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Shambhala: Okay, back to the novel. Chloe is part Marci. We already mentioned Derek Van Cleef. How about Mark Jefferson? He's African-American, fifty or so, very athletic, a genius IQ.

KW: Mark Jefferson is based loosely on a good friend of mine, a young black man named Mark Palmer--he doesn't know this yet, this will just floor him. Mark is a member of Integral Institute, and he's one of the most amazing "kids" I know, and one of the most integral. In soulful embodiment, he's got a head start on us skinny white boys, and he combines that with enormous intelligence and a depth of spiritual realization rare at his or any age. He's like my little brother, and I know it's mutual. Anyway, Mark Jefferson is what I imagine Mark Palmer might be like twenty years from now.

Shambhala: Joan Hazelton, who is fifty-something. Joan and Lesa are sort of the wisdom voices in the book. Joan is the voice that many people miss the most when they stop reading the book.

KW: Is that right? Where did you hear that?

Shambhala: Several people.

KW: Really? Joan is the voice that I talk to myself with. This is very hard to explain, but it's sort of a mixture of me and Treya. That's the internal voice that I hear when I talk to myself. That's not coming out very good.

Shambhala: No, it's fine. But is the voice specifically male or female?

KW: No, it's androgynous, I guess. But mostly it's just the tone. Joan's tone is my internal tone. The internal tone, not of the I-I, but of the I to the me. Well, that's even more confusing.

Shambhala: And that voice is connected to Treya in the sense....

KW: The heart space we opened for each other, which is the space from which I mostly view the world, so that's "Joan's" voice. If I write down that internal voice, it sounds like Joan, but neither male nor female. I am not identified with that voice--it's not I-I--but it is the voice in this conventional world, it is Treya in me, somehow. I'm really not sure this is coming out very well.

Shambhala: It makes plenty of sense. So that....

KW: Incidentally, this is Joan in the novel, not Joan in the sidebars. In the sidebars, all of the voices are reduced to one-dimensional blather. Even in the novel, the voices are all sort of thin and two-dimensional--this is postmodern flatland, after all--but Joan's voice comes closest.

Shambhala: So in the novel, somebody tells the 22-year-old Ken that one day he will actually meet a real Joan. In other words, a real Treya. And that's why Joan's voice is half Treya's voice....

KW: Yes, that's right, more postmodern doubling. But the voice is real enough, still a heartfelt presence. It's the house that Treya built for me, and I still live in, or from it.

Shambhala: Lesa Powell.

KW: Lesa is very loosely based on a really extraordinary woman named Maureen Silos. However, as far as I know Maureen is not lesbian, and Maureen has all sorts of wonderful traits I couldn't get into Lesa. Nor is this to imply that Maureen would agree with everything that Lesa says, although I think she might. Maureen is a real Kosmopolitan--she was born in Surinam, of Afro-Caribbean descent, educated in Holland and Western institutions, practices Eastern meditation, and is flat out one of the most impressive people I have ever met. Maureen is a founding member of Integral Institute.

Shambhala: Lesa is clearly one of your favorite characters in the book.

KW: Definitely. Incidentally, there are a couple of entries about Maureen in One Taste .

Shambhala: Is Margaret Carlton based on somebody?

KW: Yes, but I can't say.

Shambhala: Charles Morin?

KW: Yes, but I can't say.

Shambhala: Because Charles is your age, and because he's sleeping with a student who is Marci's age, some people will say that Charles is really you.

KW: I'm sure. And they will say that all the rotten characters, like Derek, are really me, but none of the good characters, like Joan, are really me. I understand that. Anyway, no, Charles is not me; or rather, he's no more me than any of the other characters.

Shambhala: Carla Fuentes.

KW: A composite. Carla is part Hispanic and part Native American. The Hispanic part is based loosely on a professor I once knew, and the Native part on my friend Sara Bates, who is Wolf Clan Cherokee. There are several entries about Sara in One Taste . But Carla's sense of humor is very close to mine.

Shambhala: Carla says things like, "God, I love the smell of politically incorrect thinking in the morning!"

KW: Yes, that's something I'd say.

Shambhala: Okay, now we come to the "kids," which is what the novel is mostly about. The young Ken is 22 years old; his friends are Chloe, Kim, Jonathan, Carolyn, Scott, Beth, Katish, Vanessa, a few others. Oh, and Stuart, of course.

First off, these are some of the funniest kids alive. Where did you get their banter? Typical exchanges run like this:

      "Speaking of boomeritis, Jonathan, I can see your obituary now: 'Freak accident kills aspiring author: Crushed by huge ego.'"

      "Oh Carolyn, Carolyn, I have never asked much of you, only that you're back in your coffin before the sun comes up."

Are those exchanges based on people you know?

KW: Not really. Although bits and pieces come from everywhere. And, of course, in the spirit of postmodernism, I try to work in material from various comedians, a typical pomo collage. But most of it is just made up.

Shambhala: In the novel, at one point, young Ken says: "What was so, I suppose I would say 'endearing,' about all this verbal skirmishing--whether between Jonathan and Chloe, or Chloe and Carolyn, or Scott and Carolyn, take your pick--was that this was how everybody seemed to express a certain type of affection, an odd collision of irreverence, irony, and love. Sometimes. But this made it almost impossible to tell when the line between honest affection and utter annoyance had been crossed--when irreverence had erupted into anger--and I seemed perpetually to be the one who had the most difficulty determining this, so I was always stepping in, usually too soon, to break things up. This was often explained to me in similarly endearing terms--e.g., 'Butt out, you flaming congenital idiot.'"

KW: Well, the point is that.... Well, let me back up. One of the major results of boomeritis....

Shambhala: We haven't even told the audience what "boomeritis" is.

KW: Boomeritis is a pathological version of the green meme, especially green infected with red. In other words, the major wave of development after the egoic-rational wave (or orange) is that of a postformal, pluralistic wave of consciousness (green). The many positives of green include multiculturalism, diversity movements, ecological awareness, civil rights, and human rights issues. Extraordinarily positive contributions.

But every wave of development has its downside or shadow elements. The positive side of green is its attempt to treat all viewpoints fairly, and to not marginalize or exclude any of them. The downside is a flatland pluralism that goes from saying all views should be treated fairlyto saying all views should be treated the same. This flatland pluralism erases all depth from the Kosmos--nothing is deeper, higher, wider, more integral, more compassionate, more caring, or more loving. Everything is merely the same, in the monochrome surfaces of postmodern flatland. This is supposed to liberate all views from nasty judgmentalism, but it merely flattens all views into equally meaningless drivel. When all views are the same, no views carry merit.

In this atmosphere, you are not allowed to believe in anything. The atmosphere of postmodernism is therefore endless irony. You say one thing, you mean another, but under no circumstances are you to be caught actually harboring a conviction. This attitude can be wonderfully funny--the early David Letterman, for example, was so appealing because of his endless irony. He is talking to a guest, and you know that he does not mean a single thing he is saying--that's the joke. Likewise, with Gen-X, think David Spade and Janeane Garafolo: they're really brilliant, and I love them both, but they simply deconstruct anything in their line of fire. But do NOT expect them to state any sort of value, conviction, belief, or meaning--because in flatland, there isn't any.

Now Boomers introduced this flatland pluralism, but the younger generation--Gen-X and the Millennials--were brought up under its influence. This is a large part of what the novel is about. Gen-X handled it by adopting a type of slacker attitude. After all, if nothing is worth believing, then why work for anything? Just slack your way through the meaningless mess. And Millennials tended to buckle under it--a type of crushed green, if you will. The comment you hear most often from college professors is that you can't get these kids involved in any discussion about the merits of a particular view, because all views are supposed to be the same.

This in itself is ironic, because it is these Boomer professors who started the whole flatland mess. And they started this flatland pluralism largely as a way to advance a Leftist agenda and promote attempts to end social oppression--which is great. The problem is that pluralism is not the way to end oppression, but to cement it in place, because the notion that all views are created equal makes it impossible to criticize the present state of social affairs (however unfair they might actually be), because no view is supposed to be superior to another. Instead of producing a generation of political activists, which is what these Boomer Leftists hoped to do, they actually produced a generation of social inactivists, who are without any sort of critical sense in how to carry forward a truly progressive agenda--because that would demand making a series of major judging and ranking of views--and that is what flatland pluralism prevents.

So we have a younger generation of crushed green. Gen-X just slacked through the whole mess, and the Millennials bought into it: they do not want to criticize the system, they want to succeed in it. Political judgment, will, and wisdom have been largely crushed--one of the main legacies of boomeritis and flatland pluralism.

So the "kids" are left with irony. All views are the same, and any conviction must therefore be deconstructed. The kids are left with flatland depression everywhere, crushed green on the go, irony in all directions.

Shambhala: Even a few years ago, your analysis would have been met with a fair amount of skepticism. Now even the New York Times carries articles that echo its main points, right down the line. Here are a few excerpts:

      Indeed, the reluctance of today's students to engage in impassioned debate can be seen as a byproduct of a philosophical relativism, fostered by theories that gained ascendance in academia in the last two decades and that have seeped into the broader culture.... Because [pluralistic] subjectivity enshrines ideas that are partial and fragmentary by definition, it tends to preclude searches for larger, overarching truths, thereby undermining a strong culture of [meaning and value].

     Instead of leading to a global village, it has created a multitude of self-contained tribes--niche cultures in which like-minded people can talk to like-minded people and filter out information that might undermine their views.

     At the same time, the diminished debate syndrome mirrors the irony-suffused sensibility of many millennial-era students. Irony, after all, represents a form of detachment; like the knee-jerk acceptance of the positions of others, it's a defensive mode that enables one to avoid commitment and stand above the fray.

     Irony also represents a failure to fully engage with the world, a failure to test one's convictions against the logic and passions of others. It suggests a closing off of the possibilities of growth and transformation and a repudiation of the process of consensus building. "It doesn't bode well for democratic practice in this country," Professor Anderson said. "To keep democracy vital, it's important that students learn to integrate debate into their lives and see it modeled for them, in a productive way, when they're in school." [ New York Times , March 23, 2002]

KW: Yes, I think the problem is now widely recognized, but no solutions have been forthcoming. Irony everywhere, meaning nowhere. And the whole of Boomeritis is, in a sense, an attempt to answer the question, "Beyond irony lies... what?"

Shambhala: So in the novel, the kids' banter starts out drenched in irony, right? A total deconstruction of anybody's beliefs.

KW: Yes, that's right. I wanted it to be funny, because irony can be incredibly funny. But it also starts to take on a hollow ring. Under all the put-downs, is there any depth to the Kosmos? Is there any consciousness, meaning, value, fullness, freedom? So these dialogues just sort of lurch along, a stilted series of comic punch-lines meant to avoid any real depth or passion--but meanwhile, in Stuart, for example, and in the fantasy sequences, something of awesome infinite depth is trying to break through.

Shambhala: Well, it does start out pretty funny. And you can also see the kids veer away from any convictions. Here is a typical section:

     "Don't get mad at Carolyn," Chloe wickedly grinned. "It's not her fault that her mother was on 500 micrograms of LSD the night that Carolyn was conceived."

      "Chloe--dear, sweet, dumb as cotton Chloe--that is a horrible thing to say, a truly mean-spirited thing to say. My mother was not on LSD when I was conceived." Carolyn coughed. "It was PCP."

      "Well that explains so much, doesn't it, dahling?"

      "You guys, please," I implored. I had joined the gang for lunch at Minerva's during the break at IC, and as usual, by the time I got there they were at each other full throttle.

      "Chloe, love," Carolyn looked up from her spinach salad. "Didn't you say you had to go to the library this afternoon?"

      "Yes, I have to make two trips. I have to look up some stuff in some books, then I have to go to the library."

      Carolyn pounced. "Chloe, we feel it is time that you know that most libraries now carry books."

      "Oh really?"

      "Yes, practically all libraries nowadays carry some books."

      "All right, that does it, you big...."

      "Okay, okay, okay," I interjected. "Let's not do this. It seems to me that...."

      "Say, where were you this morning?" Chloe asked.

      "I? Me? This morning? Exactly!"

      "Exactly what?"

      "Right. Out. About. Around. Meetings. And stuff." Chloe stared at me.

      "So my little brother, well, he's not that little, only two years younger, but it's sort of night and day. He's nineteen and so button-downed you cannot believe it." Scott poked at what looked like a ham sandwich. "Is ham supposed to be green?"

      "Yes," we all answered.

      "I thought so."

      "Maybe it's mad cow disease," offered Jonathan. "Or hoof and mouth. Maybe puss and boots...."

      Scott aggressively bit into the sandwich, making exaggerated yummy sounds. "So he comes up here to stay with me for a weekend. The little shit has this Palm Pilot organizer, and every minute of his time, even his vacation time, is already programmed. He actually set aside a whole fifteen minutes for flossing his teeth! I'm like, there is no way you came from the same genetic material as me."

      "Where is that material, by the way? We'd like to have it fumigated."

      "So I ask him, What is your idea of fun nowadays? And you know what he said? 'Volunteering at the local YMCA.'"

      "I don't know," Carolyn said, "I think that's sort of sweet. I think volunteering is nice. I used to volunteer to--"

      "Service the football team before each game?"

      "Chloe, Chloe, dear dear Chloe, let's you and I--"

      "Okay, you guys, please," I implored.

      Scott had taken his third bite of green ham sandwich. "You know, the thing about my little brother is how really difficult it must have been for him growing up, being gay and all. I mean, today we tend to think that all gays and lesbians are 'out' and that it's the easiest thing in world. But I bet less than one in ten gays are really out. I never thought about it before, you know? How hard it must be? Till I started thinking about my brother."

      Everybody at the table glanced silently at each other; this turn in the conversation toward an actually serious topic caught everybody off guard. And was Scott really being serious, or just suckering us into a joke? The best policy under such circumstances is silence.

      "Well? People? Hello?" He looked faintly pained.

      "Yes, it must be horrible," Carolyn finally said. "Over at cultural studies, we talk about this all the time, but frankly it never seems to really hit you until it's somebody you know. 'Marginalize,' we call it. But really, what the hell is that, you know?"

      "It's when you use a butter substitute," Chloe grinned to herself.

      "Not margarine, you nitwit."

      "Oh, coming out, not coming out, who gives a shit?" said Jonathan, but we all knew he didn't mean it.

      We sat somberly; Scott put on a smile and changed the subject. "So, Chloe, you said you visited your parents. Things okay with them?"

      "Fine, fine, nothing out of the ordinary. Dad offered to take Mom on a second honeymoon. She screamed 'Oh God, not another one!' and ran shrieking from the room."

      "Ah, good," I said, "nice to hear that everything's normal. Are they coming up here next week?"

      "No, my little sister has a learning disability and they are spending the weekend with a new coach."

      "Your sister has a learning disability?" Jonathan asked.

      "Well, only if you consider stupidity a learning disorder."

      "Runs in the family, eh?" said Carolyn.

      "Oh, I see, humor," responded Chloe. "You know, Carolyn, I was wondering who designed that lovely full-figured dress you're wearing. Omar the Tentmaker, perhaps?"

      "Look, you twit, I am not fat."

      "Not fat? A waiter brings you a menu, you look at it and say, 'Okay.'"

      "Please, you two, not over lunch. Scott here is starting to turn green, and I can't tell if it's because of his sandwich or your vibes."

      "I'm turning green?"

      "So what's everybody doing this afternoon?" Jonathan queried. "I've got this unbelievably wretched class in pop culture. It's called something like, 'High Brow, Middle Brow, Low Brow: Who Wants a Brow Beating?' I don't even know what that means."

      "Does it involve leather?" Chloe beamed hopefully.

      "Green?"

      "It's cultural studies," said Carolyn. "You'll love it," she grinned. "At least all you have to do is watch Madonna videos instead of reading War and Peace or something. Scott, you're not turning green. What's up?"

      Scott shook his head. "I actually have an appointment with a dentist for a root canal," he morosely noted. "I'm not sure whether I'd rather go to the dentist or be in your class. I guess the dentist."

      "Well, then, have fun with the root canal!" said Chloe.

      "Gosh, who wouldn't?"

KW: Well, under all the banter lurks the question, "Beyond irony is... what?" You see, you have to answer that question to get out from under boomeritis.

Shambhala: What answer does the novel give?

KW: This is where it gets a little tricky. In this postmodern world of flatland pluralism, where nothing is better than anything else, you can't even state an answer to that question without getting laughed off the stage. Any depth of consciousness is met with searing suspicion. A spectrum of consciousness is out of the question--there can be no degrees of depth anywhere, just equivalent surfaces floating on a sea of meaningless irony.

So I took two short-cuts in the book, using two themes that are sort of in your face and hard to deny, especially for the "kids." To the question, "Beyond irony is what?," the novel suggests two answers: "Beyond irony is sex," and "Beyond irony is Ecstasy."

Shambhala: Take them one a time.

KW: Well, "beyond irony is sex" means that, even in the midst of flatland pluralism and the crushed green world, having sex is definitely better than not having sex. So you can sneak a judgment, a real value ranking, into the situation--and a good ranking, too. So that is what the fantasy sequences are all about. In the midst of a world in which nothing has any special value over anything else, this young man's fantasies tell him differently, with an absolute intensity and insistency that he can't deny. Beyond irony is sex, and he knows it. So value starts to creep into his flatland world of inherited surfaces.

Shambhala: But those sex sequences change, as you earlier pointed out.

KW: Yes, the idea was to start with raw, male, adolescent sex--that is the one undeniable item where he can find a real value, a real judgment, in the word--but then the sexual act itself matures, as it were, until it expands quite beyond a merely egoic, bodily act and into a passion and compassion for being one with the entire Kosmos, a radiant blistering thrill of One Taste in all directions. So he starts with something that he can't deny, in spite of flatland--namely, sex--and he ends up with something equally undeniable--his own Original Face. And in between--which is the story of the novel--is the entire spectrum of increasing depth, increasing meaning, increasing value, increasing consciousness. Beyond irony is Spirit, ultimately.

Shambhala: That's why you said the fantasy sequences are tantric.

KW: Yes.

Shambhala: Some of these "fantasy" sequences--which are set in bold--are the most intense sections in the entire book. Here is one that occurs fairly late, when the sexual impulse is starting to expand to include the entire universe.

Chloe takes the pizza, rubs it all over her naked body, smiles, and says, "Lunch is served!"

I reach over to lick her breasts, and enter her body, and a chilling thrill wells up inside me, as Chloe's body turns into Joan's, which turns into the infinite sky, shining in all directions. The friction of flesh gives way to oneness with the all, an explosive orgasm fractures my body and spills into the universe at large, and I dissolve into a rain of bliss that exists for all eternity, a hidden unbidden trip on ecstasy that ignites a digital heaven.

     "Listen to me very carefully," the sky now says to me. "I am Prakriti, doorway to all space, the womb in which all manifestation arises, fleshy entrance to that Spirit which is always already here and now, a Spirit that is about to descend on the unwilling world at large, racing through the evolving waves of carbon and silicon at the speed of light. You wish to enter my body, be one with my desire, sexually unite with my flesh, find the ultimate release--this is what you really want, yes?--to fuck to infinity, find an orgasm so immense it releases the entire cosmos--to be totally Free, radically Released, one with the All. This is what you really want, so why be one with only a single female body, when you can be one with the entire cosmos, an orgasmic release beyond your wildest dreams? Why settle for this pound of flesh, when infinity is yours? Ken, are you listening to me? Ken?"

     "Yes, yes, I hear you."

     "Reach out and touch my breasts, all you will feel are the clouds. Enter my body, all you will find is the earth. Be one with me, that is what you want. Have intercourse with the entire universe, dear soul, and disappear into that bliss. Do you understand?"

     "I think so, I'm trying."

      "Then you are now on the trail of who you are, if you can only get out of the way," the old man's voice inside my head quietly announces.

KW: The idea was to start with a few things that a young man can't really deny, no matter how much flatland smashes him down, and then use those as a doorway beyond irony and into depth. Sex is one, and the other, in this novel anyway, is Ecstasy. They are closely related, but here, "Ecstasy" means the drug Ecstasy, and the idea was to take the rave scene--these kids are ravers--and use that as another portal beyond irony and into reality.

Shambhala: That's a risky move.

KW: Yes, definitely. I thought a lot about it. On the one hand, you don't want to eulogize any sort of drug scene, and you certainly don't want to imply that any drug will give you a pure access to all the higher waves. Still, I do believe that a few drugs can give you a brief glimpse of some of these higher states, and that is what is actually appealing in the drug high. So again, I wanted to connect with a reality of depth and meaning that is already present in this young man's world, something that he can't deny, something that he cannot meet with irony, something that is so far beyond irony that it opens onto reality itself.

Shambhala: So, beyond irony is Ecstasy. And the ecstasy, like the sex, starts off in its crude, lower forms--as an actual drug experience--but it evolves up the entire spectrum of consciousness to its ultimate, natural bliss.

KW: Yes, that's right.

Shambhala: Here is another fantasy sequence, later in the book, when that lesson is starting to take hold:

     But Third Tier--or Spirit itself--is there all along, shining blissfully, radiating eternally.... the blissful roiling rush of a cosmic consciousness too close to be seen, as I dissolve into that endless Rave that is the nature of all reality, a timeless blissful ecstatic Wave of luminous electricity that drives the entire World.

      "Chloe, did you know that the real reason we take Ecstasy and rave the night away is that we are trying to contact Third Tier?"

      "Ooooh, look at me swoon," she says, and does exactly that: swoons into that bliss, her eyes rolling up, her naked body dissolving into mine, as the Rave Wave of the entire Kosmos rushes through our conjoined bodies, a shimmering snap of things to come, a glorious glimpse of a radiant, radical, wild future rushing at me madly; the thump thump thumping of the coming Dawn rattles my body rudely and pushes me to awaken....

KW: Both the sex and the Ecstasy take him out of flatland and into a world of depth and meaning, and both of them eventually lead beyond irony to reality.

Shambhala: Another example toward the end:

      Deeper and deeper into my being, farther back into my own consciousness, resting as the infinite Witness of all the worlds that arise. An empty, dark, vast formlessness, yet intrinsically alive, infinitely wise, radiating a luminosity too subtle to see or even feel, an infinite Release on the other side of terror, a radical Freedom beyond the shores of pain, a bliss beyond bliss that cannot be felt and a light beyond light that cannot even be seen.

      "Now come back to me, Ken," the eyes of sky whisper.

      And out of that infinite Emptiness the entire World explodes, and I am flooded with an ecstasy so unbearably intense I splinter into a million souls dispersed in cosmic winds, I arise as an infinity of translucent stars adorning the sheltering sky, disappear instantly into an iridescent sun shining in the heart of each and every being, arising yet as erotic earth giving life to all who yearn. Freedom and Fullness drench my being and soak the universe to its radiant core, and it is all so obvious, so utterly, painfully, terribly obvious.

All of that unfolds in the fantasy sequences, while in the narrative itself, a similar type of experience is happening to Stuart in the novel--which actually happened to Stuart in real life--in fact, he wrote his own sequences in the novel.

KW: Yes, as we were saying, everything in the book has a postmodern doubling, or a fact/fictional doubling, which made it very hard to write, but I think turns out to be one of the fun things in the book. The novel is sort of a postmodern hall-of-mirrors fun house. Except, like I said, postmodernism itself doesn't get its own joke.

Shambhala: You realize that Gen-Xers are going nuts over this book. We've given it to maybe forty of them, and virtually all of them say the same thing: I was up all night reading it. It's 450 pages long! Are you okay with all that?

KW: Oh, I think it's great. I know the guys are up reading it, because they can't wait to see what Chloe does next in the fantasy sequences. But I think they are reading it for a deeper reason, too. They want out of slacker flatland, meaningless surfaces everywhere, irony where happiness should be.

Shambhala: One of the hot, hip "in" magazines wants to do a cover story on this, called "Beyond Irony Is...." A lot of Gen-Xers are lining up behind this, a chance to throw Boomers off their back. Are you game for that?

KW: It's not so much a matter of whether what I'm saying is true or not; it's that this dialogue has been disallowed by green, so as long as this discussion finally gets started, I think that's great.

Shambhala: Okay, speaking of the Boomers themselves. Does this mean you are abandoning them?

KW: Absolutely not. It simply means that it is time for Boomers to move on from green to yellow, from pluralism to integralism, by whatever name. And I think many Boomers will do this, because they have been at the green wave of consciousness for thirty years, and they are getting very tired of it. And getting very hungry for more depth, more consciousness, more care and compassion. I think there is a very good chance that this will happen.

Shambhala: Do you think the book will help?

KW: Well, of course, you hope so, but realistically things like books have little impact.

Shambhala: But the other day, you were outlining the structure of the book, and how it could help move people from green to yellow.

KW: Well, all I really said is that I hoped it would, and that I wrote it with a particular flow that I hoped would help with this. But gads, you never know, you know?

Shambhala: You wrote it how? With a particular flow?

KW: I made the assumption that many readers would be "green exit." That is, they were still identified with, or attached to, the green wave, but they were ready to transform from green to yellow, or second tier. So each chapter was designed to hit that green identification from a different angle. In particular, you keep insulting green in various ways. Only somebody identified with green values will get really upset when you do this, so if you keep insulting these otherwise very nice people, they eventually begin to notice, not what a wretchedly mean person you are, but how identified and attached they are to this wave.

Shambhala: So the book keeps insulting green.

KW: Well, it starts out insulting green, yes. In real life, this is something I began doing at the time of SES. It's a controversial move, I realize. You can usually see a tone shift in my writing when it comes to the mean green meme (e.g., sidebar F). But that insulting tone is not how I talk in real life, or in the rest of my writing, for that matter. Again, I realize this is very controversial, and I could be deeply mistaken about its usefulness in the long run.

Anyway, in the book it is easier and clearer, because the book only starts out insulting green. It eventually shifts gears and passionately welcomes green in an integral embrace.

Shambhala: So why start out insulting green?

KW: To make that subjective structure more objective. That is, to make people look at the green wave in themselves, instead of using it as something with which to look at the world. In development, as Bob Kegan is always pointing out, the subject of one stage of development becomes the object of the subject of the next stage. So if you can start to look at green in yourself, then you are starting to move beyond green... and into integral second tier.

So each of the chapters of Boomeritis comes at green from a different angle, and insults green from a different angle, to hopefully move its contours more into awareness and help one let go of that attachment. Then, at the end of the novel, it is all resolved in an integral embrace which is what green most deeply wants anyway.

Shambhala: So that is why the book is designed to help people dis-identify with green. And then integrate it.

KW: That's the hope, yes. But I think it will only work with "green exit." Those who are still deeply identified with the green wave will get very angry and annoyed at me, and write tons more pieces on what an arrogant dolt I am. "Most of all, I'm very concerned with what his tone tells us about his own development, his lack of feelings, his merely intellectual and disembodied understanding of spirituality, his attempt to force his universalist and absolutist schemes on everybody else...."

Shambhala: Yes, we've heard it all before. Do those criticisms upset you?

KW: Personally? Of course. A lot. They are completely understandable because I deliberately asked for it. But I don't want these people hating me. I want them to look at why they hate me. Why so upset? What values are being threatened? I try to do this in my own case, and I don't always succeed, but it is really the only truly important question. Not, why is so-and-so such an arrogant schmuck, but why does it bother me so much?

Shambhala: The book tries to walk people through that question and out the other end.

KW: That's the hope, anyway. So in addition to all the other things going on in the book, each chapter takes a particular item that has been infected with crushed green--infected with flatland pluralism, with boomeritis--and it looks at that item from as many angles as possible. Some in a neutral way, and some in a deliberately inflammatory way, so as to help with a dis-identification.

Shambhala: Those items include the new paradigms, deconstruction, UFO abductions, the hundred monkey, Foucault, Derrida, poststructuralism, genealogy, patriarchy, the indigenous mind, the western Enlightenment, the ecological movements, feminism, astrology, participatory pluralism, to name a few.

KW: The idea is to try to show that each of those movements, although they might have started out as healthy green, soon became the home of flatland green, of boomeritis, and the harm they then caused almost outweighed the good. So yes, part of what's happening while Stuart is going through a profound transformation beyond green, beyond pluralism and irony--which is the real core of the novel--there are these background discussions about all of those items that you mentioned, interwoven with all the other narratives and postmodern doublings.

Shambhala: That's where the academic material from the first book is fitted in.

KW: Yes, that's right. The academic material was structured into a "therapy session," if you will, to help people dis-identify with green and thus be ready to move beyond flatland pluralism and endless irony.

Shambhala: Do you think it works in that regard?

KW: I honestly don't know. Like I said, I hope so. I would at least say this. If you are already sympathetic to a more integral view, and you would like some help in continuing to move beyond green--that is, to transcend and include green--then I think the book will definitely walk you through green and out the other side. But if you don't buy any of this to begin with, no, I don't think it will convince anybody of anything.

Shambhala: But the book not only helps move beyond green, it is a small manual for tantric realization of One Taste.

KW: That's also a hope, yes.

Shambhala: Okay, let's bring this to a close with a few observations. If you really look at it, what you did was basically write Boomeritis and Volume 3 of the Kosmos Trilogy in one long sitting. Like you said, around 1200 pages all told--450 pages of the novel and 800 pages of other material. Is that right?

KW: I never thought of it like that, but yes, I guess that is how it turned out.

Shambhala: So how do you see this overall statement in your own mind? Those two books together are a kind of huge gestalt that says something. Says what?

KW: Oh, I see, an easy question at the end. [Laughing] I guess the one phrase summarizing it all is the one we used earlier: Beyond Irony Is____.

It seems to me that how you fill in that blank is how you answer the great philosophical question of the postmodern era. Boomeritis is an attempt to diagnose the problem. A Theory of Everything --well, actually, pretty much all my other books--are an attempt to give one version of an answer, one prognosis of a more integral future. Volume 3 is a merely an academic way to frame the answer in a way that escapes postmodern irony and denial of depth, but the real answer is found exactly as Stuart found it: in the radiant transformation of the loving heart that opens onto infinity and never looks back, except to embrace all sentient beings with a passionate equanimity that outshines the self-contraction in this and every moment. Because beyond irony is... you. Beyond irony is your own Original Face, shining even here and now....

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