New Theses on Integral Micropolitics

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Article: “Such a Body We Must Create:” New Theses on Integral Micropolitics. Daniel Gustav Anderson

URL = http://integral-review.org/documents/Anderson,%20Such%20a%20Body.%20Micropolitics,%20Vol.%204%20No.%202.pdf


Abstract:

"This essay proposes a rigorously postmetaphysical integral praxis, defines what this means and how such an intervention may be premised, and demonstrates throughout some methodological and practical advantages this approach may have over extant metaphysically-oriented integral theories. Beginning with an interpretation of post- Hegelian historical and dialectical materialisms informed by the Buddhist dialectical tradition of Madhyamika, a series of coordinated and interrelated theses address problems proper to fields such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, semiotics, historiography, and subaltern studies. The claimed purpose of this project is to coordinate subjective (psychological, spiritual) and objective (social, political, economic) transformational imperatives into a coherent, non-ontological “counterproject.” It takes as its aim the production of a radically democratized, responsible, and sane subjective and objective space, where responsibility is characterized as critical clarity, competence, creative consciousness, and compassion." (http://integral-review.org/documents/Anderson,%20Such%20a%20Body.%20Micropolitics,%20Vol.%204%20No.%202.pdf)


Excerpts

The theses

"Thesis One: Any “thing” as such is a coherent product in time of multiple causalities and cocausalities: a double articulation and a work-in-progress, a coherence.

Thesis Two: This co-causal articulation is a totality. Due to specific causes, totalities may be stratified and therefore characterized by internal or external conflict. This conflict is also coconditional.

Thesis Three: The coherence arises, persists, and decomposes in time; it can change in time mechanically, consciously by accumulating developments to a stable regime, or consciously by transforming said regime. Transformation may be necessary to produce responsible results. Theory can help (if responsible) or hinder (if not) any transformation.

Thesis Four: Responsible intervention can produce real transformation in the totality. The first intervention is to recognize the nature of a given situation; the second is to maintain relationship with it over time. Responsibility is characterized by critical clarity, competence, consciousness, and compassion.

Thesis Five: Where duality (form) is an aggregate of co-conditioned products-in-process, nonduality (emptiness) is immanent, unconditioned. Recognizing and remembering this are the subjective valences of the first and second interventions, respectively.

Thesis Six: Coherences are best understood when read responsibly, each in their own specificity and with reference to their own histories (as form), not exclusively or absolutely by any developmental or classificatory scheme of values (which are also coherences with histories). Thesis Seven: New values may be made, emergent cultural forms do arise, but “New Ages” do not “emerge” mechanically or Providentially. New regimes, like new values, are responsibly made.

Thesis Eight: The current regime produces unacceptable results. If a “New Age” is to be made, transformative practice must be radically democratized, and resist commodification." (http://integral-review.org/documents/Anderson,%20Such%20a%20Body.%20Micropolitics,%20Vol.%204%20No.%202.pdf)