ABSTRACT
At the memorial service for Lawrence Kohlberg this past April, Professor Robert Selman remembered Larry’s work and life in the late 1960s, the period about which Clark Power has just spoken. Selman spoke about this time in Larry’s life from his own perspective:
I was fortunate indeed to enter Larry’s intellectual sphere at this extraordinarily fertile time, when, at the peak of his powers, he was beginning to plant new ideas into a generation of young researchers. … In 1968, Larry had just finished writing a long theoretical chapter for the Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research which he titled, “Stage and Sequence: The Cognitive-Developmental Approach to Socialization.” I spent most of my first postdoctoral year reading and rereading this chapter. … It was quickly to become a true classic in developmental psychology, if not all psychology. With each reading, I gleaned a new sense of the ideas and the depth of this groundbreaking work. Even today, Eleanor Maccoby, Past President of the Society for Research in Child Development, and the person responsible for recognizing Larry with a special award at the Society’s 1985 meeting, relates how she continues to learn something new and beautiful each time she rereads this chapter.
Larry would plant many more seeds in the years to come, for he truly had a gift not only of tremendous intellect, but of a wisdom. The strength Larry gleaned [in the search for wisdom] he shared effortlessly…. The other great gift of Larry’s wisdom was that it was a wisdom born in part of a desire to bring people together and fostered by his own desire to be loved. It is the generosity and openness of spirit of Larry Kohlberg that makes the ideas and ideals Larry planted in us go so far. Indeed, he gave to us the gift of a sense of meaning that, at best, radiated joy to the entirety of our lives.
