Primacy of Being - a core thesis of Life Itself

[rufuspollock]

UPDATE: these are background notes for the essay which became https://lifeitself.org/primacy-of-being - that essay contains many though not all of these points.

Context: Primacy of Being is a key tenet of Life Itself's approach (e.g. ref'd in SCQH etc) yet quite a subtle point that is easily misunderstood (e.g. "be the change you want to see" or "you are a human being not a human doing"). It also involves major points of our political philosophy regarding both the focus and means of social transformation.

Notes

• Primacy of being in a nutshell: primacy of the left quadrants (in Wilber) or the primacy of the ontological arm in the “two arms”. That is inner development personally and collectively should be prioritized over outer development e.g. tech / science / systems etc.
  • Primacy does not mean exclusivity
  • Explanation of the interdependence of these dynamics (i.e. that e.g. culture and structure interact)
• Wilber 4 quadrants: the left quadrants are the interior ones.
• Two arms of transformation: https://rufuspollock.com/2017/02/10/two-arms-of-transformation/ and also in sketches
  • Interior/Ontological (psycho-spiritual) arm: transformation of being
  • Exterior/Material arm: transformation in technology and structure
• Be cautious about the “doing vs being” point: it is a bit subtle. On one level there is a resonance e.g. if we are talking about personal well-being and happiness etc then primacy of being is sort of what we are saying (though not necessarily Heideggerian). However, in general this could distract into rather onanistic / individualistic focus on “focus on who you are being rather than what you do”. Hmmm … still haven’t quite nailed this.
• Why is this not the point:
• Primacy of being is about focus of effort for personal and collective transformation. Not an ontological point about the nature of human (cf Vonnegut’s quote)
• Apply the ideas to key topics e.g. happiness and wellbeing, climate crisis, AI etc.

Outline

Hypothesis tree: We should prioritize “being” (i.e. left quadrants) over matter (technology or structural/systems change) in pursuing the transformation needed to address the metacrisis/polycrisis …

• We are in a time of crisis
• We need deep transformation
• We can look at this transformation through multiple perspectives: the 4 quadrants of integral
  • Interior
    • Individual
    • Collective
  • Exterior
    • …
    • ...
• That transformation will involve all “quadrants” - They all interdepend (anyway)
• However, the greatest need and greatest priority are the interior quadrants
  • There is a wisdom gap: Great development of our technology without development of our “wisdom” is not only unnecessary but downright problematic cf the climate crisis.
  • Interior development is much less understood and the practices needed much less developed than exterior work (our focus in west for last)
  • Structural solutions won’t work …
    • You need the interior to make good structure
    • Structure is insufficient - always under-specification and that gap is covered by culture. Example of Italy by Putnam etc. [note: this is an essay in its own right]
    • You need being to implement structure (to solve collective action problem)

Notes: could start the piece with the story of the sorcerer’s apprentice. Relate it to our relative underdevelopment of our interior abilities compared to exterior (technology etc).

[rufuspollock]

I note we already have https://lifeitself.org/primacy-of-being - do we need another essay?

In any case this material seems best as a forum post or an item in notes.