Slaughter on Gilligan: ladders and webs

It's not often that one finds such articles in mainstream liberal media like Huff Post. Therein Slaughter brings in Carol Gilligan's work showing how men and women view power and relationship: men are more linear and ladder oriented; women more distributed and web oriented. However she notes that "both perspectives are equally valid and equally essential to human existence." Wilber also brought this up as a 'type' difference that is applicable to any particular level. But I'm not so sure that what is occurring socially is differences of type but more of an evolution of level.


Wilber via Spiral Dynamics had addressed this also, noting a move from the rational ego to pluralisitic relativism. Also it seems that levels alternative in type as well, back and forth between a more individual or social focus, and hence the move into the more social focus of a pluralistic, postmodern, web-like social structure. But the 'integral' level, entering 'second tier,' is supposed to transcend this alternating cycle, to balance the ladder-web, individual-social paradigms so that per Gilligan "both perspectives are equally valid and equally essential to human existence."

And yet in much of kennilingus we have this focus on ladders and never-ending development, running full tilt into 3rd tier now, not being satisfied with being the most evolved 2nd tierants on the planet. Whereas in many threads and posts I've explored what it means to achieve this 2nd-tier balance via depth integration, which transforms both the ladder and the web paradigms into something else again. It's not just equal and opposite at any level but mutual and interdependent at a new level that changes what it means to 'develop' on a ladder in the first place, as well as what it means to embrace everyone in a web.