Discussion

Brendan Graham Dempsey:

"Graves developed his theory of eight levels after synthesizing years of empirical research from countless prompts and tests he’d administered to his students. The prompt for essayistic responses was: “What does a psychologically mature adult look like?” After collecting the responses, a group of independent judges reviewed the responses each year and were asked to categorize them without further guidance. Again and again, the judges tended to categorize them according to a specific schema. This schema formed the basis of the eight levels Graves identified from the data.

(See: Emergent Cyclical Levels of Existence Theory (ECLET) )

According to Graves’s ECLET model, a stage sequence of specific material life conditions (symbolized by the first 8 letters of the alphabet) were met by the individual with an accompanying set of neurophysiological response systems (symbolized by the 8 letters from N to U). Thus, A conditions engender the individual’s N adaptive response, B conditions engender the O adaptive response, and so forth. Thus we get the 8 “levels of existence”: A-N, B-O, C-P, D-Q, E-R, F-S, G-T, and H-U.

The first two of these levels were not evidenced in Graves’s data, but extrapolated from anthropological data: A-N is a hypothetical “archaic” level of pure survival needs; B-O is the “Animistic” level of tribal societies. The remainder were deduced from empirical responses to Graves’s survey question.

According to Graves, the levels alternate, one to the next, between an instinct to “express the self” or to “sacrifice the self,” to be individualistically assertive or communally submissive. These are the two poles the individual oscillates between as they develop through the levels. Development is conceived as a spiral, wherein the individual returns to self- assertion or submission again and again from higher and higher vantages.

To provide some concrete examples of what this looks like, here are some of the actual data provided by his subjects that Graves cites as instances of the different levels:

* C-P: Self-Assertive

“Life is a jungle - one goddamned great big jungle. It is survival of the fittest and that is all. Anybody who does not recognize this is not or will never be a grown up person. Life is competition, it is fight and struggle and get and take and hang on. Some they have got it to fight there way through it and some they just don’t have it. The grownup he survives, or he go down big in trying he’s got it. He is the guy who fights to get what he needs and he keeps after it till he gest it. If he wants some chick he don’t take no. He wears her down. One thing about him is he don’t chicken, he don’t let fear stand in his way. … There ain’t no reason for him to feel guilty cause a man’s got to live ain’t he? This aint no picnik world in which he live. It better he do what have to be done cause he can’t hold his head up if he ain’t a man.”

* D-Q: Self-Submitting

1

“Right is right and wrong is wrong and if you are going to be mature you better learn it, the sooner the better. It always has been this way and it will always be because that is the way it is. My old man learned it from his and his old man learned it from his father, and my kids are going to learn it from me because that is the law of the land. …God is vengeful, he is to be feared. …God says there are laws we must live by or He will see to it we pay for it in the future.”

2

"It is my honest belief that what is a mature personality is determined by that power which determines good and evil in the world. God created man and God has indicated in His Ten Commandments the principles by which the human should live. It is not for me to decide what God pretended [I believe this is a Freudian slip and she meant ‘intended’]. If God had wanted man to decide he would have indicated that. He would not have “commanded”. … have decided the only way I can fulfill the assignment is to decry [I believe she meant ‘describe’] what I think God meant by each of his commandments.” (The respondent then proceeds to list the Ten Commandments and consider psychological maturity with regard to each.)"

* E-R: Self-Assertive

“After giving rational thought to what is the mature personality I have come to the following list of characteristics which add up to what it is.

1. The major characteristic of the mature person is that he is an independently operating individual.

2. The mature does what has to be done. He is not held back in his actions or judgments by that which other people do or believe.

3. The mature does not accept without questions existing data, theories or practices.

4. He is energetic, outspoken and expressive of what he believes regardless of where others stand.

5. The mature does for himself and thinks for himself. He does not look to others for their guidance or support and he does not need their acceptance or acclaim.

6. The mature person is absolutely objective. He does not let his emotions interfere with what has to be done. He is an acting person who keeps feelings out of his actions.

…10. The mature person does not feel guilty or ashamed for doing what rationally has to be done.

…16. He is not satisfied with yesterday’s ways unless he has found them to work and he holds to them only so long as he sees them to work.”

* F-S: Self-Submitting

1

“Since the self can only be a derivative of what is outside the self, since man’s self consciousness, his “selfhood”, seems necessarily to be socially founded, an obsession with individuality and autonomy appears a bit unrealistic… …Rationality is valued as a means of growth, though owing to man’s nature, by no means an exclusive means. …The concept of God as a moral force is virtually dismissed… …As a final note, maturity also engenders a sort of overview of what such a paper as this has an object - i.e. something of a self-reflexive awareness of the relative nature of opinion; a

recognition that although I can and must (because of my humanness) argue out of my own position, argumentation and opinion from other positions is equally valid in the sense of being understandable and defensible.”

2

“The mature personality is a participating, creative personality which in its operation does justice to every type of personality, every mode of culture, every human potential without forming anyone into typological molds. …He or she believes in an absolutely open society …He or she behaves so as to demonstrate that every person may be freely heard.…He or she seeks to widen the ties of fellowship without respect to birth, caste or property, and disavows claims to special privilege or the exclusivity of leadership. He or she replaces Godly authority with the temporal authority of the time and the place. …To the mature technology is for human needs, not power, productivity, profit or prestige and scientific endeavour is not for ruthless exploitation or desecration. …He or she believes one should know both the objective and the subjective and show the ability to face one’s whole self…”

(https://www.brendangrahamdempsey.com/emergentism-notes)

Source

Book: Emergentism: A Religion of Complexity for the Metamodern World. By Adyahanzi, Brendan Graham Dempsey. Metamodern Spirituality Series, Vol. VI.

URL = https://www.brendangrahamdempsey.com/metamodern-spirituality-series

For more, see also: Emergentism as a Religion of Complexity