Review of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality by Ken Wilber 2nd ed 851p (2001) (Review Revised 2019)

Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 4th Edition Michael Starks , 2019

19 Pages Posted: 18 Apr 2019

Date Written: April 11, 2019

Abstract

It is both amazing and fitting that this huge, jargon-laden (this book really needs a glossary!), heavily academic work has become a best seller in the world of the educated. One has to be dedicated to learn the jargon and then plow through 551 pages of text and 238 pages of notes. Meanwhile, we are told time and again that this is just an outline of what is to come!

Though he severely criticizes the excesses of the three movements, this is a deconstructive and New Age Mystical and postmodern interpretation of religion, philosophy and the behavioral sciences from a very liberal, spiritual point of view—i.e., without the worst of decon, pm and NAM jargon, rabid egalitarianism and anti-scientific anti-intellectualism.

He analyzes in some detail the various world views of philosophy, psychology, sociology and religion, exposing their fatal reductionistic flaws with (mostly) care and brilliance, but most of the sources he analyzes are of almost no relevance today. They use terminology and concepts that were already outdated when he was researching and writing 20 years ago. One has to slog thru endless pages of jargon –laden discussion of Habermas, Kant, Emerson, Jung et.al. to get to the pearls.

You get a terrific sampling of bad writing, confused and outdated ideas and obsolete jargon.

If one has a good current education, it is doubly painful to read this book (and most writing on human behavior). Painful because it´s so tortured and confusing, and then again when you realize how simple it is with modern psychology and philosophy. The terminology and ideas are horrifically confused and dated (but less so in Wilber's own analysis than in his sources).

This book and most of its sources are would-be psychology texts, though most of the authors did not realize it. It is about human behavior and reasoning-about why we think and act the way we do and how we might change in the future. But (like all such discussion until recently) none of the explanations are really explanations, and so they give no insight into human behavior. Nobody discusses the mental or evolutionary mechanisms involved. It is like describing how a car works by discussing the steering wheel and metal and paint without any knowledge of the engine, fuel or drive train. In fact, like most older 'explanations' of behavior, the texts quoted here and the comments by Wilber are often more interesting for what kinds of things they accept (and omit!) as explanations, and the kind of reasoning they use, than for the actual content.

If one is up on philosophy and cognitive and evolutionary psychology, most of this is archaic. Like nearly everyone (scholars and public alike—e.g., see my review of Dennett's Freedom Evolves and other books), he does not understand that the basics of religion and ethics—in fact all human behavior, are programmed into our genes. A revolution in understanding ourselves was taking place while he was writing his many books and it passed him by.

Keywords: altruism, religion, spirituality, ken wilber, ethics, evolutionary psychology, Habermas, Kant, Jung, new age mysticism

Suggested Citation

Starks, Michael, Review of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality by Ken Wilber 2nd ed 851p (2001) (Review Revised 2019) (April 11, 2019). Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 4th Edition Michael Starks , 2019, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3370007

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