Trump’s Operational Levels, part 2:

Concerning his Emotional Maturity

by Robert Archerd, June 25, 2020

Before taking on the above topic, let’s first review Part 1’s key points, as the plan here is to keep all these issues and their main points interconnected. Recall that the initial installment dealt in detail with the president’s level of moral development, which, as his own statements and behavior continue to demonstrate, is relatively low. Here’s a brief summary:

Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg developed a scale by which one’s level of moral development can be identified and quantified.

At the bottom, stage one, in layman terms, is avoidance of pain and discomfort. Stage 2, simply stated, is “What’s in it for me?” Stage 3 is “being good,” as conventionally defined. Stage 4 is adhering to law and order. (Stages 3 and 4 together comprise what Kohlberg calls Conventional Morality.) Stage 5 is buying into a social contract, such as having democratic norms and understanding that your vote counts but so does everyone else’s. Stage 6, the highest attainable, is about having universal ethics, to “do unto others,” and of simply doing what is right, regardless of political (or tribal) affiliation. Stage 6ers would include Jesus, MLK, Gandhi, and probably Eleanor Roosevelt and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

So how about President Trump? To begin with, constant lying is a practice of those operating at stages 1 (avoidance of pain or discomfort) and 2 (what’s in it for me) — exclusively!