How an obscure Texas professor cracked the "inner code" of Covid-19?

_____

THE POINT I AM MAKING BELOW: According to some estimates, the coronavirus can infect around 50 to 70 percent of the population. The same percentage is true - according to studies - when it comes to pre-rational worldviews. Those worldviews enable us to take an ethnocentric, nationalistic, us-versus-them mentality that is the real problem facing humanity far, far, far beyond the current crisis.

____

We see worldviews – not a world.

This is what I learned from my intellectual mentors, including Robert Kegan, Don Beck, Clare Graves, Ken Wilber, Jenny Wade, Susanne Cook-Greuter, Jean Gebser, and Bill Torbert.

These views of the world are like the views from a skyscraper. The lower you are to the ground, the less you see. The higher you climb, the more you see.

Development psychologists suggest that these worldviews can be categorized as:

• Egocentric (Magical thinking)
• Ethnocentric (Mythical thinking)
• Worldcentric (Rational thinking)

The first level enables us to see a worldview that is centered on "me", the individual ego, and its individual power. This egocentric worldview can be encountered in street gangs, in the Cosa Nostra, and in the "law of the jungle". It is marked by magical thinking, i.e. what I want is what should happen. Think of the book "The Secret". Or think of Trump.

Ethnocentric worldview is the one that divides people in "us vs. them". This is prevalent in countries such as North Korea, in sports team rivalry, and in the concept of the Army. It is marked by mythical thinking, i.e. what we want is what should happen. Think of any literal interpration of The Bible, The Qu'ran, or any holy scripture.

Worldcentric worldview emphasises the global community, global right, and global responsibilities. It is the worldview of science, progress, and universalist thinking. It is marked by rational thinking, i.e. what can be proven with scientific accuracy is what should happen. Think of Kopernikus, Kepler, Darwin, Malthus, Hawking, etc.

Each level is a circle of trust. Egocentric level extends this trust to oneself and individual power. Ethnocentric level extends trust within a special group: my God, my country, my tribe. Worldcentric level extends trust in a global outreach, a global system, a globalist decision-making process.

Working to end the Apartheid movement in South Africa, a professor from North Texas, Dr. Don Beck discovered how worldviews - he called them value memes - are like a hidden inner code that determines our response to situations.

This is how it goes, according to Beck's Spiral Dynamics theory, applied to the current situation with Covid-19 and the Coronavirus that spreads the disease:

When we see the world from a egocentric or ethnocentric level, we are not yet rational in our thinking. We tend to dismiss scientific predictions. We dismiss them, because these scientific predictions come from one or two levels above our current thinking. Scientific worldview comes, as it were, from a third-floor balcony, when we are standing on the first- or second-floor balcony.

When we see a world full of egocentric and ethnocentric hopes and dreams, we think our economy, or our country, or our race is different. We think that coronavirus is a "hoax", or that it doesn't effect our particular ethnic group. This can be seen in America with the protests against lockdown. It was seen in Liberia, Sierra Leona and Guinea during the Ebola outbreak of 2014, when local people attacked Ebola wards, not believing in such a thing as a virus contamination.

Here's the thing:

When we have a phenomenon that can only be accurately seen from a third-level view - a rational, scientifically proven, albeit hard-to-predict emergent virus - but our cognition is one or two levels below, we pooh-pooh the thing as something that is not really there.

And for our worldview - the first-level magical, or the second-level mythical - it isn't!

When what we see is a magical or a mythical worldview - when our cognitive capabilities are yet to reach a universalistic, scientific, logical stage of consciousness development - we are not able to see any phenomena that is only available to a consciousness that is rational.

The structures of our consciousness structure the phenomena that are available to that consciousness.

So here's the rub:

We have a phenomenon - the coronavirus - that becomes a thing properly understood in consciousness, cognition, and thinking only at the rational level. Coronavirus can be seen only from the third floor. Before that, it is not really there. It is, at best, a story we can choose to believe or not. It is, in a word, pre-truth (as "truth" only comes online at the rational level; before that we have individual will and mythos of a group, i.e. muscles + fairytales.)

The rub is that, according to researches of cognitive development, about 65% of world's population never achieve the rational level properly. That is, most of the adults we meet, have not grown up.

If we define "growing up" as an ability to form an independent opinion based on the best available evidence - regardless of your peer group - then the figure (65%) holds.

This is is hidden inner code mentioned in the headline. We talk about the outer measures (death toll; the number of global infections; etc.) but the inner measures (the level of worldview development and the stage of cognitive capacities) are actually more important measurements in anticipating the crisis.

If we see a virus as a "hoax", and our culture has a strong bias towards economical growth, we have a killer combination of pre-rational thinking and hubris.

If, on the other hand, we have developed into a third-level worldview that only comes available through inner growth of consciousness and cognition - if we can see a rational worldview - we are much better equipped to deal with the crisis. And if we can think in a more integral fashion still, chances improve.

To put this into focus: first- and second level magical/mythical thinking is not a first-world problem. This thinking is among us, not unlike a virus, available to notice wherever world leaders call for easing of restrictions and not imposing lockdowns, to serve mythical narratives of economic growth, or individual freedom, or tractor therapy.

According to some estimates, the coronavirus can infect around 50 to 70 percent of the population. The same percentage is true - according to studies - when it comes to pre-rational worldviews. Those worldviews enable us to take an ethnocentric, nationalistic, us-versus-them mentality that is? if you asked me, the real problem facing humanity far, far, far beyond the current crisis.

____

JP Jakonen is an author of five books and a PhD on the American integral philosopher Ken Wilber.