Podcast - Episode 0078 - Are Your Actions Progressive or Regressive

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In this episode Joel & Antonia talk about the Pre-Trans Fallacy and whether our actions as people are progressive or regressive.

In this podcast you’ll find:

• There are a lot of social changes going on with the world today (e.g. social groups forming against ISIS in the Middle East, legalization of gay marriage in the U.S., implementation of immigration policies, etc.)
• As as a civilization, are we progressing or regressing? These two can be confused sometimes.
• Ken Wilber started the integral institute and he formulated the “integral theory” which is basically taking different maps and models to understand people, sociology and finding ways in which they all integrate. So, basically, it becomes a universal theory.
• One of Ken’s theories is the Pre-Trans Fallacy.
• So what is the Pre-Trans Fallacy and how can we use it for personal development?
• It is the thought that there’s not just two ways in going about things. The phrase “Pre” and “Trans” refer to different levels of rational thought.
  1. Pre-rational thought. Not quite as sophisticated (Developing Societies)
  2. Rational thought. Whatever it is that we’re currently experiencing (Developed Societies’ Perspective)
  3. Trans-rational thought. Anything that’s graduated beyond the current wisdom of the day. Something that enters an extra space
• We have the tendency of seeing only “Rational” and “Irrational”. So what ends up happening is that anyone or any thought that doesn’t count as ‘Rational Thought” becomes other.
• We could identify something that’s progressive as regressive because we don’t see the three different levels.
• Example: You introduce an airplane to a village that has never seen an airplane before. Everything that the villagers/inhabitants see around them is rational. If an airplane lands, they will have a totally new different view of it; instead of seeing it as a technological advancement, they’d most likely see it as a huge winged creature because they never saw one before.
• We as individuals do this all the time. In the previous example, the villagers thought that they are at the pinnacle of development, they got nothing to measure against and so they can’t absorb the idea of an airplane or anything else than where they’re at now.
• Society has been doing this all the time. How? By assuming that we’re already here, that we finally arrived in the modern world.
• It’s hard for us to be open to the idea that there are more things to come.
• The current generation is just getting too much information than ever before.
• Even if we acknowledge that there’s just basically more to come, there’s still part of us that clings to the idea that we’re stable and we’re at the pinnacle in humanity.
• Ken talks about the two styles of Pre/Trans fallacy.
  1. PTF-1. When we think trans-rational insights and objects as pre-rational.
  2. When we think pre-rational insights and objects as trans-rational.
• Checkout this episode (Graves Model) to get a deeper understanding.
• Our relationship and perception with health and wellness is a perfect example of a lot of Pre/Trans fallacy. For example, the issue with organic vs. non-organic food and marijuana use.
• When issues lay in the table, we tend to look at something as regressive when it’s actually “progressive”.
• It’s difficult to think in terms of third option because the foundation that we’re used to, that were built around teaches us to think in “either” and “or” and this could be the first step in unveiling the Pre/Trans fallacy to more people.
• If you can stop thinking about these false dichotomies, you can start thinking about three vertical stages.
• Be prepared if you take in this road because you might be attacked from all sides, other people think that you’re not taking any side.

Exercises we recommend in this podcast:

• Find ways that you can begin to have more discussion about the Pre/Trans fallacy.
• What are some of the things that you can do in order to set the example and help people find reconciliation and help them come together instead of opposing every time.

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