These psychological classifications are just maps. Maps, famously, often don’t match the territory. Looking from distance, they match something important, but when you look too closely, the analogies start falling apart.
From the perspective of scientific rigor, Kegan seems to be in the same league as Freud. It is quite ironic that the rationalist community treats them almost as the opposite extremes. Designing stages of psychological development was a popular hobby among famous psychologists: Freud, Erikson, Piaget, Kohlberg, Gilligan, Kegan, Maslow, Loevinger, Fowler, Graves, Wilber, Cook-Greuter and others have proposed their own hierarchies.
By coincidence, everyone who likes these schemes, finds themselves at the highest level, placing the people they don’t like below them. A part of that is that people prefer the schemes that place them on the top. Another part is that people see themselves from inside and everyone else from outside, so it is natural to conclude that your own mental life is richer and more mature than anyone else’s. Of course, you—yes, you—are sophisticated and capable of nuanced thought and evaluating multiple perspectives, while everyone else is just an amoeba following their mindless impulses, or a fanatic incapable of changing their mind. (It helps that it is typically educated people who study such things, and educated people already see themselves, rightfully or not, at the peak of mental life.)
It is easy to play the game of placing others below you, once you recognize the rules. Hey, everyone who talks about Kegan levels belongs to level 4, because that is the level for people who believe in one system. Everyone who thinks that Kegan levels are just one system among many belongs to level 5. (The general pattern is: “everyone who is smart enough to agree with me is at the top; everyone not smart enough to agree is lower”.)
Again, maps like this point at something important, when seen from distance. But if you start playing games with them, then you are just playing games; and the rules of the game are the same regardless of the map you use.
These psychological classifications are just maps. Maps, famously, often don’t match the territory. Looking from distance, they match something important, but when you look too closely, the analogies start falling apart.
From the perspective of scientific rigor, Kegan seems to be in the same league as Freud. It is quite ironic that the rationalist community treats them almost as the opposite extremes. Designing stages of psychological development was a popular hobby among famous psychologists: Freud, Erikson, Piaget, Kohlberg, Gilligan, Kegan, Maslow, Loevinger, Fowler, Graves, Wilber, Cook-Greuter and others have proposed their own hierarchies.
By coincidence, everyone who likes these schemes, finds themselves at the highest level, placing the people they don’t like below them. A part of that is that people prefer the schemes that place them on the top. Another part is that people see themselves from inside and everyone else from outside, so it is natural to conclude that your own mental life is richer and more mature than anyone else’s. Of course, you—yes, you—are sophisticated and capable of nuanced thought and evaluating multiple perspectives, while everyone else is just an amoeba following their mindless impulses, or a fanatic incapable of changing their mind. (It helps that it is typically educated people who study such things, and educated people already see themselves, rightfully or not, at the peak of mental life.)
It is easy to play the game of placing others below you, once you recognize the rules. Hey, everyone who talks about Kegan levels belongs to level 4, because that is the level for people who believe in one system. Everyone who thinks that Kegan levels are just one system among many belongs to level 5. (The general pattern is: “everyone who is smart enough to agree with me is at the top; everyone not smart enough to agree is lower”.)
Again, maps like this point at something important, when seen from distance. But if you start playing games with them, then you are just playing games; and the rules of the game are the same regardless of the map you use.