The Daily Evolver

Recorded 3/4/22 Vladimir Putin’s romantic Russian nationalism has metastasized into megalomania. Will  Russian society go along?  Will the modern world?  Witnessing the heartbreak and resistance of the Ukrainian people.

Integral Life’s Editor-in-Chief Corey DeVos and I are old integral pals who love talking about current events. Here we turn on the microphone to share our attempt to make sense of the Ukraine conflict. Recorded 3/2/22

Considering situations like the Ukraine war from multiple perspectives is like turning up the resolution on a google map. We are able to see more of what is there, how things fit together in a larger pattern and how to better navigate through it all. Recorded 2/25/22

A surprising step forward in defacto world governance, and keen eyes on the ongoing complexity of social media platforms.

Surprising support for woke politics from one of today’s leading anti-woke thinkers.

The New York Times columnist considers every motivation except authentic religious experience.

Reviewing media writer Peter Baker’s critique of Chloe Zhao’s integrally-flavored, retro-future commercial.

Today I am joined by my dear friend and colleague, Diane Musho Hamilton, to honor our brother-in-arms, Terry Patten, who recently passed away at the age of 70. Terry was beloved by many in the Integral community, and Diane and I had the privilege to teach and work with him for nearly 20 years. As Diane recounts, Terry was “the consummate integralist”, awake to his own mind, body and spirit, and de...

Here are some end-of-year-musings about our current moment in the evolution of consciousness. I bring an integral lens to look at cultural polarization, effective governance, Covid, progress, our biggest dangers, and the challenge of the millions of stories people tell about all of it. Enjoy and here’s to a bright 2021! – Jeff Salzman

In his remake of West Side Story, master filmmaker Steven Spielberg demonstrates how to bring a classic work of art into the present. Integrating the 60-year old Broadway musical’s cultural context into our own, his West Side Story expresses colliding worlds with deep sympathy and goodwill to all. And the sheer cinematic transmission! From the iconic opening, with its call-and-response whistle ech...

In this episode, I discuss a terrific essay I stumbled upon that brings an integral sensibility to a new cultural emergent: the differentiation of the political left into “woke” and “anti-woke” ideologies.. Cultural evolution proceeds through a process of 1) differentiating and 2) integrating. As we learn and grow we see that there are more dots to connect and more ways to connect them. New views...

On this podcast a couple weeks ago I explored “The Great Stage Theory Debate”, a controversy kicked off by a tweet from Nora Bateson that said that developmental theory is “BS, colonial as hell and has got to go.” Now, apparently, we have the whole book version! “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity,” by anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow makes a similar case...

Is developmental theory valid? Is it even moral? This is the gauntlet laid down by author Nora Bateson in a cheeky tweet that launched a thousand comments: Stage theory… Is BS. Always was. And it is colonial as hell. Sorry, but that has got to go. — nora bateson (@NoraBateson) August 10, 2021 In a high-profile response to her social media posts, author Hanzi Freinacht shared a short essay de...

Jeff Salzman considers the question, what is it like to experience integral consciousness?  How does one feel, relate and function differently?  Also, letters from listeners.  

Race is seen differently at each developmental worldview. What might the integral version be?  Plus, a back-pocket thought experiment for race empathy.

Quick intro to the Daily Evolver • The three major worldviews fighting the culture war • How an integral approach gets the best of each.

How consciousness and cultural evolution help explain current events (and vice versa).

Is our secular meritocracy capable of knowing God?  In this excerpt from This Week in the New York Times, I consider Ross Douthat’s column: A Guide to Finding Faith.

How we regard animals is a marker of moral development.

Welcome to a new episode of Post Progressive Inquiries, where my co-host Steve McIntosh and I talk with people who are co-creating the next stage of human development. Our guest today is David Storey, a professor of philosophy from Boston College. David discovered integral thinking outside of academia, as did most of us, but is now bringing its principles to bear on his teaching. Whether the subje...

I have studied, taught and practiced meditation for over 30 years. I consider meditation, arising in its endless variations, to be indispensable to spiritual development and I sing its praises regularly on this podcast. I have also occasionally spoken about my experience years ago when an intense period of mindfulness meditation triggered a multi-year siege of anxiety which began to heal only when...

The US withdraws from Afghanistan and the Taliban enters — and all so much faster than expected. In this episode, recorded 8/18, I take a look at what is happening in Afghanistan through the lens of evolutionary theory.

Dr. Keith Witt, integral psychotherapist extraordinaire, joins me for another episode of The Shrink and the Pundit, where we explore the contours of emerging integral consciousness. Today’s topic is what Dr. Keith calls the “post-issue relationship”, and here’s how he describes it: In a post-issue relationship, each problem is an opportunity to grow and love. A post-issue relationship may still ha...

This week I review the new Nicholas Cage movie, Pig, about a truffle hunter in the wilds of Oregon who goes on a quest to find his kidnapped pig. It is the work of first-time filmmaker, Michael Sarnoski. I am very much an outlier on this movie, which has received rave reviews and a 97% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The rapturous response — The Guardian called a “masterpiece” &...