mediation between an early phase of material growth and a mature phase of spiritual actualization often involves a twist of some sort, as for example when a human being leaves the nurturing home of childhood and restructures themselves through education and career training in adolescence to as adults take their place in the indifferent social environment of adulthood, to find their place in that world and make their contribution.
Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops after birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal’s body structure through cell growth and differentiation. Some insects, fish, amphibians, mollusks, crustaceans, cnidarians, echinoderms, and tunicates undergo metamorphosis, which is often accompanied by a change of nutrition source or behavior. Animals can be divided into species that undergo complete metamorphosis (“holometaboly“), incomplete metamorphosis (“hemimetaboly“), or no metamorphosis (“ametaboly“).
Many observations published in 2002, and supported in 2013 indicate that programmed cell death plays a considerable role during physiological processes of multicellular organisms, particularly during embryogenesis, and metamorphosis.[12][13]
(Wikipedia, Metamorphosis, 9/5/20)
Adolescence (from Latin adolescere, meaning ‘to grow up’)[1] is a transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to legal adulthood (age of majority).[1][2][3] Adolescence is usually associated with the teenage years,[3][4][5][6] but its physical, psychological or cultural expressions may begin earlier and end later. For example, puberty now typically begins during preadolescence, particularly in females.[4][7][8][9][10] Physical growth (particularly in males) and cognitive development can extend into the early twenties. Thus, age provides only a rough marker of adolescence, and scholars have found it difficult to agree upon a precise definition of adolescence.[7][8][11][12]
A thorough understanding of adolescence in society depends on information from various perspectives, including psychology, biology, history, sociology, education, and anthropology. Within all of these perspectives, adolescence is viewed as a transitional period between childhood and adulthood, whose cultural purpose is the preparation of children for adult roles.[13] It is a period of multiple transitions involving education, training, employment, and unemployment, as well as transitions from one living circumstance to another.[14]
Wikipedia, Adolescence 9/05/20
Sexual maturity is the capability of an organism to reproduce. It may be considered synonymous with adulthood,[1] but, in humans, puberty encompasses the process of sexual maturation and adulthood is based on cultural definitions.[1][2]
Most multicellular organisms are unable to sexually reproduce at birth (or germination), and depending on the species, it may be days, weeks, or years until their bodies are able to do so. Also, certain cues may cause the organism to become sexually mature. They may be external, such as drought, or internal, such as percentage of body fat (such internal cues are not to be confused with hormones which directly produce sexual maturity).
Sexual maturity is brought about by a maturing of the reproductive organs and the production of gametes. It may also be accompanied by a growth spurt or other physical changes which distinguish the immature organism from its adult form…
[2] Joseph S. Sanfilippo, Eduardo Lara-Torre, D. Keith Edmonds, Claire Templeman (2008). Clinical Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology. CRC Press. p. 34. ISBN 978-0203091784. The definition of puberty alone can encompass the process of sexual maturation, but a more expansive approach is to think of puberty in combination with the term adolescence. This differentiation prompts the practitioner to consider the psychological, behavioral, and social changes of the adolescent who is experiencing pubertal development.
Wikipedia, Sexual maturity, 9/05/20
Metamorphosis vs. Change.
Geologists argue our planet is entering a new age, the Anthropocene. “In 2009 the Anthropocene working group of te Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy was charged with deciding whether the Earth’s transformation at human hands was significant enought to declare the beginning of a new epoch. In 2016 he working group answered “yes”, and said it began in the mid-20th century…. Human activity is having effects that will be visible for periods of time far longer than recorded history… Humans are responsible for hysical, chemical and biological changes previously brought about only by the great forces of nature….It is possible to imagine an Anthropocene that endures. This would be a world where human activity on its current scale continues, but human institutions rein in its excesses. Its carbon cycle is rebalanced; its climate colls; the chemistry of its abused oceans is tempered; its ice sheets and rainforests are restored. …It is also possible to imagine an Anthropocene which fades away as th economy and the environment are decoubpled. Humans continue to thrive, but they take their largely virtual pleasures in fusion-powered, AI-optimized, indoor-farm-fed, everything-recycled cities – jewels of light on a planet slowly returning to wilderness. Alas, it is easy — perhaps too easy — to imagine instead an Anthropocene which is nasty, brutish and short.” (E, political rupture, conomist, 7/15/23, p.12). Nuclear weapons.
The Age of AI, by Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt and Daniel Huttenlocher, (John Murray), 272p. argues that AI markes “a new epoch”. The Enlightenment, which placed humans at the center of all that is knowable, has come to an end. AI lowers the cost of making predictions. As the cost of predictions goes down, the value of human judgment will increase.
“The times they are a’changin’.” (Bob Dylan) But they always are. What’s special about the change that global society is currently going through is the diametric reorientation of development that’s involved. Various terms are used to describe social change. Change may be continuous or discontinuous. The terms growth and evolution suggest a continuous extension of an existing trend, perhaps in the direction of expansion or with minor alteration in direction. Development is a more general term which might also include integration and complexification. But a metamorphosis involves a complete transformation, a change in form so extensive as to result in a new system hardly recognizable from the previous. A phase change in physical matter is not unlike a biological metamorphosis. Heating or cooling a liquid brings gradual changes, but while steam and ice are molecularly like water, the structural relationship of the molecules is complete different and they are qualitatively completely different. In living beings, the butterfly looks and behaves nothing like the caterpillar or pupa, or a frog like a tadpole. Metamorphosis suggests a discontinuous pivot in an existing trend, a turning inside-out or upside down of orientation or habitat or internal structure or all three. Revolution is a term reserved for when a limited portion of society changes discontinuously, as for example in political, scientific, or technological revolutions. Upheaval suggests a discontinuous change, perhaps pervasive, but turning in the direction of disorder and chaos, increased entropy, dying and decay. Death is a metamorphic, but while some do, I’m not imagining humanity’s demise, far from it.
The adolescent transitions from a childhood involves a changed habitat and a turning inside out in reorienting toward that new environment. A child is coddled in a nurturing environment where all their material needs ares supplied, their emotional needs supported, and their education provided for them. An adult faces an indifferent world, one that judges and values him or her for what they offer and contribute, be it physical, emotional or intellectual. An adult must provide not only their own nourishment and direction in all these dimensions, but also those of others. As the child enters adolescence the social environment provided by the mother and nuclear family in childhood recedes in importance and influence as the child grows out of it, into an expanded world of peers and their shared environment. Eventually the adolescent graduates from habitat of peers and schooling into the greater world itself. The child’s intellectual and spiritual life is structured for them from outside, but in adolescence they begin to take charge of their own intellectual and spiritual journeys, developing interests, passions and capacities. The child’s time is managed for them; in adolescence they learn to accept responsibility for their own lives, preparing for adulthood when they must take responsibility for others and for the world around.
A human matures simultaneously physically, emotionally and intellectually from birth, but physical growth tapers off after a spurt in adolescence and is complete by the time of adulthood. Infant and child growth is remarkably rapid in all dimensions, devoloping day by day, but the higher mental faculties of envisioning, strategic planning and abstract thinking, only truly appear in adolescence, and continue to develop with higher education and into adulthood. Emotional maturation is principally a task for adolescence, when one’s personality essentially crystallizes. Central to emotional maturation is learning to recognize, distinguish, and separately manage ones thoughts, feelings and will impulses, controlling anger, appreciating love, and acting consciously and accordingly, with intention. If an individual doesn’t learn these emotional skills in adolescence, then in adulthood they are unlikely to, but rather learn to cope with their deficiency. An adult has to take full responsibility for their actions, is expected to be largely in control of their emotions, and directing their own life of the mind. I’m not suggesting maturity and adulthood implies a life along the straight and narrow, but rather when thoughts, emotions and actions stray from an intended or desired path, that the individual knows what they are doing and can eventually regain emotional and intentional balance and stability.
In childhood emotions, thoughts and will impulses come as an uncontrolled flood and jumble, not recognized as separately different in kind, distinguishable and to be categorized and made conscious. An adolescent learns to take responsibility for their actions, and this involves some emotional mastery and at least a modicum of abstract thought. The adolescent wants a car or other such possession and learns how to delay satisfaction while planning for it. By adulthood, a person is presumed to have learned these skills, for the most part. Of course many of us struggle with such typically adolescent rights of passage well into adulthood, if not all our lives.
As a human being usually learns during adolescence to cognize thoughts, feelings and will impulses, one of the tasks of societal adolescence is to learn to learn what rightly is the province of government, of the economy and of the cultural sphere, to distinguish the nature of various activities and to treat them accordingly. If as a society we wish to have a thriving culture of arts and science, we must not insist these be entirely self-supporting, but must be prepared to subsidize them, because their raison d’etre is other to make cultural contributions, not material ones. If we want a thriving culture, we need to support its freedom, and not shackle it with government proscribed censorship or direct it with politically motivated financial incentives designed to favor one type of science or art over another, or limit art and science to corporate supported projects serving corporate profit and benefit. A central task of societal adolescence is to recognize the differing natures of economic, governance and spiritual/intellectual activities, assign each its place and treat them accordingly, managing them differently, and bringing them into a consciously chosen balance with each other. The realms of economics, government and culture need their autonomy, to avoid corruption of any one of these realms by the influence and objectives of another. We need separation of church and state, the shunning of corporate influence in government, and of government censorship of the arts, just for example.
Society is metamorphosing and adolescing. New qualities, like greater tolerance are emerging with the globalization of culture, and diminished violence with the spread of surveilance and loss of privacy. Emergence, as a phenomenon, differs from metamorphic restructuring in the sense that emergent qualities can appear at a meta level from a system that grows merely in scale but otherwise retains its same underlying structure. Waves and vortices appear in a large body interacting with sun and wind and take on a life of their own that lasts with duration, whereas in a puddle or glass, water may not exhibit such qualities. Some aspects of adolescence emerge as meta-phenomena, and adolescent metamorphoses depend in part on such emergent phenomena, which then feed back to transform the system’s structure itself. Globalization appears as communication becomes more efficient and the process reinforces itself.
ChatGBT:
Metamorphosis is a biological phenomenon where an organism undergoes a dramatic physical change to become a completely different form. It is commonly observed in insects such as butterflies, moths, and beetles, where a larval form transforms into an adult form through a series of distinct stages.
However, the concept of metamorphosis can also be applied to society, as it involves a profound and often irreversible transformation. In human society, metamorphosis can be seen in various forms such as cultural, technological, and social changes.
Cultural metamorphosis occurs when a society undergoes a shift in its beliefs, values, customs, and traditions. For example, the feminist movement brought about a cultural metamorphosis by challenging traditional gender roles and advocating for women’s rights. Similarly, the Civil Rights movement in the United States brought about a cultural metamorphosis by challenging racial segregation and discrimination.
Technological metamorphosis occurs when a society undergoes a rapid transformation in its technological advancements. The invention of the internet and subsequent development of social media have brought about a technological metamorphosis by transforming the way people communicate, access information, and conduct business.
Social metamorphosis occurs when a society undergoes a fundamental change in its social structure and organization. For example, the Industrial Revolution in Europe brought about a social metamorphosis by transforming traditional agrarian societies into urban industrial ones.
Overall, metamorphosis is a natural and necessary process of growth and evolution in both biological organisms and human societies. While it can be challenging and even painful at times, the end result can be a positive and transformative change.