Behind the Battle Between Left and Right - The Need for a New Integrative Political Consciousness and Movement

By Jon Eden Khan

At the core of the political polarisation today is a fundamental clash of worldviews.

Deeper than that, it is a fundamental clash around how we understand human nature.

The right sees the world competitive, dog-eat-dog, with human beings eternally vying for dominance. It tells us any other reading of the world is naïve, utopian, and easy prey for inevitable predators.

The left sees the world as interconnected, diverse, and possessing some unity at a deeper level that our oppressive systems and corporate-political structures tend to crush and dominate. It tells us that if we are willing to face what must be healed and called out, we can build a better future for all humanity.

Both are right.

And both are wrong.

Valid Points on Both Sides

The right is correct that today, we do live in a competitive world where great powers fight for dominance. Right now, the three great players are the USA, Russia, and China.

While the USA has major issues, those on the right point out the difference between those issues and the terrifying totalitarianism of Russia and China. The right tells us that in a world where we must choose between who dominates the world stage, we want a hegemonic USA as the world’s major superpower. We want Western civilisation to win and others to lose. Because however imperfect it is, the alternative is much darker.

And in terms of the reality they are speaking to, they have a point.

The left is correct that there is a deeper level where humanity is unified. Where we are one diverse human family. Where the recognition of our interconnectedness and the bond between our hearts is the world’s most untapped superpower, held down and blocked by capitalist, military-industrial, and nationalistic forces. They point out that the major aggressors to Western dominance are nations, like Russia and China, who grew into totalitarian regimes after being plunged into traumatic chaos by Western colonialism, and that we must acknowledge the collective trauma underneath the current global balance of power.

And in terms of the reality they are speaking to, they also have a point.

Ultimately, neither is ‘right’ though.

What this comes down to is the paradigm of human nature the world is operating in.

Shadows of the Left and Right

The shadow of the left is that it presumes the best in human nature as the potential field of international relations if the forces blocking that – nationalism, racism, big business, systemic injustice – were all dismantled enough.

It fails to acknowledge that while some human beings are operating from that open-hearted place, a huge number of them, as well as legal entities, governments, international intelligence services, and corporations absolutely are not. They are operating from kill or be killed, and in that paradigm someone offering an open heart and a celebration of our diversity is easy meat.

The shadow of the right is that it tends to presume separation is reality. It derides the potential of a more interconnected humanity as a utopian dream and tells us that the only safe place to navigate the competitive world from is the safehouse of national ethnocentrism and self-interest. Its heart is closed, or reserved only for those who share the same national, religious, or cultural identity, and it has a thousand reasons for why that is the only smart way to navigate the world. Ultimately though, those reasons only damage its own connection to the love that others know is real and a possible way for humanity to meet each other.

Depth vs. Inclusion

On another level, the right tends to prioritise depth and the left inclusion.

The right says no, some worldviews are simply better than others. Nationalism, traditional religion, traditional family values, Western dominance, and capitalism are all better than their alternatives.

The left says no, behind all the corporate, political, and economic structures particularly Western civilisation has built, humanity is one diverse family, and that we – particularly white Western culture – need to show up for the interracial, intergenerational, and inter-cultural healing necessary to come back to that unity.

The Need for a New Integrative Political Consciousness and Movement

What we desperately need, and what must emerge out of the political polarisation so prevalent today, is a political movement that can integrate the best of both without their blind spots.

And the only way for that to work is for it to be developmental.

It needs to recognise what developmental psychologists and anthropologists have told us: that human beings grow over time in the amount of others they can include in their circle of care and recognised sovereignty.

From self-centric (only me) to tribe-centric (only my close kin and tribe), to ethno-centric (only my group – e.g. national, religious, or cultural) to world-centric (all human beings) to planet-centric (the whole planet).

Critical to understand here is that all stations of growth are needed. All are part of the spiral of evolution for individuals and collectives, even though they may express very differently. And all can have healthy and unhealthy expressions.

The Ethno-Centric Right vs the World-Centric Left

The battle today tends to be between the ethno-centric right and the world-centric left.

The ethno-centric right is correct that as long as we are dealing with ethno-centric human beings battling it out for dominance in an ethno-centric world, we do want those who are going to extend the best possible option to the greatest number. And today, if we don’t want to be disappeared for questioning the government, or to enter a total surveillance state where we cannot leave the country if we read the wrong news, there is a decent argument that involves continued Western dominance.

The ethno-centric right is wrong that this is the whole of reality.

The world-centric left is right that the current global balance of power is a product of colonialism, systemic violence, and trauma, and that when human beings can operate at least at world-centric, so they can see our differences as part of a greater unity that invites us into constructive participation with the healing and co-creation necessary to live it, that is a more evolved version of the world.

The world-centric left must also take responsibility for the shortcomings of its global project over recent decades because it often presumed that the world as a whole operated from the same developmental assumptions. And because it wasn’t able to integrate some of the critical insights of the right. Like the need for healthy social boundaries and national, ethnic, and cultural cohesion.

Integrative Politics

What a truly integrative political movement must realise is that different approaches are needed for the different ways humans are showing up in the world. Different approaches are needed when navigating humans, groups, nations, or movements operating at self-centric, tribe-centric, ethno-centric, world-centric, or planet-centric stations of growth.

As was said before, all are needed.

All are part of the spiral of evolution, and we all grow through all of them eventually, even though the pathway of growth might look quite different across individuals, nations, cultures, and civilisations.

And while we tend to have a rough centre of gravity, growth is also dynamic. We can all shift and move between those stations depending on what we are dealing with in a particular moment.

We need a new developmentally sensitive political consciousness and movement that can integrate these battles of polarisation into a framework that can skilfully navigate it all, and steward what is now an inevitable need for humanity to become a planetary civilisation, while also having space for people to be wherever they are at right now.

Majesty is dedicated to pioneering this new integrative political consciousness and movement.