A Broader Framework - Working Series 10
Why I Use An Integral Approach In Praxis.
When I first started studying architecture in the mid 1960s - I was keen to include as much of my understanding of life and the world in my designs as possible - over the 7 years of training what I included became much broader.
What was included - above a natural ability to design and organize - was various other diverse subjects, theories, and ideas. Psychology, philosophy, sociology, systems theory, ecology, game theory, anthropology, culture, spirituality, among others.
These areas of interest were incorporated in my designs in the best way I could, but there was no meta-theory that helped me to see how they were possibly interconnected.
They appeared to be part of a puzzle that was 2 dimensional and how the bits fitted together was not clear. They had therefore to be incorporated by using one's own intuition or gut-feeling. So a bit like a Christmas tree the decorations [these areas] were added without any real understanding of their connectivity.
This process continued throughout my working life - each area becoming more deeply understood but still not connected - each standing on its own.
In 1996 I first came across the work of the American philosopher Ken Wilber who was just starting to articulate what was to become an integral theory named AQAL. In meeting with him and others in 2000 in Boulder, Colorado, to discuss the use of AQAL and the setting up of the Integral Institute a broader framework started to develop.
The use of integral theory has been the backbone of our approach to development work sense then.
So why do I use Integral Theory:
The first reason is that it provides a map that allows me a much greater understanding of how the world fits together and how we operate in it.
It ties so many theories together in a way, that at least for now with my current knowledge, I can see a little more clearly the complexity on the other side of the chaos we find our world appears to be in today. And to work with the complexity beyond the simplicity that other meta systems offer.
I started to understand and thus map the connections between my subjective and objective views and how they help to create and are created by the culture and systems in which we live. I started to understand my own complexity of development and that of others who may be less or more developed that me. I started to understand why different types of people find it so difficult to understand each other, and why world-views that appear so different may have a very similar 'deep structure'. And why others world-views have very a different 'deep structures'.
So for the first time I began ‘understand’ people and where they were coming from and thus become much better equipped to communicate with them. This ability covers both verbal and written communication. I could finally try to influence project designs to ensure that they are at least understandable and relevant to those I am working with. And remembering always that this map is not the territory that it describes.
But it does take time to get a reasonable understanding and ability to work with integral theory in praxis. As I say – ‘it is easy to learn a lot about integral theory in a short time - the rest has to be lived.’
So the 'why' distilled down is simply this - it provides me with a broader framework with which firstly to understand projects and their context and then a means to map & design, implement and eventually evaluate their progress.
