Spiral Dynamics Integral

Integral Philosophy

AQAL A-Q-A-L

(pronounced ahqwul) means “all quadrants, all levels, all lines, all states, all types.”

Integral Philosophy Integral Philosophy

tries to include the insights of ancient and modern, east and west, masculine and feminine, rational and empirical, scientific and spiritual.

Ken Wilber (1949-)

An Integral Approach Wilber tried to

combine the experiential and the intellectual in a way that I find inspiring and illuminating.

Spiral Dynamics Integral Spiral Dynamics Integral is simply one

specific “map” of a developmental approach to problems and concerns like the issue of the health of our society that allows us to take a vertical look and not limit ourselves to the horizontal view.

Don Beck

Values What is a good life? What makes you

happy? Goodness and happiness represent values that we all appreciate and desire. When we understand them as values, then we can ask ourselves why people have such different understandings of what is good and what is happiness?

Development Spiral Dynamics Integral suggests that

different values come from different levels of development. This is based on the insights found in the field of developmental psychology.

Development For example, colored box experiment

with young children. At one time they think you are seeing the same color as they are, but eventually they realize that you are seeing one color while they see another. This ability is a developmental leap.

Spiral Dynamics Beck and Cowan decided to take this

idea of individual development and look at cultures in this light. They found that cultures also develop over time in a fairly consistent manner.

Memes Stages are called “memes.” Just as our

physical development is guided by genes, our psychological development is guided by memes. The “memes” are the mental systems we construct to make sense of our world-the maps we use to navigate through life.

Nine Stages Spiral dynamics uses nine stages and

matches these stages with nine colors for ease of reference. The lower stages are commonly recognized by most of us. The higher stages are more controversial.

Transcend and Include As a person moves from one stage to

another he or she transcends the previous stage. But in healthy development you don’t repress the previous stage, but incorporate it into your repertoire of possible perspectives. You have access to the basic insights of that stage.

Developmental Difficulties Development is not easy or guaranteed

and no one is simply at one stage. Usually we have a number of stages we are most associated with. Perhaps three, with the middle stage being dominant, might represent most people.

Developmental Difficulties Development is not automatic past the

average level. This means that society promotes the development of individuals through things like education and culture, but it does not support development beyond the average level.

Ethics and Moral Development Another way of understanding Spiral

Dynamics is looking at moral development. People move from an egocentric to an ethnocentric to a worldcentric understanding and perspective. One current problem is that we have global problems without nearly enough worldcentric development.

Colors

Infrared: Archaic-Instinctual 1. 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.

Infrared: Archaic-Instinctual Where seen: First human societies, new

born infants, mentally ill street people, starving masses, shell shock. Approximately 0.1 percent of the population, 0 percent of the power.

Magenta: Magical-Animistic Thinking is animistic; magical spirits, good

and bad, swarm the earth leaving blessings, curses, and spells that determine events. Forms into ethnic tribes. The spirits exist in ancestors and bond the tribe. Kinship and lineage establish political links.

Magenta: Magical-Animistic 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 percent of the population, 1 percent of the power.

Red: Power Gods First emergence of a self distinct from the

tribe; powerful, impulsive, egocentric, heroic. 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.

Red: Power Gods Where seen: The “terrible twos,” rebellious

youth, frontier mentalities, feudal kingdoms, epic heroes, James Bond villains, gang leaders, soldiers of fortune, wild rock stars, Attila the Hun. 20 percent of the population, 5 percent of the power.

Amber: 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.”

Amber: Mythic Order 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.

Amber: Mythic Order Where seen: Puritan America, Confucian

China, Singapore discipline, totalitarianism, codes of chivalry, religious fundamentalism (e.g., Christian and Islamic), Boy and Girl Scouts, “moral majority.” 40 percent of the population, 30 percent of the power.

Orange: Scientific Achievement At this stage, the self “escapes” from the

“herd mentality” of Amber, and seeks truth and meaning in individualistic terms-experimental, objective-“scientific” in the typical sense.

Orange: Scientific Achievement 5. The world is a rational and well-oiled

machine with natural laws that can be learned, mastered and manipulated for one’s own purposes. The laws of science rule politics, the economy, and human events. The world is a chessboard on which games are played as winners gain preeminence and perks over losers. Basis of corporate states.

Orange: Scientific Achievement Where seen: The Enlightenment, Wall

Street, emerging middle classes around the world, colonialism, materialism, secular humanism. 30 percent of the population, 50 percent of the power.

Green: The Sensitive Self The human spirit must be freed from greed,

dogma, and divisiveness; feeling and caring supersede cold rationality; cherishing of the earth, life. Against hierarchy; establishes lateral bonding and linking.

Green: The Sensitive Self Emphasis on dialogue, relationships.

Reaches decisions through reconciliation and consensus. Strongly egalitarian, pluralistic values, diversity, multiculturalism, relativistic value systems; this worldview is often called pluralistic relativism.

Green: The Sensitive Self Where seen: Postmodernism, Netherlands

idealism, Canadian health care, humanistic psychology, liberation theology, World Council of Churches, animal rights, ecofeminism, politically correct diversity movements, human rights issues. 10 percent of the population, 15 percent of the power.

Second-Tier Thinking 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 or only true perspective.

Teal: Integrative Life is a kaleidoscope of natural hierarchies,

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.

Teal: Integrative 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.

Teal: Integrative Good governance facilitates the emergence

of entities through the levels of increasing complexity. 1 percent of the population, 5 percent of the power.

2nd Tier Consciousness

“With the transition to second tier, there occurs what Graves called “a momentous leap of meaning.” In essence, the entire Spiral comes into view. And this changes everything.”

2nd Tier Consciousness

“Graves found that fear tends to drop away dramatically. It is as if the deeper and wider perspective of second-tier awareness meets the world with a calm wisdom that is not easily ruffled. Around second-tier people, things happen, often miraculously, simply because they see big pictures and move fluidly through them.”

2nd Tier Consciousness

“Second-tier thinkers intuitively understand the entire Spiral in other people, and thus they meet people where they find them. There is a genuine compassion, not as an ideal, but as a lived reality.” These people have access and can activate any of the first-tier resources within themselves that they might need.

2nd Tier Consciousness

“Second-tier individuals often baffle others, precisely because they range across the entire Spiral as needed. Spanning the Spiral, they are impossible to pigeonhole.” The need to pigeonhole someone is a first-tier need because each first-tier meme thinks it is the best and only way. There are those who are “in” and those who are “out.”

Developmental Hierarchies

Each level of development “enfolds or envelopes its predecessors-ecosystems contain organisms, which contain cells, which contain molecules-a development that is envelopment. And thus each higher level becomes more inclusive, more embracing, more integral-and less marginalizing, less exclusionary, less oppressive.”

Two Distinctive Hierarchies

“Riane Eisler calls attention to the important distinction between ‘dominator hierarchies’ and ‘actualization hierarchies.’ The former are the rigid social hierarchies that are instruments of oppression, and the latter are the growth hierarchies that are actually necessary for the self-actualization of individuals and cultures.

Two Distinctive Hierarchies

“Whereas dominator hierarchies are the means of oppression, actualization hierarchies are the means of growth. It is the growth hierarchies that gently bring together previously isolated and fragmented elements.”

Two Distinctive Hierarchies

“Isolated atoms are brought together into molecules; isolated molecules are brought together into cells; isolated cells into organisms; organisms into ecosystems. In short, growth hierarchies covert heaps into wholes, fragments into integration, alienation into cooperation.”

Spiral Dynamics Integral “And, Spiral Dynamics adds, all of this

starts to become obvious at second tier. Thus, if we react negatively to all hierarchies, not only will we honorably fight the injustices of dominator hierarchies, we will prevent ourselves from developing to second tier.”

The Prime Directive “The aim of second-tier ethics is the

health of the whole Spiral, and not any privileged treatment for any one level, amber or orange or green or even second tier. This aim is called the Spiral Imperative or the Prime Directive.”

Second Tier Spirituality “A new type of spirituality can emerge at

second tier. It is deeply universal and stands in awe of the cosmic order, the creative forces that exist from the Big Bang to the smallest molecule. This cosmic unity often includes a renewed appreciation of Gaia, but only as a part of a larger consciousness.”

Second Tier Spirituality “It is a big picture spirituality, a

spirituality of cosmic wholeness. And it is very important to distinguish this postconventional cosmic spirituality from conventional, mythic, Amber religion.”

Second Tier Spirituality “They are as different as day and night,

the latter based on myths and dogmas, the former on integral awareness.”

Turquoise “If Teal is integral awareness, Turquoise

is unity and wholeness. First-tier focuses on differences, Teal focuses on unity, and then Turquoise is able to see true unity-in-diversity.”

2nd Tier Shadow “Downsides at second tier can be

considerable, since every level has it pathologies. The brighter the light, the darker the shadow. Megatribes and superclans can form around panoramic visions.”

2nd Tier Shadow “The Darth Vader move is always

possible: no matter how high the developmental unfolding, the new potentials can be misused, with tragic consequences.” An example of this is the globalization problems we see today with international corporations.

An Extraordinary Journey “What an extraordinary journey, this

unfolding of consciousness! From isolated bands of no more than 30 people, incapable of communicating with other bands and tribes, to a global village with at least the possibility of a truly integral embrace.”

An Extraordinary Journey This integral embrace envisions “a

global unity-in-diversity that allows each and every culture its own specialness, while setting them all in the context of a universal care and fairness that honors the uniqueness of each.”

The Need for Balance We see our problem is not simply with

any specific color (meme), but when any color tries to take over all of the other colors.

The Need for Checks and Balances A red meme with a club is not so

frightening. A red meme with nuclear weapons or biological weapons is very scary.

Perspectives So after this journey through the memes

it is important to return to the beginning and ask ourselves what do they have to do with our map of reality? They show us that how we see the world and other people looks very different from each color.

Definitions What is “God” to the infrared meme?

Magenta? Red? Amber? Orange? Green? Teal?

And what is spirituality therefore?

Pragmatism How can we use these colors

practically? One conclusion seems to point to the

idea that more than any specific plan to fix things, what we really need to do is encourage the development of consciousness.

Lessons Another conclusion is that we can see

the need for helping any specific meme develop along the spiral and not encourage it to skip levels. For example Green often wants Amber to skip Orange. And Orange wants Red to skip Amber.

Lessons The lesson seems to be that we can’t

skip over levels, but we can grow through them.

And we can have both healthy and unhealthy versions of each color.

Defining Health Vertically, we want people to grow.

Horizontally, we want people to be healthy versions of whatever meme they are at.

Wisdom Wisdom, if anything, is the ability to see

a fuller and wider picture of reality and be able to understand reality from an increasing number of perspectives. Spiral Dynamics Integral is one way of doing this.

Conclusion What we wish to promote in order to

facilitate a healthy society is second-tier thinkers and thinking because they are the ones who won’t try to suppress any one group, but who will see the health of the whole spiral as being vital and necessary.

Conclusion Hope is possible because we have

seen the whole world grow from Infrared to Magenta to Red. Some cultures have moved to Amber and Orange and a few small groups have moved to Green.

Conclusion Finally, the task is to pursue our own

growth in consciousness, promote the growth in consciousness of others, and preserve the health of the whole spiral while at the same time doing what is necessary and in our power to do to facilitate balance at each level of society.