SPIRAL DYNAMICS (1996)

Ken Wilber, Integral Spirituality, Integral Books, 2006

So, what is the relation of the many developmental lines to each other? This is not nearly as simple a question as it might appear. To begin with, the levels/stages ion one line categorically cannot be used to refer to the levels/stages in another line. First, because there is no way to know exactly how they line up, and second, even if we did, the structures in the different lines are apples and oranges (e.g., the levels in morality are described in terms quite different from those in Gravesian values). This is why you cannot use Spiral Dynamics terms to describe, say, Piagetian cognition. Somebody can be at formal operational cognition and embrace orange values. But you can be at formal operational cognition and also embrace blue values. Or red or purple. Thus, formal operational and orange are not the same thing.