When I first came upon the term “transcend and include” in the book, A Theory of Everything by Ken Wilber, it had an immediate resonance. I saw the immediate connection to both emergence - where the whole that emerges includes and is greater than the sum of its parts, yet includes them - and improvisational theater, particularly the “Yes, And” principle. The YES accepts a current reality, level or state and the AND adds something new to it to take to transcend the current - yet include it - and embody, or unfold, the next level state, idea, solution, experience, way-of-being, consciousness, etc.
Transcend and include is not it not simply additive - which is transactional: adding, yet staying at the same level of play and development. Instead, it is generative - transformational: taking what was before it and "transforming it up" to the next level. The next level included that previous level, but has become something larger, more complex (and paradoxically more simplified), and more whole.
A quick and easy practice of transcend and include at a basic level is the “Yes, And Story” found in improv theater. In a group, one person at a time, adds a line to the same story. The next person is invited to not just add something – keeping it at the same level – but includes what was before in what they add - which takes it to the next level.
“Yes, But” – a staple in some organizational cultures - does not even expand thinking at the current level, let alone take it to the next level. To transcend and include requires new ways of being, not just new ways of thinking about being.
So...does "Yes, But" ever serve a function? Do we just blindly and randomly "Yes, And" everything that comes our way without discernment? I don't think so. A larger Yes And can include smaller, discerning No's along the way and still be generative. Generative discernment, I believe, happens where logical relevance meets intuitive resonance.
Image by visionary artist Alex Grey
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