Rewrite the following in down to earth simple language while keeping all citations and references: Chapter One
Defining Adulthood
FOCUS: An evolutionary shift is transpiring, from an individualistic functionary understanding of the human person to one that is more egalitarian, relational, and always in process.
Psychologists today use the term “emerging adulthood” to describe a new phase in young adult experience. People in their twenties and early thirties recognize that they are no longer adolescents, but many see themselves as not yet adult. — James and Evelyn Whitehead
 
 e talk a lot about people being adult, along with the challenges and responsibilities that may be involved. Adulthood covers a spectrum of experiences with a vast range of adaptations in terms of behavior and lifestyle. Being an adult means a range of different things to different people. Most of us are so busy in the adult world, doing adult things, we rarely find time to stop and ask ourselves basic identity questions. Our roles and functions tend to dictate our becoming.
According to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (book 1, chap. 7), the activity of reasoning is what makes you human (and therefore, adult) since no other living organism has the capacity for reasoning. The essence of being human is specified in the ability to use the faculty of reason. According to Jean Piaget, our ability to figure things out, using the power of reason, matures during our teenage years and is assumed to be well developed by late adolescence. Chronologically, this translates into reaching one’s eighteenth birthday, the age adopted by most cultures for the right to vote and the expectation of functioning as an adult in society.
Many of these ideas are based on rather cerebral, metaphysical concepts. There is a tendency to quantify and identify specific time boundaries in which childhood ceases and adulthood begins. With the growth of developmental psychology throughout the twentieth century, we moved away from rigid, timeless categories and began to understand the entire life cycle in a more informed and nuanced way.
There is a great deal of evidence to substantiate Dr. Harry Blatterer (2007), who categorically asserts that it is the economic forces of capitalism, more than anything else, that determines and defines adulthood in contemporary society. The market sets what Blatterer calls “the classical markers of adulthood”: independence, family and work. In practice this tripartite focus translates into: a job, heterosexual marriage, a mortgage, life insurance, children, the family car, superannuation, retirement plans, a will. And clearly his is the ideal to which the deprived half of humanity must also aspire.
Even in the Western, so-called developed nations, millions never reach this target. The attainment of adulthood presents a much more complex picture. In terms of educational achievement, skills acquisition, professional competence, and the ability to contribute to society in the capacity of a formal wage earner, most people reach adulthood by age twenty-five or thereabouts. By this same time, the ability to function socially is well in place through a range of friendships, work-related acquaintances, and in some cases, one or more serious couple relationships. It is the psychological dynamics, and their articulation, that throw up a whole new set of challenges for mature growth in the intellectual, social, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of human life. It is the integration of these various elements that characterizes the evolution of adult maturity.
From the time of the classical Greeks till the mid-twentieth century, psychological growth (studied mainly by philosophers) pertained primarily to the formation of character in children and adolescents. Early childhood set in place blueprints that would remain unchanged for the rest of one’s life. (Freud delved much deeper than the philosophers.) And it was widely assumed that human character was fully formed by late adolescence; what you were then is what you would remain for the rest of your life.
As long as one functioned effectively in human society, it was assumed that adulthood was healthy and flourishing. For men, this meant the ability to do productive labor, earn a living wage, father children, and maintain control. For women, it meant becoming a wife and mother and attending to the needs of the home and childrearing. Living a fruitful and productive life is essentially what adulthood was about, a form of cultural acquiescence in which you played the expected role determined by the prevailing politics, economics, and religion of the time.
This is a form of adulthood heavily infiltrated with compromise and passivity. The responsible adult was the one who played by the rules of the game. You knew your place and did not deviate. In fact, millions did deviate, but were often subjugated or contained by the prevailing and unquestioned cultural norms. Only a relatively small elite enjoyed the freedom and support to advance in either knowledge or achievement. A kind of blandness characterized the culture of adult stature.
A Cultural Shift
The 1960s was a decade of cultural shift on a much bigger scale than formerly known. It is popularly associated with young people breaking loose from the more conventional ways of living known to previous generations. Many of those who evolved the “new age” culture, however, were folks in their twenties and thirties. Youth stretched well into the twenties or thirties and sometimes beyond. One could argue that this was a revolution more about the transition into adulthood, rather than the departure from adolescence. Previous boundaries were blurred, and the cut-off point between adolescence and adulthood became particularly fluid and fuzzy. It continues to be open and fluid today.
Much more significant was the emotional breakthrough. Feelings, moods, and emotions were no longer for the private domain. The primacy of rationality was dethroned, brutally at times; it is still struggling to recover. An archetypal power seemed to be reawakening, and the adult who previously lived by the expectations of reason and rationality now sought an expanded horizon that defied the conventional wisdom that had prevailed during previous centuries.
Adulthood was being redefined — and in fact still is — which the message of this book clearly verifies. The American psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton (1999) popularized the notion of the protean self, an expanded sense of personal identity that was already in vogue in the 1970s (see Becker 1971; Kennedy 1974). Instead of a clear-cut fixed identity, with biological significance very much to the fore, the protean tends to manifest a more fluid multiple personality, with the added ability to morph into a range of differing identities as complex demands arise. It is not so much a case of developing new skills to cope with a rapidly changing environment. Rather the evolving environment is evoking new potentials, redefining the very essence of what it means to be human. (I’ll return to the notion of the protean self in chapter 8.)
This is coevolution at work. A frequently noted example is the dexterity of eye and hand with which teenagers play computer games. While the protean is externalized more vividly in youth, I propose that its materialization in the adult happens more in the internal realm. Adults often don’t catch up with this new evolutionary transformation until they reach older years (Fowler’s universalizing stage; see below pp. 114 –15). Only then can they break loose from the excessively rational conditioning of the dominant culture and begin to honor (and explore) what is really going on in their lives. No longer preoccupied with the daily burden of holding a regular job, paying off a mortgage, rearing a family, and devoting energy to the cultural distractions that bombard us each day, they begin to stand back, enter a more reflective space, and ask deeper questions.
Sometimes the questions have been surfacing for years, questions concerning the meaning of their work, religion, relationships, responsibilities. Only now in retirement does it feel safe enough to entertain their persistence and take a risk that might involve changes in life-direction that just felt too scary at an earlier time. The protean adult has been seeking attention for a long time; this new daring truth can no longer be suppressed.
Toward a New Integration
The foundational elements defining our humanity remain essentially the same across time and culture. The process of integration differs in accordance with evolutionary progress; new potentialities are evoked to engage with each new evolutionary breakthrough. The intellectual needs of a twentieth-century computer programer are certainly different from those of a person who lived five thousand years before the present time, or even from a person who lived a hundred years ago. On the other hand, we cannot always generalize as easily as that. When we review the artistic skills of the middle Palaeolithic Era we seem to be witnessing an integration of art and spirituality not as extensively in evidence in our time.
One also wonders how widely we appreciate and acknowledge the complex and diverse make-up of the human personality. Our ancient ancestors were probably not consciously aware of the psychological insights we possess today. Subconsciously they may have intuited their significance and integrated them in ways that defy our modern lifestyles. We who are aware do not seem to evoke this wisdom in our educational and developmental programs, which is often what militates against the evolution of the adult in contemporary life, and particularly in the realm of faith and religion.
The following six dimensions characterize human growth and the potential for the attainment of adulthood, across time and culture: the biological, the social, the emotional, the intellectual, the spiritual and the psychic. It is precisely the fresh appropriation of these dimensions that constitutes adult growth and development today. The goal of this endeavor seems to be something akin to a deeper integration of the various elements outlined above. To begin with, each merits a brief description:
The Biological

From birth to death every person goes through a process of biological and physical maturity. Millions just take it for granted and pay little attention until sickness or accident limits our physical ability. Few seem to be aware of the fact that one’s biological organism thrives on change: every cell in the human body dies and is replaced every seven years. Without this unceasing process of birth–death–rebirth we would cease to be. Strictly speaking our biological constitution is a process and not a product.
Today, we are encouraged to listen more attentively to our bodies and take a more direct responsibility for the wholesome growth of our embodied selves. A great deal of unnecessary pain and suffering arise from neglect of our bodies, obesity being one of the more obvious examples; various forms of cancer and coronary problems are frequently linked with the unhealthy treatment of our bodies. Millions live away from the body, unconsciously compensating through fashionable clothing, excessive glamorizing of the body, or a range of compulsive substitutes such as gambling, drugs, or sex. Coming home to our bodies is a major challenge for adult advancement at this time. The spiritual challenges are formidable and will be reviewed throughout the chapters of this book.
The Social
We tend to underestimate the place of human friendship, not merely in terms of human growth, but also as a process through which we engage with life and make valuable contributions to the growth and development of human society. Many valuable friendships are fractured and strained by the competitive driving forces of modern life. The tendency to use friendship for utilitarian purposes has also increased enormously in recent decades; we make friends, not merely for the sake of friendship, but to enhance our hopes to make progress in life.
In our age of ecological coresponsibility, the circle of care and friendship needs to extend to the nonhuman world as well. Previously, we experienced this through favorite pets, while those who worked the land innately knew this deeper sense of connection and conviviality. Adult sociality today calls for a new sense of inclusiveness: beyond our cherished human friends, are the millions who are victimized by oppression and exclusion, and the earth itself is barbarized and exploited to serve human greed. The new sociability needs to embrace all these dimensions.
The Emotional
In the domain of rational discourse, feeling and emotion are suspect. The pursuit of objectivity tends to ignore, and often subverts, the wisdom of emotional insight. Educationally, we are not well equipped to deal with our emotions, to listen to them, interpret them, and learn from them. Religions tend to moralize a great deal about strong emotions, especially anger, jealousy, and sexual feelings, and consequently, we often miss the inspiring wisdom they embody and convey (see Whitehead and Whitehead 2009).
Many popular webpages, on features or characteristics of adulthood, suggest that our strong feelings need to be tamed and brought under the bar of reason. Throughout this book, I emphasize integration rather than taming. One of the unique features of adult development is the ability to empower oneself and others through a more integrated appropriation of feelings and emotions. For the adult, anger is not merely a wrong to get rid of. It is a powerful passion, activating an empowering energy. We need to listen to it, befriend it, engage with it, and transform its energy in the direction of mutuality and justice-making. Jealousy is not just a childish projection, but an inner voice of longing, a painful desiring, needing gentle attention, discernment, and the courage to assume the healing and empowerment for which inner wisdom is crying out.
The Intellectual
Gross confusion exists between intellectual and academic achievement. Every person is blessed with intellect, with its accompanying desire to comprehend and understand more deeply. Many adults use their intellect in highly creative and responsible ways, but often receive little acknowledgment or credit.
Our world is addicted to academic achievement, which in itself guarantees neither the development of intellect nor the wisdom that is required to live intelligently in the world. Academic achievement is grossly overrated, and those unable to rise to that level often are relegated to menial tasks and dismissive judgment. The integration of our intellectual wisdom is a primary challenge for adult faith development in the twenty-first century. It will be a recurring theme throughout the pages of this book.

The Spiritual
This is one of the most neglected spheres of human growth and development, particularly for adults. It is widely assumed that our spiritual sphere is nurtured through the appropriation and practice of a particular religion. There is a tendency in all the great religions to pass on religious wisdom through doctrines and creeds, with emphasis on knowing the verbal formulations. Adults are judged to be religious if they can pass on those beliefs to future generations just as they have been passed on to them. But this transmission is often lacking in internalized understanding; the neophyte learns the formula, and frequently is unable to apply it to daily life in an integrated way.
The bigger challenge is the realization that we are all endowed with an inner transparency for the holy, for the mystery we popularly call “God.” We are programed internally in the power of living spirit, always inviting us to attune more deeply to the Great Spirit who infuses the whole of creation. Whether we adopt a religion or not, we are innately spiritual and will remain so throughout our entire lifespan. For contemporary adults, this awareness is quite widespread and is raising formidable challenges for the meaning and place of formal religion in human living.
The Psychic
This is the creative energy that enables us to work toward the integration of all the other dimensions outlined above. In theological language this is the energizing power of the Holy Spirit of God. In scientific language, it is the field force that activates and sustains all the other field influences through which we thrive and flourish.
Quantum physics is the reservoir of knowledge through which we can best understand this all-encompassing dimension. It is the whole that is always greater than the sum of the parts, that compelling “more” that lures both the mystic and martyr to greater depths, as brilliantly articulated in Winter (2009). It is the restlessness in the human heart that can never be fully satisfied and yet forever seeks articulation and mediation. It is the greatness in the human spirit that so often inspires and challenges us. For the adult person of faith, it is the horizon that forever beckons us toward new vistas of meaning and possibility.
Therefore, the concept of the “adult,” as used throughout this book, is not merely about somebody who has reached the age of “maturity,” nor merely somebody who is capable of Piaget’s processes of formal operations. It involves a great deal more than undertaking an active civil role in society. It embraces a lifelong, evolving process rather than something attained at a certain stage in the life cycle. More importantly, it is a relational dynamic engaging life at different levels from the large-scale cosmic dimension to one’s interdependent interaction with life’s tiniest organisms at the subatomic level. And it is about a certain quality of interaction and participation, with integration as the primary goal. In a word, adulthood is attained — more accurately approximated — when a wholesome integration is being pursued in my engagement with all of life’s demands upon me from the cosmic to subatomic (cellular) levels of reality.
The Enlarged Context
The need to redefine our notion of adulthood itself arises from the evolutionary changes happening in the world we inhabit. Ours is a time of major transitions, and many are happening at a lightning pace. In all cases we see a new sense of expansiveness. Everything is being stretched; context is being enlarged; the search for meaning requires multidisciplinary understandings.
Of singular importance is the recontextualization of the human within the cosmic, planetary, and ecological spheres of life. Gone is the day for viewing the human in isolation, nor can we any longer indulge in the inflation of the human addiction to power and domination. Not merely is the damage to the environment immoral, the threat to the human species itself is becoming all too obvious. The new adulthood seeks a more benign and sustainable relationship with the entire web of life. This may well be the greatest integration awaiting our attention and commitment. And it presses upon us with great urgency.
To facilitate the breakthrough we first need to examine those cultural metanarratives that hold ourselves and our planet to ransom. Although many of the older ways of operating are fragmenting, losing cultural significance, and failing to animate and inspire, they still hold a rigid grip on our consciousness and our ways of behaving. In Part One of this book, I name them briefly in the hope of raising the consciousness to address their demise proactively rather than with cynicism and reaction. The metanarratives I have in mind include the following:
• the concept of the nation-state;
• the revealed truth of formal religion;
• the Keynesian basis for modern economics;
• patriarchal power structures;
• the ideology of fierce competition;
• the commodification of earth’s resources;
• Aristotelian-driven individualism;
• the valorization of rational thought.
These, too, are among the chief factors undermining the evolution of more authentic adulthood in our time. Each will be reviewed briefly in the chapters that follow.
Doing justice to this complex emergence is not easy. Those committed to safeguarding the dominant, functional reality of former times (and still prevalent today) will feel very threatened by the new, while those embracing the new have little or no interest in retaining the old. While striving to update those committed to the older ways, which they claim have stood the test of time, we could easily lose the new seekers completely. I will attempt a compromise: be brief on that which is fading into historical memory, and give the greater attention to that which will eventually engage us all. And that precipitation is likely to emerge more rapidly than we think.
(a) Conventional inherited wisdom required adults to be robust,
(b) Embedded codependency resulted in the few — mainly males — attaining true adulthood, and everybody else was consigned to passive dependency as in a conventional parent-child arrangement.
(c) Adult empowerment involves a shift of developmental focus