Development

What is it?

• Is it physical? Yes, in developed societies, children have the opportunity and possibility to physically develop to maturity without the interference of disease and hunger. But birds, bees and other living creatures achieve this in non-developed countries and cats and dogs achieve this in developed countries but would we say that they live in developed societies? I think not.
• Is it spiritual? There are certainly components of development that require strong spiritual, ethical components. Trust for just one quick example. But there are many examples of people with strong, rich spiritual lives living in non-developed countries so there must be more to this.
• Is it legal? Well, you can't really pass a law that says that some group is henceforth developed but on the other hand, it is hard for me to imagine a developed society that didn't have some well defined and implemented legal system. Is development only possible in democracy? Or even more confining, in American style democracy? Amartya Sen in Development as Freedom argues that "expansion of freedom is viewed ... both as the primary end [of development] and as the principal means of development." Expansion to what limits - anarchy?
• Is it economic? Yes, I suppose that there probably needs to be ongoing economic development in a developed country but I suspect that narrowly focusing on that aspect of development doesn't lead to a very well-balanced well-being.
• Most, if not all, groups of people have some semi-unique definition of themselves and how they fit into the world. They have unique contributions to the world as well - art, music, stories.

Well...I don't really know that I can tell you what development is but, I know it when I see it (maybe).

The only real thing I am sure of is that it is not monolithic and it has many, many facets.