Spiral Dynamics

[Judith]

I've found this subject, used frequently in Ken Wilber's work, to be utterly fascinating. It explains a lot, both in individual behavior and in the behavior of societies as a whole. The articles I reproduce below are either from Ken Wilber's web site or from links from his web site. So, without further ado, enjoy:

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Ken Wilber Summary of Spiral Dynamics model

Shambhala Pulbishing has a number of pieces available for public consumption that Ken has written on their website at www.shambhala.com. This piece is from one of those publicly available documents, and includes an extended quote from Ken's book: "A Theory of Everything."

KW: In Integral Psychology I present charts that summarize over 100 developmental psychologists, East and West, ancient and modern and postmodern. Spiral Dynamics is only one of the 100, but I have recently been using it quite a bit because it is simple and fairly easy to learn, even for beginners. 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. For convenience, I will reprint my brief summary of these from A Theory of Everything.

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....

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An Introduction to Spiral Dynamics®

People think in different ways. A brother and sister, husband and wife, manager and employee, corporation and client company might have very different world views and values. People in adjoining cubicles or families living right next door to each other sometimes don't seem to be inhabiting the same neighborhood. Colleagues in an organization have wide ranging ideas about vision, mission, and purpose. Countries sharing one planet often seem to be in totally different worlds with their policies. Why?

Spiral Dynamics® is a way of thinking about these complexities of human existence and bringing some order and predictability to the apparent chaos of human affairs. It provides a framework for tracking the evolution of worldviews and a scaffold on which to stand while analyzing situations and planning the most appropriate actions. Sometimes called levels of psychological existence theory, this work lays out a pattern of human differences. It addresses why we have unique perspectives on living, and how our own senses of what "the real world" is like can vary. More than that, SD offers concrete tools for communicating, managing, organizing, and learning to fit who people are and who they are on the road to becoming.

Based in the original research and theory building of Dr. Clare W. Graves, this point of view describes how emergent waves of consciousness flow through individuals and groups leading to greater expansiveness in thinking and an increase in conceptual space -- the entry of more factors into life's equation. It elaborates different ways of behaving which are congruent with shifting views of existence and which people functioning at those different levels deem appropriate. This theory does not track with intelligence or intelligences (see Howard Gardner's work). Temperament variables do not fit neatly into the Spiral, either, although there are some correlations with factors like rigidity and dogmatism and control of impulses. In other words, this is more of a quantitative than qualitative hierarchy, though both kinds of differences arise among the systems. People don't get smarter or better as they move through the levels; they do broaden their perspectives and increase their options to act in a given situation. They don't necessarily achieve higher planes of "consciousness;" they may well come to think about consciousness in new ways. The reasons for acting in particular ways change, as do the behaviors. All of this doesn't necessarily make a person happier or sadder, wiser or more foolish, kinder or harder, better adjusted or more out of sorts, of course; it only increases the degree of behavioral freedom and opens a different sense of what life is about.

Spiral Dynamics® describes bio-psycho-social systems along a continuum that form an expanding spiral. The term biopsychosocial reflects Graves' insistence on a multidisciplinary approach to understanding human nature - Bio: for the neurology and chemical energy of life; Psycho: for the familiar psychological dimensions such as temperament, measurable intelligences, and personality variables; Social: for the collective energy in group dynamics as the social atom influences human behavior. These three elements interact constantly in Gravesian levels. Some users also feel it is appropriate to add -Spiritual to make the term biopyschosocialspiritual systems.

For a long while this work was called "Value Systems Theory." That produced confusion since most people have a definition for values in mind already. This model better addresses why people adopt the values they do, not what those values are. It is deep systems for valuing, not collections of values. Thus, you might think of values, moralities, standards, beliefs, and priorities as contents. The Gravesian levels in the Spiral Dynamics model are more like containers. These containers, described in the tables below, can hold all sorts of contents. The question is, how do they hold them? How does the person think about a thing? How is that content shaped by the container it's put into, and how is the container impacted by the contents? For a more extensive table on Graves and values, click here.

What people in each world seek out in life . . . (Goals of "Successful" Living)

1 BEIGE (A-N) survival; biogenic needs satisfaction; reproduction; satisfy instinctive urges

2 PURPLE (B-O) placate spirit realm; honor ancestors; protection from harm; family bonds

3 RED (C-P) power/action; asserting self to dominate others; control; sensory pleasure

4 BLUE (D-Q) stability/order; obedience to earn reward later; meaning; purpose; certainty

5 ORANGE (E-R) opportunity/success; competing to achieve results; influence; autonomy

6 GREEN (F-S) harmony/love; joining together for mutual growth; awareness; belonging

7 YELLOW (G-T) independence/self-worth; fitting a living system; knowing; good questions

8 TURQUOISE (H-U) global community/life force; survival of life on Earth; consciousness

The basic landmarks along the Spiral are designated by colors in the diagram -- beige, purple, red, blue, orange, green, yellow, turquoise, coral, and others to come. Those are the "nodal" states -- peaks on a series of curves. There are sub-systems between the peaks where the thinking represented by the adjacent colors blend together. You could think of them as string of lights. Each light is on its own dimmer. They brighten and fade as conditions change. Sometimes that's by conscious choice, and often not.

For example, many First World business people today are in the Orange-to-Green transition seeking a return to more community and spirit in their lives. The Green is brightening as some Orange fades. A number of politicians in developing nations are in the Blue-to-Orange range trying to move their economies from structured, centrally-controlled bureaucracy to entrepreneurism and free markets. A fade between bright Blue to more Orange. Many environmental activists are living in the Green-to-Yellow zone as they work to achieve positive, sustainable results on a human scale through interaction, involvement, and purposeful learning and teaching. Some parts of the world are still in the Purple-to-Red transition as ancient tribal ways confront well-armed dictators, while others are in the Red-to-Blue as centralized authority tries to contain factional ethnic battles. Hotspots emerge as 'corpoments' -- corporate interests merged with governmental power -- from the Orange zone overwhelm indigenous peoples in the Purple-Blue range with ideas of progress and development schemes that don't fit the realities at hand, and which ultimately destroy the less complex cultures, languages, knowledge, and ecology. Yet naive rescuers from the early Green zone sometimes romanticize the primitive and non-functional, thus slowing natural emergence as much as exploiters from Orange zone seek to transform it to their own image or those from Blue to convert to the -ism of choice. Yellow thinking begins to question and analyze all of these human processes as parts of an integrated spiral, and Turquoise is looking for solutions on a global, holistic scale. The next zone, Coral, may be the implementer, but that's in the future.

The warm color family exhibits an express-self way of living with a focus on the external world and how to change and master it (with an internal, I-oriented locus of control); it is how that expressiveness occurs that differentiates the levels. The cool colors have a sacrifice-self way of living with a focus on the inner world and how to stabilize and come to peace with it (with an external, we-oriented locus of control). The Spiral winds between the individual "I" and collective "we" poles as it turns between cool group systems and warm individualistic systems. As individuals, most of us are mixtures of both, often living in the transitional phases. This broad swing from individualism to collectivism and back is also something to watch as societies move through time. Graves called this the cyclical aspect of his theory.

The SD/Graves model is not a typology for categorizing people into boxes. These are ways of thinking about a thing that reside in varying proportions within human beings, not labels for kinds of human being. The question is not how to deal with a person at a given level, but how to deal with the thinking of the level when it is activated in the person. Most of us operate with mixtures and blends of these colors, though one or two are often dominant. The eight levels of existence and the fourteen transitional states between them are only the visible signs of much deeper forces at work. Those energies arise from the interaction of two elements: (a) the Life Conditions the person or group encounters and (B) the brain/mind capacities available to cope with such conditions. Thus, the term biopsychosocial suggests a moving blend of the biological nature, the psychology of experience and learning, and the sociology of group interaction with the world.

So, a person or a company is both nature and nurture -- the genetic heritage and biochemsitry interacting with the learning and experiences of living. It is this interaction between mind/brain systems within and existential conditions outside that is central to Graves' work and energizes of emergence of the Spiral. This also explains why the SD model is an emergent sequence and not a developmental stair step; there is no mandate for movement, and no predictable time-line when there is.

Within the spiral is a double helix. In the spiral diagram above (and below), the alphabet letters on the left represent the Life Conditions -- a perception of "what the real world is like" and a particular set of Existential Problems -- at each level. The letters on the right represent the brain capacities -- the neurobiological equipment and mindsets required to deal with such a reality. The combinations - A-N, B-O, C-P, D-Q, E-R, F-S, G-T, H-U, I-V, etc., are represented by the colors which symbolize their interaction. These may also be presented as a series of 6 core themes which repeat after moving up a level, a part of Dr. Graves' hypothesis as yet unproven but fascinating to consider. Thus, A-N through F-S represents a First Tier of thinking systems which Graves called the Subsistence Levels. The next series, a Second Tier, is represented by the letters primed; thus A'-N', B'-O', C'-P', etc. These he called the Being Levels. The model then becomes a series of six themes repeating. The primes suggest the base systems plus an additional set of mind/brain capacities brought online.

The landmark Life Conditions (A, B, C, ... I, etc.)

1 BEIGE A a state of nature and biological urges/drives; physical senses dictate the state of being

2 PURPLE B threatening and full of mysterious powers and spirit beings which must be placated and appeased

3 RED C like a jungle where the tough and strong prevail, the weak serve; nature is an adversary to be conquered

4 BLUE D controlled by a Higher Power that punishes evil and eventually rewards good works and Righteous living

5 ORANGE E full of resources to develop and opportunities to make things better and bring prosperity

6 GREEN F the habitat wherein humanity can find love and purposes through affiliation and sharing

7 YELLOW G a chaotic organism where change is the norm and uncertainty an acceptable state of being

8 TURQUOISE H a delicately balanced system of interlocking forces in jeopardy at humanity's hands; chaordic

9 CORAL I (too soon to say, but should tend to be I-oriented, controlling, consolidating if the pattern to date holds)

The landmark coping means and neurology activated by such a world (N, O, P, ... U, etc.)

BEIGE N instinctive: as natural instincts and reflexes direct; automatic existence

PURPLE O animistic: according to tradition and ritual ways of group; tribal; animistic

RED P egocentric: asserting self for dominance, conquest, and power; exploitive; egocentric

BLUE Q absolutistic: obediently as higher authority and rules direct; conforming; guilt

ORANGE E multiplistic: pragmatically to achieve results and get ahead; test options; maneuver

GREEN S relativistic: respond to human needs; affiliative; situational; consensual; fluid

YELLOW T systemic: functional; integrative; interdependent; existential; flexible; questioning; accepting

TURQUOISE U holistic: experiential; transpersonal; collective consciousness; collaborative; interconnected

Note that the letters are not locked together. They can shift and, to some extent, can be shifted. Thus, it is possible for someone to live in an E level world but only have access to Q means of dealing with life; the world will seem beyond the person's understanding at times -- the old-time government bureaucrat suddenly in a privatized agency that must prove its bottom-line effectiveness. Some things from the more complex level will not 'register' in this person's awareness and coping may be stressful, perhaps impossible. Some people can learn the more complex ways; others are less likely to.

Another person might have T (or N') capacities, yet work in a situation with a performance appraisal system concentrating on D or E measures; such a person is often underutilized and frustrated by a management system that appears to lag behind the thinking and focuses on issues that seem secondary and narrow -- the IT professional working where punctuality and compliance with a dress code matters more than competence or creativity. If wise, the organization will adjust its management system to fit the person; if not, it will lose mind/brain power as the person moves elsewhere. Getting the right person into the right job with the right materials at the right time within the right systems and structures is what SD is about. Then the challenge is to communicate, develop, motivate, and manage those people in ways that fit who they are now and prepare systems for who they will become next.

Consider the following ideas from Spiral Dynamics®

The Spiral is a framework for how people think about things, not the things they think about. It represents containers that shape worldviews, not the contents that fill them (beliefs, values, etc.).

There is no direct link with intelligence, gender, age, ethnicity, or other demographics except as those variables influence the world around the person.

No level is inherently better or worse than another. They do become more expansive since each builds on all that came before.

The theory is hierarchical in terms of conceptual space (the inclusion of progressively more factors and ways of understanding), but not in terms of intelligence in the conventional sense.

The general trend is up the Spiral because thinking in more complex systems offers more degrees of freedom to act appropriately in a given situation by using more fully the mind/brain which is there.

A person is not generally locked at a single level. The Gravesian systems are ways of thinking about things, not typologies for people, so several can coexist.

Systems are rarely discrete and often run in combinations, though one often will be the dominant state.

Individuals and organizations may appear to be largely of the warm-colored individualistic approach or the cool-colored collective world views.

Gravesian systems do not go away; they are subsumed within more complex layers and can rise to the surface if Life Conditions warrant.

Beware of finding simplicity which is not there. The "emergent, cyclical, double-helix model of adult biopsychosocial systems development" of Dr. Clare W. Graves is more complex than many presenters suggest.

Beware of complications which do not serve the theory. The model is elegant in itself and is sometimes wrapped in details which contribute little of substance and only add confusion.

People may talk about more complex systems without actually operationalizing the ways of thinking and being they describe. Look for "stretch" versions of systems that talk a good game but do not live the worldview.

People may shift their thinking to fit the conditions at hand and operate quite differently when under pressure or stress.

There are entering and exiting phases between systems where most energy lies; the pure colors are only the theoretical peaks of waves.

People value different things because they think in different ways. They think in different ways because the mixes of thinking systems (vMEMEs) in the biopsychosocial complexes in which they exist are different.

Different organizations –- companies and governments –- occupy different positions on the Spiral and need to develop managerial/governance strategies that match their people, their visions of the future, and the jobs they perform today.

Managers should develop a consistent and systemic approach to all the issues within the organizational loop –- recruitment, selection, placement, training, internal management, and external marketing –- so they all align, integrate, and synergize.

Organizations should be constructed from both "the top down" and "the bottom up" to link the functions, intelligences, and decision structures that the more complex new problems ahead will demand.

Successful organizations are in danger of failing if they continue to manage people in the ways that made them successful in the first place.

Many people need to be managed quite differently today because they have moved on the Spiral even further and faster than most of their bosses, teachers, and even parents.

Marketing efforts, strategic plans, and M&A efforts often fail because the designers look into mirrors and assume the audiences and cultures they are attempting to reach share the same values systems they do.

The question is not "how do you motivate people?" but how do you relate what you are doing to their natural motivational flows. A person has a right to be who he or she is.

Issues with productivity, quality, political instability, and restructuring are signs of growth and not decay which will force us to find new and innovative ways to manage people based on who they have now become.

Since people learn in different ways form different kinds of teachers, the task of education is to match learners, instructors, learning situations, and technologies designed for fit, function, and flow.

Dealing with the whole Spiral at once is the great challenge for everyone, and will be easiest and most natural for those awakening Second Tier thinking (Yellow and beyond).

We are now at a point of transition between the first six Subsistence Levels and the next series of human existential states, the Being Levels. It is a time of both danger and opportunity as new ways of thinking, indeed, new sorts of human beings, emerge to prominence.

For more information on how to learn about change, communication, management, and other applications of SD theory, email info@spiraldynamics.org

NVC Consulting, PO Box 42212, SB CA 93140-2212

Phone (805) 565-4782 Fax (805) 695-8113

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On Spiral Dynamics

Spirituality & Health

The Soul/Body Connection

Issue: Spring 2001

A Hierarchy of Consciousness

Stephen Kiesling

Decades of research worldwide suggest that cultures evolve in stages, a hierarchy like nesting Russian dolls elegantly described in the eight colors of Spiral Dynamics — and tested against apartheid. Surprisingly, the most dangerous stage may not be toward the bottom where people fight for survival, feudal power, and market share. Instead, it may be where we are...

On November 30, 1998, The New Yorker ran a remarkable and cautionary feature by journalist Douglas Preston on Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, and that most mysterious civilization, the Anasazi. Chaco, with its magnificent stone Great Houses, was the hub of a huge civilization spreading over 50,000 square miles, a civilization that ended right after lunch, circa 1150 A.D., without anybody cleaning the pots. Afterward, their legend grew and grew, until their civilization became a parable of Utopia. They were said to be a profoundly spiritual people who lived in harmony with nature; a people without rich or poor or even a ruling class, who governed by consensus. In 1987, Chaco Canyon was a Mecca for that great hand-holding called the Harmonic Convergence and at least one archaeological site has since been closed because so many people buried crystals or had their ashes spread there. One extreme of the story claimed that these "highly evolved beings" left the earth in space ships.

But, as Preston detailed, the Utopian tale of the Anasazi ignored one gnawing problem: piles of human bones that looked to archaeologists like "food trash." Bones with polished ends from being stirred in a pot and then cracked open for marrow. Bones representing thousands of people over hundreds of years. In case there was any doubt about what happened to these boiled and shattered bones, archaeologists found human feces deposited upon the stone hearth of the family that apparently became the dinner, and the feces in turn contained the remnants of human flesh. In other words, the Anasazi were not an evolved society at all. Their leaders ate those who disagreed with them.

Ouch! Why repeat this brutal story here?

Well, one simple reason is to reinforce a point that historians and archaeologists and anthropologists have been making for years: Utopia, so far as science tells us, is not behind us. Modern societies are far from perfect, but they tend to be evolving for the better.

The second and more complex reason for this jolting tale is that those of us struggling along on our spiritual journeys — especially the roughly 24% of the American population identified as the Cultural Creatives — of which you, dear reader, are likely a charter member — often find ourselves attempting to embrace everything and everyone equally. Not wanting to oppress anyone, we want to deny that certain ways of being in the world are higher or lower. In our fight against oppressive hierarchies, we have a tendency to embrace romantic myths like the Anasazi. What we often don't understand — and what has now been demonstrated in psychological studies involving tens of thousands of people worldwide — is that the point where we try to deny that hierarchies exist turns out to be a fairly distinct stage in a larger "hierarchy of consciousness" — and it's not the top.

One Brief History of Higher Consciousness

The idea of evolving levels or a hierarchy of consciousness is nothing new. Back in the sixties, psychologist Abraham Maslow identified a progression in consciousness from A-values (survival needs like food and sex and shelter) to B-values ("higher grumbles" like choosing a career). Meanwhile, the late Clare Graves at Union College in New York was figuring out more specifically what these stages of human consciousness might be — and how they might become useful for creating a more peaceful world. In studies involving thousands of people, what Graves found were not so much discrete stages of consciousness but "a spiral process marked by progressive subordination of older, lower-order behavior to newer, higher-order systems as man's existential problems change." In other words, Graves found that each level of consciousness remains within us even as we progress up and up.

Next, Don Beck, Ph.D., and Chris Cowan expanded Graves's description of spiraling consciousness into the colors of Spiral Dynamics. As Dr. Beck explains, the spirals nest together like Russian dolls: We don't leave one stage for another; instead, each new spiral envelops all those levels that were already there. The worldviews at each layer are "nested truths." In other words, the worldview is the way the world looks at that level — which is why communication between levels is so nearly impossible. People at different levels are reacting to very different realities.

While the colors take some getting used to, they have been shown to be very helpful, especially in racially charged conflicts like those in South Africa. Using the language of Spiral Dynamics, a situation is no longer black vs. white but blue vs. purple or orange vs. green. More importantly, the focus is no longer on types of people (which don't change) but types in people (which can and do change.) Beck made more than 60 trips to South Africa and was commended by both Nelson Mandela and Zulu leader Mongosutho Buthelezi.

The World as a Kaleidoscope

Don Beck explains that Third-World societies are dealing, for the most part, with lower levels — beige, purple, and red. Staying alive, finding safety, and dealing with feudal-age conditions matter most. Second-World societies are characterized by authoritarian (blue), one-party states, whether from the right or from the left. First-World nations are centered in orange, a free-market-driven and individual-liberty focused worldview. Green, yellow, and turquoise are emerging in the "post-modern" age, but we have no traditional language beyond First World.

But, as Beck reminds us, there are systems within systems within systems. "So many of the same issues we confront on the West Bank (red to blue) can be found in South Central Los Angeles. One can experience the animistic (purple) worldview on Bourbon Street as well as in the Republic of Congo. Matters brought before the city council in Minneapolis (orange to green to yellow) are not unlike the debates in front of governing bodies in the Netherlands."

The possibilities for using the colors are many and varied — and there are several books dreaming up more, notably Ken Wilber's latest, A Theory of Everything (Shambala, 2000). But the main point to remember here is that the vast majority of the world's people are ethnocentric: Only about 10% have reached the multicultural green stage of the Cultural Creatives. For the rest to reach that level they will have to progress step by step from purple to red to blue to orange. Unfortunately, the egalitarian greens, who tend to see all hierarchies as oppressive, have a tendency to destroy blue.

Greens think ridding the world of blue will naturally raise people, but what it often does instead is drop them into red and purple. In South Africa, for example, apartheid was built on a blue foundation on which white South Africans had built a strong, orange capitalist state. When apartheid was dismantled, the country was thrown into turmoil. Of course apartheid needed to go, but this dynamic helps to explain that the people of South Africa need time to create their own blue order to replace the European version. By the same token, authoritarian blue countries like Singapore may appall greens, but the blue order there contains a hot ethnic purple and red core. Abruptly knocking out the blue would unleash chaos. Instead, what needs to happen is to build individual autonomy and achievement, and move the blues up to orange.

The good news is that when we leap upward from green to yellow — as Ken Wilber is convinced the Cultural Creatives are poised to do — we become conscious of all the steps of the ladder that got us to this very privileged position. More importantly, we can better support the steps of other people and countries coming up behind us. It is easy to forget how fortunate we are and to lose sight of the real work ahead by clinging to dreams like the Anasazi — but, if we're lucky, somewhere along the journey, reality bites and we are forced to move up.

For updates on Spiral Dynamics see www.SpiralDynamics.net.

What Color Are You?

My World is

Beige: a natural milieu where humans rely on instinct to stay alive

Thinking: Instinctive. Concerned about food, water, and procreation.

Politics: Clans who fight to keep place in the survival niche.

Purple: a magical place alive with spirit beings and mystical signs

Thinking: Animistic. Concerned about rites, rituals, taboos.

Politics: Tribes who fight to protect the myths, ancestral traditions.

Red: a jungle where the strongest and most cunning survive

Thinking: Egocentric. Concerned with gratification, glitz.

Politics: Feudal societies that fight to dominate and plunder.

Blue: an ordered existence under the control of the ultimate truth

Thinking: Authority. Concerned with discipline, traditions, and rules. Lives for later.

Politics: Nations that fight to protect borders, homelands, hearth, preserve way of life, defend "holy" cause.

Orange: a marketplace full of possibilities and opportunities

Thinking: Strategic. Concerned about material success, status, and growth.

Politics: Corporate States that fight to extend economic spheres for access to raw materials and markets.

Green: a human habitat in which we share life's experiences

Thinking: Consensus. Concerned about equality, feelings, authenticity, sharing, and caring.

Politics: Value communities that fight to punish those who commit "crimes against humanity" and protect the victims.

Yellow: a chaotic organism forged by differences and change

Thinking: Integrative. Concerned about natural systems, multiple realities, knowledge.

Turquoise: an elegantly balanced system of interlocking forces

Thinking: Holistic. Concerned with collective individualism, cosmic spirituality, earth changes.

[Rich Engle]

Judith!

A girl after my own heart! Thanks for getting this out there.