stage theory

main ref: https://medium.com/@hanzifreinacht/the-6-hidden-patterns-introduction-b3d5cc63fa50

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+ the challenges/limitations of it: https://intimatemirror.substack.com/p/beyond-the-maps

Recommended readings + a few quotes:

https://technologicalmetamodernism.substack.com/p/what-is-metamodernism - chapter 4 technological metamodernism

https://metamoderna.org/5-things-that-make-you-metamodern/

First: a belief in development and progress.

Development always involves trade-offs. it’s optimistic but not stupid about it.
It’s optimism that has been through the postmodern critique and survived—not by ignoring the critique, but by incorporating it. Yes, efforts to improve the world often fail or backfire. Yes, power shapes outcomes in ways we can’t fully control. Yes, unintended consequences are real. And yet—we can still make things better.

Second: “aiming at reconstruction.”

Metamodernism accepts the need for reconstruction—for building new narratives, new systems, new ways of organizing social life—while remaining aware that these reconstructions are provisional, that they’ll need to be deconstructed and rebuilt again, that we’re creating what Freinacht calls a “proto-synthesis” rather than a final answer.
Every scientific theory is provisional—we know it’s going to be refined, maybe overturned. But that doesn’t stop us from using our current best theories to build bridges and cure diseases.

Third: “Both-and” thinking. This is perhaps the most distinctive feature of metamodern sensibility.

Where modernism tends toward “either-or” thinking—either reason or emotion, either individual or collective, either progress or tradition—and postmodernism tends to deconstruct these binaries entirely, metamodernism embraces “both-and.” Not by finding mushy middle grounds, but by recognizing that apparent opposites often need each other, that the tension between them is productive, that reality is complex enough to accommodate both.

Finally:

You don’t need to believe in developmental stages to appreciate ironic sincerity. You don’t need a hierarchy of consciousness to value both-and thinking. You don’t need a ladder of cultural evolution to pursue Game Change.

The greatest gift of metamodernism isn’t a new hierarchy or a claim to transcendent perspective. It’s a set of moves, a repertoire of responses to complexity and paradox. It’s a way of staying engaged without being naive, being critical without being paralyzed, being hopeful without being delusional.

yet, as hanzi puts it in the 6 hidden patterns chapter, i believe taking these questions and evidence seriously are the only honest way to continue this inquiry.

there does seem to be a law of complexification of consciousness¹, different lines² and stages through which humans evolve.³ how do these play out into the ethical development of humans, cultures and our systems?

our ethical impulse towards pluriversality needs to be upheld, but also challenged - the unfolding metacrisis demands us to consider how different cultures, actions and systems fair on a scale of narrow boundary to wide boundary consideration, from life-destroying to life-enhancing ways of seeing, being, knowing and doing.

do all ways of being deserve to exist in this world, even self-terminating ones? of course not. that's what law and ethics are about. we need to bind and transform them.

without this, we have no basis for making value judgments and opting for what enhances life.

¹ see: teilhard de chardin + regenerative references (see: toward a regenerative psychology of urban planning)