Quadrant Characteristics
Affinities & Antagonisms
The diagonal differences and transitions lead to sharp quadrant distinctions as might have been expected from the original quadrant description, shown again on the right. The most obvious affinities are between two methods that share a quadrant due to similarities in qualities related to the X & Y axes: high-high, low-low, high-low, low-high.
Considering Quadrants from the perspective of the Approach Duality shows up significant potential antagonism.
Two Quadrants deal with engagement processes within the .
The Lower Left Quadrant (low X low Y) is confidential and deals with intimate situations. is the requirement and privilege of selected individuals, who may insist on secrecy in some of their work. calls for more openness but students are expected to speak freely during mentoring and this only occurs if there is a degree of confidentiality that mentors respect.
The Upper Right Quadrant (high X high Y) reflects political processes and deals with large groups. Although assumes a united social body, transient and enduring factions due to polarization of views inevitably appear. , if effective, becomes political on a grander scale: with parts of the public objecting to the influence of a strange or even pernicious unprovable doctrine, and others welcoming the illumination provided. There is also likely to be political controversy within the membership body over adjustments involved in moving outside the original doctrinal focus.
The other two Quadrants deal with abstract accounts of the .
The Lower Right Quadrant (high X low Y) with offers personal accounts because any meaningful realization of the doctrine is an individual matter. Cultural assumptions are also personally held. Personal accounts of fundamentals are expected to conform with the orthodoxy.
The Upper Left Quadrant (low X high Y) offers official accounts because is required to use widely accepted standard versions of the doctrine that are taken for granted by adherents. involves long-term scholarship and deep thought. New formulations that are detailed and explicit need to be reviewed and debated to get recognition within the School.
Central versus Peripheral
Each quadrant contains a more extreme and a less extreme method of working. This even applies to the quadrant because there are distinct forms of realization at each pole of the ellipse.
Linkage of all peripherally plotted methods and all centrally plotted methods generates two concentric circles as in the diagram at right.
The inner circle contains work activities intrinsic to sustaining the doctrine and developing the School. This corresponds to the use of imaginative gestalts to capture reality, the formation of a circle of adherents or believers who spread the word and associate in a social body as they come to see themselves as a distinct «school of thought».
The psychosocial pressure constantly at work here appears to be acceptability: both in personal and social terms.
The outer circle contains work activities concerned with continuity of the doctrine and sustaining the school within society—even if only as a fringe pursuit. Perpetuation depends on ensuring faithful transmission, revisions that ensure the doctrine stays relevant, and applications that popularize doctrinal essences and win social acceptance.
The psychosocial pressure constantly at work here appears to be understanding: by adherents and by wider society.
Inner Defers to Outer
There are also linkages between the two circles within each Quadrant. The inner method looks to the outer method for confirmation and assistance in winning acceptance and gaining converts.
Using the labels previously developed and going clockwise from L1:
- In the lower-right personal quadrant, the illumination of an individual's is supported if it is also an expression of
- In the lower-left confidential quadrant, looks to effective for reassurance as to continuity of the orthodoxy and confirmation of its enduring value.
- In the upper-left official quadrant, looks to for guidance on the creation of up-to-date educational materials.
- In the upper-right political quadrant, looks to for evidence of value and an informal social license to function openly, building finances and winning converts.
To this point, work has taken for granted the existence of a School and its doctrine. It is time now to consider how a doctrine gets started and ultimately established as a School.
Taxonomically, establishment requires a view of as , and then development of a that cumulates the and enable the to become established within societies.
- See the 7 Stages of doctrinal establishment.
Originally posted: 7-Sep-2022. Last updated: 20-Mar-2024