I see from Integral Options some good links today (well, good links every day, but today, I am actually acknowledging his link, something I do not do enough of, when he points me to good information.)

A couple of intriguing posts regarding the Alan Wallace book Contemplative Science.

Lion has a good post here, and apparently, Buddhist Geeks will have an audio session soon.

I and others have been grousing about an "open source spirituality", one resting on practice and assessments, rather than simply charismatic teachers and their claims.  This looks to be a very promising way to bring this about!

Another book to read...

In the previous post, I was investigating ethics - and I came across the Wikipedia article on Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development.

What struck me, as regarding Wilber theory, was the following Further Stages entry:

In his empirical studies of persons across their life-span, Kohlberg came to notice that some people evidently had undergone moral stage regression. He was faced with the option of either conceding that moral regression could occur, or revise his theory. Kohlberg chose the latter, postulating the existence of sub-stages wherein the emerging stage has not yet been adequately integrated into the personality.^[8] In particular Kohlberg noted of a stage 4½ or 4+, which is a transition from stage four to stage five, sharing characteristics of both.^[8] In this stage the individual has become disaffected with the arbitrary nature of law and order reasoning. Culpability is frequently turned from being defined by society to having society itself be culpable. This stage is often mistaken for the moral relativism of stage two as the individual considers society's conflicting interests with their own choices relatively and morally wrong.^[8] Kohlberg noted that this was often seen in students entering college.<sup>[8][11]

The question I have is this - if "regression" can happen, what does this do to Wilber's understanding that "you can't go backward" in terms of development?" 

Kohlberg seems to see this as "sub-stages", before "full" integration into the next stage.  I suppose that fits with the Wilber claim, but it also leaves one adrift in analyzing any PARTICULAR person - which again, seem to me to show that using stages to analyze an individual person is a non-starter.

Also, if you look at the bottom of this article, the See Also section, notice that there is a list of other theorists of development - cognitive, faith, ego, and psychosocial. 

This, for me, throws into clear relief how much "integral" theory is in alignment with, and dependent on, developmental theories.  So should integral theory be considered, in the main, a meta-developmental theory?</sup>

This story has been going around, so you have probably already read something about it.  But since I have been documenting these aspects of the U.S. administration, I am continuing.

Together with other documents filed late Friday, the images represent the latest and most aggressive sally by defense lawyers who declared this fall that charges against Mr. Padilla should be dismissed for “outrageous government conduct,” saying that he was mistreated and tortured during his years as an enemy combatant.

Now lawyers for Mr. Padilla, 36, suggest that he is unfit to stand trial. They argue that he has been so damaged by his interrogations and prolonged isolation that he suffers post-traumatic stress disorder and is unable to assist in his own defense. His interrogations, they say, included hooding, stress positions, assaults, threats of imminent execution and the administration of “truth serums.”

The biggest point about Padilla, of course, is that he has been held for 3 1/2 years, without any charges filed against him. 

On a personal level, it's hard to have any sympathy for Padilla.  He cheerleads the actions of 9/11, from what I understand.  Just from that perspective alone, his perspective is monstrous. 

Nevertheless, the fact is, there have been no charges filed against him.  How long, can someone be kept indefinitely isolated, imprisoned, without some form of trial.  The only reason he is in the trial system now, is because this was forced by the Supreme Court, tipping its preferences in an earlier case, which caused the Justice department to file just before the Supreme Court was to hear the Padilla case.

Glenn Greenwald's article is worth reading here.

With a couple of the other cases I have commented on here, it needs to be reinforced that, from any ethical system, whether utilitarian, christian, etc - that the lawlessness and dehumanizing treatment of even justly imprisoned prisoners, has a corrosive effect when utilized by the main state powers.