Reality Check

It would be good for Integral U.S. people to get a better sense of the many different exploratory facets within different social movements taking place in Perú and Latin America. Integral U.S.-based movers and shakers could realize that their expectations aimed at universal global application and validity also partially require some reality check as they also reflect their own historical lines of development and self-suporting cultural environment. While I think that ideas about stages are partially correct I also think that in countries like Perú the potential for learning flexibly rather than for holding on to the 'truths' of a particular is also greater.



Within alternative movements in Perú some are more directly anti-system and some are more intellectually abstract. Some are more in favor of a radical educational reform including modifying the western concept of democracy. Some are more spiritual and ecological and some are more based in conflict theory premises which have traditionally offered respite during times in which an oligarchy dominated politics and commited many abuses. Some are associated with Cuba or Venezuela or Bolivia but some are trying to forge a non-Marxist (and also non-Eurocentric) approach. Some want to retain aspects of modernity and some idealize original Inca-Andean ways. Many are trying to forge non-eurocentric alternatives including distancing themselves from forms of Marxism. The university Ricardo Palma and specially Universidad Mayor de San Marcos in Lima tend to congregate a wide-range of thinkers and activists. IPCEM (the Instituto Peruano de Pensamiento Complejo Edgar Morin) itself tends to attract the more "teal" or close to "teal" approaches. They are currently interested in learning more about Integral Theory.



I think that sociologists and philosophers in Perú need to increase the scope of the information they handle. Wilber's works are largely unknown here but it's time these people have knowledge of it. As in the U.S., modern intellectuals may confuse it with a self-help, alternative spirituality method. Other's not close to California Budhism, Alan Watts and Humanistic or Transpersonal Psychology may feel that it is like another upcoming American cultural imposition. Here intellectuals have generally been closer to European modern and postmodern thinkers. However, many are now associating themselves with alternative searches that could go beyond, including the search for models different from the nation-state, non neo-liberal global politics and specially those models geared to move beyond Eurocentric (European or U.S.) ideas. Of these thinkers and activists I think some would be open towards IT, especially if the presentation a strict cultural or developmental stage stance is flexibilized even more.



Multi-stage flexibility and adaptability is a plus in Latin American nations, providing an opportunity to be as world-centric, teal as much as to instantly revert to self-centric as need be. The epistemological and interpretive boundaries are not well defined and this produces an integral flexibility as well as social chaos.

Along with sustained growth crime has increased as perhaps only 25% of the entire population directly benefits from it. Even if extreme poverty has been decreasing for many years and there has been sustained development with great macro economic figures there are hundreds of social protests as the state is innefficient and unable to maintain a solid, believable presence. Businesses are inccreasing but, nonetheless, the manner in which commercial, individualistic, disorganized, adaptatively corrupt (even if situationally creative) "chicha" culture is replacing high culture and replacing traditional indigenous, catholic and modern republican values is influencing every political process and is alarming. Perhaps the window of opportunity to create an integral educational system and culture at large is closing as that which doesn't inmediately attract and sell tends not to be not prioritized on TV or in politics. People are searching for alternatives to rough working instability and chaotic competition. They don't want to be dehumanized elements in the neo liberal capitalist production system in which they have to work. However, once they "make it" they also become avid consumers.

Definitely the ideal small Andean community values of "reciprocity" is fast dissappearing as migrants to large cities adapt and to a large extent abandon their traditions. While allegiance to one's family generally remain strong, society at large is a place where little trust is placed on one's neighbor. Moreover, short term video stimulation and communications technology is proliferating and distracting from the human capacity for abstract thought even if connections with the entire world are increasing without an ability to digest and prioritize information.



Because I'm too analytical and not necessarily 100% convinced of any one approach or theory, I'm more of a lonesome writer than a convincing speaker. At this point I'm trying to present an integration of El Buen Vivir-Thomas Berry-Wilber approach but also explore physics and the possibility of modifying 'Integral' Post Metaphysics to discover the importance of the Subtle Realm not only as a social-mythic construct but as a scientific and transformative reality that should be incorporated into the Integral Meta Theory.