The Attraction of Idolatry

This notion came to me after being in a presentation with Trish Blain and hearing about her model of  the synergy between her notion of the four forces and Spiral Dynamics.

Various people throughout history have noticed that there are stages of development. We have development from childhood to adulthood. We have historical development of tribes, villages, towns, cities, nations, ...... civilizations. So, this developmental pattern is all around us. Wilber, Piaget, Kegan, etc., etc., have expounded on these stages of development. They have seen the "moon" and they have a "finger" pointing to the "moon". The finger is often a map, charts, graphics, .... that tries to describe the moon, i.e., that we have developmental stages as a fractal pattern in the universe. People create a "map" of the phenomenon. There a several issues with these  maps:

• The map entails implications that may not be present in the phenomenon
• The map becomes the focus of study, embellishment, "idolatory", dogma, ...
• ... still thinking ...

Let us take Spiral dynamics as an example. Spiral dynamics' map is a spiral graphic of stages of development. People can get so enamored of the graphic that they may forget that any representation of the underlying phenomenon leaves out many aspects of the depth and complexity of the phenomenon. So, the spiral creates a "simple" progression, like a ladder. You have to go rung by rung. You can't jump rungs. Contrast this spiral representation with a bucket of paint representation. We have all the colors of the spiral within us. Different "lights" / contexts highlight and bring forth different colors in us. I have seen young children act like wise adults on occasion, bypassing the teenage troubles. And we are all a mixture of colors. If our center of gravity is at turquoise, we have not lost our red. And certain contexts will bring out our red, blue, etc.

There is sometimes confusion in the spiral dynamics "community" about what is / is not possible in terms of stages of development. The actual phenomenon of stages of development is far more complex than any geometrical representation that we have yet been able to give it.