MetaJess

Short thread on my first experience of meta-systematicity, “fluid mode” or Kegan’s interindividual stage. I remember the first time I questioned a system - it was political. I was throughly versed in the feminist, sjw system and more broadly the leftist spectrum

... especially the rich academic nuance that was prominent before the social media madness. I had built my entire identity and ethics around it. Kegan calls this self-authorship, where an individual builds a system of identity for themselves in the institutional stage.

When I realised that the “other” side was equally nuanced, rather than evil or “obviously wrong”, I had a terrible realisation of the relativity of each system and the rug was completely pulled away beneath my feet. I had malaise for a long time after.

I didn’t know what I believed anymore because previously I had thought my personal identity was based on something Right and True. Now I could see the system I used was based on founding assumptions that, while noble, and reasonable were mostly arbitrary.

And that it was perfectly possible for other people to choose completely different foundations, which were equally reasonable, noble and arbitrary and build a completely different, but equally justified, other identity. I couldn’t talk to any of my friends about this

because to question the system would be heresy. Rather than be kicked out for having wrong beliefs I drifted away from them. I felt evil for a while, a moral relativist. Getting more right wing as I got older and all that. But once I saw it, I couldn’t un-see it.