“Carson’s grasp of history, politics, emotional intelligence, social norms, government procedure, and even his own backstory seems variable and thin…How, as Paul Waldman recently wrote, could Ben Carson be both “so incredibly smart and so spectacularly stupid?””

The above quote comes from an article in The Atlantic titled “Running for President isn’t Brain Surgery” (Great title if you ask me. HA!). The article is a reflection on Ben Carson, the famous neurosurgeon who is currently running for the Republican presidential nomination, and who is apparently attempting to keep pace with Donald Trump by making it a habit of expressing unintelligible and often offensive opinions. The question quoted above is one that I keep hearing asked of Carson, and one that I’ve heard quite often in the past. The conclusion the Atlantic article seems to come to is one that I actually find to be quite on target:

“The question isn’t how can Ben Carson be so smart and so stupid. Instead, the question is how can the public expect someone to be so smart at everything?”

The writer of the article, Tressie McMillan Cottom, seems to be suggesting the existence of what developmental psychologist, Howard Gardner, calls “multiple intelligences,” which is a  theory of intelligence that says intelligence is best thought of as being broken up into specific “modalities,” rather than a single, monolithic, general ability of some sort.

Integral theorists appropriate Gardner’s theory of intelligence into their theoretical system and talk about “lines of development” in order to explain why some people can indeed be very smart in one area of life and completely oblivious in another. For Gardner, and integral thinkers, it is perfectly reasonable to suppose that Humans have a variety of intelligences, such as cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence, musical intelligence, religious intelligence, kinesthetic intelligence, etc., etc. These different intelligences, according to integral thinking, progress or advance along developmental lines and unfold through progressive “stages of development.” It’s not uncommon for some of these intelligences to develop quite nicely through all stages of development. However, it’s also not uncommon for some of these intelligences to become arrested at certain stages.

Through an integral lens, what we can see in religious fundamentalism, for instance, is a stunted line of development in regard to religious/spiritual/existential intelligence, which may ultimately result in poor moral development. Religious fundamentalists, in many cases, have not progressed past tribalistic, ethnocentric forms of religion/spirituality. These very same people may be very advanced cognitively in the sense that they can graduate from a respectable academic institution and become great leaders but, sadly, with poor moral development, these folks can often be mean and ruthless as well (e.g., think of Bible loving Baptists who are overtly racist, homophobic, and sexist).

In a recent episode of his audio program, Jeff Salzman gives an interesting account of all of this, and even references Ben Carson. Salzman recounts the story (which I had not heard) about how Carson became a Christian. Apparently, Carson had had a mystical experience at a very young age following a very traumatic event. I found this all very interesting because, well, for one, I also have had multiple mystical experiences (some at a young age), but it also reminded me of something I had read a while ago which addressed this very thing, i.e. certain experiences (especially peak or mystical or religious experiences) can have a profound, positive or negative effect on us depending on where each of our lines of intelligence are, developmentally, at the time. Paul Helfrich explains:

“More than one world leader, in the course of the formative events in his or her life, has had a powerful peak experience or altered state, often religious in nature, that profoundly molded their subsequent worldviews and agendas, and not necessarily for the better (Hitler was a mystic of sorts, as was Rasputin). In some cases we deeply admire the results of this religious infusion (say, Joan of Arc or Martin Luther King, Jr.). In other cases we are repelled (Himmler, Charles Manson).”

It’s very possible for a powerful mystical/religious/peak experience to help push a person to grow to the next healthy stage of development. However, it’s just as possible for powerful transpersonal/mystical experiences to freeze development in its track all-together, and even in some cases push it toward pathology. As Ken Wilber has written:

“When egocentric levels receive a jolting infusion from the transpersonal realms, the result is usually a more empowered egocentric, often psychotic. When ethnocentric levels are hit with a transpersonal jolt, reborn [fundamentalist] furies result. When worldcentric levels are transfused, an Abraham Lincoln or a Ralph Waldo Emerson shines forth. An integral approach would make these factors an important part of an ‘all-level, all-quadrant’ analysis. (And not just in world leaders. Data is impossibly unreliable here, but at the very least a majority of individuals report having had at least one major peak/spiritual experience. These events are some of the most powerful motivating forces in human psychology, whether they light the face of a Mother Teresa or drive the intense fanaticism of a jihad, and no analysis of world events that ignores them can hope to succeed.)”

So can we excel and be “smart” in everything? Perhaps not. But, personally, I am happy to fall into the same boat as folks like Richard Beck and Barry Schwartz and admit that I don’t feel a need to pursue excellence in everything; I’m fine with just striving to be good enough at many things…

Tags:Ben CarsonDonald Trumpintegral philosophyintegral theoryIntelligenceKen WilberRichard Beck