This past weekend, Romania gave the world a lesson in saving democracy from the imminent threat of fascism. Human maturity and wisdom played a crucial role, that other countries can learn from.
I appreciate many points in your article and wholeheartedly agree with the calling for the wise, mature leader.
However, I consistently feel sad and pained by the unbalanced notion of the "lower" developmental stages, the "bass section" in your piano metaphor. For a piano to play a full, rich, complex music, each key needs to be revered, loved and practiced. In this current narrative, when the "bass section" is seen as immature, and "treble section" is seen as mature, how can the pianist practice the keys in the bass section?
For me, the earlier development stage represents an original, embodied sense of wholeness gifted to each human at birth, before our cognitive development. In the Taoist tradition, we call it the "prenatal source of wholeness" 先天元气. One core principle of the practice of the Tao is to surrender the self cultivated from our cognitive development to serve the prenatal, the original wholeness.
The idea and practices of prenatal wholeness can been seen in many indigenous and Earth-based cultures. In China, its related cultural practices and systems have been destroyed through colonization and capitalism. To me, the narratives of the "opportunists" is a pathological version of the earlier stages, when the "prenatal wholeness" is unseen, unappreciated, and unpracticed.
A wise, mature leader needs be able to play every single key on the piano with clarity and presence. How could someone play the bass section with a full heart devotion, with this pathological view of those keys?
In June, I am going to present my work of the adult development from an east-west perspective in a professional gathering in Seattle. I hope one day we can talk about this in person.
I really appreciate your thoughtful comment and wise challenge, Spring. I think we are actually very much on the same page - I do not believe the 'bass section' of the piano is inherently inferior, nor are the high notes inherently better - playing just one octave, metahorically speaking, is just as limiting wherever on the keyboard that octave may be. In saying that I believe we might reference slightly different frameworks - your view is grounded in Taoism and references indiginous wisdom, whereas the framework I use is grounded in developmental psychology (with a strong Western lens - which in and of itself can be limiting). I think the two frameworks are very much complementary. In the psychological framework, what I call the 'early' stages are not in fact childhood stages (there are quite a few other stages prior to Opportunist - Piaget has described them best). The Opportunist stage is still an adult stage, albeit a limited/immature one.
There is none of that wholeness you reference at Opportunist - that was preset much earlier in the human's development, in early childhood and was long lost by the time people reach this stage. The Opportunist is in fact a stage where the ego (in the way Jane Loevinger defines it - as the 'internal narrator' of experience) is powerfullly asserting itself - it's a stage at which the human has lost connection to their belonging to a bigger whole and is striving to individuate as a narrowly defined and very much self-centred "I". There is beauty and power in the opportuist - it is a courageous, wild, assertive stage - but in absence of connection with 'other' it can also be a very selfish stage. That selfishness was what I was referencing in my article - in connection to the political crisis/landscape and the way these stages manifst in the behaviours of aspirats to public office.
Going back to your challenge - how do we honour that beautiful early wholeness of the human - I wholeheartedly agree that is a state that perhaps should be the highest aspiration of a life's journey towards wisdom. When we are born we are connected with everything and then we forget about those connections. We become this "I" who is at first shortshighted and strives to define itself as something unique in the world. And as we grow and learn to play more of our piano we start to realise that there is no "I" in absence of "We" and, later, we discover that systemic dymension of "Thou". So in many ways the very latest stages of development in the western ego-development tradition are a return to that state of oneness - the culmination of a journey of building and then deconstructing our ego. The difference between babyhood and senectute is that in the latter we are indeed fully aware of that beautiful oneness.
I think there is much to learn from indiginous traditions and also from Eastern, community focused, wisdom traditions that would enrich the Western paradigms of human development. So I deeply appreciate the perspective you bring. I'd love to continue these conversations and I too hope our paths cross at some point - we'd have much to talk about!
Dear Alia
I appreciate many points in your article and wholeheartedly agree with the calling for the wise, mature leader.
However, I consistently feel sad and pained by the unbalanced notion of the "lower" developmental stages, the "bass section" in your piano metaphor. For a piano to play a full, rich, complex music, each key needs to be revered, loved and practiced. In this current narrative, when the "bass section" is seen as immature, and "treble section" is seen as mature, how can the pianist practice the keys in the bass section?
For me, the earlier development stage represents an original, embodied sense of wholeness gifted to each human at birth, before our cognitive development. In the Taoist tradition, we call it the "prenatal source of wholeness" 先天元气. One core principle of the practice of the Tao is to surrender the self cultivated from our cognitive development to serve the prenatal, the original wholeness.
The idea and practices of prenatal wholeness can been seen in many indigenous and Earth-based cultures. In China, its related cultural practices and systems have been destroyed through colonization and capitalism. To me, the narratives of the "opportunists" is a pathological version of the earlier stages, when the "prenatal wholeness" is unseen, unappreciated, and unpracticed.
A wise, mature leader needs be able to play every single key on the piano with clarity and presence. How could someone play the bass section with a full heart devotion, with this pathological view of those keys?
In June, I am going to present my work of the adult development from an east-west perspective in a professional gathering in Seattle. I hope one day we can talk about this in person.
With respect and appreciation of your work
Spring
I really appreciate your thoughtful comment and wise challenge, Spring. I think we are actually very much on the same page - I do not believe the 'bass section' of the piano is inherently inferior, nor are the high notes inherently better - playing just one octave, metahorically speaking, is just as limiting wherever on the keyboard that octave may be. In saying that I believe we might reference slightly different frameworks - your view is grounded in Taoism and references indiginous wisdom, whereas the framework I use is grounded in developmental psychology (with a strong Western lens - which in and of itself can be limiting). I think the two frameworks are very much complementary. In the psychological framework, what I call the 'early' stages are not in fact childhood stages (there are quite a few other stages prior to Opportunist - Piaget has described them best). The Opportunist stage is still an adult stage, albeit a limited/immature one.
There is none of that wholeness you reference at Opportunist - that was preset much earlier in the human's development, in early childhood and was long lost by the time people reach this stage. The Opportunist is in fact a stage where the ego (in the way Jane Loevinger defines it - as the 'internal narrator' of experience) is powerfullly asserting itself - it's a stage at which the human has lost connection to their belonging to a bigger whole and is striving to individuate as a narrowly defined and very much self-centred "I". There is beauty and power in the opportuist - it is a courageous, wild, assertive stage - but in absence of connection with 'other' it can also be a very selfish stage. That selfishness was what I was referencing in my article - in connection to the political crisis/landscape and the way these stages manifst in the behaviours of aspirats to public office.
Going back to your challenge - how do we honour that beautiful early wholeness of the human - I wholeheartedly agree that is a state that perhaps should be the highest aspiration of a life's journey towards wisdom. When we are born we are connected with everything and then we forget about those connections. We become this "I" who is at first shortshighted and strives to define itself as something unique in the world. And as we grow and learn to play more of our piano we start to realise that there is no "I" in absence of "We" and, later, we discover that systemic dymension of "Thou". So in many ways the very latest stages of development in the western ego-development tradition are a return to that state of oneness - the culmination of a journey of building and then deconstructing our ego. The difference between babyhood and senectute is that in the latter we are indeed fully aware of that beautiful oneness.
I think there is much to learn from indiginous traditions and also from Eastern, community focused, wisdom traditions that would enrich the Western paradigms of human development. So I deeply appreciate the perspective you bring. I'd love to continue these conversations and I too hope our paths cross at some point - we'd have much to talk about!