-52

39

As John Ruggie observes these political expressions lsquomirrored a muchbroader transformation in social epistemology that reached well beyondthe domains of political and economic lifersquo31 Indeed they reflect aspecific structure of consciousness associated with the discovery of asingle-point perspective a development that was replicated in aestheticsand psychology as well as in social and political life Ruggie cites variousexpressions of the rise of perspectivalism the fixed viewpoint ofRenaissance art the growing dominance of the lsquoI-formrsquo of speech andthe spatial and psychological differentiation of private from publicspheres The concept of sovereignty therefore should be situated withina larger secular worldview as lsquomerely the doctrinal counterpart of theapplication of single-point perspectival forms to the spatial organizationof politicsrsquo32

The model for sovereignty is the single-point perspective of theautonomous individual with authority over himself in control of hisown destiny and legitimated by his own rationality At the level of theindividual the single-point perspective is represented by the insatiableconsumer living out the story of secularism the universe is a collectionof objects to be consumed Despite the obligatory and largely symbolicbows to lsquofamily valuesrsquo and other non-material sources of meaning thedominant story being disseminated globally is that affluenceconsumption and technological mastery are the primary objectives ofhuman life Economic growth is presumed to be good Jobs are theprinciple basis for individualsrsquo relationship to society and to this endthe education system is there to assist them This story of secularism isso deeply entrenched in the collective psyche that the continual influx ofinformation about the devastating ecological and human consequencesof our way of life seems to have little impact

Yet it is becoming increasingly difficult to turn a blind eye to theshadow of the old story In particular the emergence of transnationaland global environmental problems offers a strong challenge to both thesingle-point perspective and the secular worldview in which it isembedded Secularismrsquos core presumptions mdash its implicit humanismthe mastery of nature through science and technology the march ofmaterial progress the single-point perspective of individual citizen andthe sovereign state mdash all of these are called into question by the limits ofthe Earth At issue is whether a secular world can survive its ownimplications The dark side of secular humanism includes the massiveextinction of non-human species ruined soils depleted aquifers


____________________

31 John Gerard Ruggie lsquoTerritoriality and beyond problematizingmodernity in international relationsrsquo International Organization 47 no1 (1993)158

32 Ibid 159

40

Millennium

____________________

33 Willis Harman Global Mind Change The Promise of the Last Years of theTwentieth Century (Indianapolis Knowledge Systems 1988)

34 Berry The Great Work

polluted ecosystems and global climate change A finite planet of six-plus billion lsquopossessive individualsrsquo seeking unbounded affluence issimply unsustainable

This logic is increasingly recognized as anachronistic in aninterdependent world The dawning recognition of interdependencemanifest in a host of international institutions and transnational socialmovements suggests that the old story is gradually being displacedThese developments represent a lsquocontagion of reperceptionrsquo33 Yet the fullacceptance of interdependence has yet to permeate our consciousnessand inform our lives Our knowing is out of harmony with our beinghence most of us pursue our atomistic lives while paying lip-service tointerdependence On one level we see the destructiveness of ourbehaviour yet we continue to live out the old story because we have notyet learned and embraced a new one

The single-point perspective of modernity appears untenable in theface of the emerging planetary economic social and ecological networksIf the story of secularism is fractured by the global problematique it isimperative that we reconsider it and move towards a richer restorativeand more comprehensive story

An Integral Worldview Evolutionary Idealism

The historical mission of our times is to reinvent the human at thespecies level with critical reflection within the community of lifesystems in a time-developmental context by means of story and shareddream experience34

For integral thinkers the secular worldview belongs to ahistorically specific stage of human development that manifests itself ina mental structure of consciousness Whereas a secular worldviewprivileges the exclusive single-point perspective of the individualsubject whether the individual ego or the collective lsquoegorsquo of the state anintegral worldview synthesizes all perspectives into a coherent wholeneither privileging nor sacrificing any of them and thus discloses bothcosmos and internal reality as a multidimensional tapestry In this sensethen the integral is not merely multi-perspectival as a postmodernstance would advocate but it is an aperspectival mode of consciousnessthat moves beyond monological rationality and is capable of

41

synthesizing massive interrelationships35 By reintroducing Spirit into analienated secular ontology by including secularismrsquos story within itsown developmental conception of humanity by integrating thesupposed dichotomies of matter and spirit by postulating an essentialoneness between subject and object and by reconciling rationality withheart and soul the integral worldview offers a story that is at oncecomprehensive and more hopeful Yet it is a story that is profoundlychallenging since it compels us both as individuals and collectivities totake up the responsibility of conscious evolution

For many people the notion of lsquoSpiritrsquo is inescapably problematiceither because it is inherently meaningless within a secular worldviewor because it means such different things to different people Yet despitethe fact that the term is taboo within secular discourse much of bothpre-modern Western thought and non-Western thought has acceptedSpirit as the fundamental reality Indeed most cosmological storiesfrom cultures around the world depict the material universe asemerging from some supra-physical entity or process The Latin rootspiritus is breath suggesting a living self-animating universe asopposed to the lifeless world of secularism Because of its incorporealnature the notion of Spirit eludes easy definition and is bestapproached through metaphor If the metaphor for the secularworldview is the billiard-ball model of inert monads in a randomuniverse the metaphor for the integral worldview might be the seedwith its inherent fecundity and self-generative capacity

Evolutionary idealism proposes that an animating intelligenceunderlies the development of not only life forms but of all creation mdashfrom galaxies to human forms of social and political organization Hegelthe first widely-read proponent of evolutionary idealism in the Westargued that if we are willing to observe an intelligent pattern ofdevelopment in nature then we should be open to the possibility of sucha pattern in the historical movement of human thought and action As heremarks lsquoit is unreasonable to believe that reason only is in Nature andnot in Mindrsquo36 Dialectical reason as we shall see is different from themechanical reason of secularism because it entails an imminent self-generative capacity


____________________

35 Jean Gebser The Ever-Present Origin translated by Noel Barstad with AlgisMickunas (Athens Ohio University Press 1985) 97-102

36 GWF Hegel Hegelrsquos Lectures on the History of Philosophy trans E SHaldane and Frances H Simson (New York Humanities Press 1963) vol 1 35While Hegel equated reason with the dialectical movement of Spirit in history Isteer away from that term because of its association with monological rationali-ty under the secular worldview

42

Most variants of idealism going back to Plato and the Illusionist schoolof Hinduism prioritized the trans-physical ideas or consciousness andthus tended to drive a wedge between spirit and matter by positing astatic world of spirit separate from and even opposed to a degradedworld of matter Consequently liberation from the shackles of matterthrough transcendence became the ultimate goal of human existence Thetraditional metaphysics of idealism was dualistic matter and spirit wereseen as fundamentally different realities

Evolutionary idealism by way of contrast integrates Spirit andmatter by understanding the material universe as an unfoldment ofconsciousness Evolution in this view is Spirit in the making manifestin the phenomenal world as is implicit in the title of Hegelrsquos magnumopus Phenomenology of Spirit According to Hegel

Everything that from eternity has happened in heaven andearth the life of God and all the deeds of time simply are thestruggles for Spirit to know itself to make itself objective toitself to find itself be for itself and finally unite itself to itselfit is alienated and divided but only so as to be able thus to finditself and return to itself Only in this manner does Spirit attainits freedom37

But this freedom of which the individualistic ego promoted bysecularism is just a distorted and temporary expression is won onlythrough a long strife against its own immature subjectivity Self-transcendence is a struggle that necessarily entails the passing away ofprevious forms of existence a dialectical movement from fragmentationto integration from alienation to integration of an omnipresent SpiritThis dialectic is not applied to inert matter from some external force orintelligence lsquobut is matterrsquos very soul putting forth its branches and fruitorganicallyrsquo38 Hegelrsquos dialectical logic is wonderfully prescient ofsystems theory Gaia theory and other recent developments in ecologicalthought39

Given the close relationship between economic injustice and thedomination of nature one might wonder why we should take an idealist

Millennium

____________________

37 Hegel Hegelrsquos Lectures on the History of Philosophy 2338 Ibid 3439 Hegelrsquos master-slave dialectic and his description of humanityrsquos domina-

tion of nature are strikingly applicable to contemporary ecological realities Inhis Philosophy of Nature Hegel describes the process by which humanity leavesits primal state of innocence and constitutes its subjectivity by setting itselfagainst over and above Nature This breach is healed only when thesubject object dichotomy is healed when the rift between master and slave isbridged and Mind (or Spirit) comes to know itself as universal and free

43

rather than a materialist approach In a nutshell mdash why Hegel and notMarx To fully answer this question goes beyond the scope of this essaybut a few general comments about Marxist metaphysics and social theorymight be helpful First Marx rejected idealism which was the centralprinciple in Hegelrsquos entire philosophy yet Marxrsquos theory of dialecticalmaterialism is internally inconsistent and ultimately falls back upon thesame assumptions as evolutionary idealism Materialism typicallyunderstands matter to be inert animated by mechanical means ratherthan by any inherent consciousness or intelligence Marx claims that hismaterialism is dialectical not mechanical so that development occursthrough an inner movement within matter itself a movement whichdrives human history inexorably towards socialism While his laterfollowers revised Marxrsquos claims of inevitability and softened his economicdeterminism they evaded the deeper metaphysical question how can amaterial universe move in a purposive direction unless it is constituted bysome innate animating intelligence mdash what Hegel would call SpiritAccording to scientific materialism lsquomatter being inert and passive cannotpossess self-conscious free will and purposersquo40 Moreover since dialecticalmovement always proceeds by a struggle between opposites Marxrsquosdialectical materialism does not provide any means for change unless thereis some principle within matter that somehow opposes it

In contrast to Marxism evolutionary idealism articulates aprinciple of dialectical movement the infinite absolute and universalSpirit has infused itself within the finite diverse and particular forms ofNature The disclosure of Spirit on Earth proceeds by the incrementalexpansion of consciousness from matter to life to mind Evolution is aprocess of transcendence and inclusion earlier forms never fullydisappear but are elaborated made more complex and graduallyemerge into new forms Second Marxism (and its later variants) offersan important critique of and a strong humanizing influence uponcapitalism but it is ultimately embedded in the same secular worldviewthat gave rise to capitalism Marx correctly observes that the economicmotive is primary under capitalism but then erroneously universalizesthat claim to all societies throughout history As Sri Aurobindo observeslsquocommercialism is a modern sociological phenomenon one mightalmost say it is the whole phenomenon of modern societyrsquo41 In pastsocieties the economic dimension of life has not occupied peoplersquosthoughts or dominated the whole tone of social life as it has under


____________________

40 Kishoo Gandhi The Fallacy of Karl Marx (Pondicherry Sri AurobindoAshram 1992) 25

41 Sri Aurobindo The Ideal of Human Unity (Pondicherry Sri AurobindoAshram 1998) 216

44

Millennium

modernity It is interesting to note that those variants of Marxism thathave most influenced ecological thought soften Marxrsquos economicdeterminism and shift the analysis towards questions of consciousnessSocial ecologist Murray Bookchin for instance disavows the traditionalMarxist faith in material progress and embraces the Frankfurt Schoolrsquoscritique of instrumental rationality42 From the dialectical perspective ofevolutionary idealism Critical Theory grows out of a secular worldviewbeginning to come to terms with its own internal contradictions

Evolutionary idealism thereby signifies the transcendence andinclusion of modernity rather than its outright repudiation Itsimultaneously embraces and redefines secularismrsquos doctrine ofprogress its quest for freedom knowledge and equality its respect forthe rights of the individual and its recognition of the importance ofmaterial reality An integral approach transcends secularism by re-situating its core values within a wider view of Earth and humanity asevolving expressions of Spirit while also recognizing secularismrsquosimmense contribution to that evolution In promoting the perfectibilityof humanity and earthly life as practical aims rather than deferringparadise to the afterlife or doomsday secularism signified an importantevolutionary advance over the pre-modern modes of thought

Representing the emergence of self-conscious Spirit humanitytherefore has a special role in the terrestrial evolution Yet if theunfoldment of Spirit is the secret of evolution humanity as it standscannot be its apex The dark side of secularism has become too evidentthe internal contradictions too dangerous for any reflective observer toconclude that we have come to the end of history Rather we have cometo the end of the old story but a new one has not yet been fullyarticulated and widely embraced The dawning recognition that themundane realism of the secular worldview is neither inwardly satisfyingnor outwardly sustainable is opening the door to a new story arevivified idealism that gives primacy to consciousness while salvagingthe progressive aspects of the old story

While the new story must offer a radical departure from the oldone it need not represent a wholesale rejection of its predecessor Thusevolutionary idealism simultaneously builds upon and transforms thesecular worldview To be truly integral the new story must somehowinclude the old story within itself to truly represent a developmentaladvance it must also transcend the old story Thus the integral storyunderstands secularism as part of the larger story of the self-

____________________

42 Murray Bookchin The Philosophy of Social Ecology Essays on DialecticalNaturalism (Montreal Black Rose 1995) and The Ecology of Freedom (Palo AltoCheshire 1982)

45

manifestation of Spirit Moreover the growing awareness of globalecological degradation and the cosmological story of contemporaryscience denote an important threshold in the telling of that story Theemergence of self-consciousness has precipitated a crisis in seizing uponlife and matter to make them instruments of the human will secularsociety endangers the planet and alienates itself from the rest of natureBy simultaneously transcending and including the old story the integralworldview finds within its own perspective a special place of meaningfor modernity

For many radical political ecologists a full reckoning of thelsquodisaster of modernityrsquo leads to a rejection of modernity and for some acall for a return to pre-modern modes of living Like integral thinkersthey understand environmental degradation as symptomatic of adeficient worldview although they take a rather pessimistic view ofhistory Witnessing the social and ecological wreckage engendered bythe reckless quest for material progress these thinkers reject the notionof progress altogether Consequently some deep ecologists uphold thehunter-gatherer lifestyle as an ecological ideal43 embrace a principle ofbiocentric equality which recognizes no greater or lesser value to any lifeforms including humans44 or advocate small-scale decentralizedlsquobioregionalrsquo modes of social organization45 Rooted in the Romantictradition of the nineteenth century these thinkers hope to heal theviolent fragmentations of rationality and modernity with intense feelingand a return to oneness with the web of life46

Evolutionary idealism concurs with these radical politicalecologists in lamenting the unprecedented ecological destructionengendered under the secular worldview It acknowledges that thisdestruction stems from an lsquoarrogant humanismrsquo that has sought todeploy reason in the domination over a desacralized nature Yet the uni-


____________________

43 Bill Devall and George Sessions Deep Ecology (Layton UT PeregrineSmith 1986)

44 John Livingston One Cosmic Instant Manrsquos Fleeting Supremacy (New YorkHoughton Mifflin 1973)

45 For a critique of deep ecology from an integral perspective see Daniel AKealey Revisioning Environmental Ethics (Albany State University of New YorkPress 1990) 26-34 Kealey claims that deep ecology is rooted in a pre-modernmagical worldview that rejects the mental structure of consciousness along withits anthropocentrism and utilitarian ethics in favour of a more undifferentiatedunderstanding of the world While Kealeyrsquos view represents an importantmoment of truth it misses some of the ways that deep ecology leans towards theintegral rather than the pre-modern See Pramod Parajuli lsquoLearning fromEcological Ethnicities Towards a Plural Political Ecology of Knowledgersquo inIndigenous Traditions in Ecology the Interbeing of Cosmology and Community edJohn Grim (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 2000) 557-589

46 Wilber The Marriage of Sense and Soul 93-95

46

perspectival mode of consciousness and the secular worldview in whichit is embedded for all their limitations should not be dismissed as amassive mistake Progress and individualism should not be rejectedoutright but rather redefined and revitalized in light of anunderstanding of the universe as an unfoldment of consciousness

Secularism can thus be reframed within a larger story thatunderstands the arc of evolution as a movement from pre-rational torational to transrational modalities of consciousness Such a recastingrecognizes and seeks to move beyond lsquothe disasterrsquo of modernitywithout relinquishing its dignity Even while rejecting the secularworldview the integral approach or vision recognizes lsquothe enormousindispensable utility of the very brief period of rationalistic Materialismthrough which humanity has been passingrsquo47 In Europe secularismbrought the aim of freedom not only to political economic and sociallife but also to religious life thereby contributing to the self-manifestation of Spirit both by turning humanityrsquos consciousnessearthwards and also making room for freedom of spiritual expression asopposed to conventionalized religion Thus the impulse towardsmastery of the environment should not be dismissed as a historicalblunder but grasped more broadly as an immature expression of ayearning towards inner mastery and self-transcendence

Secularism while outwardly rejecting the infinitude of Spirit itselfrepresents a distorted and externalized quest for infinity in itsunbounded pursuit of economic growth and technological progress Theimpulse towards self-manifestation and mastery is turned outwardsupon a supposedly inert world of land water air and other life formsObjectively the world bites back in the form of ecological devastationSubjectively happiness eludes us with every new advance theinherently boundless character of desire engenders a perpetual state ofdissatisfaction From the integral perspective consumption and thedomination of nature are revealed as a perversion of a latent yearningfor oneness By possessing and consuming what is external to us weseek to expand ourselves in a distorted way we become one with thatwhich we acquire From the integral perspective the ego rather thanbeing a mistake or an aberration of nature is recast as a temporaryvessel or even a shell of protection in which a growing consciousnesscan evolve towards integrality Thus the possessive individual ofsecular society represents a developmental stage in humanityrsquos self-finding and not merely the cancerous contagion it appears to be

The uni-perspectival mode of consciousness was an evolutionaryadvance in that it gave rise to an unprecedented respect for the freedom

Millennium

____________________

47 Sri Aurobindo The Life Divine (Twin Lakes WI Lotus Press 1998) 10

47

of the individual Similarly the sovereign state is understood as anecessary albeit temporary intermediary between the individual and auniversal humanity As Hegel rightly observes48 the state expresses theuniversality of Spirit but as a host of developments in late modernity(including the reconfiguration of sovereignty in the face of globalenvironmental problems) indicate it is not sufficiently universal49 In theintegral worldview secularism along with all of its psychologicalpolitical and ecological instantiations are themselves expressions of theunfoldment of Spirit

Cultural stories tell their participants what sorts of behaviours aremorally acceptable Under the secular worldview anthropocentricutilitarianism has been the dominant ethical orientation According tothis orientation instrumental rationality should be applied to obtain thegreatest good for the greatest number where lsquogoodrsquo is defined inmaterial terms as comfort efficiency and longevity In the past thesovereign state was taken as the container in which this good was to beevaluated More recently the twin problems of global inequality andecological finitude are casting doubt upon both utilitarian ethics In thiscontext the temptation to reject an anthropocentric stance altogether isunderstandable Yet we should temper that urge Because an integralworldview accepts all manifest forms as emanations of Spirit ittherefore (like deep ecology) acknowledges the intrinsic value of allliving things but it also allows for value distinctions that ground acoherent environmental ethos Representing the emergence of reflectiveself-consciousness in the evolution of spirit the integral worldview seeshumans as lsquofirst among equalsrsquo50 This position accords with our basicmoral intuition that in the pursuit of our vital needs we should consumeor destroy as little complexity and depth of consciousness as possible51

Moreover in acknowledging humanityrsquos unique role at thisevolutionary juncture an integral worldview stresses our special ethicalresponsibilities at least as much as our special rights

In the new story secular rationality is not displaced in one fellswoop but is rather integrated into a wider vision incorporatingcosmological time scales Reflecting upon the fact that for the first timein its history the human species has become a geophysical force capable


____________________

48 GWF Hegel The Philosophy of Right translated by TM Knox (OxfordClarendon Press 1942)

49 The same observation can be made with reference to virtually every facetof world politics from questions of war and peace to human rights to econom-ic globalisation

50 Kealey Revisioning Environmental Ethics 81 51 Ken Wilber Tony Schwartz and Dan Spinella eds A Brief History of

Everything (Boston Shambhala Publications 2001) 334-35

48

Millennium

____________________

52 Brian Swimme The Universe Story From the Primordial Flaring Forth to theEcozoic Era (San Francisco Harper 1994)

53 James Lovelock Homage to Gaia (Oxford Oxford University Press 2001)

of irreversibly changing the Earth we must consciously deployrationality and critical thinking to forge an alternative path That pathwill entail social political technological economic aesthetic andpsychological dimensions The secular mind having reached the end ofits tether does not disappear Rather it participates in finding a newhome for itself in a re-enchanted universe

Paradoxically scientific reasoning and empirical observation havethemselves generated the contemporary cosmological story of theuniverse as evolutionary process Secular science tells us that each atomin each molecule of our brains and bodies was born billions of years agoin colossal supernova explosions52 Science reveals that the Earth itselfhas evolved its own biological chemical and physical systems to worktogether as a kind of giant homeostatic organism53 Science also tells usthat human activities are increasingly interfering with those systems inirreversible and potentially catastrophic ways The secular worlddislocated mythical and cosmological time-scales in favour of theprimacy of lsquomanrsquo Secularism has created the conditions for its owndestruction yet it has also given us some of the tools for finding our wayout a deeply ingrained orientation towards progress empiricalobservation critical reflection and freedom The new story will notabandon these qualities but will rather hone them in a new directionand awaken other repressed or latent aspects of our being Science alonecannot re-enchant the world but when joined with our capacities forwonder and awe when linked to our sense of beauty and our heartrsquoslonging for wholeness it participates actively in forging a new story

So long as we remain solely in a mental structure of consciousnesshowever our moral intuitions will overreach our capacity for action Wemay deploy an ever-growing array of rules regulations and other ego-restraining measures yet if the root of our environmentally destructivebehaviour is a worldview that is out of synch with the world then thesemeasures can never be sufficient to the task And if the integralworldview is indeed correct in its understanding of evolution as Spirit inthe making then the apparently deficient secular worldview must giveway to a more embracive mode of consciousness If such a shift isoccurring we should expect to see it at the level of both the individualand the collective However given that individuals are conscioussubjects in ways that social groups are not and that groups by virtue ofcomprising a multitude of different people at varying stages ofdevelopment will have a more inertial tendency we should not expectthe most rapid shift to occur at the level of the collectivity

49

Addressing Secular Concerns Teleology ObservabilityRationality and Hierarchy

Because the integral perspective runs up against prevailing norms ofacceptable scholarship I wish to explicitly address the primary concernsthat are likely to arise Although those objections are rooted in a secularontology and epistemology it is nonetheless possible to offer coherentand reasoned responses to them rooted in the new story In the end wemust acknowledge that evolutionary idealism does not offer anempirically verifiable worldview Yet despite its posturing otherwiseneither does the secular worldview Worldviews are inherentlyunverifiable Ultimately the question of which one to accept must beanswered on grounds of pragmatic and moral consequences intellectualcoherence personal experience and aesthetic appeal

First to interpret evolution as Spirit-in-the-making entails ateleological understanding of the world which is viewed with almostuniversal disdain among contemporary intellectuals To posit an endtowards which creation somehow strives seems to suggest a purposivedeus ex machina Since neither the purposive creator nor the end towardswhich creation moves can be perceived materialists believe it ismeaningless to invoke them In lieu of an intelligent universe secularistspropose a random world in which the manifold order of the cosmosemerged by happenstance Yet the fact that the secular worldview hasnot even come close to altogether displacing religion but rathercontinues to co-exist with it as a strange bedfellow suggests thatrandomness is not a satisfactory stance for most people One of themerits of the integral worldview is that it integrates the key insights ofevolutionary thought with the spiritual grounding of the Great Chain ofBeing54 Rather than proceeding by random combinations of brutematter nature is understood as being suffused with a self-expressiveforce moving towards greater complexity and consciousness Thisevolutionary understanding accords with the cosmological reading oflsquothe participatory universersquo55 In keeping with the dimension of Spirit asmystery the unfoldment of Spirit need not be understood as directedtowards any specific and knowledgeable endpoint The participatoryuniverse is teleological in the sense of being a purposive self-revelationwithout necessarily entailing any ultimate identifiable telos

A second objection is that Spirit is not observable In response wemust admit that neither is much of what we take to be lsquorealityrsquo directly


____________________

54 Wilber The Marriage of Sense and Soul55 Thomas Berry The Great Work Our Way into the Future (Bell Tower 1999)

Brian Swimme The Universe is a Green Dragon A Cosmic Creation Story (Santa FeNM Bear amp Company 1984)

50

observable gravity black holes power discourses states etc Wenonetheless take these things to be real because we can observe theireffects The question then is whether what we observe can be taken asthe effects of an unfolding Spirit Again the plausibility of this story willdepend upon the individualrsquos judgment It is perhaps significant thatmost cultures throughout human history believed the world was eithercreated or inhabited by Spirit or both A worldview that understandsnature as sacred or as imbued with Spirit would most likely be moreecologically friendly than one that reduces nature to a useful tool forhuman consumption If ecological degradation is symptomatic of adeficient worldview then it is incumbent upon us to revise ourworldview Yet even if the integral worldview is more ecologicallyharmonious some minds will still remain unconvinced for thesegreater external harmony does not necessarily entail greater truth Theappeal of evolutionary idealism will then depend upon its internalcoherence its ability to account for external phenomena and the sense itmakes of the world

A third objection is that since an integral perspective transcends therational structure of consciousness it is impossible or nonsensical toattempt to engage in intelligent discourse about it While this objectioncontains an important moment of truth in recognizing the limitations oflanguage and reason in the face of Spirit it should not be taken too farIn one form or another much of the history of ideas has been aboutSpirit Indeed the modern era seems to be an aberration in this regardAs noted earlier while the secular worldview grew up during earlymodernity theological questions and assumptions were widespreadamong the scientists philosophers and political thinkers who framedsecularism Some of the most influential systems of thought arepremised upon Spirit or some other modality of consciousness beyondthe linear rationality56 While the subjective experience of others cannotbe taken as final evidence it is noteworthy that many people who areconsidered the greatest exemplars of humanity including the leadersand founders of all the worldrsquos religions confirm the reality of Spirit Allof this affirms that although Spirit is beyond mind we can still thinkand talk sensibly about it

Finally there is the specific objection to evolutionary idealism asopposed to other variants of idealism mdash that it is hierarchical Deepecologists who promote biocentric equality will object that humansshould not be given any kind of ethical or ontological privileged

Millennium

____________________

56 In Western thought idealists include Plato Augustine Aquinas and HegelBoth Kant and Descartes widely viewed as the fathers of modern philosophywere greatly concerned with offering rational arguments for a transcendentalreality

51

position Egalitarian humanists may take offence to the notion that someindividuals are lsquomore evolvedrsquo than others As we have seen abovehowever biocentric egalitarians are caught in the dilemma of their ownhumanness their thinking will be inescapably anthropocentric becausethinking itself is a human activity Life requires the taking of life for itsself-perpetuation and deep ecologists are compelled like the rest of usto make everyday decisions about how to live Yet their principles offerno coherent grounds for making one decision over another An integralenvironmental ethic as we have seen offers coherent grounds formaking decisions on the basis of intrinsic value and depth ofconsciousness

The concern of the egalitarian humanist is somewhat more difficultto address but because the integral perspective attaches no greatprivilege to being lsquomore evolvedrsquo perhaps the question is lessimportant In standard versions of elitism those who are at the top of thehierarchy are typically entitled to more material goods or other similarrewards Evolutionary idealism moves in a rather different directionsuggesting that a person who lives in a greater sense of oneness with thewhole of creation will be less acquisitive less driven by desire and thequest for material security and more responsible in her actions mdash inshort less egoistic Indeed responsibility not privilege seems to be thecorollary to a more evolved consciousness Or rather than theburdensome notion of duty associated with our ideas of responsibilityperhaps we should say responsability since a more integralconsciousness is identified with a wider expanse of reality and thereforehas a greater motivation and capacity to respond In either case at leastpart of the egalitarian humanistrsquos objection should be addressed by theabsence of material perks attached to evolutionary development

Beyond the more general concerns about evolutionary idealismthere is the narrower objection that since it is about the development ofconsciousness which occurs only in individuals we cannot properlyapply this worldview to collectivities in general and the nation-state inparticular First we should note that the practice of ascribing identitiespreferences intentions and other attributes of consciousness to the stateis commonplace in international relations More pointedly however thisobjection misses the key premise of the integral worldview if all ofphenomenal existence is the unfoldment of Spirit then all forms ofcreation mdash galaxies rocks plants people and nation-states andcorporations mdash are expressions of consciousness Therefore it makes asmuch sense to investigate the evolutionary status of social collectivities asanything else


52

Towards an Integral World(view) in Global Environmental Politics

As argued above the single-point perspective of secularism finds itspsychological expression in the egoistic mental consciousness of theindividual politically in the singular and exclusive sovereign stateaesthetically in perspectival art and epistemologically in monologicalrationality Recently that perspective is being challenged bydevelopments in all of these fields In international relations JohnRuggie finds evidence for the emergence of multi-perspectivalinstitutional forms in the global system of economic activity in thenormative shift towards greater collective legitimation of the use offorce and in new principles of international custodianship within therealm of global ecology and argues for the central importance ofplanetary politics

In other words holism and ecological interdependence represent achallenge to the single-point perspective of the sovereign state thoughdocumenting that challenge empirically is itself a challenge However ifsuch a shift from a single-point to a universal social episteme is occurringwe should expect to see evidence in new spatial ordering principles newtemporal understandings and new norms of legitimation In this sectionI will cite evidence for all of these developments suggesting that we arewitnessing the first halting steps towards an integral approach toplanetary politics While there is a real danger of wishful thinking wemust admit that these developments are clearly inconsistent withsovereignty as it was understood under the secular worldview Thequestion then is What story best makes sense of these trends

First and most obvious is the dramatic proliferation ofinternational agreements on environmental issues since 1970 Jointchoices which are the essence of international cooperation necessarilypreclude full autonomy for sovereign states Although states retain legalsovereignty and are free to abrogate their agreements there are definitecosts in doing so The environmental arena in particular involvesdynamics and mechanisms that challenge state autonomy Consider forinstance the graduated approach from lsquoframework conventionrsquothrough a series of increasingly stringent regulatory protocols whichhas become a hallmark of environmental treaty-making By committingthemselves to abstract principles of environmental protection statesopen themselves to pressures from internal and external sources toadhere to those principles International agreements whether binding ornot establish collective norms that reduce the statersquos ability to decideand act autonomously From an integral approach the single-pointperspective of the sovereign state is being transformed into multilateralgovernance a multiperspectival form of organization We are still farfrom an aperspectival embrace of oneness but there seems to be

Millennium

53

movement in that direction The emergence of lsquothe globalrsquo within thepast two decades suggests a movement beyond the multiperspectival toa planetary holism more characteristic of an integral worldview Weshould note that the evolutionary shift towards the integral would notbe served by any kind of globalism that entailed the colonization of theparts by the whole it must be a movement of transcendence andinclusion Likewise the current shift in the meaning of sovereignty awayfrom a sole emphasis on rights and towards an incorporation ofaccountability and responsibility also suggests that secularismrsquos single-point perspective is giving way to more inclusive approaches57

A second critical development is the extension of lsquorightsrsquo tononhuman species a development which represents a rudimentary yetsignificant departure from secularismrsquos self-consciously human-centredness While the threat of massive species extinction continuesapace moves to protect endangered species both in domestic legislationand international treaties indicate a growing recognition that otherspecies also deserve to exist In many cases it is an instrumentalanthropocentric rationality that seeks to protect other species because oftheir utility to humans rather than an acknowledgement of the rights ofother species Yet this deployment of instrumental rationality itselfrepresents a significant departure from secularismrsquos presumption ofhuman domination for it recognizes the web of interdependence amongspecies and the embeddedness of humans within that web Thatrecognition while not alone representing an integral worldview may benonetheless an important step in that direction because it undercuts theanthropocentric presumptions of secularism We should also note thatsince the project of universalizing humanity mdash a latent dream ofsecularism mdash is still under way we should not expect to see any full-scaleshift towards an integral perspective of the biosphere anytime soon58

Yet there is an intriguing sense in which the project ofuniversalizing humanity is being furthered by internationalenvironmental responses As noted earlier sovereignty is a historicallyvariable set of norms and practices with a locus that has changed fromGod and His delegates to the monarch to the people Popularsovereignty entails a fundamentally secular notion of political authority


____________________

57 Paul Wapner lsquoReorienting State Sovereignty Rights and Responsibilitiesin the Environmental Agersquo in The Greening of Sovereignty in World Politics edKaren T Litfin (Cambridge MA The MIT Press 1998) 275-298

58 With respect to a different issue human rights and military interventionMartha Finnemore documents the increasing universalization of lsquohumanityrsquosince the 19th century See lsquoConstructing Norms of Humanitarian Interventionrsquoin The Culture of National Security Norms and Identity in World Politics ed Peter JKatzenstein (Ithaca NY Cornell University Press 1996) 153-185

54

rooted in the consent of the governed Modernist accounts of authorityin terms of contemporary self-interested citizens do not take intoaccount the lsquoconsentrsquo of future generations However the principle ofintergenerational responsibility is either explicitly or tacitly accepted inmany environmental regimes particularly those addressing issues withlong temporal horizons such as climate change ozone depletion andthe extinction of species

Efforts to address global environmental problems are also givingrise to alternative forms of authority and identity beyond the single-point perspective of the sovereign state Because of the long-term natureof many environmental problems science has become a primary sourceof a legitimacy and authority59 Moreover the emergence of global civilsociety points to a shifting of identities beyond that of mere citizenshipFor many transnational environmental activism or even movingtowards ecological mindfulness entails new forms of political identitybeyond that which is contingent upon a secular conception ofsovereignty60 These might include lsquoplanetary citizenrsquo or lsquoEarth stewardrsquoAs Nicholas Onuf argues lsquomajestasrsquo or that which commands a senseof majesty or awe has always been an important attribute of thesovereign61 In this sense and others secularism has never fully escapedits religious heritage With the globalization of environmental concernand the ability to observe the Earth from space we may be witnessingthe emergence of an alternative more holistic locus of lsquomajestasrsquo beyondthe nation-state

Another aspect of secularism its orientation towards mastery ofnature through deployment of reason is being revised in light of globalenvironmental politics As I have argued elsewhere environmentalism

Millennium

____________________

59 Karen Litfin lsquoEnvironment Wealth and Authority Global ClimateChange and Emerging Modes of Legitimationrsquo International Studies Review(2000) 119-148

60 Interestingly this kind of shift also involves a blurring of the boundariesbetween private and public as onersquos private life is always considered in the con-text of its global ramifications Especially among the affluent there is a sense inglobal environmental issues more so than in other issues that lsquowe have met theenemy and the enemy is usrsquo Thus onersquos private life reflecting onersquos conscious-ness takes on a global importance

61 Nicholas Onuf lsquoSovereignty Outline of a Conceptual Historyrsquo Alternatives16 no 2 (1991) 420-442

55

stands in an ambiguous relationship to science and technology62 On theone hand the modernist legacy of knowledge as power has engendered ahost of problems on the other hand scientists often bring these problemsto light and champion environmental causes Secular reason is both culpritand saviour Yet global environmental responses represent a significantshift away from secularismrsquos Promethean impulse The precautionaryprinciple for instance is finding its way into both domestic andinternational environmental law While the precautionary principle doesnot pose any significant challenge to scientific rationality it takes a moresceptical stance with regard to instrumental reason and most importantlyadopts an attitude of humility that is contrary to that of secularism Thisincreased sense of humility represents a more holistic orientation to scienceand technology one that decentres humanity to some extent andacknowledges our inability to grasp the complexity of nature

It is beyond the scope of this paper to explore all developments thatmight offer evidence for the emergence of multi-perspectival oraperspectival modes of global environmental governance63 In citingcertain trends I do not pretend to offer conclusive evidence but only tocontribute some comments suggestive of the plausibility of analternative story to that of secularism Rather than debating theoreticalmodels I have intentionally cast this discussion in terms of alternativestories because I am seeking a larger sense of meaning in which tocontextualize world politics I believe that stories have greater facility inthis area than theories because they are more oriented towards questionsof meaning than fact Yet I have also presented the integral approach asa story about what is and what could be rooted in an ontology ofconsciousness rather than inert matter

There is some risk in attempting to convey in intellectual termswhat is beyond words and secular rationality yet the mind can perhapsrecall glimpses of a magnificence and mysterious wonder beyond theordinary perception a moment of meeting between nature and spiritthat might open the door to larger possibilities In painting the outlines


____________________

62 Karen Litfin lsquoThe Gendered Eye in the Sky A Feminist Perspective onEarth Observation Satellitesrsquo Frontiers A Journal of Women Studies XVIII no 2(1997) 26-47

63 The growth of global civil society in general and Internet-based activismare suggestive in this regard Other such developments might include the draft-ing of the Earth Charter by religious scientific and other nongovernmentalorganizations around the world which expresses an integral vision The framersof this seminal document intend to bring it to the United Nations for adoptionas a framework for global environmental governance much like the UniversalDeclaration on Human Rights has been See Peter Miller and Laura Westra edsJust Ecological Integrity The Ethics of Maintaining Planetary Life (Lanham MDRowman and Littlefield 2002)

56

of such a lsquohalf-luminous imagersquo evolutionary idealism offers a story ofhope and responsibility

To take a larger view and understand the current situation asstemming from our collective immaturity rather than any inherentdefect within us engenders a sense of hope Yet it is not a hope that cansimply stand aside from the global problematique and complacentlywait for a collective maturation process to occur It is a hope that requiresa deep soul-searching and responsible action For if we are honest withourselves we each recognize our own complicity in replicating the socialstructures which threaten to unravel the planetrsquos life-support systemsRather than succumbing to despairing passivity or guilt-riddenactivism the new story challenges us to integrate mind heart body andsoul around the project of conscious evolution both as individuals andcollectively If lsquothe owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the fallingof the duskrsquo then perhaps the creeping planetary crisis comes as thegreatest of teachers

Karen Litfin is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science University of Washington Seattle


Millennium

30

unquestioningly Much like the revolutions in scientific paradigmsdescribed by Thomas Kuhn a crisis occurs when developments in theworld undercut the credibility and thus the legitimacy of the traditionalstory Because this sort of crisis threatens a culturersquos entire worldview itunfolds on a time-scale of generations rather than the weeks or evenyears we typically ascribe to crisis situations Like any crisis howeverthe potential unravelling of a culturersquos cosmological story presents asituation of both danger and opportunity Our culture of modernityrooted in a secular story about the nature of the cosmos and humanityrsquosplace in it is currently facing such a legitimation crisis Because thatculture is assuming planetary proportions the scope of both the dangerand the opportunity is also global

As people see so shall they act if vision is flawed action will be outof synch with the world and therefore destructive or ineffectiveModernityrsquos emblematic faith in technology the doctrine of progress thecentrality of instrumental reason the sanctity of individual freedom thedenial of the sacred ndash all of these have been suggested as sources of anenvironmentally destructive cultural tendency The common grounduniting all of these beliefs is a secular worldview that has its roots inWestern modernity but which is becoming an increasingly globalperspective Secularism may be understood as a historically specificstory that reduces reality to matter foresees the triumph of humanreason over the vagaries of nature and encourages the colonization ofspace and time by material progress The secular is concerned with theworldly as opposed to the sacred Its Latin root saecularis refers to thetemporal and material as opposed to the eternal and spiritual1

The sustainability of secularism as a globally viable cultural storyis called into question by a planet of six billion people deploying reasonin the service of desire Increasingly the dark side of secularism isinescapable in the ever-deepening contrast between conspicuousconsumption in the North and gruelling poverty in the South in themyriad forms of pollution that threaten air land and sea in the massextinction of species and in the feverish pursuit of security that seems togenerate only greater insecurity Whereas from a conventionalinternational relations perspective these general problems are taken asdistinct fields of study they may also be understood more systemicallyas interrelated symptoms of lsquothe global problematiquersquo Ernst Haas

Millennium

____________________

1 Mircea Eliade contrasts profane linear time a central aspect of secularismwith sacred cyclical time or timelessness His keen observation that the sacred ispresent in the profane though in distorted form is consistent with the perspec-tive of evolutionary idealism developed here See Mircea Eliade The Sacred andthe Profane The Nature of Religion (New York Harcourt Brace 1987)

31




____________________



32



Millennium

____________________






33





____________________


34

Millennium






35





____________________




36





Millennium

____________________








37







____________________






38



Millennium

____________________





39





____________________


32 Ibid 159

40

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41





____________________



42






Millennium

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43




____________________



44

Millennium





____________________


45





____________________





46





Millennium

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47






____________________





48

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49






____________________



50




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51





52





Millennium

53





____________________



54




Millennium

____________________




55





____________________



56





Millennium

31




____________________



32



Millennium

____________________






33





____________________


34

Millennium






35





____________________




36





Millennium

____________________








37







____________________






38



Millennium

____________________





39





____________________


32 Ibid 159

40

Millennium

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41





____________________



42






Millennium

____________________



43




____________________



44

Millennium





____________________


45





____________________





46





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47






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48

Millennium

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49






____________________



50




Millennium

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51





52





Millennium

53





____________________



54




Millennium

____________________




55





____________________



56





Millennium

32



Millennium

____________________






33





____________________


34

Millennium






35





____________________




36





Millennium

____________________








37







____________________






38



Millennium

____________________





39





____________________


32 Ibid 159

40

Millennium

____________________









41





____________________



42






Millennium

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43




____________________



44

Millennium





____________________


45





____________________





46





Millennium

____________________


47






____________________





48

Millennium

____________________






49






____________________



50




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____________________


51





52





Millennium

53





____________________



54




Millennium

____________________




55





____________________



56





Millennium

33





____________________


34

Millennium






35





____________________




36





Millennium

____________________








37







____________________






38



Millennium

____________________





39





____________________


32 Ibid 159

40

Millennium

____________________









41





____________________



42






Millennium

____________________



43




____________________



44

Millennium





____________________


45





____________________





46





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____________________


47






____________________





48

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____________________






49






____________________



50




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____________________


51





52





Millennium

53





____________________



54




Millennium

____________________




55





____________________



56





Millennium

34

Millennium






35





____________________




36





Millennium

____________________








37







____________________






38



Millennium

____________________





39





____________________


32 Ibid 159

40

Millennium

____________________









41





____________________



42






Millennium

____________________



43




____________________



44

Millennium





____________________


45





____________________





46





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____________________


47






____________________





48

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____________________






49






____________________



50




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____________________


51





52





Millennium

53





____________________



54




Millennium

____________________




55





____________________



56





Millennium

35





____________________




36





Millennium

____________________








37







____________________






38



Millennium

____________________





39





____________________


32 Ibid 159

40

Millennium

____________________









41





____________________



42






Millennium

____________________



43




____________________



44

Millennium





____________________


45





____________________





46





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____________________


47






____________________





48

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____________________






49






____________________



50




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____________________


51





52





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53





____________________



54




Millennium

____________________




55





____________________



56





Millennium

36





Millennium

____________________








37







____________________






38



Millennium

____________________





39





____________________


32 Ibid 159

40

Millennium

____________________









41





____________________



42






Millennium

____________________



43




____________________



44

Millennium





____________________


45





____________________





46





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____________________


47






____________________





48

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____________________






49






____________________



50




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____________________


51





52





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53





____________________



54




Millennium

____________________




55





____________________



56





Millennium

37







____________________






38



Millennium

____________________





39





____________________


32 Ibid 159

40

Millennium

____________________









41





____________________



42






Millennium

____________________



43




____________________



44

Millennium





____________________


45





____________________





46





Millennium

____________________


47






____________________





48

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____________________






49






____________________



50




Millennium

____________________


51





52





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53





____________________



54




Millennium

____________________




55





____________________



56





Millennium

38



Millennium

____________________





39





____________________


32 Ibid 159

40

Millennium

____________________









41





____________________



42






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____________________



43




____________________



44

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____________________


45





____________________





46





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____________________


47






____________________





48

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____________________






49






____________________



50




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____________________


51





52





Millennium

53





____________________



54




Millennium

____________________




55





____________________



56





Millennium

39





____________________


32 Ibid 159

40

Millennium

____________________









41





____________________



42






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____________________



43




____________________



44

Millennium





____________________


45





____________________





46





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____________________


47






____________________





48

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____________________






49






____________________



50




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____________________


51





52





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53





____________________



54




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____________________




55





____________________



56





Millennium

40

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____________________









41





____________________



42






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____________________



43




____________________



44

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____________________


45





____________________





46





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____________________


47






____________________





48

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____________________






49






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50




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____________________


51





52





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53





____________________



54




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____________________




55





____________________



56





Millennium

41





____________________



42






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____________________



43




____________________



44

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____________________


45





____________________





46





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____________________


47






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48

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____________________






49






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50




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____________________


51





52





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53





____________________



54




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____________________




55





____________________



56





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42






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____________________



43




____________________



44

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____________________


45





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46





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____________________


47






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48

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____________________






49






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50




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____________________


51





52





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53





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54




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____________________




55





____________________



56





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43




____________________



44

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____________________


45





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46





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____________________


47






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48

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____________________






49






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50




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____________________


51





52





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53





____________________



54




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____________________




55





____________________



56





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44

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____________________


45





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46





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____________________


47






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48

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____________________






49






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50




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____________________


51





52





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53





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54




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____________________




55





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56





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45





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46





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____________________


47






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48

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____________________






49






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50




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____________________


51





52





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53





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54




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____________________




55





____________________



56





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46





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____________________


47






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48

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____________________






49






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50




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____________________


51





52





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53





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54




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____________________




55





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56





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47






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48

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____________________






49






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50




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____________________


51





52





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53





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54




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____________________




55





____________________



56





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48

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____________________






49






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50




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____________________


51





52





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53





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54




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____________________




55





____________________



56





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49






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50




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____________________


51





52





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53





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54




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____________________




55





____________________



56





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50




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____________________


51





52





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53





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54




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____________________




55





____________________



56





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51





52





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53





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54




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____________________




55





____________________



56





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52





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53





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54




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____________________




55





____________________



56





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53





____________________



54




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____________________




55





____________________



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Millennium

54




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____________________




55





____________________



56





Millennium

55





____________________



56





Millennium

56





Millennium

Towards an Integral Perspective on World Politics...

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Transcript of Towards an Integral Perspective on World Politics...