2.3 The “Rules” of Development-part 2

This is the second-third of Cook-Greuter’s list…

Later stages are reached only by journeying through the earlier stages.

To get from A to C, you have to go through B. Once a stage has been traversed, it remains a part of the individual’s response repertoire, even when more complex, later stages are adopted. Each stage adds tools, and capabilities. This rule is closely tied to the next. 

Each later stage includes and transcends the previous ones.

That is, the earlier perspectives remain part of our current experience and knowledge (just as when a child learns to run, he or she doesn’t stop being able to walk). Ken Wilber also includes “transcend and include” as a core concept in his writing. When we learn words and how to write sentences, we have transcended the use of individual letters, but we will always include them as we continue to progress through the increasing levels of complexity in writing.

Each later stage in the sequence is more elaborate, integrated, flexible and capable of functioning optimally in a rapidly changing and tangled world. 

As we grow up and our lives change, we get exposed to a wider range of experience. Each stage works for a while, but when new events fall outside our experience, worldview and skills, we must grow to deal with them. Trying harder does not work; we must try different. If we don’t grow, life gets hard and we yearn for simpler circumstances.

People’s stage of development influences what they notice or can become aware of, and therefore what they can describe, articulate, influence, and change. 

This is a profound rule. We cannot see what we do not yet have the ability to see. If our brain is not yet wired to process certain ideas and emotions, we will only get glimpses of stages later than our current stage. The unfamiliarity of later stages makes them dubious, nutty, hard to accept.

You say that is profound, but to me it just seems arrogant. These days there are so many code words that have to be used to be politically correct, both for the left and right. I’m mis-speaking all the time!

Using specific coded language is one way to decide if a person is in or out of “our” group. When we get into the actual stages, we will look at the effects of this “either/or” thinking on our relationships with each other. We have been well trained in thinking this way, but it limits our options for getting along and solving problems.

There is much more to say on this. It is a core issue that Integral Theory addresses constructively, and we will get to it soon.