Ever heard of “Spiral Dynamics”? Very cool stuff put forward by Don Beck and Chris Cowan.

Here’s the quick overview:

People and cultures go through different stages of development. The Spiral guys like to color-code them to make it easier to keep track. It goes like this:

RED. Think: Terrible twos. I’ll blow you up if you piss me off. (Yikes!)

BLUE. Think: Ten Commandments. Fundamentalist anything. Rules are paramount. Literal interpretations of the Bible are absolutely (God damnit!!) correct. Ahem.

ORANGE. Think: Wall Street. Academia. Science and ambition are key here.

GREEN. Think: Environmentalism. Pluralism. All is one. Non-violent.

So, the idea goes that we all evolve through different stages of development. All of those stages above are part of what they call the “first tier.” Here’s the funny thing about those perspectives: they’re all convinced they’re 100% right.

It’s a big food fight.

GREEN looks at ORANGE and says, “You greedy capitalists!!! You’re good for nothing and totally destroying our planet! And, my non-violent self HATES you!”

ORANGE looks at GREEN and says, “You tree-hugging, New Agey hippies!! Get a job and contribute to the economy, will ya?!? And quit looking at those crystals.”

BLUE looks at everyone and says, “You’re all going to hell because you don’t believe in [insert favorite God here], God damnit!!”

RED looks at everyone and says, “F*$% you!!! I’m blowing your *ss up.”

Everything is “either, or.”

No one can see the validity of the other perspectives.

Not so good.

The idea? Let’s consciously evolve as individuals and as a culture to a “second-tier” level of consciousness. Here, for the first time, we can hold multiple perspectives. We can see that, in the words of Ken Wilber, “No one is smart enough to be 100% wrong.” :)

What’s that look like?

Well, you can see the truth in the need to take care of our environment AND the need for a powerful economy AND the need for rules and regulations AND the need to take aggressive action when the situation demands it.

Powerful. VERY powerful.

Hmmmm…what makes second tier thinkers think THEY’RE the only ones that are right?

This idea of Kens accurately describes the what is, but doesn’t do anything about building an understanding of the underlying mechanisms, and therefore doesn’t seem particularly useful to me.

After 30+ years of study and investigation it seems to me that the cause comes from our birth as a self awareness through a declaration in language by a non-self aware child.

That declaration comes after learning the concept of right & wrong, then finding ourselves to be wrong in some particular circumstance. In response to that we declare ourselves to be something other than what we are (knowing it to be a lie).

Life from then on is about sustaining the lie. The most important thing in life for all humans in this early stage of their personal evolution is to be right.

Some never grow out of it.

Some manage to transcend it to a degree, yet whatever level we transcend to, there will be an echo of the drive to be “right” at some level – it is the core directive of the human self awareness, and seems to me that it is not possible to escape it entirely (however much evolution and transcending we do); and it is possible to transform it to something that no stage 1 awareness would recognise as such.

I don’t think the purpose of the Integral Model (and this subset of Spiral Dynamics theory) is to escape anything. I can embrace the fact that there are echoes of “I am right!” left from older structural stages, and still function from a place outside of that assumption. The quickest way to letting go of my past would be severe head trauma. But, letting go of the past is not the point. We all come up through these stages and each is not a matter of surpass and ignore lower levels, but is rather transcend and include. We negate the tendency of “I am right!” we all come up through not by getting rid of it, or ignoring it, but including it and acting without its influence. As much as such a thing is possible.

James. They don’t. That’s the point. ;-)

TravisE:

You know it, I know it. But some of us don’t know it.

Some of us are intolerant of the intolerant. “I’m open-minded and you’re not, so you’re wrong.”

I once saw Huston Smith in front of a large audience. In the questions-and-answers (inevitably) a fundamentalist Christian arose to “show him the way.” “Dr. Smith,” she said, “what would you say to someone who says, ‘I’ve been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ’?” Dr. Smith’s reply made a big impact on me. “I would say that you’re one of the lucky ones,” he said. “If a simple faith in a loving God is enough for you, you’re lucky. But it wasn’t enough for me.” The lady sat down, robbed of her ambush.

Dr. Smith’s answer was full-on second tier. Would that all who identify themselves as such could be so gracious.

Thanks, by the way. You’re my first respondent besides Brian (and he doesn’t count—sorry, Bri!)

peace,
James

I know I don’t count. :)

And that IS a brilliant story of Houston Smith. Wow. Well said, sir.

I love that story.

“If a simple faith in a loving God is enough for you, you’re lucky. But it wasn’t enough for me.”

Brilliant