Nicholas Kristof is one of my favorite “liberal with integral tendencies” columnists, and Ross Douthat is one of my favorite “conservative with integral tendencies” columnists. I submit their op-eds in today’s New York Times as proof. It’s not that theirs are the only views available to integralists, just that they represent the kind of flexible, non-docrinaire thinking that is characteristic of the integral altitude.
In Hearing You Out Kristof answers objections from his readers regarding his support of a military strike against Syria. In so doing he efficiently supports his sophisticated case for liberal interventionism.
In Call me Vlad Douthat invents a delicious dialog with Vladimir Putin and reveals the Russian president to be both cunning and wise, presenting a perfectly reasonable path forward in a complicated world.
I pause to reflect on Jeff’s ever-optimistic perspective on the nuanced convolutions of our integral evolution… and then remember that Assad gassed his own people.
We can look at the good stuff and pretend it’s all coming together or we can look at the bad stuff and imagine the worst.
A child of the apocalypse, it has been a life-long challenge to live with our cataclysmic heritage and still go on. But I guess I prefer that perspective over imagining sweetness and light. “Making war less terrible”?