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OneTaste
Registered User
(12/9/03 11:11 pm)
Reply 		Spiral Dynamics and the Waves of Existence
This material is excerpted from Ken Wilber, who has popularized it through his work. Like the Kiersey temerament stuff, it provides a big picture that gives perspective to lots of particulars.
****
Based on extensive research begun by Clare Graves, Spiral Dynamics (developed by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan) sees human beings evolving or developing through eight major waves of consciousness.

SPIRAL DYNAMICS AND THE WAVES OF EXISTENCE
The first six levels are "subsistence levels" marked by "first-tier thinking." Then there occurs a revolutionary shift in consciousness: the emergence of "being levels" and "second-tier thinking," of which there are two major waves. Here is a brief description of all eight waves, the percentage of the world population at each wave, and the percentage of social power held by each.

1. Beige: Archaic-Instinctual . The level of basic survival; food, water, warmth, sex, and safety have priority. Uses habits and instincts just to survive. Distinct self is barely awakened or sustained. Forms into survival bands to perpetuate life.

Where seen: First human societies, newborn infants, senile elderly, late-stage Alzheimer's victims, mentally ill street people, starving masses, shell shock. Approximately 0.1% of the adult population, 0% power.

2. Purple: Magical-Animistic . Thinking is animistic; magical spirits, good and bad, swarm the earth leaving blessings, curses, and spells which determine events. Forms into ethnic tribes . The spirits exist in ancestors and bond the tribe. Kinship and lineage establish political links. Sounds "holistic" but is actually atomistic: "there is a name for each bend in the river but no name for the river."

Where seen: Belief in voodoo-like curses, blood oaths, ancient grudges, good luck charms, family rituals, magical ethnic beliefs and superstitions; strong in Third-World settings, gangs, athletic teams, and corporate "tribes." 10% of the population, 1% of the power.

3. Red: Power Gods . First emergence of a self distinct from the tribe; powerful, impulsive, egocentric, heroic. Magical-mythic spirits, dragons, beasts, and powerful people. Archetypal gods and goddesses, powerful beings, forces to be reckoned with, both good and bad. Feudal lords protect underlings in exchange for obedience and labor. The basis of feudal empires --power and glory. The world is a jungle full of threats and predators. Conquers, out-foxes, and dominates; enjoys self to the fullest without regret or remorse; be here now.

Where seen: The "terrible twos," rebellious youth, frontier mentalities, feudal kingdoms, epic heroes, James Bond villains, gang leaders, soldiers of fortune, New-Age narcissism, wild rock stars, Atilla the Hun, Lord of the Flies . 20% of the population, 5% of the power.

4. Blue: Mythic Order . Life has meaning, direction, and purpose, with outcomes determined by an all-powerful Other or Order. This righteous Order enforces a code of conduct based on absolutist and unvarying principles of "right" and "wrong." Violating the code or rules has severe, perhaps everlasting repercussions. Following the code yields rewards for the faithful. Basis of ancient nations . Rigid social hierarchies; paternalistic; one right way and only one right way to think about everything. Law and order; impulsivity controlled through guilt; concrete-literal and fundamentalist belief; obedience to the rule of Order; strongly conventional and conformist. Often "religious" or "mythic" [in the mythic-membership sense; Graves and Beck refer to it as the "saintly/absolutistic" level], but can be secular or atheistic Order or Mission.

Where seen: Puritan America, Confucian China, Dickensian England, Singapore discipline, totalitarianism, codes of chivalry and honor, charitable good deeds, religious fundamentalism (e.g., Christian and Islamic), Boy and Girl Scouts, "moral majority," patriotism. 40% of the population, 30% of the power.

5. Orange: Scientific Achievement . At this wave, the self "escapes" from the "herd mentality" of blue, and seeks truth and meaning in individualistic terms--hypothetico-deductive, experimental, objective, mechanistic, operational--"scientific" in the typical sense. The world is a rational and well-oiled machine with natural laws that can be learned, mastered, and manipulated for one's own purposes. Highly achievement oriented, especially (in America) toward materialistic gains. The laws of science rule politics, the economy, and human events. The world is a chess-board on which games are played as winners gain pre-eminence and perks over losers. Marketplace alliances; manipulate earth's resources for one's strategic gains. Basis of corporate states.

Where seen: The Enlightenment, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged , Wall Street, emerging middle classes around the world, cosmetics industry, trophy hunting, colonialism, the Cold War, fashion industry, materialism, secular humanism, liberal self-interest. 30% of the population, 50% of the power.

6. Green: The Sensitive Self . Communitarian, human bonding, ecological sensitivity, networking. The human spirit must be freed from greed, dogma, and divisiveness; feelings and caring supersede cold rationality; cherishing of the earth, Gaia, life. Against hierarchy; establishes lateral bonding and linking. Permeable self, relational self, group intermeshing. Emphasis on dialogue, relationships. Basis of value communities (i.e., freely chosen affiliations based on shared sentiments). Reaches decisions through reconciliation and consensus (downside: interminable "processing" and incapacity to reach decisions). Refresh spirituality, bring harmony, enrich human potential. Strongly egalitarian, anti-hierarchy, pluralistic values, social construction of reality, diversity, multiculturalism, relativistic value systems; this worldview is often called pluralistic relativism . Subjective, nonlinear thinking; shows a greater degree of affective warmth, sensitivity, and caring, for earth and all its inhabitants.

Where seen: Deep ecology, postmodernism, Netherlands idealism, Rogerian counseling, Canadian health care, humanistic psychology, liberation theology, cooperative inquiry, World Council of Churches, Greenpeace, animal rights, ecofeminism, post-colonialism, Foucault/Derrida, politically correct, diversity movements, human rights issues, ecopsychology. 10% of the population, 15% of the power. [Note: this is 10% of the world population. Don Beck estimates that around 20-25% of the American population is green.]

With the completion of the green meme, human consciousness is poised for a quantum jump into "second-tier thinking." Clare Graves referred to this as a "momentous leap," where "a chasm of unbelievable depth of meaning is crossed." In essence, with second-tier consciousness, one can think both vertically and horizontally, using both hierarchies and heterarchies (both ranking and linking). One can therefore, for the first time, vividly grasp the entire spectrum of interior development , and thus see that each level, each meme, each wave is crucially important for the health of the overall Spiral.

As I would word it, each wave is "transcend and include." That is, each wave goes beyond (or transcends) its predecessor, and yet it includes or embraces it in its own makeup. For example, a cell transcends but includes molecules, which transcend but include atoms. To say that a molecule goes beyond an atom is not to say that molecules hate atoms, but that they love them: they embrace them in their own makeup; they include them, they don't marginalize them. Just so, each wave of existence is a fundamental ingredient of all subsequent waves, and thus each is to be cherished and embraced.

Moreover, each wave can itself be activated or reactivated as life circumstances warrant. In emergency situations, we can activate red power drives; in response to chaos, we might need to activate blue order; in looking for a new job, we might need orange achievement drives; in marriage and with friends, close green bonding. All of these memes have something important to contribute.

But what none of the first-tier memes can do, on their own, is fully appreciate the existence of the other memes. Each of the first-tier memes thinks that its worldview is the correct or best perspective. It reacts negatively if challenged; it lashes out, using its own tools, whenever it is threatened. Blue order is very uncomfortable with both red impulsiveness and orange individualism. Orange individualism thinks blue order is for suckers and green egalitarianism is weak and woo-woo. Green egalitarianism cannot easily abide excellence and value rankings, big pictures, hierarchies, or anything that appears authoritarian, and thus green reacts strongly to blue, orange, and anything post-green.

All of that begins to change with second-tier thinking. Because second-tier consciousness is fully aware of the interior stages of development--even if it cannot articulate them in a technical fashion--it steps back and grasps the big picture, and thus second-tier thinking appreciates the necessary role that all of the various memes play . Second-tier awareness thinks in terms of the overall spiral of existence, and not merely in the terms of any one level.
Where the green meme begins to grasp the numerous different systems and pluralistic contexts that exist in different cultures (which is why it is indeed the sensitive self, i.e., sensitive to the marginalization of others), second-tier thinking goes one step further. It looks for the rich contexts that link and join these pluralistic systems, and thus it takes these separate systems and begins to embrace, include, and integrate them into holistic spirals and integral meshworks. Second-tier thinking, in other words, is instrumental in moving from relativism to holism, or from pluralism to integralism.

The extensive research of Graves, Beck, and Cowan indicates that there are at least two major waves to this second-tier integral consciousness:

7. Yellow: Integrative . Life is a kaleidoscope of natural hierarchies [holarchies], systems, and forms. Flexibility, spontaneity, and functionality have the highest priority. Differences and pluralities can be integrated into interdependent, natural flows. Egalitarianism is complemented with natural degrees of ranking and excellence. Knowledge and competency should supersede power, status, or group sensitivity. The prevailing world order is the result of the existence of different levels of reality (memes) and the inevitable patterns of movement up and down the dynamic spiral. Good governance facilitates the emergence of entities through the levels of increasing complexity (nested hierarchy). 1% of the population, 5% of the power.

8. Turquoise: Holistic . Universal holistic system, holons/waves of integrative energies; unites feeling with knowledge; multiple levels interwoven into one conscious system. Universal order, but in a living, conscious fashion, not based on external rules (blue) or group bonds (green). A "grand unification" [a "theory of everything" or T.O.E.] is possible, in theory and in actuality. Sometimes involves the emergence of a new spirituality as a meshwork of all existence. Turquoise thinking uses the entire Spiral; sees multiple levels of interaction; detects harmonics, the mystical forces, and the pervasive flow-states that permeate any organization. 0.1% of the population, 1% of the power.

With less than 2 percent of the population at second-tier thinking (and only 0.1 percent at turquoise), second-tier consciousness is relatively rare because it is now the "leading-edge" of collective human evolution. As examples, Beck and Cowan mention items that include Teilhard de Chardin's noosphere, chaos and complexity theories, universal systems thinking, integral-holistic theories, Gandhi's and Mandela's pluralistic integration, with increases in frequency definitely on the way, and even higher memes still in the offing....

Punk Yogi
Registered User
(12/10/03 12:17 pm)
Reply 		Re: Spiral Dynamics and the Waves of Existence
One Taste

Very interesting. If this model corroborates statistically with reality, it could be a useful tool for assessing the evolutionary worth of institutions and ideas making sway in the culture. On a personal level, individuals would be able to gage where they stand and what role they have to play in society.

The next step would be to assess its practicality.

That's what I did with typology. I literally spent 1 1/2 years reading widely on the subject; looking for its occurrences in movies, novels and plays; writing down my observations; brainstorming; and then discussing all of this for countless hours with others - notably those who worked daily in the field of psychology and education.

OneTaste
Registered User
(12/11/03 8:05 pm)
Reply 		Colorful stuff that just might interest a Punk
Quote:
Very interesting. If this model corroborates statistically with reality, it could be a useful tool for assessing the evolutionary worth of institutions and ideas making sway in the culture.


Here’s an interview with Beck, the guy who put the colors on the map: www.wie.org/j22/beck.asp?page=1

If you are familiar with Jean Gebser’s work, you will already have a good idea of what is going on here. There’s an awful lot of field work involved in this approach. Here and there, as you may have experienced, you may run into notions that don’t have a lot of grounding in field data. This isn’t one of them.


Quote:
The next step would be to assess its practicality.


There’s an essay by Ray Harris called the vMemes at War, which is an analysis of post 9-11 from a spiral dynamics pov and is pretty practical. Unfortunately, for some inane reason, the url only links to the front page, so you have to hunt from there. If you are interested, go here: www.worldofkenwilber.com/

Go to the Reading Room and look for:

ESSAYS RELATED TO THE WORK OF KEN WILBER BY RAY HARRIS

Ray Harris, The vMemes at War : What is the integral response? (September 2001)

There’s oodles of other interesting stuff there as well.

Quote:
That's what I did with typology. I literally spent 1 1/2 years reading widely on the subject; looking for its occurrences in movies, novels and plays;


If you get into this at all, you will find the same thing happening. At least I did. It’s all over the place because it’s our story collectively and singularly. I find the idea that each individual’s development proceeds along the same lines as mankind as a whole throughout history to be one of the more fascinating things out there.

And, boy, does SRF make a hell of a lot more sense in the larger picture. It doesn't make it any better, but at least it gives it the context to see that it is a microcosmic thing and not some unique glitch. I know you've made the same point with the Kiersey stuff.


Punk Yogi
Registered User
(12/12/03 1:52 am)
Reply 		Colorful Stuff Did Interest Punk -- Punk Likes Color ;-)
Hi One Taste

I visited all the links, and it's fascinating.
All that colorful stuff made Christmas come 2 weeks early for me
... so thanks!


Was thinking about current situation between Bush-Neocons vs World of Fundamentalist Islams ... y'know that whole clash of civilizations nonsense. Well, it really looks like the clash of RED and BLUE from this paradigm, doesn't it? And then there's the GREEN liberals trying to get the fighting to stop but to no avail.

Since SRF is focus of this site, any idea what it's central meme is?
BLUE is most dominant, in my opinion.

It's an elegant system, really uses color as a metaphor quite nicely. I'm also pondering on the complimentary aspects of colors: BLUE is opposite ORANGE. RED is opposite GREEN. ... or something like that. Also blends. Was really fascinated by conservative Republicans being described as the BLUE-ORANGE levels combined.

Does an elegant job of laying out the interdependency of all types.

If I only had time to explain it the way I want.. Really the Keirsey typologies are best approached the same way as Spiral Dynamics.

All types are important. None can be left out. There are functional and dysfunctional expressions of each type. A friend of mine and I already have the interdependency model worked out. We've each separately taught it to a lot of people. I've exposed a few hundred people to it and got stunning results.

PY

OneTaste
Registered User
(12/12/03 9:26 pm)
Reply 		Re: Colorful Stuff Did Interest Punk -- Punk Likes Color ;-)
Quote:
I visited all the links, and it's fascinating.
All that colorful stuff made Christmas come 2 weeks early for me
... so thanks!


Sure thing, Punk, as long as you don’t mistake me with Santananda. Just put the colorful wrappings under the Kriyatree and grab a cup of eggnog. Not too big of a cup, though. It’s a special batch provided by one of our more idiosyncratic elves. And to all a good night indeed.

If you enjoyed that stuff, here’s an extensive interview with KW that’s really gets into stuff in detail. wilber.shambhala.com/html...w1220.cfm/ This site is the major mojo for KW.

So, let’s go rattle the cages you and I are said to be so determined to build, shall we?

Quote:
Was thinking about current situation between Bush-Neocons vs World of Fundamentalist Islams ... y'know that whole clash of civilizations nonsense. Well, it really looks like the clash of RED and BLUE from this paradigm, doesn't it? And then there's the GREEN liberals trying to get the fighting to stop but to no avail.


Yes, there’s clashing aplenty, eh? Painting in very broad brushstrokes, think of it as more of a red/blue Wahabi vs. a blue/red Wolfowitzian thing, though. Each side is certainly steeped in the us vs. them setup that blue thrives on--defining itself in terms of the other and the whole absolutist good vs. evil dichotomy. But each is willing to get down and dirty ala red, as well.

The Harris article was good, but the grandslam is Wilber’s The Deconstruction of the World Trade Center
A Date That Will Live in a Sliding Chain of Signifiers

wilber.shambhala.com/html...part1.cfm/

Green is a fascinating stop along the way, there’s no doubt about that. Like you said about the K stuff, each level has its healthy and pathological wings. And when green goes south and turns into the mean green meme, it’s quite a ride. When it’s good, it’s very, very good and when it’s bad, it sounds remarkably familiar. Anti-hierarchy, anti-authority, oppresive this, controlling that, all the pc police stuff, anti-colonialism, and so on. It champions everything anti-Western and then can’t understand why the love doesn’t seem to be returned.

Quote:
Since SRF is focus of this site, any idea what it's central meme is?
BLUE is most dominant, in my opinion.


Yeah, that’s been my take as well. And it does fill blue needs very well. Guardians are certainly true blue, which was easy to see reading your stuff about them. We need pillars, but, as you put it so well, we need more than pillars. It’s a bit like Tennyson’s Ulysses where U comes back and dumps everything on his son Telemechus because he can’t take the boredom of administrating the kingdom and wants to go off again, traipsing around and being adventurous. Both have their role, as U points out.

Also, while the core of SRF seems blue, much of the hardcore lambasting of it as total evil is an unhealthy slice of green pure postmodern victimhood with a virulent strain of regressive blue that flips the sides of good and evil. This is why I think that the most egregious blast-bunnies who now cannot see anything but “bad ladies” and such were most likely intolerable bliss bunnies before the bubble burst. I agree with your stance that while there is all of the horroribility going on, there is definitely something to be gained from it. The balance-bunny approach.

Quote:
Was really fascinated by conservative Republicans being described as the BLUE-ORANGE levels combined.


Think of the perennial split in the GOP, the fiscals vs. the family valuers. That’s orange and blue right there at their purest. They really don’t like each other, but they both loath green, so they have banded together. One of the sadder aspects is that all first tier can’t abide by the others. Green wants to destroy blue and orange wherever it sees them, but without either, no green. Remember Jack in A Few Good Men, with his “you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall” speech? That is classic red/blue lashing out at green and it is right on the money. Without the support structures provided by blue/orange, green would sink like a stone or be overrun by red.

Quote:
Does an elegant job of laying out the interdependency of all types.


Doesn’t it, though? That’s something that’s easy to miss. All levels are necessary, yet this isn’t something that is clear to a person or a society until second tier. Until then, it’s a free for all, with every first-tier level thinking that it’s my way of the highway. It’s ironic to me, for example that green so loathes orange, thinking it to be the heart of soul-less technology, heartless science, and all the evils of capitalism and so forth. And this isn’t far off the mark. But the noble causes of abolitionism, equal rights, women’s rights, individualism, etc., all of these come to the fore during orange development, not green. But, of course, green doesn’t let that sort of thing get in the way of a good screed, because as any postmodern veteran of the culture wars knows, mere facts are a tool of the oppressor, right?

Quote:
There are functional and dysfunctional expressions of each type.

So true. As each level is reached, it does so by solving the problems of the previous level and then bringing in new pathologies to the mix. It’s all one big “All for a Rag” world, isn’t it?

Btw, I went and took the K test and on several questions along the way I felt that it wasn’t really possible to pick between the choices, thinking that I could make an equally strong argument for both, given how I looked at it or when. So, I did it twice. On both I turned out to be an idealist, so go figure.

chuckle chela
Registered User
(12/13/03 12:53 am)
Reply 		Re: Colorful Stuff Did Interest Punk -- Punk Likes Color ;-)
Fascinating stuff it is, indeed. I see One Taste has responded already, but here's a touch more.

You've got it right, Punk. SRF (leadership) is blue, blue, blue (with dashes of red and even purple, as well as bits of orange and green). Blue, blue blue, as in control, control, control, as in fear, fear, fear. And Beck and Wilber's analyses (along with the typologies) help one understand why everything has gone so wrong with SRF in meeting the needs of many of its members or former members.

Many of those members just don't fit in or respond to the blue meme. Of course, we all know that many do; we disparagingly refer to some of them as the "sheep," or "bliss bunnies," or other such remarks. In actuality, they are people who either need or respond well to a certain level of control and a particular presentation of the yoga teachings. It's not necessarily a bad thing, as you and One Taste have mentioned. Just as Kiersey makes it clear all typologies are valid and have their place, Beck/Wilber make it clear that all memes are valid and have their evolutionary place.

The trick in either case is understanding what's going on and how to work with people different from us.

SRF's leaders, it seems, have not been able to understand this, thinking that we're all cut from the same mold and will respond to the same incentives, controls, and injunctions. This is how blues work.

At the same time, those in SRF who tried to institute change--and some of these changes were pretty significant--didn't understand that the blue consciousness of the SRF leaders would prevent them from responding positively to these significant changes (when I say they didn't understand about SRF's essential blueness, I don't mean this in a disparaging way: those who fought for change just thought the leaders would understand our needs and had to learn the hard way that they didn't. C'est la vie).

These proposed changes had a lot of green flavors--which is perfectly okay and what was needed for many of the people who wanted the changes--but blues just don't cotton on well with all these "radical" green notions. Blues can even resist rational, orange ideas and suggestions, although these have a better chance. (What was it, One Taste, that Wilber said: "Blues look at green and see red."?). Blues just freak when greens come on with talk of egalitarian this, sensitive that; they see greens as out of control and their natural impulse is to respond with even more blue control (e.g., shutting down the SLCs; Vishwananda telling us "we know what we're doing"). Isn't that what happened?

And, just to make it even more interesting, some of the green stuff isn't all wonderful. As Wilber points out, each meme has its good and bad. The greens have traits Wilber terms the "mean green meme." Me first-ism, oversensitivity, the willingness to play victim ("it's not my fault!"), a resistence to the idea that perhaps you are wrong, after all . . . and other such lovely notions.

The Beck/Wilber model helps us understand why SRF is the way it is, why some people work with it and some don't, and why it has been and probably will continue to be so difficult for SRF to change (it's like one of the crude interpretations of Thomas Kuhn's classic "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions": change in paradigms often doesn't come until the developer of the current paradigm dies).

What is sad for me in looking at SRF--which has helped me immensely and which I still have a lot of affection for--is that I suspect that a significant number of its members are literally outgrowing the org and its presentation of Yogananda's teachings. In one way or another, members become dissatisfied and realize SRF doesn't have all they need to continue growing and developing. I wonder also whether the practice of the techniques and Yogananda's teachings is, in a number of cases, actually propelling some people right out of the SRF orbit. As well, I suspect that some come to SRF from a green, yellow, or even turquoise level or perspective and eventually find that it wasn't what they thought it was.

Some of us, for example, thought there would be blending and celebration of:

-- the ancient and the modern (only to hear ". . .this is a very old teaching . . . we know what we're doing . . . ", the implication being that "we don't need your modern stuff"),

--of religion and science (instead, it appears as though SRF uses science when it meets its own organizational needs and perspectives, and it rejects science (e.g., psychology, modern business methods, and all the expertise that was available to the organizational leaders) when it doesn't suit its needs,

--of East and West (granted, there is some of both worlds, but it is selective),

--of ecumenism (for example, Yogananda's "church of all religions"; instead, we subtly get "we're the religion of the new age," "this is the highest teaching," "we're the only real Kriya path" (even in India, they say!)).

I don't mean to criticize; rather, I'm pointing out that these have been mixed and confusing messages. One reason the messages were confusing is that we didn't have opportunities to talk as equals with the leaders about these issues.

At the same time, as others have pointed out, SRF in its current form fulfills the needs and wants of many people.

What's even sadder for me is knowing how terribly painful this has been for so many people. It has been, ah, a growing experience. Part of the pain for some of us has been deciding where to go from where we were. As responses on the Walrus board make clear, there are many answers to those kinds of questions, and each of us, in our own unique and stumbling ways, is finding ways and means.

Another part of Wilber's ideas that is valuable (and it's not unique to Wilber but he does make a point of stressing the issue) is the notion that these issues--such as what's happening with SRF--are not simple matters. They're multifaceted, systemic problems and issues that need to be addressed from a variety of perspectives. As Aldous Huxley used to be fond of saying, you have to work on such issues on all fronts simultaneously. Those who suggest that it's all just a simple matter, and that the solutions are equally simple may, in fact, be compounding the problems.

soulcircle
Registered User
(12/13/03 3:36 am)
Reply 		we all becoming a win-win team
Hi Guests and All,

this is all great great great
I like

Ray Harris is a very enjoyable read

soulcircle

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