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don't feel ready to be written up as a full post
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Sometimes the subject of Kegan Levels comes up and it actually matters a) that a developmental framework called "kegan levels" exists and is meaningful, b) that it applies somehow to The Situation You're In.
But, almost always when it comes up in my circles, the thing under discussion is something like "does a person have the ability to take their systems as object, move between frames, etc." And AFAICT this doesn't really need to invoke developmental frameworks at all. You can just ask if a person has a the "move between frames" skill.*
This still suffers a bit from the problem where, if you're having an argument with someone, and you think the problem is that they're lacking a cognitive skill, it's a dicey social move to say "hey, your problem is that you lack a cognitive skill." But, this seems a lot easier to navigate than "you are a Level 4 Person in this 5 Level Scale".
(I have some vague sense that Kegan 5 is supposed to mean something more than "take systems as object", but no one has made a great case for this yet, and in case it hasn't been the thing I'm personally running into)
Seems to me that the main problem with linear systems where you put yourself at the top (because, who doesn't?), is that the only choice it gives everyone else is either to be the same as you, or to be inferior. Disagreeing with the system probably makes one inferior, too.
Feels a bit ironic, if this is considered to be a pinnacle of emotional development...
But of course now I am constructing a frame where I am at the top and those people who like the Kegan scale are silly, so... I guess this is simply what humans do: invent classifications that put them on the top. ;)
And it doesn't even mean that those frames are wrong; if there is a way to put people on a linear scale, then technically, someone has to be on the top. And if the scale is related to understanding, then your understanding of the scale itself probably should correlate with your position on it.
So, yes, it is better to not talk about the system itself, and just tell people where specifically they made a mistake.
6Raemon
I think I don't feel too bad about "hey, looks like we just disagree in some fundamental way here I'm not interested in trying to resolve, sorry". It might be rude in some circles but I think I'm willing to bite the bullet on "it's pretty necessary for that to be an okay-move to pull on LW and in rationalist spaces."
I think "we disagree in a fundamental way" isn't quite accurate, and there's a better version that's something like "I think we're thinking in pretty different frames/paradigms and I don't think it makes sense to bridge that disconnect."
A thing making it tricky (also relevant to Viliam's comment) is that up until recently there wasn't even a consensus that different-frames were a thing, that you might need to translate between.
This is an experiment in short-form content on LW2.0. I'll be using the comment section of this post as a repository of short, sometimes-half-baked posts that either:
I ask people not to create top-level comments here, but feel free to reply to comments like you would a FB post.