It's funny, because while I was digesting this essay I found myself comparing the hierarchy in a perennial favorite, The Gervais Principle[0] and I was thinking that "Stage 3" seems to correspond to "Clueless" pretty well; "Stage 4" to "Losers"; and therefore "Stage 5" to "Sociopaths"*. The key to that last stage in both seems to be that you have, for lack of a better word, transcended the rules. You understand that they are mostly situational and, if not subjective, at least not pre-existing. And you therefore start to understand how to work with them as material, rather than just within them.

*: The choice of naming there is a bit tongue-in-cheek. But not totally off the mark.

[0]:https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/05/16/the-gervais-principle-...