Criticism: Shadow or Challenge?

Wilber and me have a conflict, that's for sure. But what's the best strategy for conflict resolution? Wilber's suggestion to dig into one's own shadow might lead to the suggestion, that criticism is empty, and therefore needs a psychological explanation. This often becomes an introverted excercise, full of guilt feelings. He even talks about "forgiving his critics"!

In Holland a succesful conflict resolution strategy (pioneered by Daniel Ofman) works with the concept of "core-qualities", which are represented by a quadrant (nothing to do with Wilber's 4 quadrants though). The idea is that each mental quality has an extreme version (it's "pitfall"), but also its opposite quality (or "challenge"), which in turn has its extreme version (or "allergy").

For example: The quality of eloquence has the pitfall of being talkative, the challenge of knowing when to be quiet, and the allergy of never speaking up. Now an eloquent person will typically have an allergy for people who never speak up -- and a quiet person hates those who are talkative. When allergies escalate, a conflict is born. The trick of conflict resolution is to acknowledge and affirm both qualities in each other, while avoiding their pitfalls, c.q. allergies.

Is criticism heavily affected by shadow elements, as Wilber suggests? Perhaps, but the same goes for the glowing endorsements he received from his close followers. It is more constructive to apply the core quality model to this situation, I believe.

Wilber's great quality is to give wide generalizations, inspired visions, broad sketches of a theory. This has a pitfall: empty slogans, airy abstractions, and a tendency to repeat arguments. It's challenge would be: detailed criticism, specialized studies, gathering informed opinions. In turn, this has an extreme as well: nitpicking, endless processing, never ending debates. And that, obviously, is Wilber's allergy.

Personally I am more at home in the area of detailed studies, and have therefore always been impressed by the opposite quality which Wilber embodied for me: grand vistas of interdisciplinary studies. So, I might very well represent his shadow! and vice versa. Allergies fly high when Wilber sees all criticism as nitpicking, and I perceive all of Wilber's recent statements as ungrounded, especially when burdened by jargon, or slang, for that matter. The trick, again, is to affirm both the value of generalizations AND of detailed studies that may or may not, validate the integral model. The art is to avoid pitfalls in both areas.

Shadow theory often states that we hate in others what we hate in ourselves. Core quality theory says the opposite: we hate in others (the extreme version of) what we lack in ourselves.