Open and Closed Knowledge Systems, the Four Stages of Cognition, and the Cultural Management of Birth: Part 2

This conceptual “think piece” appears in JOPPPAH in two parts. Part 1 looked at four Stages of Cognition, relating each of them to an anthropological concept: Stages 1 and 2 encode closed, rigid, or concrete thinking. Stage 1 incorporates naïve realism (our way is the only way), fundamentalism (our way is the only right way), and fanaticism (our way is so right that all others should be assimilated or eliminated). Stage 2 ethnocentrism insists that “our way is best.” More open and fluid are Stage 3, cultural relativism (all ways are valid), and Stage 4, global humanism (we must seek ways that honor individual human rights).
Part II categorizes birth practitioners within these four Stages, while showing how ongoing stress can cause even the most fluid of thinkers to degenerate into Substage—a condition of cognitive regression, or “losing it,” that can result in obstetric violence. I note how ritual can help practitioners ground themselves at least at a Stage 1 level and offer ways in which they can rejuvenate and re-inspire themselves. I also describe the persecution that Stage 4 practitioners often experience from fundamentalist or fanatical Stage 1 practitioners and officials, often referred to as the “global witch hunt.”