Hey Folks, This week we’re looking at Maestro, Bradley Cooper’s new movie about Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein has been a favorite of mine since I happened upon a lecture he gave in the 70s charting the development of music from a single note to the full musical polyphony we have today, as well as the two polarities in nature that transform sound int…

This week I’m sharing a terrific conversation I had with Nomali Perera and Lee Mason reviewing 2023 from an integral perspective. Through a series of lightning-round questions — greatest surprise, greatest disappointment, etc — we tour the evolving culture, politics, art and the integral movement itself. I hope you enjoy it and best wishes for the …

A year away from the US Presidential election, Ankur Delight and I ponder the spectre of Donald Trump being the odds-on favorite to win. Our muse this week is Rick Wilson, the founder of the Lincoln Project, who sounds the “Never-Again Trump” alarm in his recent Substack article, Red Caesar and the Next Regime. As Wilson points out, “Red Caesar” is…

Is America really getting stupider? Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt makes the case in his influential essay in The Atlantic Magazine titled “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid”. I challenge his thesis from an integral perspective. Growing from a cultural conversation dominated by a modern worldview to one where many…

In this episode, I take another look at the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once in light of its popularity and controversy – including in the integral community. I also consider how taking one new perspective on the play, The Realistic Joneses by Will Eno, turned it from infuriating to infatuating. And more on the ongoing saga of pronouns. Enjo…

On today’s Daily Evolver Live (every Thursday @ 10am PT on YouTube) Ankur and I discussed the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson. He’s a fundamentalist Christian who supports Trump and the election deniers. He’s also for Covenant Marriage and against porn, two views that may be evolutionarily potent. Ankur and I tease apar…

If a debate isn’t about facts and arguments, what is it about? In this episode I look to a high school debate Tournament of Champions for the answer. As you will hear this next generation is Green, they’re mean, and they are discovering new territories of being human that are essential for the coming Integral stage.…

Ankur Delight and I talk about the major new deal the UAW struck with the Big Three automakers in the US. The three pillars of the deal are 1) a 25% wage increase, 2) equalized pay for the same job, and 3) the ability to strike in response to plant closings. All represent a further move into green postmodern culture. But, Ankur objects, did we need…

Hey folks, In this episode, Ankur kicks off our discussion by asking: “What can we do for Israel and Palestine? What really helps?” We discussed a Kosmo-centric view and how it transcends (and includes) the world-centric view of green postmodernity. Also the evolution of empathy, the role of meditation, Sam Harris’s “presentism” error and more. Enj…

Transcending the dueling perspectives of history, politics, religion and race, the insights of cultural development offer a more integrated, evolutionary understanding of wicked geopolitical problems like the conflict in the Middle East. PART 1 of this podcast is my talk to the Developmental Alliance, a monthly Zoom group sponsored by the Institute…

Ankur and I take an integral look at the Russel Brand sex scandal and how it is raising consciousness. We talk about: Presentism: a moving target * The power (and limits) of consent * Green sexuality’s great contributions and what it keeps in shadow * Cancellation, big media, and the evolution of collective consciousness * The emerging practice of …

We saw a powerful eruption of red warrior consciousness in the recent saga involving mob boss Vladimir Putin and his renegade enforcer, the late Yevgeny Prigozhin. Rudy Guiliani is also playing with fire. Ankur Delight and I find the integral threads. – Jeff SalzmanOleh Jeff Salzman

Hey folks! The New York Times has published two major columns by columnist David Brooks criticizing the modern meritocracy and the postmodern therapeutic culture. What if We’re the Bad Guys Here? Hey America, Grow Up! It’s always interesting when somebody stops and tries to see the world of their opponents and I deeply appreciate Brooks and the New…

In this episode, Ankur Delight and I reflect on the power and purpose of emergence in our own lives and culture. For Ankur, this conversation was sparked as a result of a recent road trip. For me, I contemplate what I am drawn to as I enter semi-retirement. Hope you enjoy!Oleh Jeff Salzman

Hey folks, Barbie tells the story of the cultural evolution of women in three stages. In the traditional world girls play with baby dolls, practicing the sacred roles of domesticity and motherhood. The Barbie doll, introduced in 1959, represents a modern sensibility, first as a fashion doll with which girls could express themselves, then as a femin…

Evolving your consciousness means enlarging your circle of moral consideration. Who is inside your circle and who is “the other”? In this episode, Ankur Delight and I look at the moral development of humanity, and the integral challenge of including people of different worldviews.Oleh Jeff Salzman

Taking a little summer break from the news, Ankur Delight and I turn our attention to a subject that has fascinated – and terrified – human beings since day one: what happens when we die? What might the integral answer to that question be? Enjoy the episode! Ankur Delight – 10,000 Heroes podcast Jeff Salzman – The Daily Evolver podcast ____________…

Hey folks! In this episode, I look at the evolutionary significance of our emerging mediaverse, with its gusher of entertainment coming to us from all over the world. How do we navigate it? We ask our friends! In that spirit I offer: My favorite TV series of all time My least favorite movie of the year, and why it’s my fault The Flintstone Effect: …

This week Ankur and I share our 4th of July experiences and chart the different routes we took to a more integral appreciation of America. Enjoy! – Jeff Ankur Delight – 10,000 Heroes podcast Jeff Salzman – The Daily Evolver podcast Lee Mead’s Anthem (for a taste of integral patriotism)Oleh Jeff Salzman

Hey folks, welcome to another episode of The Shrink and the Pundit, where Dr Keith Witt, integral psychotherapist extraordinaire, joins me to take a look at our next generation: the kids, teenagers and people entering their twenties. Are they okay? Dr Keith and I explore this question through the lens of cultural development. I hope you enjoy! Jeff…

In this short episode, we bring an integral lens to a controversial New York Times story, “Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History”. Jeff Salzman, The Daily Evolver Podcast Ankur Delight – 10,000 Heroes podcastOleh Jeff Salzman

In this episode, Jeff Salzman and Ankur Delight look at the culture war and explore exciting new insights Ankur has gained from training with mediation master Ken Cloke.Oleh Jeff Salzman

In this episode, Jeff Salzman and Ankur Delight look at some of the questions involving the emerging workplace: Will artificial intelligence be able to create? How do we integrate the goals of achievement and growth with the goals of equity and sustainability? What is the role of people who can’t or won’t fit into the system?…

Hey folks, As integral practitioners, we have insights that help us harmonize cultural polarities, which is why it’s too bad Bill Maher didn’t invite me on his recent show with Elon Musk where they decried the “woke mind virus”. Woke is the activist/fanatic arm of the emerging mass culture of postmodernity. Every stage of human development has acti…

A brand new iteration of “This Week in the News”. Ankur Delight, who hosts one of my favorite podcasts, 10,000 Heroes, joins me to bring an integral take to the headlines of the week. This week, we look at the big shakeup in the mainstream news media. Days ago, and within an hour of each other, Fox News and CNN fired two of their biggest stars: Tuc…

Hey folks, This week I look at a rising star in the mainstream commentariat: Peter Zeihan. To me he is a good example of a proto-integral thinker in that he is a master synthesizer, weaving compelling narratives about our world that include economics, demography, geography, politics and history. He gives me a far more integrated understanding of a …

This week I look at the hubbub surrounding the introduction of large language chatbots, the latest evolutionarily-potent development in artificial intelligence. A long-time listener asked ChatGPT to write a poem expressing Ken Wilber’s developmental stages. The result (below) is mind-blowing. How is it possible for a machine to create three verses …

The DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) movement is one of the leading edges of cultural evolution, installing green postmodern values which in part seek to correct hidden power imbalances regarding race, gender and identity in American institutions. My guest today is Diane Musho Hamilton, who has been on the front lines of the DEI movement for o…

Hey Folks, In this Daily Evolver I explore a variety of topics: A telling difference between green art and integral art – Learn more about the Lost Birds music here. Yes, stages exist but maybe the spiral is spiked Traditionalism’s hot war on modernity in Ukraine Ghosts: an integrally-flavored tv comedy! This episode is recorded from the live “Fire…

In this episode, I take a look at three cultural artifacts that present worldcentric ideals of sustainability, egalitarianism and gender fluidity through an ethnocentric lens of good versus evil: Avatar: The Way of Water – James Cameron’s latest movie in his great green myth of Pandora, a pristine planet attacked by modernity (and a few pre-trans f…

In this episode, I analyze Elon Musk through the lens of developmental theory, which maps the “spiral of worldview evolution” within people and cultures. There are three major worldviews currently in contention in our culture: Traditional (order and conformity), Modern (secular and rational), Postmodern (sensitive and egalitarian). They all have go…

Hey folks, welcome back to The Daily Evolver! It’s good to be with you again. Today’s episode was initiated by my Integral colleagues, Nomali Perera and Lee Mason of Practical Integral, who invited me to share my thoughts at the end of another year in the human adventure. The integral lens reveals a fundamental force in cultural development: the st…

In this episode, Dr. Keith and I take on two hot-button issues in the culture wars, each of us coming up on different sides of key issues. Hopefully our disagreements will be as illuminating to you as they were to us. Transgenderism: The ever-increasing awareness and practice of gender fluidity, particularly among young people, is fueling the cultu…

In this episode, Dr. Keith and I notice a growing attempt in the culture to bring meaning and purpose into the realms of science. We focus on English scientist Rupert Sheldrake, who argues that “science should be set free” from the boundaries of mechanistic materialism. Sheldrake is well known for his theory of the morphic field, an evolving collec…

There are at least three distinct sources of human suffering, all related, and none reducible to the others. They are: Nature—the unique combinations of temperaments and constitutional strengths and weaknesses that each of us is born with. Trauma—the Big T and small t traumas that are ubiquitous in human development, and which leave us more sensiti…

Dr. Keith and I marvel at an exciting new (to us) typology system developed by Kibeom Lee and Michael Ashton: the HEXACO system. Lee and Ashton researched the popular 5-factor system and identified a new human trait, honesty/humility, which determines the adaptiveness and social worth of the other five. Briefly, the HEXACO factors are: H—honesty/hu…

In this episode, Keith introduces me to his theory of human sociability. As he sees it, human relationships can be seen on a spectrum of playing and fighting. Playing is a cooperative activity with an agreed-upon set of rules. Sometimes play is pure fun, and sometimes winning/losing dynamics are painful. But any engaged activity under an external s…

In this short episode, I am joined by Jose and Lynn Fuentes, who are producing an exciting conference for the integral community this November in Sedona, Arizona. The event is called Integral: What’s the Future and What Can We Do About It? It is designed in the spirit of a lineage of powerful gatherings that I (and perhaps you) participated in many…

Who’s Inside Your Circle of Compassion? – A key marker of consciousness development is an ever-expanding circle of people (and other living beings) who you consider to be worthy of moral consideration. Full episode: Psychopaths are People Too.Oleh Jeff Salzman

The Left’s Split, Embracing More – The political Left is differentiating into “woke” and “non-woke” contingents – and fitfully integrating into a larger emergent identity. Full episode is here.Oleh Jeff Salzman

Reflections on Death – An evolution-inspired contemplation on what dies and what … maybe doesn’t. Full episode here.Oleh Jeff Salzman

Do We Care More About People Who Look Like Us? – Some thoughts about moral development from my series of episodes on the war on Ukraine. Full episode is here.Oleh Jeff Salzman

This week political philosopher Steve McIntosh joins me to discuss global warming through the lens of cultural evolution. We focus on solving the “political will problem” that is currently stymying our collective response to the climate crisis. Steve argues that the progressive agenda on climate needs an upgrade: “Preserving the health of our natur…

This week I share our collective outrage and heartbreak over the shooting of the Texas schoolchildren and teachers, and manage to offer some hope that this time it will be different, that this shooting will heighten a social pain-point – unstable young men equipped with weapons of war – sufficiently to transcend political polarities. In this episod…

Frances Fukuyama is one of our most prominent political philosophers. He is famous for his argument that liberal democracy and free-market capitalism represent “the end of history,” a thesis widely criticized (somewhat unfairly, as I’ll explain) in light of the rise of 21st Century autocracies, especially China and Russia. In his new book, Liberali…

Sometimes in our psychological development the way forward requires us to go back, to re-explore earlier stages of life to see what is distorted or left unintegrated. This is the theme of the work of my guest today, developmental psychotherapist Kim Barta. He discusses his approach to personal growth, which is based on the STAGES Model of Developme…

This week I address a listener’s question about a fascinating subculture arising in the environmental movement: the “post-doomers”, people who, as she writes, “hold the idea that the collapse of civilization as we know it is already well underway, is unstoppable, and will be felt by us here in Comfortable Land through disruption of many kinds in th…

My guest today, Steve Banks, is an accomplished, integrally-inspired composer who is about to drop a fantastic new piece of music that is both classical and cutting edge. It’s called Blue Pearl: A One World Oratorio and it will be performed for the first time in London next month. Blue Pearl is itself a fascinating example of integral consciousness…

Today I’m talking with David Fuller, one of the emerging luminaries of the emerging emergence movement (whew!). David, along with his partner Alexander Beiner, founded Rebel Wisdom four years ago, and has built it into a significant, integrally-informed cultural player, managing to thread the needle between – and beyond – the warring ideologies of …

In this episode of the Shrink and the Pundit, Dr. Keith Witt and I discuss a powerful realization emerging at the leading edge of culture regarding the role of trauma in our lives. Dr. Keith is writing a book on the subject and has mined various psychotherapeutic modalities to create an integral approach to using trauma as a portal to health and hi…