About This Blog
My name is Jeff Carreira and I started this blog as a vehicle through which to share my ongoing investigation into the relationship between the idea of evolution, the expereince of enlightenment and the ideas of some of the great American philosophers.
For many years I have studied, practiced and worked with others to co-create the contemporary spiritual path of Evolutionary Enlightenment. Recently I was amazed to discover that this teaching could be understood as part of a stream of spiritual and philosophical thought that traced back through American history to Ralph Waldo Emerson, passing through William James and emerging currently in the work of Andrew Cohen, Ken Wilber and others. The ideas of these visionaries have similarities that are rooted in the foundational attitudes embedded in their shared cultural heritage.
America was birthed (at least in part) by courageous individuals who crossed an ocean and walked straight into an unknown wilderness to carve out a nation. The American character was battered into existence during a relentless struggle for individual and national survival.
That character is typified by utilitarian attitudes, utopian aspirations, action orientations and mystical inclinations.
This blog is dedicated to exploring how these four elements weave through the spiritual and philosophical tradition of America and create in large part the way we (at least we Americans) think and how we see reality.
Along the way I will share with you everything I find that will help you in your own quest for truth and meaning.
Hello Jeff
This was wonderful to read (including your blogs so far). Thanks for taking us so deeply into the psyche of the American people and its great thinkers. I look forward to reading more of your investigation…
Jeanine
Hello Jeanine,
Thank you for your encouragment. Please feel free to comment or take these investigations further with your own throughts any time.
Jeff
Under our present religious belief systems, coupled with a political system catering to liberal views, mankind will make no progress until it understand the demands of evolution.
Evolution requires struggle in all living things on down to amoeba. Otherwise, nothing changes.
Nothing evolves.
A welfare state is contrary to the needs of evolution.
Bob
Hello Bo, I believe that John Dewey was on to something in this regard when he recognized that evolution only rewards the opportunity for more evolution. So we need to create belief systems and social systems that maximize people’s potential to grow and in that spirit I would agree that hand-outs enable people to continue to survive without growing and in and of themselves are not enough to solve anyones problems.
Jeff, the writing on your blog is quite exemplary, and your approach compliments the mission of our site. Kindly consider this an invitation to participate in the Truth Contest. http://www.truthcontest.com
I could not find an e-mail contact on this blog, but feel free to e-mail me at the address I provided. We would love to stay in touch.
Keep up the good work!
Really enjoyed the program in Philly on Saturday. The break out sessions with Lynn have certainly stirred things up – has honestly been a bit difficult to concentrate at work since Sat.
Set up the RSS feed in Outlook – looking forward to keeping up with your work.
Thanks for Saturday.
The oft repeated phrase about “survival of the fittest” has nothing to do with strength which some societies have used for political purposes.
It can refer to several microbes where the smallest can fit through a hole others can’t.
Humans need struggle, if only to get a promotion at the office, or discover something. Or, to climb a mountain or sky dive. Only then does evolution work to improve humanity. Our politics need to account for this need.
Thanks. Interesting and helpful blog. You could put up a page that links out to other interesting people you might know.
Hello Jeff,
I just wanted to thank you for making this blog. It really makes philosophy incredibly accessible, even to us laypeople.
As a college Composition professor, I recently assigned my students a unit on world views. The unit requires them to read about other’s world views and to write about their own. Your posts– “Test Drive a World View” and “Why Do World Views Clash?”– made an excellent introduction. Thanks!
I am also encouraging my students to respond to your blog posts, so if you see an immediate influx of comments, I apologize.
Keep up the great work!
Thanks again!
Best,
NP
May I ask anyone regarding the authenticity of Andrew Cohen? Is he a self-proclaimed philosopher or a businessman? Thanks.
Really inspired by Intro to Evol Philosophy from NYC but you need to recover volume of Jeff’s answer to questions at end. Could get any of it and I was really wanting to. Thanks.
Thanks for your close reading of Emerson for what he had to say about evolution. Emerson is a personal hero of mine and a lightning rod for another: Walt Whitman. Whitman too was a self-proclaimed “evolutionist” and his poems are rich with those allusions.
“America was birthed (at least in part) by courageous individuals who crossed an ocean and walked straight into an unknown wilderness to carve out a nation. The American character was battered into existence during a relentless struggle for individual and national survival.”
I thank you greatly for what you have written about philosophy and your confidence toward our evolutionary development as a human species. I do not mean any disrespect when I am critical of generalized themes of history or western nationalistic ideas regarding this country. This country was not unknown to those peoples that already lived here for eons prior to the coming of the Europeans and not only was the landscape carved up, to their heroic memory the original people here were as well. There is much unacknowledged philosophy and wisdom in the remaining aboriginal people and within the land, our Mother and this particular piece we call “Turtle Island” in our own original languages. We have been dismantled, misdirected, discredited and have barely survived the “American Holocaust,” and to the credit of our ancestors, are still here growing and now relearning our heritage and cultural values that have been sadly overlooked in conquest. I do not write these words here as a challenge, only as an acknowledgment of what in most academic circles might be overlooked. There is great wisdom and profound philosophic traditions within the understanding of the Original People here that might help to further the humanity of those that have not been exposed to it. As it has for me when I was ready for it and became willing to “Waasaa-Inaabidaa” Look in all directions.
Thanks
Sorry I did not mean to leave the prior post as Anonymous.