Stages
In the books "Integral Psychology" and "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality" by Ken Wilber (largely based on the work of several developmental psychologists), our basic values, sense of self-identity, ethics, and spirituality concerning our very subjective and intersubjective experiences unfold in stages. These stages may somewhat blend with each other as intersecting waves and not be rigidly separated, but we would still be unable to discount our predominant focus (or “center of gravity”) in any of them.
The findings of several developmental psychologists that are crucial ingredients of Wilber's Integral (or Meta Integral) Theory are depicted in a vertical manner of greater and lesser (more and less inclusive) levels of development and understanding that, despite appearing to be elitist, cannot be ignored. Too many researchers coincide in the fact that several psychological lines of development can be placed side by side and associated with the same levels or stages. Graves, Kegan, Loevinger, Commons, Richards, Piaget, Gebser, Fowler, and Cook-Greuter are some of the researchers associated with this approach.
As we evolve and expand our consciousness we move from stage to stage in different "lines of development," preferably retaining healthily the truths of the previous stages while simultaneously transcending their limitations. In this way, our consciousness (under the metaphor of a 'space' which can include more representations of reality without being trapped or self-identified in them) would expand. Unfortunately, when we move into a more inclusive stage, we often tend to pathologically transcend and differentiate more than include and, therefore, reject some still valid understandings of the previous stage.
A typical chain of evolutionary shifts in our human family would take place from status-seeking survival warriors to absolutist, mythic tribal-ethnic, hierarchically organized kings, emperors, and subjects to modern-rational, world-centric-capable individualists to ecological-egalitarian (often relativists) and, finally, to an incipient integral or truly universalist-comprehending individual. Moreover, all of these stages would be properly accompanied or correlated by stage-corresponding worldviews and only individuals in the integral stage would be able to incorporate and simultaneously differentiate the truths and falsehoods of previous worldviews associated with previous stages.
According to this stage-based, integral vision individuals in pre-integral stages would be intolerant of differing worldviews of individuals in their own stage or in other stages. In fact, they would typically either try to impose their worldviews on each other or dismiss them altogether.
Moreover, only from the Modern stage onwards we would be able to feel, think, and act in terms of one global humanity; eliminate conquering wars for ethnic "glory;" eliminate slavery, and develop a relatively fair Democracy. When a sufficient number of persons (perhaps 10%) have arrived at the next stage they become the intellectual and political leaders that create political, legal, and economic systems under which the rest of society will have to function (or play by their rules) regardless of the stage they are in. Under normal circumstances, dangerous deviants will not be tolerated.
The modern-rational stage tends to fall prey to materialism and to the excesses of individualist capitalism. It provides development but tends to be overtaken by selfish, power-seeking narcissists. The ecological-egalitarian stage tends to fall into extreme relativism. All are intolerant of each other but the premodern religious traditionalists may want to impose their truths to all others or, simply, eliminate them (thus the cultural wars among fundamentalists all over the world).
Once the modern systems are well-established people will have to follow their rules of checks and balances, equal rights, human rights, fair trade practices, and so on...unless a great number of them are mostly subjectively located in pre-modern meaning-making stages. A great number of persons deeply, and subjectively located in pre-modern meaning-making stages would be able to participate in a modern world democracy because doing that would require an emotionally distant, third-person cognitive approach. However, (especially if the developmental core of these individuals is emotionally politically activated for instance by demagoguery feeling that their worldviews and ethnic tribes are threatened) they may sabotage the modern systems (and Democracy) which - in principle - is not set in stone and can, therefore, regress. And this would mean that moving into more comprehensive stages would be thwarted or delayed.
Every stage of development in which a person is offers valid truths but, only in the integral stage, we would be able to truly value and reconcile the positive contributions of the truths of all the previous stages and our sense of personal identity would be able to expand even into a cosmo-centric one. We would care to continually learn and self-correct, to expand and connect our worldviews, to think meta theoretically, and also care for more than ourselves, our survival bands, tribes, ethnic identities, and nations, and eventually, even care for all life on Earth and beyond.
But this developmental Wilberian view would be very somber for our situation in the world today because (also according to Wilber) most people in the world would be in a pre-modern meaning-making stage, a very intolerant stage in which many of our worldviews would be highly incompatible. However, if the modern stage were reached by the majority of the world population it would stabilize social relationships across the globe because even if that stage is dismissive of previous stages considering them "belief-based" or "irrational" it already is somewhat tolerant (and paternalizing) of them (as long as they do not try to impose and destroy the individualism inherent in a modern democratic way of life).
Brains
Recent research in the field of neuropolitics shows that conservative brains and liberal brains are – on the whole - wired differently. This would mean that, generally speaking, the brains of individuals with a moderate to extreme right worldviews would consistently differ from those with a moderate to extreme left worldviews. The question is whether there is enough plasticity in the brain so that 1) worldviews can significantly change and 2) by changing worldviews, brain structures might also change and vice versa. The proposal of realistically creating and improving a worldview useful to better understand and adapt to the extraterrestrial presence and to the complex problems of interdependency that we face today hangs in the balance if resistance against change were stronger than the possibility of change.
The following statements are in the January 2021 Scientific American article “Conservative and Liberal Brains Might Have Some Real Differences”
“The volume of gray matter in the amygdala is linked to the tendency to perceive the social system as legitimate and desirable.” “Larger amygdala volume is associated with a lower likelihood of participating in political protests,” Nam says. “That makes sense in so far as political protest is a behavior that says, ‘We’ve got to change the system.’”
“On the whole, the research shows, conservatives desire security, predictability, and authority more than liberals do, and liberals are more comfortable with novelty, nuance, and complexity. If you had put Buckley and Vidal in a magnetic resonance imaging machine and presented them with identical images, you would likely have seen differences in their brain, especially in the areas that process social and emotional information. The volume of gray matter, or neural cell bodies, making up the anterior cingulate cortex, an area that helps detect errors and resolve conflicts, tends to be larger in liberals. And the amygdala, which is important for regulating emotions and evaluating threats, is larger in conservatives.”
“The biology and neuroscience of politics might be useful in terms of what is effective at getting through to people,” Van Bavel says. “Maybe the way to interact with someone who disagrees with me politically is not to try to persuade them on the deep issue, because I might never get there. It’s more to try to understand where they’re coming from and shatter their stereotypes.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/conservative-and-liberal-brains-might-have-some-real-differences/
The article “Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults” adds to this conversation and the MRI research involved should be taken into account.
“Political liberalism and conservatism were correlated with brain structure. Liberalism was associated with the gray matter volume of anterior cingulate cortex. Conservatism was associated with increased right amygdala size. Results offer possible accounts for cognitive styles of liberals and conservatives”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/
Worldviews
The Spectrum of Eight Modern Worldviews is depicted horizontally or in a more egalitarian manner. This depiction doesn't explicitly show that the left utopian and galactic worldviews are more inclusive or superior to others. However, I would implicitly assume that the farthest to the left the worldview is, the more advanced, universally connected, and interiorly guided (and, thus, suitable for peaceful human coexistence with all life on Earth and with extraterrestrials) it is.
Despite all of these eight worldviews being simultaneously present in today’s “modern” world, in a sense the more authoritarian or externally structured ones would coincide with Wilber’s and developmental psychologists’ premodern stages that require absolutist revealed truths and /or relate with the clearly defined beliefs and values of a culturally close-knit, ethnocentric community. Quite simply, they would not be pluralistic, planet-centric, or cosmo-centric. However, in many instances essentially premodern identities may be willing to include people from other cultures if they “come to the flock,” for instance, becoming traditionalists in terms of beliefs and practices.
But that discourse is simply not going to sell well among conservatives and authoritarians since, naturally, their sense of superiority under traditional ethnic and religious group identification characteristics would be challenged.
Progressives, liberals, and moderates may be intellectually proud in classic rational (Cartesian-Newtonian) terms and associate belief in UFOs with the irrationality of a previous era, therefore resisting looking at the evidence. Much of the mainstream media reflects this. However, a few individuals truly respectful of modern rationality as per objectively accepting wherever data will lead them would have to recognize the evidence of an extraterrestrial presence.
Conservative to authoritarian worldviews may be associated with a greater openness to spiritual approaches through “myth,” sacred texts, and traditional interpretations which (according to their particular beliefs or doctrines) may allow for openness to extraterrestrial reality or its condemnation. Then, since they are more inwardly directed with a sense of universal meaningful interconnectivity, utopians, and galactics would have an easier time recognizing realities that transcend or manipulate classic spacetime and its associated ways of thinking and organizing the human world under materialism. Thus, they would be more open to the extraterrestrial presence and able to approximate some of the potential tenets under which it operates.
Due to extensive close encounter literature, we must simply recognize that many close encounters with UFOs and their intelligences include psychic phenomena and this must be taken into account as per how most individuals situated at different stages may process this reality. The premodern, hierarchical, religious, theocratic cultural stage denies natural psychic phenomena (unless it is theologically interpreted) and the subsequent modern, rational stage also denies psychic phenomena as vestiges of superstition and erroneous or wishful thinking. But in the integral stage, more persons should begin to accept subtle-psychic phenomena once again, experiencing them while keeping a rational sense. However, we need to recognize that less analytical, and less rationally differentiating, cataloging, and judgmental shamanic cultures also included a way of perceiving reality in which everything was alive, conversant in human-similar terms, with all realities accessible and connected while blending subjective and objective perceptions.
Conclusion
Individuals can change their worldviews. Stages are rather stable and not trivial but individuals can move across them. Brains do have plasticity and perhaps individuals born (in general terms) with a certain brain structure associated with a proclivity towards conservatism or with a brain structure associated with a proclivity towards progressivism may be able to modify that if their life experiences motivate them to change their worldviews.
Other tenets of Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory state that physical aspects, subjective aspects, cultural aspects, and systemic aspects correlate with each other, and when one changes the others should also simultaneously change. In other words, perhaps accomplishing a major shift in worldviews would be associated with a correlated structural brain shift and with a consciousness shift in the breadth of our personal psychologies.
According to the MUFON Experiencer Survey and to the F.R.E.E. Experiencer Survey, a majority of persons having profound contact experiences changed their worldviews (and therefore, associated stages of development) towards personal identities that were less materialistic, less selfish, and more inclusive of universal values, respect for life, etc. Is this due to both the psychological awakening impact and the energies associated with the contact? Are the latter also modifying brain (reality decoding) structures?
As per UFOs and their occupants becoming a widely accepted reality in the world, we might be dealing with an opportunity to enhance our worldviews, brains, and levels of consciousness or development. Can we do it ourselves or will we need to be artificially enhanced?
Is after all our human nature more adaptive under the right circumstances than what the stubbornness of stages, worldviews, and brains might be?
These are issues that have to be carefully explored and considered if we are to offer constructive (and not disastrous) advice to policymakers.
Image source: Ken Wilber et al.; " Altitudes of consciousness across some major developmental lines. " Integral Life Practice. (Boston: Integral Books, 2008) 103.
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