Three and a Half Stars * * * 1/2
I had high hopes for this book. Both authors have impeccable credentials. Sean Esbjorn-Hargens has written some excellent articles introducing Wilber's multi-perspectival paradigm into mainstream academia. And Michael Zimmerman is an important environmental philosopher in his own right. Therefore, as someone who supports and contributes to the integral project, I was looking forward to reading this 800 page opus, which from the reviews seemed fascinating. I expected to find many perspectives here and many interdisciplinary thinkers and visionaries discussed, and their insights drawn upon. What I didn't expect to find, but perhaps should have expected, was such an unquestioning reliance on Wilberian theory alone. The two authors seem to have no presence of their own.
Even so, there are many good things about this work:
o For me the most valuable element in this book is the emphasise (as part of ist multi-perspectival methodology) on "interiors", that is, on the fact, always obvious to me but denied by mainstream science, that animals are not "objects" but have a rich inner life just as humans do. This then opens the way to many revolutionary insights involving inetrsubjectivity and cross-species communication. For its ground breaking contributions in this field alone, Integral Ecology is extremely important.
o And the multiperspectival approach to ecology is itself worth presentingm, and in this respect Integral Ecology constitutes the beginning of an important "paradigm shift" in science, moving away from an obsession with externals and objectivity only, to realization that objective reality and objective methodology is one of a number of perspectives. Within the context of pragmatic ecology, the multiperspectival theory means rejecting of limited approaches of development only, preservation only, and so on, while including the insights of each.
o One of the most intersting parts of the book is an all too short appendix which gives a brief listing of 200 different ecological perspectives, everything from Acoustic Ecology to Zoosemiotics. I would have preferred this section to have been several times longer then its 40-odd pages.
o As to be expected with the Integral community and the high standard they place on learning and on citations, the book is comprehensively and impressively researched, with 134 pages of footnotes as reference, very appealing to academic "geeks" like myself!
o I know this is rather trite, but I love the graphic showing the four aspects (quadrants) of the frog on the cover and the inside frontpiece.
o Finally, for anyone who is intersted in a synoptic overview of Wilber's increasingly elaborate and complex Integral Theory, but cannot be bothered reading the thousands of pages in print and online, this book can serve as an excellent primer, with clear text and useful diagrams.
But if I give this book four stars rather than the five it would certainly deserves from the above points, it is because of the following:
o as mentioned, an excessively uncritical tone as regards Mr Wilber himself. His name seems to appear on every second page, and you won't find a single challenge to even one of his ideas. This would be fine if this was a religious or hagiographic work, but it is an academic text. And even within the Wilber community itself those like Mark Edwards who, while sympathetic to Wilber, have positively critiqued his work, and suggested where his theory can be improved (and Wilber somewhere even praises Edwards' critiques). Michael Zimmerman has elsewhere (the Integral World website) provided a very readable synopsis of Edwards, so there is no reason that some of these critiques can't get at least a passing mention, considering how many pages are devoted to Wilber's ideas otherwise.
o Associated with the above is the fact that no one else but Wilber is considered in establishing the foundations for such an important field as integral ecology. The result is that integral ecology is reduced to nothing but a subset of Wilber's integral theory found in
Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World and many other books. But I could think of Vladimir Vernadsky (
The Biosphere: Complete Annotated Edition), James Lovelock (
Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth and other books) and Erich Jantsch (
Self Organizing Universe: Scientific and Human Implications (Systems Science and World Order Library. Innovations in Systems Science)) as examples of interdisciplinary scientists, and
Integral Yoga: Sri Aurobindo's Teaching & Method of Practice in philosophy and spirituality, and Oliver Reiser (Cosmic Humanism, sadly long out of print) in both science and philosophy.
o One thing I felt in reading this book is a certain cognitive disjunction. In some places it reads as a primer on Wilber's philosophy, in others as a textbook on Ecology. Both are equally referred to, but they are not integrated. It is like two totally unrelated books that somewhow became slpiced together.
o A poor understanding of hard science seems to be a problem with much of the Wilberian movement, which comes instead from a postmodern philosophical, transpersonal psychological, and Eastern spiritual perspective. Take Darwinian evolution. As it is well known that Wilber prefers Intelligent Design (see his
A Brief History of Everything p.20 (2nd edition, Shambhala, 2000), and also Frank Visser's Integral World website), I was curious to see how Esbjorn-Hargens and Zimmerman would handle this touchy (for Wilberians) subject. Sure enough, Darwinian science gets a curt and dismissive coverage, e.g. "No one has any idea how such an enormously complex code [as DNA] could have arisen by chance encounters of amino acids. So daunting is the task of explaining DNA that the world-famous defender of atheism, Antony Flew, recently became a theist who now believes in the existence of a God..." (p.79) Now, mind you, the authors (like Wilber himself) are not denying the development of life itself, only the scientific explanation of how life evolves. Again, were this a religious or philosophical book there would be no problem. But for me at least the value of the book is diminished because of this. Integral Ecology has to include many things, and among those things is real science.
o Finally (and this is admittedly a small thing, but is I believe symptomatic of problems with this work as a whole, and of the whole Integral initiative established by Wilber), I found it rather surprising that on the top of the inside front flap there is a recommendation by Wilber "This is the finest book on ecology bar none". Well, he would recommend it, because it is so uncritically about his ideas! But one wonders at the culture of narcissism of the Integral Institute, that it is considered necessary to have the master recommend a book about himself.
In the end, what can I say about this book? Would I recommend it?
Yes I would, because despite its flaws (which reflect in microcosm the flaws of the Wilber Integral community as a whole), it still does constitute an important and groundbreaking work. If you are a fan of Wilber, it serves as a masterful if uncritical application of his ideas to the field of ecology. If you are interested in different approaches to ecology, I would also recommend it, as it does make a very good case for the value of multiple but equally valid perspectives, if you are not bothered by the excessive overburden of Wilber theory. Certainly it serves as a useful reference in either field.
But at the same time, a truely comprehensive Integral Ecology will have to wait until there is a wider synthesis of many different insights. It cannot be limited to just the theories of one man alone.
