DAILY EVOLVER LIVE PODCAST, EDITED TRANSCRIPT | 2.10.

2015 | Boulder Colorado | Jeff

Salzman

THE BANALITY OF ISIS: Obama, the Inquisition, and Medieval Brutality in Our
Time
Jeff: Good evening folks, and welcome to the Daily Evolver Live. Im Jeff Salzman. It's
Tuesday February 10, 2015, and I am coming to you as always from my home in
Boulder Colorado. I'm here tonight with our Daily Evolver producer, Brett Walker.
I have a lot to cover tonight, from Obamas controversial comments at the National
Prayer Breakfast, to ISIS and their immolation of the Jordanian pilot. Plus a quick visit
back to a couple topics we talked about last week: the movie American Sniper and the
vaccine controversy here in America. And also a look at the interior experience of
integral consciousness.
But before we get to all that, heres a word from our sponsor: I want to give a shout out
to Integral Life who hosts this podcast. IntegralLife.com is the main web portal for
cutting edge integral thinking. They feature Ken Wilbers latest work. And they have for
over ten years now produced a number of integral spiritual gatherings that I think have
really helped move the ball in the creation of an integrally coherent spiritual practice. Its
an important project, and one we talk about regularly on this podcast. Integral Life has
just announced their latest integral spiritual gathering: Return to the Heart of Christ
Consciousness, a four-day conference in Boulder, at the beautiful St. Julien Hotel - right
in downtown Boulder - starting on March 27th.
This Daily Evolver Live podcast is also available on iTunes and Stitcher. If you listen on
iTunes, please rate the show. This helps us, apparently. And of course this podcast also
appears, along with additional postings and commentary, on my personal blog,
DailyEvolver.com.
CHARTS THAT CAN HELP YOU: The Altitudes of Development, and the Quadrants of
Reality are two key integral maps that I refer to a good bit in this podcast. You can find
them on my Daily Evolver site in the document: A Primer on Integral Theory.
I also want to say that I love to hear from you. There are two ways to contact me: One,
by email: jeff@dailyevolver.com. Two, by web voicemail using the orange Speakpipe
button on the Daily Evolver site that lets you leave a voice message. Its super simple,
and I really enjoy getting these voice messages from you.

In fact, I want to start the podcast tonight with a message I received on Speakpipe
yesterday. It was sparked by the integral analysis I did on last weeks podcast about the
movie American Sniper. Its from a man, Jake Bullock, who iswell I think Ill just let
Jake introduce himself. Here he is:
Hi Jeff, Im recording this today because your last show was about Chris Kyle and
American Sniper, about how we as integralists should view a movie like that and it really
got me thinking about my own experiences. And this is something I would love to
unpack in great detail. Ive been integrally informed since about seventeen when I first
read Ken Wilber. Ive been reading him ever since and have always identified very
strongly with the integral movement. But from eighteen to twenty-six I was a Navy SEAL
sniper. I went on four combat deployments like Chris, and did a lot of similar work. And I
have to say I was always very passionate about that job, and I still, to this day, feel the
pull to be a SEAL and to go to war and to have those experiences that really only exist
in that combat environment. At the same time I still hold these integral viewpoints very
strongly. I did assimilate to the culture, to an extent, and what you said about Chris Kyle
and traditional America resonated very strongly with me, not that I held those same
belief structures as most of my teammates but I experienced it first hand and I know
how they thought and what they felt and how they think. In some cases I felt similarly
and in other cases I didnt. I would love it if you could unpack this juxtaposition between
having these integral views but also feeling this strong pull to be a SEAL and to go to
war.
I hope youre all as happy to hear from Jake as I am. An integral Navy Seal Sniper, for
God sake! And as for unpacking the experiences you talk about, Jake, well I am happy
to participate, but I really want to hear from you. So, folks, Jake and have been
communicating by email and we will be recording a conversation soon, which we will
share with you.
*********
Time for our sometimes-weekly poll
Last Thursday President Obama spoke at the National Prayer breakfast, an annual
event where Presidents deliver homilies for religious leaders. This year he made the
following comments about the atrocities committed by ISIS, which have proven to be
quite controversial. For our poll tonight, Im going to ask you whether you think making
this comment was a good idea or a bad idea. But first, heres what he said.
"Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember
that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the

name of Christ," the president said. "In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too
often was justified in the name of Christ."
Murderous extremism is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in
us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith."
If you think making those comments was a good idea, press one, if you think it was a
bad idea, press two. Well review the results in a few minutes
********
Okay, next lets move to the statistic of the week.
This is from The Economist magazine. Its a little bit of an oddball statistic, but it just
floored me when I read it and I think it says a lot. Its that box office receipts for movies
in China grew 37% in last year, in 2014.
Its astonishing when anything grows by over a third in one year, and the growth of the
Chinese cinema is predicted to continue into the future. Theyre currently opening an
average of 100 screens per week. From an integral perspective this represents a lot of
evolutionary potency. As the late, great movie critic Roger Ebert said, the cinema is an
art form of perspective taking. Movies are all about getting behind the eyes of other
people for a couple hours and living their stories instead of your own. As I said, this is
very potent because the evolution of consciousness can be seen basically as the
process of adding perspectives to ones psyche. So this is good for China.
On the other hand, it seems proportional in this moment to point out that they have a
long way to go, culturally, in China. There was another article in the same issue of The
Economist where the columnist Banyan writes of being perplexed about the growing
nationalism in China, and particularly by the growing anger and saber rattling directed at
Japan for their occupation of China in World War II. He writes As wars fade from living
memory, time should heal the emotional scars. In Asia, however, it seems only to
deepen wounds left by the second world war.
This is where developmental theory comes in handy. Because the idea that time heals
all wounds is true only for people who have adequately grown into the modern, (orange
altitude) mindset. For pre-modern people, time just gives you more of an opportunity
wound your enemy back! And the cycle of revenge can go on for generations and
centuries, as we have seen.

Now many hundreds of millions of Chinese people have a pre-modern worldview. This
is not an insult; its descriptive of a stage of development, which all people and cultures
go through on their way to modernity and beyond. Now of course a lot of China is
modern, and even beyond. As weve pointed out in past shows, China has a couple
hundred million people living along the coast who are more or less orange modernist.
But in the thousands of hamlets and villages in the vast middle of the country they are
just now moving out of what are essentially red fiefdoms.
This is one of the big projects of China right now: civilizing the provinces. The central
government is focusing on providing basic services, education, and is especially
focused on cleaning up local corruption. There is a high-profile campaign to expose and
remove local officials who act like warlords, taking bribes, confiscating peoples property
and rigging the courts. From an integral perspective this is a healthy move from red
despotism to a more rule-oriented, amber stage of development
The good news is that amber traditionalism is the world of law and order. The problem
is the amber is also very nationalistic -- actually more so than red, which tends to
splinter into more tribal and parochial interests. Amber is more organized both mentally
and in terms of command and control, and so they can contain a bigger system such as
a nation.
So its probably a bit of a horse race here. We can be expecting more nationalism out of
China, as its vast center of gravity of population becomes more amber and traditionalist.
But we can also hope that they will metabolize more of their nationalism at the movies,
instead of on real battlefields. With a 37% annual growth rate, Im betting on the movies.
***********
OBAMAPOLOGIA - Obamas comments at the National Prayer Breakfast
Okay folks, moving alongto another edition of OBAMAPOLOGIA, wherein I explain
and justify all things Obama! Unfortunately, as head Obamapologist I ever so
occasionally have to issue an integral demerit. I did this a couple weeks ago when
Obama failed to represent America adequately in the Charlie Hebdo memorial in Paris.
And I may have to again tonight. The occasion for the demerit is the controversial
speech he made at the annual National Prayer Breakfast. Im debating giving the
demerit, which is why I asked for a poll earlier in the podcast to see what you folks think
[POLL RESULTS: 91% said Obamas comments were good, and 9% said not good.
Wow, you people are more Obamapoligetical than I am!]

Again, here are his comments.

"Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember
that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the
name of Christ," the president said. "In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too
often was justified in the name of Christ."
Murderous extremism, he continued, "is not unique to one group or one religion. There
is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith."
I must say, when I first heard that he had said this I thought. No Barack, please! You let
me say this shit, not you. You just stand up there and praise Jesus for another two
years, and I'll take care of this other stuff.
But he didnt listen to me, and so he has gotten creamed from pretty much all sides.
Especially the traditionalist right (amber conservatives) because it feeds into their fears
that this Obama, which rhymes with Osama, is not really a Christian at all and is actually
tilling the land for the Enemy. But even moderates saw it as a gaffe. Simply for the
unfortunate timing and lack of context of larger events in the world.
After all, his speech took place two days after the world saw a something quite
shocking: a thirty minute, four-camera video productionedited like a video game, with
explosions, quick cut graphics, and big grandiose narration which reveals a steel cage
with a man standing in it in an orange jumpsuit, soaked in gasoline who is about to be
burned alive.
And then we're back to the MTV cross cutsand we see the guy in the cage and the
guy with the torch about to touch down on the trail of gasoline...and theres the close-up,
and the wide shot, and the profile. This thing had high production values as they say.
And this is where I stopped watching but I understand they showed it all in graphic
cinematic detail.
So two days after this, at the National prayer breakfast, Obama brings up Christian
atrocities of a thousand years ago. Bad timing in my opinion but I will defend his
comments on one count: they are 100% true. Christians did all of these things -- in
numbers that dwarf the deeds of todays Muslim fanatics.
But please, all of this is so much better understood in a developmental context. And
Obama wasnt really providing it. I read the whole speech and its actually quite
beautiful. But regarding ISIS his message was really just about them being evil and
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perverting Islam. This explanation represents the orange/green sweet spot Obama
generally tries to hit as President, and Im not sure how much he believes it versus how
much he thinks espousing it is proper leadership for the country. The former view would
be orange/green and the latter would be integral.
Heres how the view of ISIS evolves according to the altitudes of development:
Amber traditionalists: For traditionalists, evil is evil. Its what the Devil and his minions
do in their battle with God and Gods people. For them the whole religion of Islam is evil.
Conversely, for Islamic traditionalists Christianity is a religion of heresy and infidels.
Theres one true faith and youre either with us or against us.
Orange modernists: ISIS is evil but Islam isnt, and in fact ISIS is perverting a great
religion. This is a more mature and complex view, but were still stuck with evil.
Green postmodernists: This view of ISIS is that they are criminals or power-mad
psychopaths. The Obama administration, for instance, is intent on identifying them by
term such as murderous extremists not Islamic extremists. In this view ISIS is
ultimately trying to gain power and are cynically using Muslim ideology as a veneer to
do so. Thus we see headlines on progressive sites such as: Charlie Hebdo has nothing
to do with religion. But yet the assassins didnt shoot up a crowd of tourists at the Eiffel
tower, which would have been much more effective in terrorizing the world and hurting
France. Instead they took pains to hunt down cartoonists who had insulted their religion.
So whats the integral view of brutality? How does integral explain a rampaging mob
of militants who blitz the countryside killing and crucifying people, stealing girls,
beheading people and burning them alive?
Integral has the most astonishing explanation of all: brutality is perfectly normal human
behavior. Except, that is, for the last 0.1% of human history (a couple hundred years).
Before that humans were busy with plunder, conquest, beheading and burning people
alive -- the whole horror show. This is simply standard-issue pre-modern behavior.
But will it work for ISIS in the 21st Century? Clearly it has so far. But to be effective,
terrorism has to constantly raise the shock value, and so now were subjected to the
immolation of the pilot instead of just another beheading.
What could be next? Im waiting for the 24-hour-webcam focused on a caged coffin.
Have you heard of the caged coffin? This was a diabolical little device used in medieval
Europe where they would hang a heretic in the human equivalent of an iron birdcage.

And...just leave him there. You still see these cages hanging on some European
Cathedrals. Back in the day people would come up and throw shit (literally, Im afraid) at
the poor soul in the cage, jeer at him as he begs for food and water, and watch him
slowly succumb and die. The birds eat his eyes out and maggots eat his flesh and
before you know it, theres a skeleton hanging in a cage. In the context of a pre-modern
communication system (lower right quadrant) this would be an effective reminder to tow
the line.
So yes, ISIS has a ways to go before they catch up to the ingenuity of the Christian
Inquisition. Obama should have brought that up! (Kidding)
From a military perspective, however, the burning of the Jordanian pilot may turn out to
be a big blunder on ISISs part. This deed is so dastardly that it is actually going to
galvanize the more civilized Arab world against them. Jordan for instance has been
understandably ferocious in their response. It could be a big turning point in the psyche
of the Arab world.
But whether or not it is successful actually misses the real point of ISISs motivation,
which is: they believe what theyre doing is good. They believe that Allah has sent them
to rout the infidels and bring forth His kingdom on Earth, which is all laid out in their
book. These people are less worried about being successful than they are about being
faithful!
We miss this point when we focus just on the brutality of ISIS and call it evil or crazy or
power-mad. Because there's another feature of this stage of development that is really
worth remembering: it is magical. They dont think rationally -- heck, rationality is two
stage their future. They think magically.
ISISs story goes something like this: "Look at you, you infidels, with your tanks and
your planes and your bombs. You have no idea who you're up against. We are army of
Allah, the one true God. I'd much rather be on my side with God that on your side with
your big army.
Dont forget, this is the same God that parted the Red Sea for Moses and the ragtag
Israelites, and then drowned the Pharaohs chariot army. Its the same God who had
David kill Goliath. This God, like all super-hero red/amber gods, specializes in
miraculous victories against impossible odds.

And furthermore, at the red/amber holy warrior stage of development even dying is a
victory. Because youve been faithful and you are rewarded. Youre onto paradise,
starting with some healthy number of virgins.
So ISIS warriors fight for the same reason people have always fought: because they
think they will win and gain something in the effort. History shows that people will fight
against impossible odds when they think they can win. And they will only be disabused
of this notion when they lose, lose, lose.
And we are apparently about to witness an Iraqi offensive on Mosul and Fallujah (ISIS
strongholds) this week, so we may be seeing the tide turning.
And as for Obama, why did reach back a thousand years to highlight Christian
atrocities? He had to know the reaction. So why did he do it?
He, too, thought he was right. He didnt have time for a big history lesson like we do
here. He was also taking into account that moderate Muslims are listening. As I said,
this weeks atrocity may mark a turning point in the consciousness of moderate and
moderate-leaning Muslims, and the prayer breakfast itself may just be the perfect
setting to speak to them. It was, after all, attended by religious leaders from over 100
countries.
So Obama is taking into account the politics of the world -- not just the politics of the
US, and was willing to risk the indignation of conservatives here. With that view, Obama
may have said the right thing, and history may be a lot more friendly to this speech than
the real-time kneejerk reaction of the outrage industries here in the US.
So like I was saying, Obama gets another merit badge! :-)
*********
Okay, Id like to turn my attention to a message I received this week about a topic we
talked about on last weeks podcast: vaccinations. On the Daily Evolver Im trying to
address not only how to understand integral theory but how to apply it to our lives. This
letter, from listener Lori, is one of the best letters Ive ever received on any topic in
terms of laying out how an integral view helped someone deal with a really difficult reallife problem. Lori writes:
I just listened to the recording of last week's show, and I'd like to comment on
vaccinations. I have two sons who did not receive all of their vaccinations when they
were young. The older one was diagnosed with a severe neurological condition,
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unrelated to the vaccines; but we stopped giving any more because he was considered
at risk for further impairment. Because of his condition, I simply decided to stop giving
his younger brother any more vaccines as well. This was several years ago. Last year,
my younger son entered into public school. We were faced with the issue of updating
one of his vaccinations or stating that we had a religious belief that would exempt him
from having the missing vaccine.
I am fully aware of all the green and orange considerations that were discussed in the
broadcast. On one hand, for the past 20 years, I have been giving my older son
pharmaceuticals to try to control his seizure condition. I have witnessed both their
effectiveness and ineffectiveness and their sometimes horrible side-effects. On the
other hand, I have opted for natural remedies to heal nearly everything else for my kids
and myself. (We also tried natural remedies for the seizures, including cannabis, but
nothing has helped as much as pharmaceuticals.) So I take advantage of "orange's"
modern medicine and I also take advantage of "green's" healing sensibility, energy
healing and opting for natural herbs and foods. I take the best of both memes.
As for the vaccine question, I decided to go ahead and give my son the vaccine the
school wanted him to have. Initially, I had a very hard time coming to that decision. I
have seen the positives and the negatives of what chemicals can do to a growing brain
and nervous system. I see both the politics and the personal. Having all this information
and experience, my mind could not make the decision. So I went inside. I felt for the
answer. I tapped into that dimension where information is in the form of feeling, and I
felt that it would be ok for my son to have the vaccine.
I don't hear a lot in terms of definitions when we talk about second tier, and I guess
that's because it's still emerging. Surely though, we must be talking about expanding
our decision making ability and expanding our sources of information from those of facts
and physical/emotional experience we want to expand to include what we can learn
from our experience of states that are non physical, non emotional, and non intellectual.
This is where I find myself going more and more to understand the world and to make
decisions when things are complicated- when I see validity in all points of view. Might
this be a route to the synthesis second tier is striving for?
Wow, and thank you Lori
What makes her story so powerful is that she shows how she did a basic integral
inventory of her situation. She did a quadrant inquiry: I have seen the positives and the
negatives of what chemicals [lower right] can do to a growing brain and nervous system
[upper right]. I see both the politics [lower left] and the personal [upper left].

Plus, shes non-ideological when it comes to orange medicine and green healing. She
understands and uses both of them. Id also add that we integralists would be wise to
consider letting in magic (from the tribal altitude), faith and surrender (from the
traditional altitude) as well, to round out the spiral of development.
This is a natural thing for us to do at the integral altitude; its a deliberate, intentional
perspective-taking. We become progressively less and less gripped by any single
perspective as we begin to identify with the view that can see all of them. We disidentify with our native perspective and identify with the more liberated space within
which perspectives arise under their own power.
As we do that we see that this space itself has qualities of wisdom and intelligence and,
yes, even love. We may perceive that this space is a dimension of reality that is divine.
Whether we see it as our own divine self, higher self or bigger self, or whether we see it
as something other than us: a loving intelligence guides, God. Its all good, and
characteristic of the integral altitude of development.
But however we see it, we find a new order of answer there. I think of the famous quote
by Einstein: Problems cannot be solved at the level of awareness that created them.
At the integral altitude we expand into a new consciousness that includes all of the
above: magic, myth, rationality and sensitivity. A new consciousness where we find
new solutions, whether as a feeling (as with Lori, above), or as an upwelling of insight, a
Knowing.
However we experience it, its marked by a relaxation and a confidence that is not
egoic. On the contrary it often requires a surrendering of ego. And it results in a sense
of fulfillment and the realization that all is well.
********
Coming soon: webcasting via Integral Radio (instead of phonecasting via
Maestro)
I want to apologize for some of the technical problems weve been having on the last
couple live callsand Ill get to our fix in a minute. But in the meantime, just know that if
there is ever a problem with the live podcast qualityknow that we are also recording it
all right here, in a very nice home studio that Brett has put together for me. So the
podcast that is posted on Integral Life, Daily Evolver, ITunes and Stitcher will be of good
quality, even if the live call isnt.

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With that said we are still going to be broadcasting the Tuesday night podcast live, but it
will be via the web. Were going to be on Integral Radio, which is Integral Lifes new
web-streaming format. Find out how to use it on the homepage of Dailyevolver.com.
And you will be able to use the free Mixlr app for smart phones.
Were thinking its a better system, and we want to make the Daily Evolver podcast as
good and convenient as it can be for whoever would benefit from listening. I encourage
you to help us identify who would benefit from this. So if you have friends or family who
wonder what this integral thing is youre into, send them a link.
Okay folkswell I think thats going to do it for tonight. See you here same time, same
station next Tuesday night. Till thenkeep it integral!

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