Latest Podcasts
Is Climate Changing Us?
Hurricanes Harvey and Irma heat up the debate
This week the topic was obvious: Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, the dual storms that battered Texas and Florida in the last couple weeks.
In this episode we look at how the climate debate has exacerbated the polarization of our culture, particularly between traditionalists and postmodernists. How is it that the political right and left can have such radically different views of what’s happening with our global climate, and what, if anything, should be done about it? Are we deadlocked? Can we fight our way forward? And why can't science just settle things?
As always integral theory helps us sort things out. I hope you enjoy the podcast!
read more and access podcast...Latest Podcasts
The 50,000 Year Culture War
My appearance on “What’s Your Theory?” podcast
In today’s episode I am the guest of Stephen T. Harper as he kicks off his new podcast, “What’s Your Theory?”, where he interviews people who have “good answers to big questions about how the world works.” And do I have a theory for him!
One of the key tenets of integral theory is that human consciousness and culture evolve, and that’s where Steve and I focus. With his enthusiastic curiosity and flex-flow mind, Steve helps me map the “evolution of the interior” from the dawn of humanity to the present day where integral theory is so helpful for making sense of our world.
While this podcast is an introduction to integral theory, we use plenty of up-to-the minute topics and headlines to tell the story. Established students of integral theory will get an overview and refresher, and newbies will get a good basic understanding of a foundational integral principle. If you have friends who are interested in an integral on-ramp, this is a conversation you might consider sharing with them as well.
read more and access podcast...About integral theory
Integral theory is a school of philosophy that seeks to integrate all of human wisdom into a new, emergent worldview that is able to accommodate the gifts of all previous worldviews, including those which have been historically at odds: science and religion, eastern and western, and pre-modern, modern and post-modern. Read more
About Jeff Salzman
I am an integralist, an evolutionary, and a public commentator who, swimming against the current of prevailing culture, is heartened by the state and future of things. It seems to me self-evident that life is animated by the power of evolution, inside and out, and that we are riding a geyser of emergence toward a sacred world. Read more
Recent favorites
The Bannon Doctrine: Demolition Ahead
Steve Bannon is Donald Trump’s favorite philosopher. Trump sometimes jokes that he doesn't know “whether Bannon is alt-right or alt-left,” but either way Bannon has given voice to the visceral impulse of populist nationalism that Donald Trump has expressed for decades.
So what does Bannon believe? A pillar of his worldview is contained in a school of history called Strauss-Howe generational theory, developed by William Strauss and Neil Howe, which states that human events can be loosely organized in terms of recurring eighty year cycles, or saecula, which unfold in four twenty year turnings.
read more and access podcast...
Trump: the Anti-Green Backlash Begins – An interview with Ken Wilber
The Trump Presidency is an evolutionary correction for a culture whose leading edge “is in a 50-car pileup.” This is the thesis of Ken Wilber’s excellent new eBook, Trump and a Post-Truth World, and the kickoff point of a wide ranging conversation I had with Ken last week. Here's Ken's argument:
Every now and then, evolution itself has to adjust course, in light of new information on how its path is unfolding, and it starts (apparently spontaneously but with this deeper morphic field actually operating) by making various moves that are, in effect, self-correcting evolutionary realignments. The leading-edge of cultural evolution is today—and has been for four or five decades—the green wave (“green” meaning the basic stage of human development known to various developmental models as pluralistic, postmodern, relativistic, individualistic, beginning self-actualization, human-bond, multicultural, etc.—and generically referred to as “postmodern”).
read more and access podcast...
Pre-Truth, Post-Truth and Beyond
Inaugurated with bogus crowd claims and tales of voter fraud, the post-truth presidency of Donald Trump is upon us. Trump lives in a Red “warrior” worldspace alive with apparitions, rumors, conspiracies, and above all, scheming enemies. Placed in the...
read more and access podcast...
The Trump Era, Month Five
In this podcast we’ve spliced together the audio from three Facebook Live videos I’ve done over the last couple weeks. I’m really liking these quickie videos as they are giving me a chance to comment on current events in real time, which is particularly handy now that the news is coming at us so fast.
Here are the three topics I explore in this podcast:
02:36 Trump is Irredeemably Red
19:18 Loyalty vs Law
37:53 The Uncivil War
read more and access podcast...Self-Love: Feeling whole in our incompleteness
The Shrink and the Pundit is an ongoing discussion between Jeff and his longtime friend, Dr. Keith Witt, a leading Integral psychotherapist.
In this podcast they explore the topic of self-love. Dr. Keith traces the relationship that each of us has with our own “self-sense” from birth (actually gestation), when we fall from the paradise of the womb and begin the process of growth into ever new worlds of conditional love. That pattern continues until we reach higher stages of development, where a more integrated sense of self is able to love what has previously been in shadow.
Listen in as Jeff and Dr. Keith discuss how to cultivate “a warm sense of oneness with yourself as being good, caring and beautiful.”
read more and access podcast...
Trump the Terrible: an Integral Look at the Boy who Would be King
Defeat Trump! Not because he is a big alpha figure who would bust up the establishment. Not because he's vulgar. Not because lacks a coherent policy vision. Those things can actually be evolutionarily potent in their proper measure. No, the real problem with Donald Trump is that in important lines of development he is arrested at the level of a five-year-old. Keep nukes out of the hands of children. Make sure to vote!
read more and access podcast...
Flying At Integral: A Conversation with Jason Lange
In this episode I am the guest of my longtime friend and integral comrade, Jason Lange, on his new podcast Do The Evolution. We hit some juicy territory in our conversation so I’m sharing it with you here on The Daily Evolver. There are certain questions that...
read more and access podcast...
Is the System Rigged? Yes, and it’s coming along nicely …
If there's one thing that people on both ends of the political spectrum can agree on, it's this: the system is rigged. But an integral view asks, “which system?” A historical survey reveals that over time humanity has created a series of political/economic systems, each designed to right the wrongs of the previous system. Essentially, the workings of any system is seen as corruption by people at the next stage of development. This bigger “System” of cultural evolution continues to create “systems” that are ever more equitable and humane. In this podcast Jeff explores what corruption looks like now, and how it relates to the US presidential election.
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The world according to Wilber
Ken Wilber is my hero. I mean that quite literally because Ken rescued me from a life of confusion, fear and frustration as I tried to make sense of our crazy, mixed up world. Ken’s insights organized life on Planet Earth from a disjointed mess into an elegant whole.
read more and access podcast...Let us hear from you
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Daily Evolver Archives
Is Climate Changing Us?
Hurricanes Harvey and Irma heat up the debate
This week the topic was obvious: Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, the dual storms that battered Texas and Florida in the last couple weeks.
In this episode we look at how the climate debate has exacerbated the polarization of our culture, particularly between traditionalists and postmodernists. How is it that the political right and left can have such radically different views of what’s happening with our global climate, and what, if anything, should be done about it? Are we deadlocked? Can we fight our way forward? And why can't science just settle things?
As always integral theory helps us sort things out. I hope you enjoy the podcast!
The 50,000 Year Culture War
My appearance on “What’s Your Theory?” podcast
In today’s episode I am the guest of Stephen T. Harper as he kicks off his new podcast, “What’s Your Theory?”, where he interviews people who have “good answers to big questions about how the world works.” And do I have a theory for him!
One of the key tenets of integral theory is that human consciousness and culture evolve, and that’s where Steve and I focus. With his enthusiastic curiosity and flex-flow mind, Steve helps me map the “evolution of the interior” from the dawn of humanity to the present day where integral theory is so helpful for making sense of our world.
While this podcast is an introduction to integral theory, we use plenty of up-to-the minute topics and headlines to tell the story. Established students of integral theory will get an overview and refresher, and newbies will get a good basic understanding of a foundational integral principle. If you have friends who are interested in an integral on-ramp, this is a conversation you might consider sharing with them as well.
Intimacy, Longevity, and Happiness
In this episode of Shrink and Pundit, integral psychotherapist Dr Keith Witt and I talk about how intimacy, longevity and happiness are programmed into the human genome, and accessible to all of us. But at a cost.
Keith recently participated in an extraordinary conference called Plenitude near Sintra, Portugal. The conference brought together experts from around the world to explore a multidimensional approach to aging well.
Join us in our discussion of some surprising and not so surprising data about the current state of longevity research and how it relates to intimacy and happiness from an AQAL perspective.
The Trump Era, Month Five
In this podcast we’ve spliced together the audio from three Facebook Live videos I’ve done over the last couple weeks. I’m really liking these quickie videos as they are giving me a chance to comment on current events in real time, which is particularly handy now that the news is coming at us so fast.
Here are the three topics I explore in this podcast:
02:36 Trump is Irredeemably Red
19:18 Loyalty vs Law
37:53 The Uncivil War
Facilitating Vertical Development – A Conversation with Beena Sharma
In this podcast, Beena and I discuss what she and her team are learning about how adults grow through the predictable stages of adult development while still remaining true to their own journey. We examine how we can consciously participate in our own evolution and growth in a way that creates a more fulfilling, healthy, conscious and fruitful life. I particularly appreciate Beena's focus on mapping the later, Integral stages of development and how they show up in herself and people she works with. She offers some insights on how we can actually grow to those later reaches of maturity while also appreciating the triumph of where we have already arrived. Beena and I also touch on one of the essential tools of the developmental journey, that of working with polarities – the interdependent and seemingly opposite qualities we continually encounter on our path – and how we can begin to meaningfully navigate those qualities and paradoxes in an increasing profound way.
Flying At Integral: A Conversation with Jason Lange
In this episode I am the guest of my longtime friend and integral comrade, Jason Lange, on his new podcast Do The Evolution. We hit some juicy territory in our conversation so I’m sharing it with you here on The Daily Evolver. There are certain questions that...
Irritation as a Spiritual Practice – A conversation with Diane Musho Hamilton
Diane Musho Hamilton is at the forefront of one of the most significant spiritual emergents in contemporary culture: the realization of the power of our everyday relationships, even troubled ones, as a means of awakening.
For many progressive spiritual practitioners it no longer feels like enough to merely follow an individual meditation practice, as valuable as that is. We want to apply our enlarged selves, skillfully and in real time, to the circumstances of our complex lives, and particularly to our relationships with others.
The spiritual potency of relationship is a subject Diane Musho Hamilton explores in her new book, The Zen of You and Me: A Guide to Getting Along with Just About Anyone. Diane grounds her teaching in the enduring cosmic polarity between difference and sameness. It is the sameness we share with others that provides comfort and safety, and the differences we have with them that bring liveliness and creativity. As integralists we are called to integrate these polarities into a deeper mutuality.
Diane’s approach is particularly relevant to the contemporary social challenge of relating to our American family as it continues to polarize both culturally and politically.
I always feel a little bit wiser after a conversation with my dear friend Diane. I hope you do too!
Transforming Trauma Into Power – A two-part conversation with Dr. Keith Witt
Life is wounding. For some of us our wounds are inflicted in the form of major traumas such as a serious injury, painful divorce, career failure or act of abuse or violence. More often, however, we are merely called on to suffer the slings and arrows of everyday life, which can also leave their mark.
Contemporary psychology has revealed two major insights into trauma. One is that trauma is pervasive: two-thirds of Americans report experiencing a major trauma in their lives. The other is that trauma is toxic, often kicking off lifetime patterns of depression, anxiety and addiction. One study showed that people who suffer six or more of ten different categories of adverse events lived on average twenty years less that people who had had experienced none of those categories of adverse events.
Whether large or little, some trauma is inevitable and necessary for healthy development. Shocks and setbacks shape who we are and can provide the opportunity to develop resilience and a larger perspective.
Can Globalists Be Nationalists? An interview with Steve McIntosh…
In this podcast I ask Integral philosopher Steve McIntosh a question on the mind of many integral practitioners: how do we relate to the nationalist passions that are arising in many developed countries around the globe?
Nationalism is often expressed as “love it or leave it” nativism, or in the case of the election of Donald Trump as a promise to take America back to an era of perceived past greatness.
On the other hand many Green-stage postmodernists reject patriotism entirely. As Steve says, “it is like nails on a chalkboard for people of postmodern consciousness to contemplate the good that America has done in its history.”
The Bannon Doctrine: Demolition Ahead
Steve Bannon is Donald Trump’s favorite philosopher. Trump sometimes jokes that he doesn't know “whether Bannon is alt-right or alt-left,” but either way Bannon has given voice to the visceral impulse of populist nationalism that Donald Trump has expressed for decades.
So what does Bannon believe? A pillar of his worldview is contained in a school of history called Strauss-Howe generational theory, developed by William Strauss and Neil Howe, which states that human events can be loosely organized in terms of recurring eighty year cycles, or saecula, which unfold in four twenty year turnings.
Trump: the Anti-Green Backlash Begins – An interview with Ken Wilber
The Trump Presidency is an evolutionary correction for a culture whose leading edge “is in a 50-car pileup.” This is the thesis of Ken Wilber’s excellent new eBook, Trump and a Post-Truth World, and the kickoff point of a wide ranging conversation I had with Ken last week. Here's Ken's argument:
Every now and then, evolution itself has to adjust course, in light of new information on how its path is unfolding, and it starts (apparently spontaneously but with this deeper morphic field actually operating) by making various moves that are, in effect, self-correcting evolutionary realignments. The leading-edge of cultural evolution is today—and has been for four or five decades—the green wave (“green” meaning the basic stage of human development known to various developmental models as pluralistic, postmodern, relativistic, individualistic, beginning self-actualization, human-bond, multicultural, etc.—and generically referred to as “postmodern”).
Pre-Truth, Post-Truth and Beyond
How Integral thinking helps us transcend the turmoil
Inaugurated with bogus crowd claims and tales of voter fraud, the post-truth presidency of Donald Trump is upon us. Trump lives in a Red “warrior” worldspace alive with apparitions, rumors, conspiracies, and above all, scheming enemies. Placed in the...