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Ken Wilber Critique, Part 4
Buy My Other Books!
Zac made some useful counter-points about why someone might get a kick out of reading Wilber’s work. Might be good to ground yourself in some of his arguments, as he’s a fan, so you can have a broader range to your own understanding of Wilber’s work. As I explained to Zac, and it seems worth repeating here: the reason I’m jumping up and down on Wilber is not that I think he’s a bad guy or that his work is invalid. It’s that he seems to represent the quintessence of applying systems-thinking to spirituality. This can be good or bad. It’s something I’ve struggled with a lot myself in the past, and something I’d like to find a way to leave behind. If I can’t leave it behind, I’d like to be able to put it into a form that works best for me. So my incessant Wilber criticism is grounded in that.
Now, onto the next round! On page 49 of A Theory of Everything, we find a very typical passage:
Again, each of these quadrants has numerous waves, streams, and types, only a pitifully few of which are indicated in fig. 3-1. In books such as A Brief History of Everything, The Eye of the Spirit and Integral Psychology, I have given a wide variety of examples from each quadrant as they relate to art and literary interpretation, feminism and gender studies, anthropology, philosophy, psychology and religion.
Now, I’m not one to brag about how many books I read, but suffice it to say a fair amount. In all my reading, I’ve never seen a single author that was so self-referential as Wilber. Not even somebody like Jung of Joseph Campbell, both of who wrote enormous volumes spanning a huge variety of subject matter. So why does Wilber do it so fucking often? I’m left with only two possible explanations: (1) he’s a bad writer, or (2) he wants you to check out his other books.
Call me crazy, but when I buy a book, I ordinarily expect it to be more or less self-contained. It’s perfectly alright if there are other books in a series, but I feel as though a work in that format ought to be able to stand on it’s own two feet. For whatever it’s worth, I think TOE actually does that. I don’t particularly care for the subject matter or the presentation, but I don’t feel it’s necessary to go out and read three other works by him in order to understand what he’s saying. In fact, I think his near-constant references to his other books are actually a major hindrance to getting his point across. I just feel like: Let’s get on with the show, man! Quit wasting my time! I’m up to page 59 in this book, and I feel like the solid points actually made in this book so far could be easily boiled down to maybe 5-10 pages. The rest of it is just a lot of self-reference, shoddy evidence, confusing language and quite frankly fluff. There’s nothing I hate more than when a writer tells me what they are going to write about it. Don’t waste my time! Just get started already!
From a marketing perspective, I think Wilber’s self-references are genius. Because they tell the reader: “This book in your hands is incomplete. I’m so smart that my ideas are just too big to actually tell you all at once because it would crush your puny earth mind. Your safest option is to read this one, and then go buy five more. And then go sign up for one of my classes and buy some of my patented Integral Bubblebath.” As sarcastic as that was, I’m quite serious when I say that I think his marketing techniques are top notch. But does that make for a good book? NO! It makes for a sucky book with holes so wide I could drive a tractor-trailer through it and do a three point turn in the middle and then set up a circus tent and make a pyramid out of elephants and I could pay the elephants to rewrite this book into something slim, coherent and useful.
As Alistair wrote yesterday in regards to Wilber’s techniques: “It’s good marketing … except that consciousness isn’t Pepsi.”
July 19th, 2005 at 8:22 pm
I’ve always been amused by Wilber’s look. His picture is on all his books, and with the shaved head and the glasses, it’s like he’s saying, “Look how smart I am! Look at my giant brain!” Other authors do the same kind of thing. Like Andrew Weil always has that beard and that giant smile. I’d like to sneak a photo of him scowling.
July 19th, 2005 at 11:01 pm
well, when you’ve looked at a few of his books you’ll realise fairly quickly that they’re pieces of a larger model that incorporates a huge amount of writing. his books are big as it is, and if he spent time recapping the whole model up till that point in every book they would be even larger unneccisarily.
and yes, i agree he looks bizzarre. i’m sure it helps his marketing when you spot this wierd looking freak with a sweaty bald head. I’ve noticed he has a sense of humor about it.
he’s actually quite a humourous guy which unfortunately doesn’t come across very well in his academic writing, and tends to predispose people to approach his work with the same kind of weird energy that he seems to be putting out.
July 19th, 2005 at 11:23 pm
Quite frankly, I don’t want to look at a few of his books. Him telling me to do so isn’t helping either. It’s the same thing as if every time I wanted to make a point on my website, I said, “Go read these ten other essays first and come back”. Except online that wouldn’t be such a problem because the information would be readily accessible and eaily digestible. Even still, I may reference other essays, but I always try to write things that can be read in a complete vacuum. You might not catch everything that I’m saying, but it’s not a pre-requisite that you read a hundred other things to grasp whatever it is. I think part of the responsibility of an author is to read, summarize and synthesize other material for people who are less familiar with it.
In any event, he’s more than welcome to create a model and a work that spans many volumes. Just make this one volume pivotal and inviting
July 20th, 2005 at 1:34 am
I’m not totally sure that Wilber’s intent is to get you to buy his other books. After all, the two works of his I’ve read, and the essays, are high in context–i.e., you have to know a lot of often-cited studies, which isn’t all that hard, and he references his books–but they stand alone, essentially. But I’ve got to agree, Wilber’s got a lot of latent “bad guru” tendencies, like the self-reference and the difficult language.
July 20th, 2005 at 1:38 am
Okay, fair enough. I’m not sure that’s his intent and maybe I shouldn’t have phrased it that way. But it definitely *feels* like that to me, a first-time reader of his work. And hell, he has every right to want to sell as many copies of his books as possible, if that really is the intent of the structuring. I maintain my right of course not to buy them.
July 20th, 2005 at 12:49 pm
p.h.d. behaviour is dense and referential. it keeps the club membership down. wilber is tipping his scolar hat to all the other academics that way. not everyone on the path to enlightenment is that way inclined. it`s not wilber`s responsibility to write in any way other that the way he`s doing it but his accolites sometimes appear surprised that other people have criticisms of his proselytising, hypnotic prose. i won`t go as far as to suggest that it`s teeny penis behaviour but there is a suggestion of overcompensation in his work.
“high in context” seems like preaching to the choir, to me.
July 20th, 2005 at 4:57 pm
Hilarious! I came so close to accusing somebody of that the other day…