New Piece up at Integral World

You can read it here. It is a response (overall positive) to this piece by Scott Parker.

The piece argues for more honest appraisal in the integral community (along the lines pointed out by Scott) for discussion of the way in which other influences than just the theories themselves affect our adherences. Scott's piece dealt specifically with what he referred to as a psychological need for comprehensiveness and his recent turn to meditate on the reasons why he had such a need.

I add other turns: how power is always at play in any theory; ranking; socio-political povs, etc.

These discussions happen but they aren't being handled I feel in very constructive ways often.

But I also caution how easy it is to succumb to maximizing (if not absolutizing) these outside views of the inside. Either in the theorist him/herself and/or in the reader. I'm trying to steer a middle course in the piece. We'll see how successful I was in so doing.