PROLOGUE
THE WORLD ON FIRE:
FOUR WORLDS OUT OF BALANCE
‘... the Founders of the American Constitution liked asking questions, which is why at every stage of
America’s history, the country has yielded to fact and necessity. It may be the vision of its founders that
inspire Americans, but it was their realism, their practicability and flexibility and curiosity, that
ensured the Union’s survival. As a result, the rejection of absolutism implicit in the constitutional
structure may sometimes make American politics seem unprincipled. But for most of its history it has
encouraged the very process of information gathering, analysis and argument that allows it to make
better, if not perfect choices, not only about the means to our ends but also about the ends themselves.
Whether we are for or against affirmative action, for or against prayer in schools, we must test our
ideals, vision, and values against the realities of a common life, so that over time they may be refined,
discarded, or replaced by new ideals, sharper visions, deeper values.’
Barack Obama: The Audacity of Hope
Fragmented Worlds on Fire
Our book is aimed at all of those students and practitioners, individuals and
institutions, wishing to undertake social research, which leads to innovation. Such
research-and-innovation is then designed to address the burning issues organizations,
communities, whole societies, and indeed the world at large are facing. Such research
should be transformative, rather than, as it often turns out to be, merely informative!
Most of the research in the social sciences, particularly in business, management and
economics, has lost touch with its ‘social essence’: It is guided by rationalism and
pragmatism, while humanism and holism have been left out of account. As a result it
is seldom contextualised for a particular society. Moreover, it does not contribute to
the resolution of the burning social issues of our time.
Our book, then, has been written in response to a time, when, in the words of Amy
Chua, the Chinese Philippine Professor of Law at Yale University in America, ‘the
world is on fire’. In that context most masters and doctoral students, in the course of
doing their postgraduate research, are, as it were, fiddling while Rome (our world) is
burning. Similarly, and socio-politically in the world at large, whether between, for
example, the Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East, the west and the rest
globally, there is a patent lack of a desire for co-creation. All characteristically lack a
self-critical appreciation of their potentially transformative role, one together with the
other, in promoting flourishing local and global global communities. Such a
flourishing, promoted by social, or what we in this book shall term ‘integral’,
innovation is dependent upon a process of co-creation between the public and private,
civic and animate (environmental) sectors of the society. It is, for us, also dependent
upon a process of co-creation between the west and the north, the south and east, and
most especially, as we shall see, the Middle East.
Integral Research and Innovation / Prologue 1
In our previous book on Transformation Management we introduced an ‘integral’
Four World – southern and eastern, northern and western – approach towards
redressing states of local and global imbalance on an organizational, communal,
societal scale. We have revealed the transformational potential that lies in the creative
interaction of different worlds, culturally based (between different cultures), be it on
scientific and knowledge scale (interaction between different disciplines), be it
sectorally oriented (interaction between different sectors of society), or be it trans-
personal (creative interaction between the being, becoming, knowing and doing of an
individual). The Figure below illustrates, that the Four Worlds, as such, are on fire,
because they are out of Balance. Not only are the externally based worlds poorly
aligned (differentiated and integrated), by a large, but, even worse, our inner worlds,
psychologically and spiritually, are out of balance. What does that mean?
• On an individual level, the northern knowing and western doing takes pride of
place over the southern being, and the eastern becoming
• On an organizational level, the northern dimension of governance and
technological functioning and the western dimension of financial and economic
functioning dominate over the southern function of community related and
ecological functioning and the eastern cultural and spiritual functioning.
• On a societal level, the western private sector and the northern public and political
sector, overrides the eastern civic sector and the southern environmental sector
• On a global scale, it is the west and the north that dominate, and the south and the
east that are left behind. We shall show later, how true this imbalance is also in the
field of research.
Integral Research and Innovation / Prologue 2
North
Rationalism
Globe Science & Technology
Public Sector
Society
Governance & Technological
Functioning
Organization
Self
Economics & Management
Financial & Economic
Knowing
Culture & Spirituality
Cultural & Spiritual
Private Sector
Civic Sector
Functioning
Functioning
Becoming
Doing
West East
Pragmatism Holism
Being
Communal & Ecological
Functioning
Nature & Community
Environmental Sector
South
Humanism
Figure 1: The World on Fire – Four Worlds out of Balance
The dominance of one or two worlds over one or more worlds has severe
consequences, as the following Table illustrates:
Four Worlds out of Balance
An Overemphasis on ‘Western’ Pragmatism may lead to Materialism
– the Belief that material Wealth solves all Problems
West
(Examples: today’s West / Economic Colonialism /
Financial Capitalism / Global Financial Crisis).
An Overemphasis of the ‘Northern’ Rationality may lead to
Dogmatism / Scienticism – the Totalist belief in a Technology,
Science or a particular Social System
North
(Examples: an exclusively technocratic Approach to global Warming
/ the ex Communist, totalitarian Regimes in Eastern Europe), as
opposed to an ‘Open Society’.
An Overemphasis of the ‘Eastern’ Holism leads to Fundamentalism –
a Belief that a particular Religion or Culture can solve all Problems:
East
(Examples: Muslim, Hindu, Tamil,
Christian or Jewish Fundamentalism).
An Overemphasis of the ‘Southern’ Humanism leads to
South
Parochialism – the Belief that a total Retreat into your own
Integral Research and Innovation / Prologue 3
Community can solve all Problems
(Examples: Albania in the 80’s / Oman before 1970 / Genocide in
Rwanda).
A dysfunctional vital Center, working towards a dynamic Balance of
the four Dimensions, leads to Stagnation of the entire System
Centre
(Example: continuous Conflict within and between the Middle East
and the outside World).
Now, it may seem at first far fetched to link the state of our turbulent world with that
of state of social research. However, as we shall be revealing in this book, the state of
the two is intimately connected. That point of connection, or indeed lack of it, is the
bridge or gap between informative and transformative, ultimately innovative research,
that is within the social sciences and humanities. What links the two is the ‘integral’.
However fortunately, and imminently, we see light at the end of the tunnel.
An Integral Light at the End of the Tunnel
Beyond the Individual – Towards the Integral
As we were putting the finishing touches to this book on Integral Research and
Innovation a giant step was taken for mankind, far more momentous, we reckon, than
President Kennedy’s ‘putting a man on the moon’. Technological innovation is one
thing, and it took a good while to get to the moon, but Obama’s election victory was
the product of many lifetimes, involving, on the one negative hand much blood, sweat
and tears, and, on the other positive side, a particular brand of American genius, an
Integral Innovation ultimately constituted out of liberty, equality and the pursuit of
happiness.
The United States of America, up until now, has seen itself as a ‘melting pot’. Yet it
has been one where people of colour, especially those of black or red colour, could
not quite fit. Indeed a disproportionate number of these ‘southern’ red and black
peoples, in our terms, had landed up in prison or on reservations. America has been a
land of opportunity, a land of the free, but for some much more than for others. In fact
the 2008 financial crisis, in many ways, was brought about by the glaring inequalities
that beset newly neo-liberal (but ironically not liberal) America. So what does it, or
did it mean for us, when Obama declared that his country was not blue or green, red
or brown, but it was the United States of America?
The common interpretation was that this land of western opportunity was now open to
everyone, no matter what their colour or creed. That indeed is the conventional
wisdom, on ‘the land of the free’, where there is opportunity for everyone. We,
though, see things differently, as did Obama’s fellow black predecessor, a hundred
years ago, the American pan-Africanist W.E.B du Bois. For Du Bois, race would be
the defining issue in the 21st century, not so much for him in terms of the ‘clash of
civilisations’, but, more particularly for Du Bois, because of the unique potential that
each group of people brings to the world. For us as for Du Bois therefore, such
potential is inherent not so much in the individual, but in the integral.
Integral Research and Innovation / Prologue 4
In other words, the significance of the ‘United’ States is the unity-in-variety that is
embodied in America’s people or constitution. Such unity-in-variety, for us, is the
stuff of innovation, that is Integral Innovation, and we have evolved our ‘integral’
approach to research-and-innovation in that very light. In other words, such Integral
Innovation is not uniform but multi-form, in our terms, trans4m, because it needs to
embody all Four Worlds, the ‘southern’ and ‘eastern’, ‘northern’ and ‘western’.
These, altogether, constitute the ‘integral’, a newly constituted United States. And for
us, these Four Worlds constitute Integral Research, and ultimately, as we are going to
show in this book, an Integral University.
Starting in the Relational South
Where then does such a newly constituted United States start? Naturally, as per
Obama, in the South, that very part of the world which has been enslaved and
colonised hitherto. There is a well known southern African term ‘ubuntu’, which
literally means ‘I am because you are’, embodying the Relational character of the
‘South’. This in fact is the first one of our four research paths. Such a relational
quality was all too evident in Obama’s victory speech, in Chicago, on November 5,
when he and his supporters, ultimately even his opposition, were as one, Americans.
In fact, Obama oozes such a southern, African quality in his very being. Such a
quality of being we also liken to ‘Grounding’, roots, or identity.
Renewal via the East
Yet, at the same time, Obama in Japanese, means ‘little shore’. Standing on the little
shores, those of Kenya in his case, from whence his paternal ancestors came, he
reached across to the big shores of America, and became its President, not asserting
himself as an individual commander in chief, but through building up a shared
community of belief. In that very process of African-American fusion, a newly United
States has been recreated, as an act of becoming. It is that becoming quality and
process of Renewal, our second research path, which is so distinctive a part of his
2008 election victory.
We identify such a path of renewal as ‘Eastern’, because it stands at the edge of our
western consciousness, a little shore within a big country, yet one which is key to its
Afro-American, or indeed Hispanic-American or Italian-American becoming. We also
identify such with a process of ‘Emergence’, from one thing to another, from one
place to another, from one time to another, always and invariably in-between. Barack
(Hebrew) Hussein (Muslim) Obama (a Japanese name as well as a Kenyan one) and
yet the media call him an African, and so he is, so to speak!
Reason in the North
Being and becoming, though, represented by the south and the east, is not the end of
our integral story. For after south and east, comes north and ultimately west. ‘North’,
for us, embodies the research path of Reason. What was so distinctive to Obama,
when compared with McCain, was his sharp intellect, his cool rationality, which was
so uniquely juxtaposed against his southern oratory.
Integral Research and Innovation / Prologue 5
Science and faith, poetry and reason, come together in this remarkably ‘integral’
Afro-American. Being and becoming, in this American everyman, was combined with
a gift of knowing, that belied his ‘inexperience’, and enticed the American
intellectuals to vote for him. Indeed, it was this ‘knowing’ quality, exhibited most
clearly during the candidates’ debates, most specifically in relation to the crisis on the
economy, that convinced many an electoral waverer, the he was their main. He may
not have had the right experience for a commander in chief, but he certainly had the
‘steady hand’ to Navigate the country through turbulent waters.
Realisation in the West
And yet there was still more to come, the quality that imbued Obama with the very
‘western’ qualities for which America uniquely stands. YES WE CAN he said, again
and again, in his victory speech. Every one ‘can do’ it, in America. That is the power
of doing, finally embodied in our research path of Realisation, the fourth and final
path of our ultimately integral research, thereby giving rise to Integral Innovation.
Realisation represents a culmination of being and becoming, knowing and doing. It
serves to create an ultimate ‘Effect’. After grounding (roots) and emerging (land of the
free), comes navigation (steady hand) and ultimately effecting (we can). In other
words, it links the experiential and the imaginal, the conceptual and the practical,
altogether represented in our unity-in-variety, our united states. Figure 2 brings the
different elements of the Four Worlds into an integral whole, whereby the fire of the
previous Figure 1 is transformed into a cyclical and spiralling transformational
organism. We call this organism the GENE – bringing together southern Grounding,
eastern Emergence, northern Navigation and western Effect. If those four elements
are in dynamic balance, a living organism, be it an organization or a society, is in an
‘integral’, or in our context here, ‘united’ state. Then its full GENE-ius can be
released. What holds the four elements together is the centre, to which we not turn.
Integral Research and Innovation / Prologue 6
The Integral Way
North
Reason Releasing the G E N E – ius
Of Self, Organization,
Community and Society
N AVIGATION
'Clear Mind –
Steady Hand'
KNOWING
BECOMING
DOING
West East
Realisation
E FFECTING Integral E MERGENCE
Renewal
'Yes, We Can!' 'Land of the Free'
BEING
G ROUNDING
'Roots'
South
Relations
Figure 2: Towards an Integral and Dynamic Balance of the Four Worlds
Integral Centre
The ‘integral’, then, is what happens at the centre. It links all the different paths
together. It has in fact taken the United States of America 232 years, to be precise, to
come up with an Integral Innovation, at least in prospect, if not yet in actuality.
Interestingly enough, as we have indicated, Hussein is Obama’s middle name. Now
arguably it should be the Middle East that plays an integral role in the world. It has
done in the past, which is why all three monotheic religions were invented in that part
of the world, and, of all three, Islam, at its best, has been the most integral.
So it is befitting that an American President with the middle name of Hussein should
have the potential to bring about an Integral Innovation. While we wait for him to
hopefully bring about such, and because this book is being completed only a week
after he was elected this is still early days, we have a Middle Eastern Sultan to take
his interim integral place. His name is Sultan Qaboos from Oman, and, as you will
see, we position this remarkable man as an integral innovator, who, perhaps without
realising it, has been paving the way for an Integral University.
Carrying the Fire: Towards an Integral University
In fact, such a ‘united states’, of, in this case America, and in other cases of Africa or
Argentina, Armenia or Australia, not only, for us, represents a new kind of integral
research-and-innovation, but also, prospectively, a new kind of Integral University.
Integral Research and Innovation / Prologue 7
For the standard university, which houses conventional, academic education and
research, is aligned with universalism, or universality, where one truth ultimately
holds, usually, in this case, a ‘western’ truth. In fact it is this predominance of
‘western’ truth, in recent times, which has given rise to the notorious ‘financial
innovations’ that has brought down the economic house of cards, across the globe.
The power of the ‘united states’, for us, is not merely that there are many truths, but
that the realisation of truth, or the path of realisation, ultimately needs to build upon
the relational, the path of renewal, as well as on the path of reason, and all
accumulatively together. More specifically, then, the ultimate integrity of the west is
thereby built upon the prior identities of the south, the east and the north. Rather than
the west leading the rest, the rest precedes it. Indeed, it is noteworthy that neo-liberal
economics, which, under the academic influence of Milton Friedman, and practical
influence of Thatcher and Reagan, has ruled the roost for the past two decades, has
been a purely ‘western’ innovation, and the world is now paying the price for its over-
emphasis of one world.
The Integral University then builds unity into variety, and variety into unity. It
encompasses south and east, north and west, being and becoming, knowing and doing,
incorporating, research-wise as we shall see, the relational path and the path of
renewal, the path of reason and the path of realisation. In other words, it is Barack
Hussein Obama writ large. Barack is a Hebrew name but also Assyrian; Hussein is a
Muslim name, but in Barack’s case evoking the memory of his secular African
grandfather, Obama is a Japanese name but also American. An Integral University
then serves to fuse together one culture with another, one discipline with the other, the
individual with the community, the past with the future: it is transcultural,
transdisciplinary, transpersonal and ultimately transformational. Like Barack Obama
it heralds a new united states.
Such an Integral University would be a natural and social ecosystem, as it were, in
which Integral Research and Innovation could flourish. As such, it would address the
burning issues, mentioned in the beginning, through re-balancing the fragmented
worlds. In summary, it would be oriented towards Integral Innovation in Four Worlds:
• South: Healing the Planet and Community Building
o by addressing environmental and communal decay
• East: Peaceful Co-Evolution of Peoples and Conscious Evolution
o by addressing fundamentalism and terrorism
• North: Open Society and Knowledge Creation
o by addressing corruption and despotism
• West: Economic Opportunities and Sustainable Development
o by addressing abject poverty and materialism
Integral Research and Innovation is a process, which is designed to build in your own
creative and innovative impulse, individually and collectively, to address the burning
issues of our time. It is designed to enable you, to undertake Integral Research and
Innovation. We are now ready to start. Choose your Path!
Integral Research and Innovation / Prologue 8