Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10

1. p. 312: "And therefore, what was required was a way... to underscore the greatness of those viewing the art!"

     Carlton continued (from Kim's notes): "This demand on the part of boomeritis to subtract any greatness from anybody else--especially past giants and geniuses--has given rise to that most insidious form of biography known as pathography.

      "You should pray that you do not do something great enough that a Boomer decides to write a biography of you, because it will not be about the great thing you did, but about your faults, your psychopathology, how you beat your dog and were suspected of having sex with a chicken. Joyce Carol Oates coined the term 'pathography' for this rather rampant form of biographical study that is dedicated, basically, to tearing down any person who accomplished anything of excellence in any field. Since everybody has a shadow, this demands little effort or talent to expose, yet it offers substantial reward in protecting your own greatness from being overshadowed by the likes of Picasso, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf, or Frank Lloyd Wright (just a few of the dozens of awesomely talented individuals subjected to rancidly gloating pathographies). Recent pathographies include Greg Lawrence's Dance with Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins and Paul Lussier's Last Refuge of Scoundrels, but really, there are hundreds of these pathological pathographies, which are simply boomeritis deconstruction applied to any individual greatness.

      "If I may be allowed a personal comment. Lesa Powell and I were talking about this topic last night. I asked her what she feared the most, and she said, 'How I will be remembered if I accomplish anything worth remembering.' Of course, she had in mind boomeritis and the pathography it would do of her. There are things in Lesa's life and mine, and our life together, that pathography would seize on to the virtual exclusion of all else. This is truly sad, but it is simply another example of boomeritis at its best, which is to say, most insidious, intent on destroying greatness wherever it finds it so that, by comparison, its own self can triumph."

2. p. 312: "But boomeritis gave it the necessary narcissistic spin... as John Passmore summarized the situation, 'The proper point of reference in discussing works of art is... the interpreter, not the artist, creates the work.'"

     Carlton (in Kim's margin notes): "Passmore is summarizing this view, not endorsing it. See The Eye of Spirit for all references in this section."

3. p. 313: "I am astonished, astonished, at my brilliance, aren't you?"

     Carlton added (from Kim's notes): "In my opinion, all of the various schools of literary interpretation and criticism--including mimesis, original intent, symptomatic, formalist, contextual, and viewer-response--contain important truths that need to be honored and incorporated in any integral theory of interpretation. One of my colleagues here at IC has made such an attempt (see The Eye of Spirit, chapters 4 and 5). No doubt there will be many others."

4. p. 316: "'We can see hints of an emancipatory mathematics in the multidimensional and nonlinear logic of fuzzy systems theory... and the putative observer becomes fatally de-centered, disconnected from any epistemic link to a space-time point that can no longer be defined by geometry alone.'"

     From Kim's margin notes: "Carlton is quoting from both Sokal's original paper and his reflections on it in lingua franca, May/June 1996."

5. p. 317: "On the contrary, I and many of my colleagues have explicitly identified ourselves with constructive postmodernism, and will continue to do so."

     Kim's margin notes: "See The Marriage of Sense and Soul and Integral Psychology."

6. p. 318: "Because poststructuralism spoke to that 20 percent which was green, and not the 2 percent at integral, poststructuralism was set to spread like gangbusters. Which is exactly what happened."

     Powell continued (from Kim's notes): "To say that poststructuralism was in many ways a throwback to the green meme is not to say it is unimportant. On the contrary, many of the essential features of postmodern poststructuralism--such as contextualism, constructivism, and integral-aperspectivism--are crucial components in any second-tier integral formulations. See Integral Psychology for a full discussion of this theme. See also lecture 6 for a fuller discussion of the relation of structuralism and poststructuralism with modernity and postmodernity."

7. p. 322: "As Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut... point out, 'The "philosophists" of the '68 period gained... the thinker's silence before the incongruous demand for meaning was not proof of weakness but the indication of endurance in the presence of the Unsayable.'"

     Kim's margin notes: " French Philosophy of the Sixties, p. 6."

8. p. 324: "Richard Harlan, whose summary that is, says... 'a priority of... Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, and Baudrillard.'"

     Kim's margin notes: "All of these are from the Bad Writing Contest sponsored by Philosophy and Literature, Denis Dutton, editor, David Myers, moderator."

9. p. 329: "Nobody is denying that thoughts and psychological attitudes have a substantial, sometimes decisive, effect on physical illness... my colleagues have discussed this important topic at length."

     Kim's margin notes: "See Grace and Grit and A Theory of Everything."

10. p. 329: "Most of the diseases once thought to be largely psychogenic--such as ulcers and colitis--are now known to be caused mostly by physical factors, such as bacteria and diet."

     Hazelton added (from Kim's notes): "This is not to deny the idea, prevalent in the wisdom traditions, that levels of consciousness higher than the physical--such as mind and soul--can (through 'downward causation') cause physical illness. I believe that is true. It is simply that the majority of illnesses in today's world are, for whatever reasons, brought on by physical factors themselves: estimates suggest that over 80% of illnesses are caused by environmental, physical, and dietary factors. Environmental toxins are not directly the result of an individual's mind and soul; the cause is largely physical, and physical remedies are called for (clean up the toxins). If you get hit by a bus and break your leg, you are not supposed to sit in the street and visualize your leg mending. You need to have it physically set and plastered--then you can start visualizing. The cause was mostly physical, not spiritual, but during the healing, psychological and spiritual factors can play an important role. See Grace and Grit, chapter 15, for a full discussion of this theme."

11. p. 329: "But once the physical causes are addressed, the psychological component of cure becomes rather significant, accounting for perhaps 10 % to 40 % of the healing process."

     Kim's margin notes: "See Grace and Grit."

12. p. 330: "I believe these types of psychosomatic techniques... should be an indispensable part of every integral medical treatment."

     Hazelton added: "As exemplified in the superb work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, Joan Borysenko, Jeanne Achterberg, Larry Dossey, John Astin, among many others, all of whom are valued associates of Integral Center."

13. p. 334: "The core of New Age spirituality...is the belief that 'You create your own reality.'"

     Margaret Carlton added (from Kim's notes): "The narcissistic and borderline disorders often operate with the defense mechanism known as 'splitting': both the inner and outer world are divided into 'all good' and 'all bad' representations, and the self oscillates between them. This certainly seems to be true when it comes to responsibility: the narcissistic self either omnipotently creates its own reality, or, when facts intrude on that fantasy and show it to be false, it switches to the abuse excuse: it is completely the fault of an all-powerful other. A 'culture of victims' and 'you create your own reality' are flip sides of the same narcissistic/borderline coin."

14. p. 340: "A small particle's location, to some degree, will always be 'uncertain.'"

     Morin added: "More precisely, the position and momentum of a particle cannot be determined simultaneously; the more one is determined, the more uncertain the other becomes. The product of the two uncertainties is greater than or equal to Planck's constant over four pi."

15. p. 342: "As best as anyone can figure out, the new paradigm is something like systems theory... including various schools of sociology, psychology, biology, ecology, and cultural anthropology."

     Van Cleef continued (from Kim's notes):

      "There are many varieties of systems theory (or holism in general), including exterior holism (systems theory proper), interior holism (levels of increasingly inclusive consciousness), and integral holism (which includes both). There is a static systems view (of late formal operational), and there is the more dynamic dialecticism (of second-tier). None of those differences have been carefully spelled out by Boomers writing about the new paradigm, which is one of the reasons that it is hard to tell exactly what is meant.

      "Moreover, there has always been an internal tension in the Boomer use of 'paradigm,' because on the one hand Boomers are generally committed to pluralism and the social construction of reality; on the other hand, the new paradigm is mostly systems theory (and physics), which purports to give us, not a social construction of reality, but an objectively true description of what reality is actually like. This, too, makes it hard to tell exactly what 'the new paradigm' really means. But, as Crews points out, 'paradigm' is in any event a dead metaphor, and its widespread use stands solely as a testament, a historical monument, to the Boomer ego in all its faded glory."

16. p. 347: "'Paradigm' is at present a dead metaphor.'"

     From Kim's margin notes: "See The Marriage of Sense and Soul, chap. 3, for all references in this section."