Permit Development: G6

Creativity or Stagnation

Functioning of the school is now ensured through adherents' engagement of their core self (G1), their sense of collegiality (G2), their active involvement (G3), and the recognition from wider society (G4) while upholding orthodoxy (G5).

Doctrines are envisaged as perennial truths and schools expect to persist over decades if not centuries. But that means schools must deal with the creativity of their own members, evolution of the social environment. and changes in the type of adherent attracted.

To avoid stagnation, it becomes imperative for a school to deliberately permit its own development, which is made possible by the addition of a 6th adjacent level to form two hexads.

Whatever members may say, significant doctrinal changes lead to disputes and conflicts because they pose a challenge to the orthodoxy. Being controversial seems to be the signal and emergent quality for development.

While school development is thought of mainly in terms of L6-doctrinal revision, the hexads offer a more realistic and practical perspective:

  1. school development is far more than a responsible alteration in formulations  because 5 other levels of responsibility are involved.
  2. development may be stimulated internally from the doctrine as in G61, or be stimulated by external phenomena that demand attention as in G62.

Psychosocial Pressure

Developmentis likely driven by a pressure for well-being because without that drive the school is likely to become stagnant and inward-looking, which can be depressing or foster unpleasant politics over trivial issues.

This aligns with the general finding for G6 in structural hierarchies as investigated for Domain Fundamentals and Controls.

Alternatives:ClosedSelflessness is surely important but not primary because developments activate egos and require personal advocacy. Considering previously assigned pressures: allowing acceptability or certaintyto dominate appears positively undesirable, while autonomy seems inappropriate for this social activity. Understanding and performance could be important, but are probably secondary or irrelevant.

Forms of Challenge

Theoretical Innovation (G61)

The primary challenge to any orthodoxy comes from meaningful L6-revisions to the doctrine. The doctrine is captured in a codification of formulations, and scholars can identify omissions confusions, logical inconsistencies and other weaknesses. Such revisions become the basis for theoretical innovations, and these are intrinsically controversial.

Some adherents may rapidly see value of an extension or new formulation, while others can never bring themselves to accept it. Given no blanket opposition from the membership body or guardians, continued dissemination and discussion of the change occurs at meetings and events. In this way the emergent formulations get slowly confirmed and the majority come to appreciate and accept them. At that stage, not only is the revision authorized, the doctrine and school can be said to have developed.

In other words, theoretical innovation only occurs if lower levels of self-engagement are activated. The g6-controversial L6-revision must be associated with a g1-genuine adherence to L1-fundamentals, and a g2-forceful contribution to L2-mentoring. The revision must be g3-resolutely L3-disseminated and g4-overtly recognized by the L4-membership association in its publications and events. Finally, L5-Guardians must view it as a g5-sensible development.

Phenomena Incorporation (G62)

Development may also be stimulated by attention being given to particular societal phenomena that were previously ignored. Some in the school come to believe that the phenomenon needs to be incorporated in the thinking of the school. In other words, the challenge here is to generalize the doctrine and apply it outside its current range (L7).

Naturally this is initially g6-controversial and only succeeds with the specific activation of lower levels of self-engagement, except for the L1-fundamentals which are taken for granted.

Any incorporation requires a g5-sensible L6-revision to some part of the doctrine, which gets g4-overtly endorsed by L5-guardians. The L4-membership body needs to g3-resolutely approve and support the outreach, and g2-forcefully enable L3-dissemination of the development. Finally, handling the phenomena during L2-mentoring must be g1-genuine.

Until this point, the Original Founder will have been more or less satisfied with the function of their school. However, when it comes to development of the doctrine that is a different matter.

Founders typically retain the prerogative to alter the doctrine, even completely re-cast it (as Freud did with psychoanalytic theory), without giving their followers the same power. In the early days of psychoanalysis, followers who deviated in any significant way were actively excluded from the school or simply left.

Once the Founder has passed on, many schools still cling to the original doctrine, freezing in that form, and rejecting efforts by adherents to develop it in a positive way. In my experience, this appears to have occurred with Jaques' Stratified Systems Theory.

Transition

By this point, everything that appears to be required for the functioning of a school has been provided. So we must now return to the doctrine itself as identified when we considered the responsibility of the core self in G1.

No matter how successful a doctrine may be, society can mishandle it and even start attacking it. This is evident at present (2020's) in regard to science, surely one of the most successful doctrines of all time. At the same time as scepticism of scientifically generated knowledge develops, orthodox requirements like replication before confirmation are being ignored by many adherents. Even worse, reports of fraud appear to be increasing due to social pressures and financial incentives.

In the face of denigration and failure, adherents to inevitably esoteric doctrines must not succumb to passivity. The doctrine and the school need to be maintained as valuable and life-enhancing. This suggests that a constant renewal and reminder of that responsibility is needed.

It appears that schools have to constantly drive revitalization, which can be made possible by adding an additional and final level to form the heptad.

Originally posted: 28-Apr-2024.