New Blog

Frank Visser, host of IntegralWorld and the author of Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion, has a new blog, aptly titled WilberWatch.

As Frank himself notes, he has gone from being a staunch defender of Wilber against his critics, to a staunch advocate of Wilber's critics (notably Meyerhoff). What is interesting to note is that Visser, unlike Falk or Meyerhoff, is more esoteric or metaphysically inclined than Wilber himself (similar to some of the guys at Kheper.net). Thus, the common denominator in integral criticism this last year has been an attack on the way the official Integral hubs, and particularly Wilber, have responded to criticism.

From memory it kicked off over at IntegralWorld when Wilber wrote a rather strong response to some of the essays posted there (Wilber: The Visser site remains the greatest concentration of distortions of my work that I am aware of, for the simple reason that virtually all of the critics on the site are not in dialogue with me in any fashion.) Since then there's been a strong polarity evident in Integral criticism; the closed circle of I-I and the uneven hodge-podge of criticism coming from outsiders.

I-I's refusal or reluctance to deal with any external criticism (save that of Mark Edwards, whom Visser classifies as a 'strong-positive' critic of Wilber's work) doesn't do them any favours. Not that Wilber or his students and co-teachers have to respond to every pithy article and blog post, but certain important critiques need to be addressed. Furthermore, most critiques have certain key points in common, points that could be singularly addressed without having to respond to numerous critiques individually.

Of course, I-I can do what it pleases, but it seems that they've decided to put more focus on introducing a spate of beginner friendly integral material. There's currently no shortage of introductory type whatsits (much of the ILP, the IOS, Introducing Ken Wilber, Integral Spirituality, The Simple Feeling of Being, etc) which is all well and good if you've never heard of AQAL, but if the mere thought of more lines, types, stages and levels makes you a bit queasy (bearing in my mind that the person who turned me onto Wilber was turned away by such repitition, in 1999) then you're probably itching for something a bit more substantial.

Integral University? AQAL Journal? Does anybody know what's going on with these?