Developmental Politics

Chapter 1. America’s Existential Dilemma

• Competition Between Alternative Moral Systems
• A New Politics of Culture
• Worldviews—the Basic Units of Culture

Chapter 2. The Momentous Emergence of the Modernist Worldview

• The Standard Narrative of Modernity’s Emergence
• Modernism and Traditionalism
• Modernity’s New Cultural Opponent: The Progressive Postmodern Worldview
• Modernity Came About Primarily as a Result of the Emergence of New Values
• Modernity Depends on the Borrowed Social Capital of Traditionalism
• The Developmental Logic of Cultural Evolution

Chapter 3. Tracing the Development of the Progressive Postmodern Worldview

• The Revolt of Modernity’s Artists and Intellectuals: 1848 to 1968
• Postmodernity Is Born as a Distinct Worldview
• Postmodernism Is Founded on a New Communitarian Ethos of Sensitivity
• Postmodernism Is Both a Blessing and a Curse for Our Civilization

Chapter 4. Reaching Political Agreement Through Values Integration

• Conventional Proposals for Reaching Political Agreement
• Focusing on the Bedrock Values at the Heart of Our Political Disagreements
• Values Integration: Preliminary Considerations
• Developmental Politics’ Values Charts—Foundations of Its Integrative Method
• Polarity Theory—an Introduction
• Examples of Values Integration in Action
• The Method’s Secret Sauce: Integral Consciousness
• Values Integration: Some Final Considerations

Chapter 5. Evolving Our Understanding of the Good

• The New Truth: Consciousness Evolves
• In Search of an Understanding of Noosphere Energy
• Reconceiving Value as a Form of Interior Energy

Chapter 6. Harnessing the Energy of Value

• Value Enters the Universe with the Emergence of Life
• Human Consciousness is Attracted by an Ever-Expanding Dimension of Value
• Self-Interest and Greater-Than-Self-Interest Cohere as an Interdependent Polarity
• The Political Significance of Transcendence

Chapter 7. Cultivating Cultural Evolution Through a New American Dream

• Transcendence and the Structure of Evolutionary Emergence
• Goodness, Truth, and Beauty—Traces of the Transcendent Within the Immanent
• Discovering a New American Dream
• Strategies for Cultivating Cultural Evolution

Chapter 8. A Renaissance of Virtue

• The Energetic Properties of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty Revisited
• Discovering a Natural System of Virtues
• The Obligations of Virtue
• Virtues and Transcendence
• How the Practice of the Virtues Can Ameliorate America’s Political Problems

Chapter 9. A Transcendent Vision of Progress

• The Problem with Progress
• Progress and Transcendence
• Dangers of Transcendence
• Toward a Universal Definition of Progress
• Making Progress Beyond Hyperpolarization
• Appreciating Each Form of Culture’s Unique Connection with Transcendence
• Connecting Our Political Progress to the Cosmic Progress of Evolution