The Great Stage Theory Debate

This page is for keeping track of key parts of the Great Stage Theory Debate. This will include the most relevant of my direct responses, but in general my work including regarding decolonization is available through the front page and menu bar and won't be duplicated here.

Since folks might land here without context for the HELLAMETAMODERNISM (formerly Apophany / Epiphany) site, I (Henry Andrews) will talk about myself in the 3rd person for the rest of the page.

Primary material

The original post (2021-10-08), with select comment links

• Nora Bateson's initial post (henceforth "the original post")
• My proposal of the Ways of Being with subsequent discussion
• Comment thread around a video by Bonnitta Roy including some random interesting side threads
• Metamodernist Lene Rachel Andersen comments
• Robert Conan Ryan argues for separating mainstream psychology stage theories from Graves / Spiral Dynamics, positioning the latter as a theory of cultural consciousness
• Jon Freeman's initial reply
• Extensive discussion regarding Graves / Spiral Dynamics kicked of by Julien Pujol featuring Jon Freeman, Nora Bateson, Henry Andrews, and others, including Nora's meadow and deer antler examples later referenced by Jon in his Medium article

Spin-off and reply posts on social media

• 2021-08-11 Hanzi Freinacht's first and second replies to the original post
• 2021-08-12 Discussion of the original post in the Beck-Graves Spiral Dynamics group
• 2021-09-03 Jonathan Waller posted looking for a more nuanced view, which resulted in some substantive discussions
• 2021-09-09 Nora Bateson asks What are the unnoticed, habituated ideas that defy the efforts of so many people with 'good intent' and persist in perpetuating and justifying the existing systems?  (The mention of "both/and" is likely in response to Jon Freeman's "Violence, Darwin, Eugenics, and Judgement" linked in the next section)

Videos, podcasts, and articles

Nora Bateson with others:

• 2021-08-31 Stages & Development Series - ft. Nora Bateson, Maimunah Mosli, Jon Freeman [Mutations Panel 1]
  Discussion panel moderated by Jeremy Johnson on his Mutations channel
• 2021-08-31 Are stage theories colonial? Nora Bateson in dialogue with Robert Conan Ryan
  A dialogue on Jeremy Johnson's Mutations channel

Jon Freeman:

• 2021-08-31 Violence, Darwin, Eugenics and Judgement: Seeing Through the Problem with Stages
  Medium article following the discussion panel (See also: Discussion of the article in the Beck-Graves Spiral Dynamics group)
• 2021-10-26 Timelines in Stage Theory:  From Flatland and Stasis to Living Dynamics
  (or on Medium, minus some introductory text)

Henry Hamilton Andrews:

• Background material: Cyclic Gravesian diagrams
• 2021-08-28 Decolonizing Gravesian Theory: A Call to Action
  Henry Andrews's initial, intentionally polemical, response
• 2021-12-01 Clare Graves, Spiral Dynamics, and Stage Theory Critique
  Henry Andrews on Brendan Graham Dempsey's Metamodern Spirituality podcast
• 2021-12-22 Riff on Stage Theory, Nora Bateson, & Graves/SD
  Henry Andrews on Ryan Nakade's Meta-Ideological Politics podcast
• See also the media page

Hanzi Freinacht:

• 2022-01-11 Is vertical stage development real, BS, both, or neither?
  Daniel Görtz on CAD - Center for Applied Dialectics

Others:

• 2021-09-04 The Parallax View on whether cognitive developement and stage-theories are real or not
• 2021-10-27 The Great Stage-Theory Debate: “Colonial BS” or “True and Humane”?
  The Daily Evolver
• 23-11-2021 Nuancing the Stage Theory Discussion
  Zak Stein on Brendan Graham Dempsey's Metamodern Spirituality podcast

The Dawn of Everything (Graeber & Wengrow)

Select reviews and discussions of the book.  This does not attempt to be comprehensive.

• What Is Politics critiques from the left (apparently a series, so check them for more entries as I may not keep up here):
  – 30-09-2021 10. The Wisdom of Kandiaronk
  – 26-10-2021 10.1 What is an "Egalitarian Society"
  – 16-12-2021 10.2 How Graeber & Wengrow’s book makes us bad at politics
• 19-11-2021 A Flawed History of Humanity by David A. Bell on the "free speech" site Persuasion
• Reviews by Brendan Graham Dempsey of the Metamodern Sprituality podcast:
  – 03-12-2021 Reflections on "The Dawn of Everything"
  – 05-12-2021 Further Reflections on "The Dawn of Everything"
• 11-12-2021 THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING DEBATE ~ ft. Jeremy Johnson, Brendan Graham Dempsey and Layman Pascal from Ryan Nakade's Meta-Ideological Politics podcast
• 15-12-2021 Zak Stein on The Dawn of Everything, Development, and our Political Imagination from Jeremy Johnsons's Mutations podcast

Additional resources

In no particular order.  These are mostly things that someone linked in one of the above discussions that I found interesting or useful, whether I agree with them or not.

• The Place of Eugenics in Arnold Gesell’s Maturation Theory of Child Development
  A very long paper on eugenics and stage theories, which also discusses Piaget.  Found by Robert Conan Ryan
• Decolonizing Conflict Resolution: Addressing the Ontological Violence of Westernization
  A paper in The American Indian Quarterly on Western individualistic vs communal Indigenous conflict resolution, which Henry Andrews thought would make for a good check of whether the individualistic/communal polarity was something we could accept as an ethical label, particularly when self-applied in the context of self-advocacy (everyone was too worn out by the discussion to get into it, at least so far)
• The Squishy Mud of Warm Data — Where Senses Find Senses
  A Medium article by Nora Bateson that Henry personally found helpful with understanding warm data.  Most notably the following line: Warm Data does not offer measurements, but rather a look in the rearview mirror at the hunger to control.
• A "Letter" of Intervention and Invitation to Ken, Don, and the Integral Community (Feb. 2003)
  Nearly a two decades ago, Sara Ross raised similar concerns around SD/Integral, although pointing to cognitive approaches such as the MHC as a way forwards.
• Report from Critical Realism Integral Theory Symposium (Oct. 2011)
  Bonnitta Roy lays out a highly relevant critique of Integral Theory / developmental theory that emerged from a discussion between Critical Realist Roy Bhaskar and a number of Integral theorists.
• Chris Perez's overview of Hanzi Freinacht's developmental theory (endorsed by Daniel Görtz)