Increasing Credibility & Acceptance/Spiral Dynamics in the 1st Tier World

Increasing Credibility &
Acceptance of Graves/Spiral
Dynamics in the 1st Tier World
Spiral Dynamics Summit on the Future
Dallas, Texas 20-22 April 2018
Copyright © 2001-2018 Keith E Rice

Presentation Plan

Back in 2001…the first Confab!

Don Beck (UK, 1998)
Don, with Chris Cowan, delivering the first Spiral Dynamics workshop
programme in the UK (1998)

HemsMESH
Don, with centre
manager Mike
Newton and
Yours Truly, at
the start of the
HemsMESH
project (1999)

So…
What is
H-U TURQUOISE?

Thoughts on the TURQUOISE Concept
“In part, a Gaia view emerges, one that centres on life itself – all forms of life (not just
humans). Every person, every creature, every species belongs. The planet itself is seen
as a single ecosystem. Individuals are not separated; neither are national boundaries,
ethnic peculiarities, nor elitist privileges allowed to divide people destructively.… There
is a constant attention to more expansive implications and the unavoidability of
connections among actions and actors….everything somehow connects to everything
else.” Beck & Cowan (1996)

Thoughts on TURQUOISE Thinkers
“They’re beginning to think in a way that intuition, subjectivism plays a great deal
more in their behaviour….You go into an almost mystical conception where the guy
says he has a sort of *feeling* what a healthy human being is….they think in many
respects in a higher order magical superstitious way….” Graves (1978/2005)
“The H-U person can turn off other levels of consciousness at will. He can go out of this
world and go off into other levels of consciousness and come back at will.
Instrumentally you have that…” Graves (1971/2002)
“He values wonder, awe, reverence, humility, fusion…” Graves (1978/2005)
“…these will not be better, nicer or more intelligent creatures…. Just because this way
of thinking includes more of the Spiral, that does not preclude destructive ideas and
attachments.” Beck & Cowan (1996)

2 Comparable Concepts by Others
Transcendence
Abraham Maslow (1971): “It is a transcendence of competitiveness, of zero-sum, of
win-lose gamesmanship.”
“Transcendent experiences and illuminations bring clearer vision of the Being-Values,
of the ideal, …of what ought to be, what actually could be, … and, therefore, of what
might be brought to pass.”
“Transcenders are in principle…more apt to be profoundly ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ in
either the theistic or non-theistic sense. Peak experiences and other transcendent
experiences are in effect also to be seen as ‘religious or spiritual’ experiences.”
I sometimes get the impression that they are as prone and maybe more prone to a
kind of cosmic sadness or B-sadness over the stupidity of people, their self-defeat, their
blindness, their cruelty to each other, their shortsightedness…. Any transcender could
sit down and in five minutes write a recipe for peace, brotherhood, and happiness, a
recipe absolutely within the bounds of practicality, absolutely attainable. And yet he
sees all this not being done…”

2 Comparable Concepts by Others #2
Transcendent Morality
Lawrence Kohlberg & Clark Power (1981): “individuals construct a ‘natural theology’
that is based on reason. Although rationally derived, one’s metaphysical system…is
also supported by mystical experiences of union with the whole of reality…. Mystical
experience is present as an element of [this] spirituality, but it is necessary to see this
experience in the context of the other features of this stage. Mystical experiences may
perhaps be induced in a variety of ways, such as through drugs or disciplined
meditation. Mystical experiences that are religiously significant are those in which the
oneness of being is disclosed and the subject-object duality is overcome. These
experiences then represent an emotionally powerful intuitive grasp of a reality that a
metaphysics can only in a limited way express conceptually.”
[the resolution of] “existential despair through a sense of union with God or the whole
of life, promoting a sense of union with all other human beings.”

So How Many TURQUOISE Thinkers
are there...?
 Maslow (1971) studied just 12 people he considered to be ‘transcendent
self-actualisers’ (beyond basic Self-Actualisation)
 Graves (1971) could only find 6 people he considered thought in a way
beyond G-T (YELLOW)
 Kohlberg & Clark (1981) postulated that there was a 7th
(Transcendent)
level but Lawrence Kohlberg & Anne Colby (1987) withdrew it on the
basis that they couldn’t get a large enough sample
 Beck & Cowan (1996) estimated 0.1% of the world’s population had
accessed TURQUOISE thinking
 So how many people are there really ‘out there’ who can think in
TURQUOISE…?

So Where is the World’s Thinking at..?
Don Beck & Alan
Tonkin (2003) –
based on research by
Tonkin’s Global
Values Network –
produced these
estimates.
Not much call from
most of the world for
TURQUOISE
concepts and
language!
The vMEME should
match the life
conditions for
sociopsychological
healthCopyright © 2001-2018 Keith E Rice

Leaders communicate Half-a-vMEME
ahead of the Followers
 Don Beck (2002) says that
effective leadership
communicates by talking in
language/ concepts of no more
than half a vMEME in
complexity ahead of the current
centre of gravity.
 If the concepts are too complex,
then those being addressed will
not be able to understand in
terms that are meaningful to
them. It will ‘go over their
heads’.
 If the language and concepts
are too simple, then people are
likely to feel they are being
patronised.

Leaders communicate Half-a-vMEME
ahead of the Followers
 4Q/8L provides a means of
overviewing how well the culture
(Lower Left) and the structure
(Lower Right) in any context are
matched.
 A structure too complex for the
’followers’ is likely to result in
confusion and frustration or even
sheer apathy.
 A structure too simple for the
followers is likely to be perceived as
childish or patronising.
 Steve Reicher, Alex Haslam &
Nick Hopkins (2005): leaders’
actions and achievements have to
be a practical expression of their
followers shared values and beliefs.

So Where is the World’s Thinking at..?

Thoughts on speaking to a
BLUE/ORANGE/GREEN Western World
“Spiral Dynamics is the most advanced, cohesive and comprehensive model of human
motivation - and everyone able to influence should be using it.”
BLUE says:-
“Where’s the scientifically-reliable evidence?”
ORANGE says:-
“How is that going to help me achieve my goals?”
GREEN says:-
“But Graves can’t be any more important than all those other great developmentalists
– Kohlberg, Maslow, Loevinger, etc”

Comparis
on Map
• Identify and
map similar,
better-known
models,
genuinely
honouring
their
contributions
• By
comparison,
let them
discover
how
complete
Graves/SD
is

• Ego – restrains the Id to gain acceptance and balances Id and Superego (the
PURPLE vMEME reflects some of the Ego’s functions)
• Superego – divides into Conscience (right and wrong - BLUE) and Ego Ideal
(how things should be - GREEN)
Freud’s 3-
part mind
•Id – the self-
oriented part,
driven by
sexual urges
and the
desire to
destroy
(encapsul-
ated by RED
in Graves/
Spiral
Dynamics)

Svenaj Caspers et al (2011), Svenja
Caspers & Marc Lucas (2014) used
MRI scans to find:-
•Frontal cortex involved in ‘cool’
values decisions; limbic system in
‘warm’ values decisions
•Differentiation in use of areas
according to complexity of decision-
making – last finding not statistically-
significant
Solms (2000) used PET scans on
dreamers to find:-
•Limbic system very active in sexual/
violent dreams - the ID (RED)
• Inhibitory circuits of frontal cortex
virtually shut down and not performing
Ego (PURPLE) and Superego
(BLUE/GREEN) functions
Brain Scanning for
vMEMES

Blueprint to reduce Racism for Burnley Council
• Recognise tribal loyalties (PURPLE), rather than dismiss them
and demand inter-mingling (GREEN)
• Seek to build up healthy tribal communities (healthy PURPLE)
• Work to identify common interests/goals for all the tribes
• Look for the RED leaders in the tribes
• Convene tribal leaders gathering to make common cause in
pursuing their goals
• Encourage tribal leaders to share ideas and achievements –
eg: how to get things out of the Council
• Encourage tribal leaders to visit each others’ tribes and then
get them to encourage inter-mingling as much as people felt
comfortable with it
Developed with Councillor Darren Reynolds, 2011-2012

To get a copy of this presentation and/or discuss
any aspects of it with me…
•Email keith@integratedsociopsychology.net
•Google ‘Keith E Rice’ to find my website and
use the Contact page

Increasing Credibility & Acceptance/Spiral Dynamics in the 1st Tier World

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