Select the section(s) below that most appeal to your interests:
- Why an Integral Commons is Necessary
- The Benefits of Integral Commons for Your Integral Lifestyle, Integral Group or Integral Organization
- The Integral Commons and its role with Integral Spirituality and Current Religions
- How You Can help Co-Create and Expand the Integral Commons
Why an Integral Commons is Necessary
Today’s emerging integral worldview and global integral movement is the result of the brilliant work and legacies of many individuals. It clearly stands on the shoulders of the past seminal integral ideas of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Henri Louis Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Jean Gebser, Sri, Aurobindo, James Mark Baldwin and Clare W Graves. Currently the integral perspectives of Jurgen Habermas and Ken Wilber as well as the perspectives of many other co-creative individuals (such as Steve McIntosh, David Ray Griffin, Don Beck, Allan Combs, Frank Visser, Yasuhiko Kimura, Alan Kazlev, Fred Kofman, Brad Reynolds, Carter Phipps, Craig Hamilton, Andrew Cohen, etc.) are now actively co-evolving and co-refining the integral worldview and movement. It is a new movement with a self-organizing life of its own with many individuals contributing to its growth.
It is a new movement with a self-organizing life of its own with many individuals continually contributing to its growth. The naturally emerging ideas of the integral movement, which includes integral philosophy, integral spirituality and the other integral sciences and humanities is not the proprietary intellectual property, brand name or viral marketing plan of any person or organization. It comes from the common evolutionary ideas heritage of all humanity and belongs both to the future and all who are capable of being its co-creators.
As the collective consciousness unfolds into what is known as second tier integral consciousness (the yellow and turquoise meme levels of the spiral in Claire Grave’s developmental model) and into an Integral Worldview we are seeing a great surge of many new integral ideas, values, processes and applications being developed. As is common with emerging models these developments are happening simultaneously, though with a great deal of independence within many separate integral communities, organizations and individuals around the planet.
This emerging worldview, consciousness and creative effort can be significantly better supported and accelerated with the expansion of a new type of Integral Commons (somewhat also like the ancient concept of the commonweal which will promote and hold the integral public's common good and welfare,) that has a healthy yellow/turquoise meme, integral structure. As with emerging markets in a commercial sense (although the commons itself is not commercial,) it can be advantageous for the earlier pioneers to work together to define, validate and establish the market space, while at the same time competing – a term coined as ‘coopertition’ in the business world. Put more simply, growing the global integral community in an expanding Integral Commons is the ocean that can float and lift all integral boats sailing to all integral destinations.
The emerging Integral Commons naturally is a ‘space’, physical and virtual, based around an authentic self-organizing community of peers sharing some mutually beneficial connections, resources, ideas and documents. This sharing would be open and available to any integral newsgroup, website or individual member or organization within the integral commons so that the essential movement building sharing from within the commons can flow to wherever needed. This would also help minimize duplicative efforts and resource waste.
This emerging Integral Commons will be driven by open source and peer-to-peer principals. It would not itself be commercial or focused upon any particular personalities or any particular organization or brand. It would have attributes of a neutral, conductive and catalytic medium.
The Benefits of Integral Commons Goals for Your Integral Lifestyle, Integral Group or Integral Organization
The Integral Commons would be both an incubator and facilitator for growth of the integral world space – community, culture, theories and personal practice - through:
- Building and sharing integral collective consciousness and culture, from couples, to local groups, to global communities,
- Expanded awareness of the integral framework, theories and values,
- Development of new integral wisdom, products, processes, services and applications,
- Creating and Supporting life affirming, integral livelihoods,
In an evolving integral commons these goals are ideally achieved through the collaborative and highly respectful integral 'coopertition' process. This coopertition process notices and respects the necessary differences in perspectives in current integral approaches, but focuses upon the pressing greater world centric needs. It also balances the integral community needs with individual community member needs --- needs that would be best served by expanding the integral commons and its consequent synergetic ability to support both the germinating Integral Worldview and the expanding global and local Integral communities.
What also is exciting about this evolving integral commons is that:
1.) as an integral community of peers, it actively upholds the truth that at some level, we ALL are self-organizing co-creators, cross pollinating and validity testing emerging integral ideas and applications and an authentic integral community without having to wait upon some outside authority or source for approval or resources. There are no bottlenecks to meritorious individual or collective community co-creation in the Integral commons! (If desired, credit is always given to all co-creators in commons community co-creations. Private creations and livelihoods are always respected as well. The current Creative Commons copyright license for free copying, distribution, display, performing the work and making derivative works might serve as our initial recognition model. It is found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ .)
2.) It fully honors and embraces the legacy of the many individuals who have been the significant contributors to the emerging principles of the integral worldview without these personalities (or their followers or related organizations) having such a disproportionate or dominant position in this naturally appearing commons that the integral movement could be retarded, misdirected or cult---ified by the inappropriate, ill-informed or immature “shadow” behavior of any single integral personality or organization. The reality of a strong growing integral commons of peers co-evolving the movement through open and respectful dialog helps insure both the vital community reality testing and idea cross pollenization critical to creating a non pathological, healthy growth for the integral worldview as an emerging global movement. In this way the virile and fertile agency of the integral movement’s many second tier self-organizing individuals and organizations will be both actively counterbalanced and synergized by and through the communion of the integral commons.
3.) It fosters the growth of authentic integral community that is essential to both motivating and supporting the further growth of the integral movement.
The Integral Commons, Integral Spirituality and Current Religions
The world’s religions can serve as the greatest “conveyor belt” capable of effectively sequentially spiraling masses of individuals into Tier-II. The Integral Commons with its natural integral religion interfaith educational activities will support the process and tools for uplifting the current religions of the world with the perspectives of integral spirituality and the integral worldview.
How You Can help Co-Create and Expand the Integral Commons
The Integral Commons is a catalyst to take the integral worldview and movement to Tier-II social values and to greater levels of awareness and practice. Through the catalytic medium of an Integral Commons the integral worldview that inspires, connects and motivates us as individuals or groups, will be further strengthened, refined and then spread in ever-evolving stronger forms as a revitalizing, new and pragmatic hope and process for a better future for the whole spiral of life.
There are many ways to support the expansion of the Integral Commons across the globe:
- Take and apply its volunteering and supportive spirit to your local group or organization. Help evolve the Integral Commons by sharing your ideas on it.,
- Increase your participation in the great unfolding adventure as an Integral Kosmonaut and help co-create the local and global interactive aspects of the commons. (Integral Kosmonaut is a term used recently by Michael Murphy co-founder of Integral Transformative Practices to describe members of the Integral movement. This term is derived in part from the Kosmos concept and spelling used by Ken Wilber.) Or,
- Our integral group feels so strongly about the importance of expanding and holding the Integral Commons that it has created the following free services and tools to support the Integral Commons expanding the global Integral community and worldview.
In conclusion, in the expanding Integral Commons the Integral Worldview that inspires, connects and motivates us as individuals or groups, without doubt will be strengthened, refined and then spread in ever-evolving stronger forms as a new and revitalizing, pragmatic hope and process for a better future for the whole of the spiral of life.
If you are excited or intrigued about what you have read so far, we invite you to click this What's Next link.
To learn More about the spiritual aspects of the Integral Commons, click here.