UW Integral Learning Community     

Notes from January 23rd, 2006, meeting

How to create one message that will speak to all Spiral Levels of a group?  
(Critical discussion distinctions have been capitalized in the following.)

Yo UW ILC Folks!

On Monday 1-23-06 we took on our virgin attempt to create one message to be addressed to all Spiral Levels of a Group. 

For those concerned with details:  The Spiral continuum that we are addressing here is the Spectrum Metaphor, applied to the vMeme Line of Development established by Clare Graves, and further publicized by the work of Chris Cowan and Don Beck.   Ken Wilber, in his Spectrum of Consciousness, lays out a slightly different Spectrum Metaphor.  His Line of Development is consistent with the Gravsian Line, BUT, the color sequence is NOT the same as the Gravsian, Spiral, sequence. 

Our presumptions for the inquiry:

• The Spiral Model describes useful and reliable similarities in Groups.  

• We all have some occurrence of all Spiral Levels in the flow of our being. 

• Individuals have a preponderance of their thinking occurring at one Spiral Level. 

• The Group may have individuals with the preponderance of thinking distributed, as individuals, across all Spiral Levels.

General Problem:

• How to address a Group, with one message that speaks to all Levels of thinking in the Group?

Concrete version of Problem -  The National Engagement Story:

• What message about the United States would inspire people at all Levels of the Spiral to become involved in politics?  

• This is a question that I and Willow Harth are addressing as we write an article to submit to What Is Enlightenment magazine.  The input from this and following sessions will be used to inform this article.  Contributions of the UW ILC will be acknowledged in the article.

The  Hypothesys:

1. If we can come up with a story that engages the poor, uneducated, religious fundamentalists, hawks, entrepreneurs, peace niks, environmentalists, cultural creatives, new agers, and leading edge thinkers, then we will have a more politically active citizenry.  

2. If we can solve this concrete problem, then we have a model that we can apply to other Groups, e.g. teaching staff, gov't department, neighborhood group, professional association, union, etc.

What follows is a mix of the sketchy, hardly legible notes I took during our 2 hour inquiry, plus comments I have added which I intend as connective tissue for the discussion, and as provocation for further thought. (We agreed to continue this conversation at our next meeting, Monday, 2:30p 2/6/06)   These notes are NOT a secretary's record of the meeting.  I am taking much more freedom in reporting than that.  You are invited to be at least as free in sending comments to the group to add to this summary, contend with any elements of it, or in any other way you choose contribute to this conversation.

We began at the beginning of the Spiral, the Beige Level, agreeing to look, at least, for Strengths at each Level.  I am adding the descriptors for each Level from Spiral Dynamics, Beck and Cowan, page 44.  As a jumping off point, a useful simplification, it may be helpful to think of each Level as pertaining to the Core Concern that drives ideation and behavior at that Level.  In the descriptions that follow that Core Concern is noted as Process. 

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Beige:  Thinking is automatic.  Structures are loose bands.  Process is survivalist.

This is the Level that all humans begin in.  Any Level of awakening above Beige rests on the resolution of the Beige Problem, Survival. Upper Levels, are compromised, even disappeared, whenever a Survival crisis emerges.   

This principal holds as one develops up the Spiral, i.e. the crisis magnitude reappearance of a previous Level Problem can disappear all higher Levels.  Of course the Problems of prior Levels always exist.  Healthy Development means that a means of solving the Problems of prior Levels has been stabilized, been "handled".   To a significant degree the processing of prior Level Problems goes into the unconscious.  This has led those at senior Levels of the Spiral to "forget" about these processes.  Learning the SDi model, brings these processes back into conscious awareness, where they can be respected in Self, and others, and managed with intention, art, and whatever other standards one applies to the design of one's life and work.

There are people, even adults, existing in our Body Politic, who exist at this primal survivalist Level.  Most are in institutions of care, members of the homeless contingent, or snuggling in the arms of their new caretakers.  They are not to be presumed as active contributing members of the Body Politic.  Those existing at the Beige Level will not be voters.  So a National Engagement Story will not speak directly to those at this Level. However, to engage those at Senior Levels who will have concerns for the Beige thinkers, Beige concerns must be addressed in our final Story. 

Beige is the source of our emerging population.  It is then a National Resource.   A generational perspective on National Well Being would, one would think, call for a generous budget for nurturing and educating the new Beige arrivals.  Our future depends on the Body Politic being resupplied constantly with people having the highest possible capacity for understanding and acting in ways that support Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.  A compromised childhood would appear to compromise the well being of our Country.

There was a suggestion that Beige is a consumer pool.  I would suggest, yes, but not directly.  Again there will be others making decisions for the Beige thinkers, purchasing on their behalf.  So, yes, indirectly they are a consumer pool.

Advertising tags, not addressed.  However tags referring to the Beige constituency, but addressed to Senior Levels probably do exist.  Any suggestions?

A short list of competencies or strengths developed at this level would include:  Resiliency and resourcefulness.

Sound bytes addressed to this contingency, probably don't exist.  However bytes referring to the Beige constituency, but addressed to Senior Levels probably do exist.  Any suggestions?  

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Purple:  Thinking is animistic.  Structures are tribal.  Process is circular.

This is the tight Group affiliation/identification Level.  Individual sense of Self, ego, has at most only lightly emerged.  The Group is the prime unit.  And the project is to establish some space for the Group, and some control of and effective engagement with this mysterious milieu that one lives immersed in.  This is done thru ritual, establishing cycles and anchor points in one's milieu, e.g. rituals to bring the Sun up each morning,  Home Coming party each Fall, annual visit to relatives graves, family reunions, annual neighborhood festivals, avoiding a black cat, etc.

Since the milieu is populated (at least) by invisible yet very potent projections of undistinguished interior stuff, the means to establish regularity resides in the domain of the invisible also, in magic, in myth, in the believed, and the experienced but fundamentally unseeable.  Whether there are actual magical beings in this world, and not just projections is an interesting question.  Anyone with a convincing test for this?   But the answer to this question does not NEED to be found.  Bucky Badger IS REAL for some folks, as are the ancestors in those burial mounds, the importance of the family farm and business, ones' home town, and marriage. A story that will engage such folks, will need to acknowledge this.

We might say that this is the Level of the ties that bind.  Transcending survival we are concerned with our connectedness.  Its is only on top of a table of connectedness that we can build a strong edifice of Self.

Together we came up with such tags as:  Belongingness, kinship, nature communities. 

A strength that was highlighted:  Wonder.

Sound bytes:   Not addressed.  Any suggestions?

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Red:  Thinking is egocentric.  Structure is empire.  Process is exploitation.

Red Level thinking is devoted to establishment and dominance of Self, personal identity.  Red predominates in the "terrible twos", adolescent rebellion, dominance style leadership, and much of sporting competition.  Guilt has not yet appeared in the two legged repertoire, as the legitimacy of the Other has not yet emerged:  "But enough about me.  Let's talk about me." 

At this Level the power of Authority becomes articulated and  recognized.  The solidity to return to the Group as a contributor and participant is being developed.  Without a defined Self, there is no one present to enter into the Group complexities of the next Level.  A healthy ego is the outcome of the "leaders in training" at the Red Level. 

We came up with such tags as:  Hero, Power, Self, Impulsive, Action Oriented, Belief in Self and Naked Power. .   We saw the classic "teenager" as a Red thinker.  

Strengths:  Decisive and assertive.

At this Level we began searching for advertising slogans, byte size pitches to this constituency: 

• Be all you can be.

• Bring it on.

• Let's kick ass.

• America, love it or leave it.

• Go Bucky.

• Don't tread on me.

It would appear that The National Engagement Story must affirm the world of competition, domination, and Self definition.  Let's hear it for those guys on the broncos and those gals in the roller dromes! and those chess experts and blue ribbon hybrid Dalia growers.

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Blue:  Thinking is absolutistic.  Structure is pyramid.  Process is authoritarian.

Blue Level thinking perceives Order, personal location in that Order, the objective source of Authority, and knows this worldscape as given, final, complete, and not needing, or provoking any questioning.  You see what you get.  You get what you see.   Now guilt is present, because there is an Other, a totally real, legitimate, and objective Other, e.g. God, Bible, Constitution, Parliamentary Procedure.....cook book?.  This Other is the source of all answers, and the resource for assurances of what that objective destination is that justifies all relegation of Self to Order; e.g. heaven, retirement check, justice.....great cake?

At this Level what are often called strengths of character develop:  Dedication, consistency, fairness, etc.  This is the time where the skills of managing Self can be developed.  There is now a framework that calls for the Red impulses to be directed to align with the decrees of Authority.   Transforming the impulses of Red into directed intents of Blue are essential skills, the absence of which will (send one to Hell, and) prevent one from exercising one's compentencies later, at Orange, in service to the Self.  Blue thinking is the trampoline from which an individual can launch successfully into a focus on individual, creative, and accomplished, Self expression.

We noted the following tags as we discussed Blue Level thinking:  Purpose and delay of gratification.  Birth of strategy..(but not artful application?  Orange?).  Ruler.  Efficiency.  Value of suffering. Normative "shoulds".

We noted in our world the Blue successes & strengths:  Operating rooms.  Trains.  Driving, and traffic lights.  Ordered systems. Character development. Delayed gratification.

Our byte size pitch to this constituency might include:

• We The People.

• Honor and uphold your leaders.

• Play by the rules.

• In God We Trust.

• Financial worries should retire when you do.

• The Patriot Act.

The National Engagement Story for this level is well worked out.  The USA Body Politic is primarily a collection of Blue thinkers.   So the current main stream meaning and action story about the USA needs to be included in our final product.  Yes? 

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Orange:   Thinking is multiplistic.  Structure is delegative.  Process is strategic .

Orange thinking perceives opportunity, frontiers, horizons, the space of possibility beyond the given Order. An Orange world is one to be engaged with to manifest one's dreams.  The world is an unlimited resource for creativity just as one's internal world is an ever unfolding pool of creative ideas and actions.  Other people are part of this world of resources and can be enrolled in serving one's own plans.  This is the space where we reach for the sky, be all that we can be, and eagerly push into the realms of the unknown.   Objective Authority can be relied on to function, as a service to Self, but not...no, no, not ever...deferred to as final.  Been there, done that.  The Declaration of Independence of the Self, as Luther proclaimed - the right to be one's own priest,  has one of its strong roots sunk deep here.

At this level the complexity of life becomes apparent in a glaring way.  A means of successfully engaging this complexity is a skill that can be developed at this Level. Life ain't as simple as Heaven or Hell....and who translated that book anyway!?   One's own refined competencies, preferences, inclinations, and in the best of circumstances, one's successes are established here.  Who am I, measured by what have I created, is answered in the Orange world.  The apex of development here deposits one on the top of one's own beautiful and high mountain.....alone.   It is only with this new found need to heal the loneliness of success, the recognition that the "mountain top syndrome" is not a private experience, and a secure sense of a competent Self, that provides the auger-auger for the emergence of a healthy new respect for the collective of MeandOthers.

We noted the following tags :  Individual Creativity.  Personal Excellence.  Extreme Wealth.  Complexity. Success Driven.

Strengths:  Hmmmm?  Nothing in my notes.  How about innovation, achievement, invention......?

The bytes here:  

Work the system.

You deserve it.

You earned it.

Play to win.

Do it.

What's it all about Alfie?

The National Engagement Story will need to affirm the possibility for breakthru achievement, allow for many Bill Gates', Donald Trumps, and Martha Stewarts.  Yes?

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Green: Thinking is relativistic.  Structure is egalitarian.  Process is consensual.  

Green thinking recognizes the legitimacy of all points of view.   Ok, except the point of view that says "not all points of view are legitamate".  But that only rules out one. :-)  At this level respect for Others has birthed out of a healthy respect for Self.  If I'm ok, then you must be ok too!  Oh dear, then that means I better understand you better, and better give you a seat at the decision table.  We all attend Woodstock, the Rainbow Gathering, and the extremely sensitive collection of folks at the neighborhood association.  We listen to the voices of the animals, the rocks, in fact all of Gaia, as well as her many kinds of equal two leggeds.  No silly, we don't really LISTEN to the rocks...that was Purple.  But we do include their concerns.  At Green we bond with all of life.  Well kind of.  There are large segments of life that are not thinking Green, and those are either very troubled folk, or simply invisible to us...but we didn't say that.  

Green can be a Level of being where our hearts are opened very wide.  A healthy Green thinking genuinely loves, while dealing with the growing nagging feeling that action is not very effective here at reducing suffering on this big rock.  The connection with all of life becomes inescapable, which energizes compassion to seek more effective balms for the wounds of living.  The intent at Green, to care for Others is genuine and laudable.  But generating effective action is not a major attribute of this space of connection.   It is only with a full recognition of one's inescapable embeddedness in the All of Life, and the accompanying absence of effective agency that the stage is set for the breakthrough into Yellow.

Tags we noted:  Sustainability.  Externalities recognized. Hybrid cars.  Carpets as leased, not purchased.

Strengths:   Notes indicate there aren't any.  But maybe, sensitivity, respect, environmentalism, feminism........?

Bytes:

Do well by doing good.

Do no evil.

One World.

We're all in this together.

Can't we all just get along?

The National Engagement Story will probably need to affirm all that is "politically correct", the big "isms", care of everyone.....and what else?  

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Yellow:  Thinking is systemic.  Structure is interactive.  Process is integrative.

This is the first level of thinking in the Second Tier. All prior Levels are considered First Tier thinking.

Movement of thinking to Yellow entails the birth of a very novel perspective, a perspective that will now inform all subsequent Levels, and which was absent at all prior Levels.  It is at Yellow, for the first time, that a person can see the presence of all the earlier Levels.  It is an interesting question, from what perspective do you mean you see this for the first time?  A Blue thinker could surely understand the description of a Red, and even an Orange or Green Thinker.   I will suggest that what is different is not that First Tier cannot understand any but its own Level.  It is that First Tier thinkers cannot experience Levels other than their own, as First Person experiences.  First Tier folks cannot put themselves in the shoes of those at other Levels than their own.  They CAN understand others from a Third Person perspective...a description of other Levels as objective and outside themselves.   Whadya think?

What this means then is that at 2nd Tier Yellow, I can know myself as an embodiment of many Levels of Being, distinct Levels of Being. These are Levels I can address, understand, and creatively engage and nurture. AND, I can know my Group as a body of people each with a predominate Level of Being, and satisfying needs particular to their Level.  For the first time, I can look at myself as a system of need centers if you will, and I can strategically engage, both with myself, and with the larger community, to attempt to better serve the needs of The Whole Spiral, microcosm and macrocosm.

Intention at this Level is directed primarily at improving my life, by improving the life of all.  If I don't help these people get healthy, my planet dies, and I'm toast.  This is as it should be with the cyle of focus moving from Self to Group thru the Levels, with it now being in the Self phase of that cycle.  I can surmise that if the Problem of how to integrate myself and the world is resolved, I have set the stage solidly for a shift into the Group phase of the cycle again...Turquoise.   It would seem that an effectively functioning Spiral Wizard would have to be stabilized, and fully internalized, in order for this work to continue once awareness wakes up to the next Level, where a Group attunement will predominate.  Those of you partying up there at Turquoise are invited to clarify any of this.

We noted only one tag::  Flow.    We also noted that by virtue of being in the conversation that you are reading a record of, we are operating at the Yellow Level.

Strengths:  Again no notes.....we best go back over Strengths at each Level in next session.  For Yellow, I suggest, an Integral View, transcendence of flatland view.......?

Bytes:   

Let's make the world work for everyone, everywhere

The room was very short of responses to characterize the Yellow Level.  The silence seemed like a good measure of the amount our public media speaks to the Yellow Constituency....we don't have a public conversation about the Yellow reality.  I'd like these folks contributing to our Body Politic.  So we best find some way to talk to these emerging oddities.

The Yellow aspect of the National Engagement Story will be present simply by creating this story as we are intending.

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Turquoise:  Thinking is holistic.  Structure is global.  Process is ecological.

Turquoise thinking is......right!   I'd be as helpful here as I would be in describing the grammar errors in the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Your turn.  Come on give it a try.  Its got to be about collective concerns, presence, the non-separateness of Life, Love of SelfandAll, while the engines at all the other levels are chugging along successfully churning out joy and well being for all.  What do you think?

Tags:   Out there.  Wizard. Sage.  Bodhisattva.     ?????

Strengths:  Credit card paid up. Good at team sports.  Can sit in cave alone for long periods.  Yup, I came up with those all by myself. Any help out there?

One email submission for bytes:  Everything is radically connected to everything.  Now live that way.

The National Engagement Story maybe does NOT need to address this contingency.  Turquoise thinkers are already involved, and most likely in the Global Engagement Story.  Yes?

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 NEXT MEETING: We'll start with Yellow next session, then take on Turquoise, at least acknowledge that Coral has appeared in humanity somewhere, and then go back down the Spiral to begin crafting the National Engagement Story so it addresses the problems, needs, and opportunities at every Spiral Level.   Hope you will be there:  

For those of you who can, please read at least one Chapter, any one, in Needleman's, The American Soul.

• Here is a New Dimensions Interview with Needleman....good stuff about the importance of story to a people:  http://www.newdimensions.org/online-journal/articles/soul-of-america.html . 

• On his home page Needleman addresses the need to find a new meaning story:  http://www.jacobneedleman.com/

• There's some other verbiage of interest on his home page, but nothing that has the juice of the chapters in his book, The American Soul.

• If you can't get to the book, here is an interview with Needlman that covers briefly many of his core, and inspiring points:  http://www.mitchhorowitz.com/jacob-needleman.html

Monday, 2/6/06, 2:30p, Memorial Union...check The Union Today for location.

January 2006