Tag: Jonathan Haidt

Human Nature-Based Disclosure

 Unique aerospace vehicles coming out of the ocean in Puerto Rico. Photo by José Fernandez.

How can we as “disclosure activists” and as practitioners of “exopolitics” (and, in many cases, as contact experiencers) really assist society to accept and to adapt to the disclosure of an extraterrestrial, multi-dimensional presence? Should we simply allow a more classic, militaristic interpretive tendency (as within the effort of To the Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences) convince politicians and citizens worldwide and let that extension of our political biases take its course or should we try to find another way of doing things?

I think that we (in fact, eventually, ALL of us and not just ‘experiencers’ who have been awakened to a vaster reality) must try to understand why we are as we are in terms of maintaining our personal identities, sense of meaning and moral politics. I think that our ability to see and our blindness impeding seeing how to “connect the dots” (in a healthy, healing, constructive way) is related to how consciousness itself is capable or not of embracing more aspects of reality in a coherent way. And some of the people speaking about this (although in less spiritual terms) are moral and developmental psychologists.  As boring as these studies might be (in contrast to cover-up revelations, for instance) they can serve as foundations based on empirical research to learn why we create dominance hierarchies and why we fight so much with each other, whether we are in the 0.1% elite group or in any other social strata.

In order to establish contact with healthy, benevolent interstellar beings on a par with their alleged lofty ideals and in a mutually beneficial fashion, with sovereignty as a species that can be sustained, we probably first need to be able to leave our”self-perpetuating wheel of unending conflict.”

What makes ‘sense’ to us is generally related to our intuitions of what is and is not. And this is an expression of the Principle of Identity. And the Principle of Identity (related to how we cognitively intuit what is and is not in our mental schemas and in relation to perception) is probably rooted in the equivalence of consciousness with being itself. It is rooted in the fact that we are (being) because we experience (cogito ergo sum). Thereafter, our interpretive experience is rooted in the self-evident fact that we first know that we are because we experience. It is an automatic part of our conscious awareness and even of our personal identity-based political operations in any “real world” we may be participating.

By extension, constructive “common cause” identity politics, and destructive, “common enemy” identity politics is based on that capacity of recognizing expressions of what is or of existence and being. We could summarize (according to some developmental psychologists like Kegan, Kohlberg, Peck, Cheryl, Gilligan, Fowler, Cook-Greuter, Baldwin, et al) our capacity to embrace and understand varies from person to person.

Levels of Ego Development according to one of the developmental psychologists, Suzanne Cook-Greuter. To face the challenge of DISCLOSURE we probably need a large percentage of the population and/or its cultural-political leaders in a Green (Pluralist), Teal or Turquoise stage of development. How could someone in a predominant “Amber” stage of ego development (the Diplomat- Conformist) act in the name of pluralist, world-centric values for the good of all humankind while willing to admit into his or her circle of care and concern non-human, extraterrestrial (or even intraterrestrial) beings?

It can be summarized as if the personal room for our consciousness and its degrees of possible embrace or identification with reality and interpretations were larger or smaller. It might also operate under a greater or lesser intensity of subjective walls or subdivisions in that inner conscious “space” or “room” and we would have biases possessing our conscious experience without us being aware of it, limiting how much and how we embrace what we disclose to ourselves in our experience.

The more we expand our consciousness as a permanent average trait the more we can embrace a “common emphasis” identity politics versus a “common enemy” identity politics. This issue related to how our CONSCIOUSNESS is freer and more inclusive or instead possessed by inner walls and biases that affect our interpersonal relationships, politics, ufology, disclosure. If we do not nourish a trusting environment we may not be ready for healthy social coordination after major UFO, experiencer revelations.

According to Ken Wilber (working with the information provided by some of those developmental psychologists) a large percentage of the population primarily functions in a premodern, mythic, authority-based level of development coloring their self-identities in which it is IMPOSSIBLE to feel, think, value and include multiple truths multilaterally, fact-based and pluralistically, or in a true modern democratic way, not to speak of the capacity to find a way to harmonize ideological differences via an integrative approach.

Dr. Jonathan Haidt emphasizes (conservative and liberal) moral TENDENCIES (rather than developmental levels) affecting self-identity and identity politics but his work is seriously related to this discourse and to how disclosure activists may effectively work in society beyond participating (even if based on reason) in the blame game.

In a world that needs to come together to process shared human problems: degradation of the oceans, climate change, nuclear warheads, terrorism across borders, artificial intelligence and job loss, information glut, and a long etc, the popularity of ethnic nationalism (now achieving power through democratic elections) is dismantling the international order that (at least in principle) promoted larger swaths of humanity to come together in cooperation with healthy democracies around a world of shared human rights using reason and facts to agree in applications.

How can a “post-truth” world order or a more disunited world made up of more dominating but competing for populist, nationalist polities welcome “the others”? (ETs). How can societies learn to deal in a constructive way and as part of a more unified global humanity if an “us vs them” mentality prevails?

If the classical liberal institutions and classical liberal people’s values in the world are in disarray as we tend to hold on to limited answers, how are we going to add the cultural challenge of verifying an extraterrestrial presence? The “rooms” or “spaces” in our consciousnesses need to expand.

I propose that as “disclosure activists” we also need to understand our own human psychology and what motivates us in order to engage in a more intelligent disclosure discourse and activism. Are most of us liberals (in the liberals vs conservative sense)? How can we value and speak with conservatives (both recognized by Wilber and Haidt as necessary)?

I definitely think that we need to study the work of moral psychologists like Johnathan Haidt and also the works of integrative philosopher Ken Wilber (who emphasizes developmental psychology). One emphasizes tendencies and, the other, capacities. And we need to understand both if we are to become aware of why we are how we are and why we become so invested in our beliefs.

If we are to overcome what may be the greatest challenge of all (probably challenging human nature as we normally experience it) we need to rise beyond opinions about each other. It must even go beyond the genuine and fantastic critiques of what an elite may be doing to us to retain control of us.

In order to be politically and exopolitically responsible we must really focus on understanding our tendencies and that of others (in regular citizens as well as elites and, simply, those in positions of leadership), tendencies naturally bearing on the degree of openness, personal biases and/or various specific interests toward the complex issue of disclosure. Simultaneously, we also need to understand why (sometimes, due to developmental level incapacity) many cannot rise to the challenge of disclosure because they – quite simply – they cannot rise above standard belief systems and cohere explanations discovering what they have in common and – from this platform – inform, share, educate.

The greatest transformative challenge humanity faces would be so deeply transformative that it cannot simply be based on simplistic belief system solutions. Revealing the degree of mischievousness with which an elite controls the cover-up or if a handful of contactees communicating with “space brothers” were – after all – correct in what, otherwise, looked like airy-fairy recommendations and narratives would be probably remain superficial, cosmetic solutions prone to produce more interpersonal conflict unless ‘we’ who care about truth, evolution and disclosure (at least as many of us as possible) come to value understanding why we are as we are, what can we really become and how to go about educating and transforming our current manifestations of “human nature.” This is why we need to expand our sphere of interest into Social Psychology, Behavioral Genetics, Biosociology, and other sources of information that shed light upon our “human nature.”

Thus far, the “UFO community” has made some contributions to society at large (albeit mostly preaching to the choir) but has not been able to provide a basis to come to basic agreements or to integrate the best information. We are also divided by our tendencies, often to the point of not recognizing each others’ contributions. So, we have also shown to the world how we subdivide ourselves as any other social group with a political message.

Do we simply need to become more conscious through more validated or grounded revelations, information, and through spiritual practices or do we need to re-engineer our tendencies and our developmental capacities by re-engineering our genes or simply becoming aware of why we are as we are (and to change our behavior and attitudes accordingly) is the key to become politically and exopolitically successful “citizens” in a complex, multi-dimensional cosmos?

A person to keep in mind to deepen this necessary conversation is Dr. Sean Esbjörn-Hargens who (probably in 2019) will be exploring (from an Integral Meta-Theory perspective) the issue of extraterrestrial contacts, Ufology, society, exopolitics.

 

 

 

 

Sources

Wilber, K. (2007). Integral Spirituality. Boston: Integral Books

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