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Dr. Joseph Dillard is a psychotherapist with over forty year's clinical experience treating individual, couple, and family issues. Dr. Dillard also has extensive experience with pain management and meditation training. The creator of Integral Deep Listening (IDL), Dr. Dillard is the author of over ten books on IDL, dreaming, nightmares, and meditation. He lives in Berlin, Germany. See: integraldeeplistening.com and his YouTube channel.

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How Genocide Exposes Integral Stage and Line Misconceptions

Joseph Dillard

Wilber's exposition of the nature of levels and lines of development is brilliant and has many useful applications, not only in psychology, but in philosophy, religious studies, and sociology. I have personally found them important and useful in my work as a psychotherapist across decades. In what follows, I describe equally important misunderstandings and misapplications of these concepts, as they are laid bare by the ongoing genocide against Palestinians. I will also lay out what seems to me to be the causes of these imbalances and suggest necessary correctives.

Problems with integral levels

Wilber's AQAL proposes that your developmental stage, or that of a group or nation, determines behavior. For example, regarding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Wilber has recently stated that because both Israelis and Arabs are at a tribal/mythic stage of development, there can be no resolution of the conflict between them until and unless they evolve to higher levels of development. The higher stage he mentions most is multi-perspectival 2nd Tier, because it takes into account the perspective of the other.

This assessment raises the obvious problem of stereotyping groups. Israelis/Zionists/Jews, as well as Arabs and Palestinians, are assessed to be overall at tribal and mythic levels of development. When ANY individual, group, or nation, is assessed as being at any particular level, important and relevant differences in developmental level are glossed, minimized, or ignored. Key and powerful individuals who control groups may be at entirely different levels. For example, Wilber's level of cognitive development is not reflective of that of the average supporter of integral, myself included.

However, in addition to the stereotyping and generalizing which is intrinsic to assessing individuals, groups, or nations as being at this or that level of development, a far more fundamental problem exists. Allowing those who claim higher status due to the belief they represent a higher and more inclusive stage of development is discriminatory. They are defending both their beliefs and their behavior based on their exceptionalistic status claims. You can see this stage-based discrimination in both Israel and the combined West. Both justify an ongoing genocide based on their “higher,” “more advanced,” understanding of democracy, freedom, and human rights. Their “rules-based order” allows them to claim personal and collective exemption from international law, including the UN Charter that they signed. The appeals to divine law of Israeli rabbis and political figures such as Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich and military leaders like Joaw Galant, allows them to view Palestinians as sub-human, as “animals,” “Amalek,” and therefore kill them without moral accountability.

Discriminations among levels of development are being used to justify exceptionalism and elitism for the purpose of justifying genocidal behavior. Discriminations among levels of development are being used to justify barbaric behavior of a degree that no self-respecting wolverine would contemplate. Israeli snipers targeting and shooting children in the head not once, but twice; forcing masses of Gazans on death marches from one designated refuge, which is then bombed, and then to another; targeting ambulances and health care workers; announcing that all Palestinians are terrorists and using that absurd belief to justify destroying hospitals, schools, and UN relief facilities.[1] The US Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, deplores Palestinian civilian deaths and calls for a cease-fire while doing nothing to stop the flow of weapons from the U.S., without which the genocide could not continue. Germany continues to send weapons to Israel in support of genocide while censoring and imprisoning Germans and non-Germans who protest.

Those who claim this genocide is justified because of Palestinian atrocities that are even worse, whether on October 7th or at some other time, ignore a seventy-year history of expulsion, internment in concentration camps, disenfranchisement, and murder of Palestinians by Zionists. They ignore the fact that Israeli polls show that the genocidal behavior of Israel is overwhelmingly supported by the Israeli Jewish population. The astounding hypocrisy of such behavior is confirmed by Israel and western media pronouncing that Israel is a democracy, that Israelis and Jews are victims, and that Israel has “the most moral army in the world.”

Far from being a democracy, Israel is a racist and ethnocentric state with a strong theocratic element, now in government. Far from being a victim, Israel has a sizeable stockpile of nuclear weapons and has enjoyed, until recently, escalatory dominance in its region. Far from being “the most moral army in the world,” anyone can go on Tik Tok on any day and view videos, some posted by Israeli soldiers, advertising genocidal behavior.

By supporting stereotyping, discrimination, and exceptionalism stage theory inadvertently supports and justifies the maintenance of a broken, dysfunctional, and inhumane status quo. By doing so, it defends its prerogatives of power, status, and comfort at the expense of the majority of the world's population.

Problems with integral lines

Lines are as much of a problem as stages in integral developmental theory. This is largely due to a cognitive bias called “The Halo Effect.” Those who have the ability to reason and to think multi-perspectivally, are deemed advanced on the cognitive line. For example, Wilber himself is obviously a savant, thinking both rationally and multi-perspectivally. Subsequently, we are likely to highly respect Wilber, and rightly so, for his many brilliant insights into philosophy, psychology, religion, spirituality, sociology, morality, and just about every imaginable field of human endeavor. Due to The Halo Effect, we tend to generalize this respect to all aspects of Wilber. This normally takes the form of either ignoring or justifying conclusions he reaches that are wrong, misleading, or self-centered. We are also likely to gloss, discount, or justify Wilber's behaviors that are not respectful, do not reciprocate, are not conducive to trust, or do not reflect empathy.

Wilber is a particularly good example because he is also highly advanced on the line of “spiritual intelligence,” having had multiple mystical experiences and having demonstrated the yogic ability to control his brain waves and enter theta at will and remain there for long periods. This is indeed an impressive ability, and when combined with Wilber's extreme intelligence, it makes it highly likely that those who are familiar with his work will evoke The Halo Effect and give Wilber a pass on areas where his thinking or behavior conflict with one's estimation of his demonstrated high levels of competency.

We typically give all sorts of political, corporate, religious, and spiritual leaders that we respect the same sort of treatment that we do Wilber. We manifest The Halo Effect and justify immorality, amorality and/or abuses of power based on our generalized assessment of their high level of development on this or that line. This is a self-serving behavior, in that it supports our belief in figures we respect and with whom we identify to some degree. To do so cannot be called error, because the overlooking of significant flaws and errors cannot be ascribed to ignorance. It is a self-justifying decision designed to protect our identities as moral and humane individuals, regardless of the estimations of outgroups who are affected negatively by the consequences of actions in which we are complicit.

The problem lies not only in the generalization of the reality of stages and lines of development of individuals to groups and nations, but in the ignoring of factors that cut through developmental hierarchies for both individuals and groups, rendering stage and line of development essentially irrelevant. Two of the most important factors that do so are the constituents of moral interaction and the application of power.

Does morality matter?

Most of us will say, “of course!” But in practice, we often ignore or minimize the importance of moral behavior. We all assume we are moral actors. We use several implicit questions to determine the morality of every relationship and interaction. Everyone at every level of development implicitly asks of one another, “Are you respectful?” “Do you reciprocate?” “Are you trustworthy?” “Are you empathetic?” Clearly, different people will determine each of these “tests” in different ways, but you cannot find a person for which the answers to these questions are not consequential in determining their estimation of the other. For example, you do not care if a check-out clerk at your local market is a convicted child molester; what you care about is if they are efficient and give correct change. These constituents of moral interaction remain the same at all levels of human interaction. It doesn't matter what level of development you have attained or in what lines you excel. These are moral questions, in that they determine not only who we interact with but how we interact with them. In the case of that check-out clerk, amorality is fine, except in the very focused area of checking you out efficiently and accurately. In the case of political figures, if gender equality is your priority, you will determine the morality of candidates based on your assessment of their morality on that issue. You may not care that they are committing genocide. These questions determine our basic sense of who we value and who we do not. They determine what sort of relationship we want to have with each other, regardless of our level of development or how high we or they are developed in this or that line.

Similarly, the inverse is true. If our determination is that the other is disrespectful, does not reciprocate, is not trustworthy, or is not empathetic in ways that matter to us, then any relationship that exists is either coerced and exploitative or exists for immoral ends - regardless of assessed level of development or height of this or that line. Like turtles, these determinants of relationship go “all the way up and all the way down.” You can find them in rudimentary form in animals. Dogs want to know if other dogs and humans are respectful, reciprocate, are trustworthy, and demonstrate empathy, although you cannot call these behaviors or the adaptive reactions to them as moral in beings who have not yet developed a human degree of self-consciousness. They also go all the way up. Wilber has described the immoral behavior of Tibetan Buddhist non-dual lamas and monks as well as that of Japanese non-dual monks.

Respect, reciprocity, trust, and empathy evolve both in our understanding of them and in how they are expressed in our behavior. Although Kohlberg delineated the stages of development of moral judgment, he was never able to correlate them with behavior. That is because many other factors determine how moral our behavior is in addition to our moral judgment or intent. These include societal reinforcers, fear of punishment, character, and hard-wired cognitive factors like cognitive biases. Because these fundamentals of morality exist on all levels and regardless of the altitude of this or that line, how we determine relationships, both as individuals and as groups, is not based on level of development but on our assessment of the morality of each other. Am I moral, immoral, or amoral in ways that matter to you? In ways that do not matter to you the question of my morality does not arise because you are either not affected by my level of respect, reciprocity, trustworthiness, or empathy, or it does not affect your ability to pursue some goal that is important to you. For example, it has not mattered to the West, over the last five hundred years, how the non-western world has viewed them, that is, whether it has viewed westerners as moral, immoral, or amoral, because the non-western world has not had the ability to significantly control or change western behavior.

The application of power

This brings us to the second major reason why stage and line of development are very poor and fundamentally misleading ways to understand individuals, groups, and nations, and that is in the exercise of power. If an individual, group, or nation has the power to have its way regardless of the preferences or estimations of its morality by others, it can, and generally will, render moral determinations irrelevant. For example, for centuries the Catholic Church ignored wide-spread and chronic child molestation by its priests while presenting itself as the upholder of morality in the world. It did so because it could, because it was not held accountable. That was because the Church itself determined what law was and was not and how it was applied. Essentially, it held that “divine law” surpassed secular law, and it could define divine law as it wished. Its determinations of what was lawful somehow always managed to justify or ignore its immoral behavior, regardless of how damaging or exploitative it might be.

The implication is that unless and until Integral emphasizes accountability in the exterior collective quadrant, in the form of justice before the law, with the greatest accountability apportioned to those elites who exercise the greatest power over others in society, immoral, exploitative behavior will continue to be conducted by the best and brightest. Why should we expect anything else? As Thucydides long ago observed, “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Those with power, wealth, and status will naturally attempt to maintain and extend their power, wealth, and status until they reach some insurmountable obstacle. They will not stop due to some conception of morality or because their sense of self has expanded to include humanity. Instead, they will use morality to justify “doing what they can.” This is realism, not cynicism. It is human behavior, and to ignore or not acknowledge same is to be complicit in exploitation. Highest developmental levels and lines will continue to act in immoral ways when necessary to achieve their ends, while justifying them by their self-assessed “transcendent” level of development, bolstered by the groupthink of their ingroup echo chamber. This is exactly what unfolds daily before our eyes with the governments of Western countries either ignore or justify continued support for Israel, making themselves complicit in genocide, the most barbaric of all forms of warfare.

Conclusion

A common attempt by some to avoid responsibility and accountability is to deflect, by claiming that “authoritarians like Russians and Chinese commit genocide too.” Really? I can point to plenty of self-sourced Israeli military videos that depict genocide. Where are the Russian and Chinese ones? I can point to plenty of quotes by Israeli, U.S., and European politicians that cover for or justify Israeli genocide. Where are the Russian and Chinese quotes?

To be clear, I am not claiming that there is no value in level and line developmental assessments. There are many. I am pointing to abuses in these assessments and how they damage the credibility of integral and integralists. It is reprehensible when integral leadership either ignores or justifies genocide and those who conduct and support it. Of course, no integral leader believes this assessment applies to them and no supporters of any integral leader believe such an assessment applies to their leader. Such is the nature of level exceptionalism and The Halo Effect. For example, some integral leaders support Democrats like Biden or Harris because some issue, like their stand on gender, ecology, the economy, or their hatred/fear of Donald Trump, is more important to them than the extermination of Palestinian women and children. They choose to ignore the overwhelming Democratic military and financial support of Israel, without which the current, ongoing genocide could not be conducted. They often do so on the basis of supporting “the lesser of two evils.” As a consequence, many of the best and brightest support the continuation of genocide. Of course, Republicans on the whole support this genocide as fervently as do the Democrats.

It is not that many other issues are not critical. If there is nuclear war, humanity could go extinct. If ecocide continues, the planet could become uninhabitable. The difference is that genocide is immoral to a degree that threatens our very definition of ourselves as human, as different from amoral animals. Genocide threatens any and all levels of human development. Support of genocide, or silence regarding one's complicity in it, renders differentials of developmental level irrelevant. Genocide renders attribution of line altitude irrelevant. Disregard of morality and of humane behavior is made possible by our failure to hold power elites of all sorts accountable to the same extent that we hold the powerless accountable. If you doubt that conclusion, compare the percentage of incarcerations of lower class Americans to that of upper class Americans. In fact, the only country I know of that breaks from the protection of the powerful at the expense of the average citizen is China. As of 2023, approximately 2.3 million government officials have been prosecuted, tried, convicted, and imprisoned.[2]

Until and unless this fundamental injustice in the determination of human rights is rectified, humans will continue to conduct and justify genocide. Until integral theory places exterior collective determinations of morality before interior collective and individual moral intent, integral theory will stay broken, supportive of exceptionalism and developmental elites, and therefore largely irrelevant to the evolution of human relationships. The reason why external collective determinations of morality need to be placed before, instead of equivalent to, interior quadrant determinations of morality, is as a corrective to an ongoing imbalance. Until integral theory takes moral stands against immoral action and demands accountability for all power, but particularly for those who claim a higher moral level of development based on some assessment of higher stage or line development, integral theory will stay broken, supportive of exceptionalism and developmental elites, and therefore largely irrelevant for the vast majority of the world's population. Do you disagree? If so, I look forward to hearing your arguments.

NOTES

1. The reality of these genocidal behaviors are not open to debate, and those who attempt to do so are making themselves complicit in genocide. I refer you to the South African brief before the UN International Court of Justice and the complaints against Israeli officials brought before the UN International Criminal Court. I also refer you to the exhaustive studies by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe and the equally exhaustive and documented assessments of Norman Finkelstein. These people are Jewish who, like an increasing number of Jews, place humanity and basic moral behavior before any tribal or religious loyalty.
2. Wikipedia. “Anti-corruption campaign under Xi Jinping.”