What Kohlberg and Gilligan reveal about our leaders

In all the newspaper articles, radio programmes and TV shows now exposing MPs expenses, and previously, failed bankers’ bonuses, two core issues have been missed. One is to question the suitability of the type of people currently in both those roles to be there at all. The other is to question the wisdom of desperately propping up a failing, obsolete and unsustainable world economic system. Let us start with the first issue: Individuals, tribes, cultures, nations and humanity all mature or evolve psychologically, psychosocially and psycho-spiritually over time in a broadly similar predictable sequence. Those who study the evolutionary consciousness of humanity all over the world, have developed countless maps and models of the evolutionary journey, from simple easy to understand three stage models to complex ones of 15 or more stages. When they are superimposed over one another, they show a consistent sequential pattern. One of these models, a four stage one devised by Kohlberg and Gilligan, labels egocentric as the lowest level, followed by ethnocentric, then worldcentric and finally kosmocentric.