From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Mon May 26 2003 - 01:00:51 BST
Hi Steve and Sam:
Steve said:
: My hypothesis is that a child should progress through the MOQ levels as it
: matures in the same order that the levels evolved.
:
: Within this same proposed project, I want to also compare Kolberg's
: hierarchy of moral development (Pre-conventional, conventional,
: post-conventional levels) with the MOQ levels.
:
: Has anyone already looked into the MOQ from a child development point of
: view that I could read in the archives? Does anyone think that this sounds
: like an especially good or bad project?
dmb says:
Cha Ching! YES! Our personal development echoes the stages of our collective
evolution. This is the picture that both Wilber and Pirsig paint. Everthing
evolves. Unfortunately, you won't find much detail about developmental
psychology from Pirsig. There's no contractradiction or anything. Its just
that Pirsig could only afford to present a limited number of detailed
examples and that's just not his area. But! If one is curious to know what
Pirsig means exactly when he says that we each percieve Quality differently
because of the static patterns of our own particular experiences, we
suppliment the MOQ with guys like Wilber and all the developmental
psychologist on which his work is based... I've become convinced that a
psychological understanding of things, as new and imperfect as the
discipline might be, is indispensible to solving the problems of SOM's
flatland. How did Pirsig put it? History is biography? Something like that.
I mean, its hard to ignore the interior and moral dimensions of things when
we see how critical human development is to the overall health of our
civilization. How did Mao put it? All wars are a symptom of neurosis and
pathology? Something like that. (He said it to Nixon.) Its hard for
intellectuals to ignore morality when when science is applied to the
examination of moral development.
Sam said:
just to throw in some more ingredients to the mix, I personally like
Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and also Erikson's 8-stage theory of
development (both of which end up describing something akin to an
'autonomous individual', as I understand it.)
dmb says:
Yes! And even though you're suspicious of Wilber, he too likes Maslow,
Erickson and others and includes their views in his own work. (I'd say that
personal autonomy is an important feature of the 4th level, but to say its
the essence we have to ignore the exterior and collective dimensions of that
level of values.) But given that you like these developmental hierarchies,
how is it you can reject Pirsig's?...
Sam said to Paul:
My worry is that this then ties into a Platonic perspective, ie quality
increases with abstraction, or, in different terms, you pursue the good/DQ
through intellectual ascent. I'm not sympathetic to that point of view, but
I'm happy to hear from people who are.
dmb says:
As I and others have repeatedly tried to point out, this notion of the 4th
level as mere abstraction doesn't look like the MOQ that I know. Pirsig says
flat out that the 4th is more moral than the 3rd. I honestly don't know why
you REFUSE to admit that Pirsig ain't Spock. I mean, the MOQ is largely an
attack on amorality, especially at the intellectual level. The intellect
that you're objecting to is SOM, which is exactly what Pirsig objects to.
This is the whole point of Lila, no? Not just to attack SOM, but also
replace it with the MOQ, which paints morals as the center and substance of
everything. Your insistence that a footnote from LILA'S CHILD defines the
intellectual level as the ability to "manipulate symbols" also reduces the
4th level to mere abstraction. But given that Pirsig says all of life is an
ethical activity, it seems quite unfair and wrong-headed to accuse Pirsig of
such a thing.
But more to the point, I almost answered Steve's question by accident
earlier today, even mentioning Kohlberg's moral stages. Just as explicitly
but even more specifically, we see that Wilber, via Kohlberg and others,
that the developmental stages are not just cognitive, ie levels of
abstraction, but also have a moral dimension that goes along with a
particular sense of identity and outlook. Its all part of the way we look
and the world and these various dimensions all develope together. That
doesn't mean that smart people are always more moral. Unfortunately, we tend
to see cognitive abilities as seperate from moral character and that tends
to produce all kinds of lop-sided development and such, but I'll save that
level of detail for another day.
Wilber from his INTEGRAL PSYCHOLOGY: (emphasis is Wilber's)
"Each time the self's center of gravity identifies with a new and higher
basic wave of unfolding (level), it doesn't just have a new sense of
IDENTITY, it has a new and higher VIEW of the world, with a wider and more
encompassing set of MORALS and PERSPECTIVES. The pivotal figure here is
Lawrence Kohlberg, whose work, building on tht of Baldwin, Dewey, and
Piaget, demonstrated that moral development goes through six or seven
stages. The individual starts out amoral and egocentric ("whatever I want"
is what is right), moves to sociocentric ("whatever the group, tribe,
country wants" is what is right), to postconventional (what is fair for all
peoples, regardless of race, color creed).
dmb says:
Finally, the answer to Steve. I'd already identified the postconventional
level with Pirsig's 4th. I'd now also add that, roughly speaking, it looks
like the preconventional would be associated with Pirsig's 2nd level and
sociocentric is clearly Like the MOQ's 3rd level. But please put the
emphasis on "roughly" when I say "roughly speaking". I was looking at some a
list of eight developmental stages. It included characteristics and examples
and even quatified the percentage of the population at the various levels,
so it was pretty easy to see that these stages are demonstrable in the real
world. But the curious thing is that is was finer that Pirsig's. I mean, all
eight of the stages could fit in to Pirsig's top two. It was as if we could
break the 3d level down into five seperate and smaller stages. The intellect
could be divided into three distinct phases. In Wilber's model there even
stages of development beyond the intellect, stages in the spiritual realm.
That's why I ask you to put the emphasis on "roughly".
Thanks for your time,
DMB
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