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Understanding the developmental stages of humans is mandatory for all who seek to change and develop society.
The risks associated with developmental blindness are simply so much greater, the consequences so much more harmful. I contend, without blinking, that an understanding of the stages of human development is key to emancipation, to freedom and equality in the globalized internet age.
inquisition. A progressive thinker and activist of today must know and accept hierarchy; a rebel heart must love hierarchical development—and use it, against all masters, against all unjust hierarchies, and against the chaos and entropy inherent to the cosmos.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Hierarchy 1. Non-judgment. The first principle is that stages of development in humans and other
2. Not a moral order.
suffer?”.[63] 3. Natural and dominator hierarchies. The third
hidden oppression: Natural, Normal, Necessary.[64] 4. Does not transmit. The fourth principle is that the hierarchy does not transmit to other, irrelevant areas or power relations.
Developmental stage is not the same as skill.
5. Humility. The fifth principle is humility. Hierarchical models with several stages are more humble, not less, than non-hierarchical visions of reality.
6. Different dimensions. The sixth principle is simply to know that hierarchical stage theories of human development have different dimensions and that development in one dimension does not necessarily translate into development within another.
7. Sensitivity. The seventh principle is sensitivity. One must recognize that all hierarchies can and do hurt people’s feelings.
8. Not all there is. The eighth and last principle is that stages of development are important, but they are obviously not all there is to life, knowledge, talent and meaning, and so they should only be treated as useful psychological tools, never be revered as anything more than that.
But all in all—not understanding the hierarchical stages of human development leaves you more judgmental, more prejudiced, more arrogantly narrow-minded, less competent to understand and empathize with others, and less likely to successfully interpret and predict behaviors (and the events in society).
Changes of stage usually happen in relatively short leaps that bridge more stable and longer periods of equilibrium.
a kind of maturity that builds upon itself in a fractal manner that creates a consistent hierarchical order.
Model of Hierarchical Complexity (MHC)
Meister L. Commons First of all, I should probably say a few words about Michael Lamport Commons, the main originator of MHC.
12. Systematic Stage (eighteen and above, if at all) Can identify patterns among linear relationships, thus forming systems of relations among abstract variables and how these interact. Can thereby also solve equations with several unknowns. The
Begins to discuss legal systems, social structures, ecosystems, economic systems and the like. Can be found in about 20% of adult humans, usually after age eighteen.
IQ-tests will primarily measure horizontal complexity, given
SOME STAGE 10 ABSTRACT TASKS
Writing a conclusion in an essay that ties the whole thing together. Pointing out the common denominator in a few different stories (love story, story about deceit and revenge, the same moral of the story). Inventing new words for things that are not concretely present. Driving a bus (following traffic rules and keeping in mind the length of the bus and other factors that are out of your sight). Simple nursing (categorizations of patient behavior and reporting back to doctor, quantifying several medical variables, relating to these rather abstract variables, etc.) Non-investigative journalism:
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Through language and interaction you create a “scaffold” that helps the other person to partake in behaviors that would otherwise be beyond his or her cognitive stage.
Higher cognitive stage folks aren’t necessarily “right” about things. If you have kids, you may have noticed how surprisingly often these keen little creatures can correct us, in spite of their “lower” cognitive stage. And again, stage doesn’t mean skill—you still have to learn things from others even if you have higher cognitive stage.
My claim in this chapter is that there is a stage difference between the various forms of cultural code available to people today, and that this stage difference follows a logic inherent to the meanings of the symbols and their interrelations, rather than being inherent to the cognitive stage of the specific organism. Each such code contains within itself a toolkit consisting of interrelated symbols, which can be used to interpret the world. These symbolic toolkits determine a large part of how a person sees the world and how she acts within it.
Remember, remember: The code is its own developmental dimension, not to be confused with the cognitive hardware. And it is developed collectively through the ongoing use of language throughout
Even an idea in physics, such as the hydrogen atom, is only accessible to you through the use of socially constructed symbols. No matter how many university credits you get in physics, or if you win a Nobel Prize, you still only ever get to understand the world through symbols that others have taught you. And, again, those symbols are not a direct link to objective reality. It’s just that some symbols turn out to be more useful metaphors for describing the patterns of relations between other symbols. That’s it. You’ve been living the illusion that you’re beyond illusions.
And you say you don’t really believe in progress and development, only in changes of cultures, interpretations and power structures.
From a symbol-stage G Metamodern perspective, this is just not enough. You have to make yourself more vulnerable than that: You have to try to construct a synthesis from all that you know from the earlier symbol-stages, in order to create a society that solves the three major problems of modern life: the excessive global inequalities, the alienation or neurotic anxieties of modern life, and ecological unsustainability.
You, my dear pomo, armed with vast amounts of cultural capital and superior perspectives, belong to the highest strata of global society, the upper class of late modernity—so you should better acknowledge your privilege and take some responsibility for including the perspectives of your fellow citizens. The pomos are in positions of power, more so than George W. Bush ever was.
If you want to include all perspectives and treat them fairly, you have to be able to compare them to one another, and see how they are each an important part of reality, and how they fit together. Otherwise you are being condescending and monolithic yourself.
If you want to transcend and leave behind the obsession with hierarchies, you must be able to dispassionately describe hierarchies and relate to them productively. If you resent hierarchies and deny them, you are still in their grip, still obsessed with them. Precisely by demystifying hierarchy we can free ourselves from this obsession.
The higher one’s state, the wider and more relaxed one’s perspective: At higher states we see ourselves, the world, and our place in it more clearly.
Depth is a person’s intimate, embodied acquaintance with subjective states. A person’s inner depth increases through her felt, lived and intuitive knowledge of a new subjective state (lower or higher than previously experienced)—and when the intimate acquaintance of that state becomes an integrated part of her psychological constitution; a part, if you will, of her personality.
what I call “depth” can be thought of as a kind of existential or spiritual wisdom. Again, this “wisdom” doesn’t mean that you are smart, right about things, or a complex thinker, or even that you have a balanced, healthy personality. But it does mean that you relate more profoundly to more fundamental aspects of reality as it is subjectively experienced. So what does that mean?
“Great-depth” people are the ones who have experienced a wider range of subjective states, who are well acquainted with being in such states and who have learned to handle them.
She has, in a sense, become a more sensing soul, gazing deeper into reality.
Likewise, of course, depth is developed by the successful integration of high state experiences, so that these are no longer just “festive occasions”, but become part of how one sees reality and the universe. One begins to recognize things such as the unfathomable potential of life, the “glory of God”, the emptiness of all sensuous experience and—as we saw Ralph Waldo Emerson observe in the last chapter—that everything, in some cosmic last instance, is going to be alright.
And there is also a host of potential pathologies (sicknesses) that come with the territory of greater depth and higher states (spiritual arrogance, tendencies for holistic visions that lean towards totalitarianism, and other things; these things need not concern us here). And, again, they can be limited in other respects (low complexity, outdated code, etc.). In fact, they usually are.
So, developing depth means to experience new states and to integrate them into one’s psychological constitution so that they “permanently” change one’s relatedness to the world and to existence as a whole.
I would like to suggest that there are three specific forms of inner depth that a person can develop. These follow the fundamental philosophical form of Plato’s “big three”: beauty, truth and justice. Although in this context I have found it more appropriate to speak of the three categories beauty, mystery and tragedy.
To see the beauty of the world is something that is intimately tied up with having subjective awareness: Only living creatures can be assumed to experience the beauty of reality.
Beauty, in this sense, is a kind of recognition. We recognize things such as harmony, balance, proportionality, contrast, pattern, variation, rhythm, repetition; aspects of the world that we spontaneously seem to appreciate. We appear to be able to deepen our relationship with reality by expanding this recognition.
Speaking of truth. There is a form of sublimity of reality that is recognized not by an aesthetic sense, but by a will to know, a search for truth for the sake of truth, by recognizing the fundamental mystery of reality.
A human being can develop depth, i.e. develop her relatedness to reality—not necessarily by “studying science”, but yes, by knowledge itself, through science (“knowingness”) as an existential and spiritual endeavor. It is not even necessary to be smart, to be correct about stuff or think complex thoughts: We’re just talking about a general sense of mystery and awe that grips your heart.
It is the sense and realization that we live in a tragic universe.
There is a fundamental and logically necessary brokenness of reality itself. And before you know it, you start falling apart as you get assigned to a crash course for death. All that blooms, including childhood, love relationships and friendships (especially those), must either rot or wither away to be lost and forever forgotten. Obviously, the sense of tragedy grows from acquaintance with the lower states and their successful psychological integration into our worldviews. Depth grows from recognizing the profound seriousness of the matter: that your own children will be tortured. They will be
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Depth is developed by the recognition of tragedy, by the successful acceptance of such tragedy, and by the resolve to work, as Sisyphus eternally lugging rocks, against it. Resolve in the face of a fundamental hopelessness and utter meaninglessness. This is depth-as-tragedy.
that I would like to introduce: the one between “light” and “dark” depth. Light depth is the acquaintance with higher states and dark depth is the acquaintance with lower states.
So here’s my take on a narrower, stricter, definition. Wisdom is great depth, plain and simple. Nothing more, nothing less. So, the way I use the term, wisdom has to do with things like spirituality and transcendence but not really with being smart or “proficient at living a good life”.
