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Basic Steps in the Paradigm of Adequate Structuralism

      If we can switch now from an appreciation of the importance of including the "1p" in any 3p x 1p" approaches, let's look now at the importance of the 3p component.

     The methodologies of zone #2 have one foot in both worlds, so to speak—the world of first-person realities and the world of third-person realities. (Typically, they are therefore condemned by both of those worlds, but that's another story.) It is by using the paradigm or social practice of adequate structuralism that we can determine, for example, the steps necessary to develop ecological consciousness, given that ecosystems themselves do not produce ecological consciousness nor explain it.

     How, then, does adequate structuralism work? In individuals and groups? (Let me repeat that in fig. 2, "structuralism" is listed only as the outside of first-person singular, not plural, which is labeled "cultural anthropology"; the reason is that structuralism examines the patterns or internality codes of a holon, and a collective or communal holon is a much more difficult and complex event than an individual holon. Structuralism can be, and is, used in both, but finds its simplest application in individuals.) As an example of adequate structuralism, let's a take a famous study and set it an AQAL framework.

     A poor man is married to a woman who is terminally ill. There is a medicine at the local pharmacy that will save her life. The man cannot afford the medicine. Does he have the right to steal it?

     The background: Even when structuralists are focusing on individuals, they usually begin by studying large groups or aggregates of individuals, and they do so for several reasons.

      First, there is the complex issue of transformation. We saw that, as a very rough generalization, it takes an average of about 5 years for a person to transform from one given stage to the next, because vertical transformation from one structure to another is generally a laborious and prolonged growth process. It follows that if you study only one individual, you will have to study that individual for decades in order to actually see any transformations or development. On the other hand, if you study large groups of individuals, you will catch many of them undergoing transformation, and hence you can study the development of structures more easily. With groups, you can study transformation.

      Second, structuralism is a third-person approach to first-person realities (a description of the outward behavior of interiors known by acquaintance). But that means that a fair amount of the descriptive (or third-person) aspects of structuralism can be engaged in without personal transformation on the part of the researcher. The individual reading Spiral Dynamics, for example, can learn or memorize the definitions of the various levels without necessarily transforming to all of them. In terms of the first-person realities, this is a handicap; but in terms of the third-person aspects, it is a bit of an advantage. Just as a scientist can describe the behavior of a mountain lion without himself becoming a mountain lion (or directly communing with the first-person realities of a mountain lion), so a researcher can, to some degree, observe and describe the behavior of interior holons without fully entering into their insides. Of course, at some point hermeneutic entry is absolutely essential to structuralism (it's the first-person component of structuralism), but a good deal of the third-person component of structuralism is just that: an outside view of the behavior.

      What that means—and this is one of its great strengths—is that structuralism as a mode of inquiry allows a researcher to initially observe a large number of transformations without himself having to personally transform. That is the advantage of the "distancing" contained in its third-person components. If it takes the average person five years to transform, then any given researcher could study by acquaintance only one structure every five years or so. But the third-person or descriptive component of structuralism, by temporarily removing the structuralist from the burden of first-person transformation, allows the researcher to follow and observe various outward aspects of the development of a large number of structures and stages that he or she would never be able to observe if confined to the necessities of only first-person methodologies.

     This is why these important stages of consciousness evolution cannot be seen or accessed by "first-person of first-person" paradigms— these stages of development cannot be seen by collaborative inquiry, participatory epistemology, action inquiry, hermeneutics, or phenomenology.You can introspect all you want, or practice collaborative inquiry and hermeneutics and participatory pluralism all you want, and you will not see these types of stages.¹⁹

     Nor will meditation disclose these particular types of developmental stages. Sit on a zazen mat for years, and you will never see a thought that says, "This is stage-3 morals, this the multiplistic value structure, this is the conscientious self-sense," etc. These important stages are invisible to zone #1. Nor, of course, will you see these stages if you practice merely zone #3 or #4 methodologies, such as systems theory or ecology. They are, rather, the special gift of the zone #2 event horizon of indigenous perspectives.

      Take the example of the medicine for the ill wife. Should the husband steal the medicine? If you introspect your own awareness for an answer, you might begin to morally reason about this dilemma and come up with some sort of answer. It might be a very good answer, too. Or perhaps you might discuss this issue with some friends or colleagues, and engage in a hermeneutic or collaborative inquiry to see what answer seems most appropriate. The former is a first-person of first-person singular, and the latter is a first-person of first-person plural. Both are extremely valuable paradigms or modes of human inquiry.

      But none of those methodologies, no matter how intensively engaged and successfully completed, will ever reveal stages or waves of the moral response—unless you and your friends are willing to have that conversation for a decade or two. What the structuralist does instead is simply pose that question to very large groups of individuals and then note, say, their verbal and cognitive behavior in response to those questions. What structuralists have found is that individuals tend to give three very different responses to that particular question—should the husband steal the medicine? The first response is "yes"; the second is "no"; and the third is "yes."

      Response 1 is yes, the husband should steal the medicine. Why? Because what is right is what I say is right. What is morally right is whatever I want, and if I want to steal it, I'll steal it.

      Response 2 is no, the husband should not steal the medicine. Why? Because what is right is what society and the law says is right, and the law says you cannot steal the medicine, and therefore the husband should not do so under any circumstances.

      Response 3 is yes, the husband should steal the medicine. Why? Because there are larger principles involved here, and in this case, life is more important that a conventional rule amounting to a few dollars. Life is more valuable than that.

      What the structuralist has done is pose a dilemma to a group of individuals, note the responses to that dilemma, and then see if those responses show any pattern (or fall into any types or classes). This, for example, is exactly what Carol Gilligan did with the research summarized in her book In a Different Voice. Instead of "Should the husband steal the medicine?," one of her questions was, "Should a woman be allowed to have an abortion?" Gilligan, too, found the same three general responses that I just summarized: yes, she has the right to an abortion; no, she does not have the right to an abortion; yes, she does have the right. (Those classes of responses are, of course, the outside or third-person descriptions of the interior realities of the individuals responding to the questions. Hence, a third-person of first-person.)

      If the structuralist notices any general classes of responses, such as the ones Carol Gilligan found, then the structuralist might follow that same group over a period of a year or more. If it is a large group, and if the responses that the structuralist noticed are actually stages, then the structuralist will find the following: if a person who originally gave one response changes her response, it is in the direction of the next response, not in the direction of the previous response. In other words, if the person originally gave response 2, and if she then consistently changes her response, it is always to response 3, not 1. In short, there is a directionality here, or a stage sequence, at least for that group.

      Thus, if the first general step of adequate structuralism is noticing any classes of responses, the second step is trying to determine if those classes are actually stages—that is, if they emerge in a sequence that cannot be altered by social or environmental conditioning. (If they are real stages, the reason they cannot be altered by social conditioning is the same reason that the sequence "atoms to molecules to cells" cannot be altered by environmental conditioning—you can't have cells first and then atoms, because cells are composed of atoms. True stages are compound individuals that become ingredients, elements, or subholons in succeeding compound individuals, and you cannot alter that sequence without destroying it, just as you cannot change the sequence "letters to words to sentences": you cannot first have sentences and then words, no matter how much social or environmental conditioning you apply to somebody. The same is true of real stages in any realm. They represent the directionality of development or evolution in that realm—what Prigogine calls "the asymmetry of time's arrow"—and that directionality cannot be reversed without destroying the entire sequence. They represent, in fact, what we are calling Kosmic habits in that realm.)

      The structuralist therefore follows this group over a period of years—a longitudinal study—and watches very carefully the sequential relation of these classes of responses. If they do indeed emerge in a sequence that does not seem alterable by environmental conditioning, then the structuralist provisionally accepts that these classes of responses are stages in a developmental sequence of some sort (at least for this group).

      At the next step, structuralists generally attempt to extend their studies to larger groups in an attempt to determine how "local" or how "universal" these stages might be. This is a purely reconstructive inquiry after the fact—it is an empirical inquiry in that sense. As we have seen in previous excerpts, some stages apply only to a few people, some to small subcultures, some to cultures, some to humans in general, but this is a matter of actual research by those versed in the social practice of adequate structuralism (grounded in adequate hermeneutics). No competent structuralist has ever implied stage sequences for individuals without appropriate evidence.

      If these responses continue to appear to be stages—whether local or universal—then at some point, the structuralist will very likely attempt to zero-in on the actual structure of each stage itself (which is obviously the heart of structuralism). We will return to this last and important step in a moment.

Holism: The Great Gift of the Third-Person Indigenous Perspectives

      First notice our original point: a structuralist does not necessarily have to transform to all of those stages in order to study aspects of their behavior. For example, a researcher herself might be at Gilligan's stage 2 and still be able to notice and describe the outward behavior of responses 1, 2, and 3. That is one of the advantages of structuralism: it allows certain major transformations to be seen that would never be seen otherwise.

      It is the third-person component of structuralism that confers this temporary freedom on the researcher, a freedom that, within obvious limits, all third-person approaches share. The whole point about being a third person is that you are not a first person, and although that means you lack the strengths of a first-person view, it also means you lack the weaknesses.

     The reason that third-person approaches are so valuable, and the reason they have always been considered a cornerstone of sound epistemology, is that they do not stop inquiry with how "I" or "we" might view this event. Rather, if you and I want to make sure that what we just saw is actually real—and not just a hallucination on our part, on a prejudice that we are caught in, or a distorted perception, a mistaken view, an unfair bias, and so on—then we will call in other people—we will call in numerous third persons—and we will ask them to look at what we just saw and find out if they see the same thing. The more third persons that we bring in, and the more of them that tell us that they see the same thing, then the more likely that what we saw was real. The third-person approaches (or the third-person components of any approaches) thus attempt to determine the types of things that any competent person might see if they approach this particular event with this particular paradigm. (Which is why they are the foundation of most sciences—physics, biology, chemistry, systems theory, and ecology). The third-person approaches are the great curb to narcissism (and hence are the first approaches denied by boomeritis), and they are the approaches most dedicated to truth for all, not just truth for me or truth for us.

     The only time the third-person approaches run into trouble is when caught in their own absolutisms—which is, alas, pretty much all the time (like virtually all the other major paradigms and zones, each of which is a partial truth often intent on being the whole). Still, that is technically called scientism, not science. The third-person approaches as part of an integral methodological pluralism are the great anchors of truth; when used exclusively, they are the great robbers and destroyers of the interiors—as we have often seen, they (intentionally or unintentionally) kill culture and consciousness.

      The third-person approaches, as a rightful part of a more integral embrace, are also useful for the panoramic view that they can offer, even to an individual's perception. I can look at a tree from an objective or third-person distance, and I can also feel the tree up close in a first-person touch: both approaches are important. But the 3p or "looking" approaches become mandatory when it comes to whole networks and systems—for example, when it comes to forests and not merely trees—because you can only see forests, you cannot touch forests.

     That is, only the modes of inquiry that have a "3p" component in them actually see wholes, systems, and networks, all of which can only be perceived/conceived from a distance. The methodologies from zone #2 ( 3p x 1p) and zone #4 ( 3p x 3p)—precisely because they have 3p components—are therefore our only major sources of information about holism of any sort (whether the interior holism of structuralism or the exterior holism of systems theory and ecology). Wholes can indeed be felt from within, but not adequately seen or conceptualized. These profoundly important zone #2 approaches—by enacting, bringing forth, and highlighting the third-person dimensions of being-in-the-world—indeed remind us of the many ways that we are in this together. This honoring of holism is perhaps the greatest of the many gifts of the zone #2 paradigms of indigenous perspectives.

Harmonic Resonance

     At some point, as we were saying, structuralism is both grounded in, and must directly re-connect with, hermeneutics, a move not overtly required by the merely 3p approaches, such as traditional systems theory or ecology. With systems theory (or any "3p x 3p" approach), you and I might be studying, say, a particular gorilla and his family as they forage for food in the wild. Using the paradigm of ecological systems theory, we are looking at their objective behavior, what they eat, when they eat, how often they eat; the types of local flora and fauna that support the gorilla family; changes in the local ecosystem and how they affect the gorilla family; and the entire web of observable inter-relationships and their intricate impact on each other. In short, we are studying the objective (and interobjective or third-person plural) dimensions of the gorilla family and its ecosystem. In order to make sure that we are not mistaken, we bring in other researchers to look at the situation: they are third persons looking at our third-person research ("3p x 3p"). If these third persons see the same third-person events that we did, then that increases the likelihood that what we saw was real (e.g., the gorillas in this local ecosystem eat an average of 5 kilograms of bananas each week).

     The structuralist, on the other hand, is not studying merely the exterior behavior in order to see any exterior patterns (objective or interobjective), but exterior behavior in order to deduce interior patterns (subjective or intersubjective). Unlike a systems theorist, who is content to abstract his abstractions and thus work a third-person of third-person realities—never prehending or attempting to prehend the interiors of the "its" that he studies—the structuralist must work within a hermeneutic space, because her endeavor is a third-person OF first-person realities.

     In this case, if we are attempting a hermeneutic of gorilla felt-meaning, we would attempt to discern, feel, intuit, or resonate with the interior of the gorilla himself. The great ape family has a very sophisticated symbolic and signaling capacity, capable of communicating numerous interior states of hunger, desire, irritation, rage, urgency, and jealously. How do we know that? Because the humans, including the scientific researchers, who have actually spent time with the apes say so. The humans who interact with apes almost unanimously assert that those sentient beings—the apes—have the capacity to feel those feelings. These humans are spontaneously engaged in a native hermeneutics or a native resonating with the interiors of other sentient beings, in this case, the apes. In the previous excerpt we called this harmonic resonance or empathic resonance.

     According to AQAL metatheory, because both humans and apes possess a limbic system, this indicates that they can also share interiors up to that level of evolutionary complexity (as well as a significant amount of neocortex signs and symbols, including a rudimentary language). This means that both humans and apes can share cultural solidarity up to at least that general region in the AQAL matrix—they can share interiors up to that level. Hermeneutics looks at those interiors from the inside (e.g., "What is the ape feeling?"), structuralism looks at those interiors from the outside (e.g., "How do those feelings manifest in the ape's behavior?")—and hence structuralism must use hermeneutics to get started, and to finish. (Systems theory, of course, ignores those interiors altogether and examines only interobjective exteriors, which is fine for what it does.)

     Here is a typical dictionary entry for gorillas ( Microsoft Bookshelf): "Gorillas are shy and amiable creatures, usually living in groups of 5 to 15. Mature males may form all-male groups or loosely attach themselves to other bands. Gorillas build makeshift camps each night after a day of foraging for vegetation. Their calls include a hooting sound uttered as an alarm signal, sharp grunts for invoking discipline, and low growls for expressing pleasure."

     "Living in groups of 5 to 15" is an example of a third-person or objective fact or claim; but note the words "shy," "amiable," "alarm," and "pleasure"—those are all clearly on the first-person or hermeneutic side of the street, and rightly so. How do we know apes have those feelings? Well, like we said, and like with all first-person aspects: you had to be there—so hang around gorillas for a while and see what you think. As noted, virtually every third person who does so claims that gorillas feel desire, alarm, pleasure, jealously, rage.... And if those humans study ape behavior as motivated by those feelings, then they are engaged in structuralism by whatever name: a third-person look at first-person feelings (as they manifest in behavior and are deduced from that behavior). Hence, 3p x 1p in an integral calculus of indigenous perspectives.

     Nobody is denying that hermeneutics is the hard part of that or any knowing; hermeneutics is just as hard to do with humans as with apes, dogs, deer, bacterium, or any other sentient holon. And, obviously, the lower the holon, and the "less" interior it has, then the less a human can easily resonate with it (and hence must resort more to the third-person side of the street). But "less" interior does not mean "no" interior; and "hard to do" does not mean "therefore can be completely ignored." Certainly when it comes to any integral methodological pluralism worth its name, to dismiss hermeneutics is to dismiss the entire within of the Kosmos—as we said, to completely kill culture and consciousness.

     This is why so much of the great and enduring research on the ape family has come from investigators—Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall, for example—who either intuitively or methodologically used both hermeneutics and structuralism to access the phenomenological reality of those rather extraordinary sentient beings.

     (Would it help to point out that they were women? And that women tend to natively emphasize first-person and not just third-person? And probably do so for evolutionary reasons? And that they...., well, that is another story, surely....)

Structures Inside and Out

     The thesis of AQAL metatheory is that the four quadrants—the indigenous perspectives—"go all the way down," but that their self-reflexive grasp tends to emerge only at senior waves of evolution. By the time we get to humans, any systematic methodology must take the quadrants (and their zones) into conscientious account, and that certainly applies to structuralism and hermeneutics.

     This is why we have been saying that in order to finally and fully describe a structure or stage of development, I must know that structure both from within and from without. A structuralist cannot give an authentic or adequate account of moral-response 3 without herself inhabiting that wave and knowing it by acquaintance. If a particular researcher is gifted, and she herself is predominately wave 2, she can nonetheless spot many higher waves in their outward form or behavior; but at some point other researchers who are at those waves will do a more competent job in knowing that wave from both within and from without, and will therefore do a better job of elucidating the structure of the agency itself.

      Hermeneutics alone would never be able to spot these stages (since, as a first-person of first-persons, it is confined to the within of its own horizon, horizons that transform every five years or so, on average), and structuralism alone would never be able to elucidate them (since, as a third-person of first-persons, the third person of the researcher herself may or may not be at the first-person stage being studied). Systems theory, of course, can neither spot interior stages nor elucidate them (nor does it care to, which is fine, as long as it does not violate the nonexclusion principle). Integral Methodological Pluralism conscientiously makes room for all of them, and points to the disasters that otherwise result.