What is Spiral Dynamics? And Why Donald Trump is Orange in more ways than one.

[Zak247]

First, this is NOT a Trump thread one way or the other…I’m using him as a synchronistic analog


Spiral dynamics (SD) is basically an evolutionary human development model.

The understanding of SD can bring to light reasons for the actions of many people, collectively and individually


It…. is a data-based, psychological approach to understanding worldviews or systems of thinking held by individuals, organisations and societies. It is concerned with:
• how people to respond to the world around them in given circumstances and with their particular coping abilities (rather than categorising people as ‘types’)
• how people think about things (conceptualisation), rather than what they think about (concepts) – for example, is their thinking binary and absolutist (‘if it’s not black, then it must be white’), or do they acknowledge and seem comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty?
• complex questions about change including ‘HOW should WHO lead WHOM to do WHAT and WHEN?’



It uses a color code system to designate the psychological models of growth and development. SD also, can illustrate the complexities and inner psychological sources of our negative and anti-social ideas and acts as a collective and as individuals.

Now here's where Trump comes in

For example, to use a topical representation. Donald Trump, known as the Orange one, very synchronisticllly the color-coded meme in this system ORANGE is an apt description of many modern very industrious business people we know today and Trump typifies this meme, ORANGE, almost to the tee!

Here is the description of the Orange meme, designated below as level 5


Level 5 ORANGE (E-R) multiplistic: opportunity/success, competing to achieve results, influence, autonomy
Emerges from the rigidity of D-Q, how to manouver rather than comply, many ways and criteria rather than one right way or set of standards, goal directed, independent, self-sufficient, confident, experiment to find the best among many possible choices, future oriented and competitive; work for the good life and abundance, the winners deserve their rewards.

And looking at the Green meme one can see in it the classical description of a modern liberal, a psychological state that pervades modern society.



Level 6 GREEN (F-S) relativistic: harmony/love, joining together for mutual growth, awareness, belonging
Emerges in response to the excesses of E-R, can’t do it on my own and need to collaborate with others, group membership highly valued, tolerates ambiguity through encountering diverse perspectives, requires trust, doesn’t want to hurt others; high empathy and sensitivity to others – everybody counts.


Spiral Dynamics builds on the research undertaken in the 1950s and 60s by US psychologist Dr Clare W Graves of Union College, New York. Graves was seeking to understand human nature, and questions like:
• why are people different?
• why do some people change but others do not?
• how does the mind respond to a world that becomes increasingly complex?



SD can help us understand our history as a collective and as individuals and zero in on our actions in relation to the collective: why we do what we do.

Graves identified what people seek out in life at each level of psychological existence as follows:


Level 1 BEIGE (A-N) existential: survival, biogenic needs satisfaction, reproduction, satisfy instinctive urges
Reactive, biologically driven, living in a state of nature, limited sense of cause and effect; there is very little of this level remaining, although people can regress into it (eg. Alzheimers).

Level 2 PURPLE (B-O) animistic: placate spirit realm; honour ancestors; protection from harm; family bonds
Subsumed in the group, no separate identity of ‘I’ – the focus is on co-operation, sharing, ritual; conflict will endanger the tribe, who have the forces of nature to contend with.

Level 3 RED (C-P) egocentric: power/action, asserting self to dominate others, control, sensory pleasure
Breaking away from the tribe, impulsive, seeking respect, honour and avoiding shame and establishing the self, might is right; the world is adversarial, uncaring, only raw power will let me prevail.

Level 4 BLUE (D-Q) absolutistic: stability/order, obedience to earn reward later, meaning, purpose, certainty
Emerges from the chaos of C-P – obedience to rightful authority, binary thinking, categorising, deny self for ‘the one right way’, stability and security is achieved through sacrifice and submission, doing things by the book/manual; bringing in new norms undermines control/authority.

Level 5 ORANGE (E-R) multiplistic: opportunity/success, competing to achieve results, influence, autonomy
Emerges from the rigidity of D-Q, how to manouver rather than comply, many ways and criteria rather than one right way or set of standards, goal directed, independent, self-sufficient, confident, experiment to find the best among many possible choices, future oriented and competitive; work for the good life and abundance, the winners deserve their rewards.

Level 6 GREEN (F-S) relativistic: harmony/love, joining together for mutual growth, awareness, belonging
Emerges in response to the excesses of E-R, can’t do it on my own and need to collaborate with others, group membership highly valued, tolerates ambiguity through encountering diverse perspectives, requires trust, doesn’t want to hurt others; high empathy and sensitivity to others – everybody counts.

Level 7 YELLOW (G-T) systemic: independence/self-worth, fitting a living system, knowing, good questions
Demands flexibility, autonomy, accepts paradoxes and uncertainties, self interest without harm to others, curiosity, learns from a variety of sources, contextual thinkers, can see things but not always be able to explain them, great awareness of what they do and don’t understand, punished by conventional education and corporate structures; not motivated by fear of survival, God or social approval, guilt and reward motivators don’t work – seeks to do well without compulsive drives and ambitiousness.

Level 8 TURQUOISE (H-U) still developing global community/life force; survival of life on a fragile Earth; consciousness
Existential problems this level will create still not fully known; may be: holistic focus on the well being of all entities, comfortable with many paths to knowing; self is part of a larger non-localised field.

Graves also noted an oscillating ‘locus of control’ – ie. where a person’s instructions on how to behave originate – in the levels. Commencing with the first level, and the odd numbered/warm coloured systems thereafter, the locus is ‘within me’, in service of me. This alternates with the even numbered/cool coloured systems where the focus is ‘outside me’, in service of us.


This developmental model has its degree of complexity, and I don’t want to go too deep into it but I hope I’ve given a readable and interesting general description of this groundbreaking dynamic model of human behavior.

Please follow the links for any further interest.


http://www.cruxcatalyst.com/2013/09/26/spiral-dynamics-a-way-of-understanding-human-nature/

http://www.cruxcatalyst.com/wp-content/uploads/helixes.jpg

[Jayke]

I'll add a few layers of complexity because I don't think Spiral Dynamics did justice to the Clare Graves model. Michael Breen (the NLP trainer) was chastising them during one of his trainings because, after attending one of their workshops, he asked a simple question..."So where does Spiral Dynamics fit within this model of cognitive development?"

They couldn't give him an answer!

Breen stated that for a model to be effective, you have to know where you are in the system (so that you can know how to move forward within it). Unfortunately Breen wrote the whole model off after his lacklustre encounter with Spiral Dynamics, which is a shame because Clare Graves work is one of the most profound things I've personally ever encountered in the fields of psychology.

Now if they'd answered honestly, they would've admitted that their version of Graves work is a very Level 6 (Green) interpretation of the original source material. Graves describes himself as a Level 7 character, and as such didn't assign the vague colour interpretations to his degrees of character development.

His character levels were given more detailed titles...

Level 3 - express self (to hell with others)
Level 4 - sacrifice self for the benefit of authority figures
Level 5 - express self calculatedly for personal benefit at expense of others.
Level 6 - sacrifice self for the group.
Level 7 - express self but with respect for others.
Level 8 - (he didn't give a label because in 25 years of study, he only encountered 8 people of this character type, which wasn't enough for him to analyse it thoroughly)

Levels 1 and 2 were largely theoretical, the first would represent a form of pure autism without any ability to function in the world. The second would be a very simple, tribal kind of awareness.

The odd numbered levels fall under the category of 'express self', while even numbered levels are 'sacrifice self'. This highlights the flip-flopping of left-hemisphere dominance vs right-hemisphere dominant awareness. And fits perfectly with Ian Mcgilchrists neuroscience studies on the divided brain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbUHxC4wiWk)

Graves described the first 6 levels as the animalistic levels (because people are still mastering their animalistic impulses at these stages). Level 7 is the first shift into human awareness, where a more balanced consciousness resides. It represents the harmonising of the hemispheres, the alchemical wedding or the Rebus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebis) in renaissance terms.

https://magdelene.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/rebus1.jpg

The shift into level 7 awareness represents such a leap in cognitive potential, that one person at level 7, performs tasks more efficiently and more effectively than if you had a room full of the other character levels combined.

Graves system was based on 9 years of detailed studies of human behaviour, followed by another 16 years of cross-correlating his results with the entirety of the psychological sciences, to form a complete systems theory of human development.

The pattern that emerged wasn’t just found in humans. He also discovered research that analysed the exact same character level designations among rat populations.

Here’s one datapoint I doubt you’d hear in Spiral Dynamics...

To test his theory that character development was driven by the neuro-endocrine system (i.e. the balance of chemicals released by the endocrine system in response to threats and challenges in the external environment) they found a level 7 rat, extracted the brain, blended the brain to a juice and then injected that brain-juice into the brain of a lower character level rat. The lower character level rat proceeded to perform tasks and solve challenges 30% more effectively than before receiving the level 7 rats neuro-chemicals.

Graves also mentioned that most people have an entering phase, a nodal phase and an exiting phase, so it’s most likely people will display behaviours spanning at least 3 levels of the system.

He described George Orwell's 1984 dystopia as spanning the 4-5-6 archetype.

4=Authoritarian
5=Mercentalistic
6=Communism

Level 7 provides the organisational structure of meritocracy.

So if you were to do a more detailed analysis on Trump, he fits into the 'Express Self to Hell with others' category for sure, but he's also capable of expressing self with respect for others, he's someone who sees the bigger picture, something that only emerges in the conceptions of the level 7 archetype.

Hillary Clinton would be a better example of the level 5 archetype than Trump is. The level 5 People are those who are purely driven by self-interest without any regard for the welfare of others. Bernie Sanders and other Socialists operate from level 6 neurology.

One other thing Clare Graves mentions is that the animalistic levels 1-6, see those of level 7 and above as completely unethical. Because the level 7 doesn't conform to the dictates of the group (lv6) and throws out the mercantilistic rule of law imposed by the level 5's. Therefore the level 7's become enemy number one to the animalistic levels, the result of which we see in the media today with all the screeching social justice warriors and character attacks against Trump on mainstream media. Definitely a sign, to me, that Trump is more of a level 7 than people give him credit.

[Zak247]

Thanks for the interesting info and ideas.

What I like about SD (which I came to through the Spiral Dynamics Integral [SDI] of Ken Wilber and Don Beck) is the notion of a dynamic toggling of the personality traits or the friction of their interchange unto a higher level of awareness to the Turquoise level and beyond.

http://www.spiraldynamics.net/

On that note, I like the notion that a Black Muslim and a KKK member are actually on the same level yet they thrive off different dogma. Interesting, to say the least.

Also, SD and SDI, in particular, spell out a very reasonable way the human nervous system can catapult consciousness into a higher range of awareness and also can devolve into a lower range of awareness.

As for Hillary’s Orange more so than Trump, possibly, but what’s probably more interesting is that the whole American civilization or Western civilization is steeped in the Orange, which likely is an imbalance on the macro level that has led to things like the nuclear age and likely needs a correction that is working at a level we don't see.

https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Screen-Shot-2017-02-07-at-11.30.18-AM-768x644.jpgThen again, since particularly 1947, maybe we do see it!

[happyuk]

I'll add a few layers of complexity because I don't think Spiral Dynamics did justice to the Clare Graves model. Michael Breen (the NLP trainer) was chastising them during one of his trainings because, after attending one of their workshops, he asked a simple question..."So where does Spiral Dynamics fit within this model of cognitive development?"

They couldn't give him an answer!

Breen stated that for a model to be effective, you have to know where you are in the system (so that you can know how to move forward within it). Unfortunately Breen wrote the whole model off after his lacklustre encounter with Spiral Dynamics, which is a shame because Clare Graves work is one of the most profound things I've personally ever encountered in the fields of psychology.

Now if they'd answered honestly, they would've admitted that their version of Graves work is a very Level 6 (Green) interpretation of the original source material. Graves describes himself as a Level 7 character, and as such didn't assign the vague colour interpretations to his degrees of character development.

His character levels were given more detailed titles...

Level 3 - express self (to hell with others)
Level 4 - sacrifice self for the benefit of authority figures
Level 5 - express self calculatedly for personal benefit at expense of others.
Level 6 - sacrifice self for the group.
Level 7 - express self but with respect for others.
Level 8 - (he didn't give a label because in 25 years of study, he only encountered 8 people of this character type, which wasn't enough for him to analyse it thoroughly)

Levels 1 and 2 were largely theoretical, the first would represent a form of pure autism without any ability to function in the world. The second would be a very simple, tribal kind of awareness.

The odd numbered levels fall under the category of 'express self', while even numbered levels are 'sacrifice self'. This highlights the flip-flopping of left-hemisphere dominance vs right-hemisphere dominant awareness. And fits perfectly with Ian Mcgilchrists neuroscience studies on the divided brain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbUHxC4wiWk)

Graves described the first 6 levels as the animalistic levels (because people are still mastering their animalistic impulses at these stages). Level 7 is the first shift into human awareness, where a more balanced consciousness resides. It represents the harmonising of the hemispheres, the alchemical wedding or the Rebus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebis) in renaissance terms.

https://magdelene.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/rebus1.jpg

The shift into level 7 awareness represents such a leap in cognitive potential, that one person at level 7, performs tasks more efficiently and more effectively than if you had a room full of the other character levels combined.

Graves system was based on 9 years of detailed studies of human behaviour, followed by another 16 years of cross-correlating his results with the entirety of the psychological sciences, to form a complete systems theory of human development.

The pattern that emerged wasn’t just found in humans. He also discovered research that analysed the exact same character level designations among rat populations.

Here’s one datapoint I doubt you’d hear in Spiral Dynamics...

To test his theory that character development was driven by the neuro-endocrine system (i.e. the balance of chemicals released by the endocrine system in response to threats and challenges in the external environment) they found a level 7 rat, extracted the brain, blended the brain to a juice and then injected that brain-juice into the brain of a lower character level rat. The lower character level rat proceeded to perform tasks and solve challenges 30% more effectively than before receiving the level 7 rats neuro-chemicals.

Graves also mentioned that most people have an entering phase, a nodal phase and an exiting phase, so it’s most likely people will display behaviours spanning at least 3 levels of the system.

He described George Orwell's 1984 dystopia as spanning the 4-5-6 archetype.

4=Authoritarian
5=Mercentalistic
6=Communism

Level 7 provides the organisational structure of meritocracy.

So if you were to do a more detailed analysis on Trump, he fits into the 'Express Self to Hell with others' category for sure, but he's also capable of expressing self with respect for others, he's someone who sees the bigger picture, something that only emerges in the conceptions of the level 7 archetype.

Hillary Clinton would be a better example of the level 5 archetype than Trump is. The level 5 People are those who are purely driven by self-interest without any regard for the welfare of others. Bernie Sanders and other Socialists operate from level 6 neurology.

One other thing Clare Graves mentions is that the animalistic levels 1-6, see those of level 7 and above as completely unethical. Because the level 7 doesn't conform to the dictates of the group (lv6) and throws out the mercantilistic rule of law imposed by the level 5's. Therefore the level 7's become enemy number one to the animalistic levels, the result of which we see in the media today with all the screeching social justice warriors and character attacks against Trump on mainstream media. Definitely a sign, to me, that Trump is more of a level 7 than people give him credit.

Excellent commentary. I've never thought of personality groups in these terms before but it makes total sense. Could one make an even further generalisation and split the 1-6/7 groups into those who are seeking God and those who are not? Or as the Bhaghavad Gita puts it as those with demonic versus those with divine tendencies?

[Jayke]

Excellent commentary. I've never thought of personality groups in these terms before but it makes total sense. Could one make an even further generalisation and split the 1-6/7 groups into those who are seeking God and those who are not? Or as the Bhaghavad Gita puts it as those with demonic versus those with divine tendencies?

Good question! You can make further, more precise, distinctions with the Clare Graves model, because the model itself is just a shorthand map for explaining different structure-function relationships that exist within the neurology of the human brain.

Personally, I extend the Graves levels to include Level 8 and Level 9, because Graves said the few people he met who were Level 8, were shamanic type people. He was able to run Galvanic skin response tests on these people and discovered a shift in physiology occurs at this level that makes them more sensitive (they conduct subtle energies better than the lower levels). This matches up with the Alchemy practices taught in the Taoist Vajrayana (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana) practices.

Level 9, Graves didn't comment because he didn't meet any, but he did suggest a pattern to watch out for and hypothesised about what one might expect of a level 9 character. What interests me is that Greek, Egyptian, Taoist Theurgy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theurgy) practices are designed to overcome the challenges of sensitivity one might expect while living as a level 8 person (crippling anxiety brought on by an oversensitivity to space weather, solar storms, scalar waves from planetary alignments etc), which is why things like astrology and astronomy become so important to Level 8 people, they're tuned into how all these planetary phenomena affect them physically and psychologically, unlike the lower levels who are numb to that stuff.

The descriptions from ancient cultures of what masters of Theurgy are like, match up to the character descriptions Graves hypothesised a level 9 person might be like, based on the patterns of development he'd noticed within his own model. The book What is Enlightenment (https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Enlightenment-William-Bodri/dp/0972190740) by Bill Bodri gives a description of this character level through the lens of Buddhist theology for instance.

So to answer your question, I'd say levels 8 and 9 represent the more divine tendencies in Man. The level 7's tend to be more scientific, although they do have an eye for the bigger picture that makes them more heart-cantered than the lower levels. The odd numbers 3 and 5, primarily operate out of the left hemisphere where the Broca's region (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_area) is dominant. The Broca's region is the language centre of the brain, it's where the inner voice is generated, which means its also the home of what most people would describe as the ego. As a result, people who are left hemisphere dominant tend to be more ego-centric, will-to-self, "might is right" types. These are the people who want to BE God, not find god.

Levels 4 and 6 are right hemisphere dominant. The right hemisphere is more holistic and attuned to the Environment (see Ian Mcgilchrists divided brain presentations in the above post), and as a result these people seek God externally, although their unrefined cognitive development causes them to look for God in the wrong places:

Level 4 people seek God in the nearest authority figure, which is why they'll worship celebrities, doctors, politicians etc.
Level 6 people seek God in the collective, which is why Communism becomes the overriding organisational structure at this level.
Level 7 people seek to understand God in a more passive, scientific, book learning sense.
Level 8 people have a love/hate relationship with god because they think he/it punishes them with their sensitivity, but at the same time they love the divine gifts of creativity they recieve with that sensitivity. You get a lot of the pessimistic gnostics (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?103404-Looking-for-Teacher-Who-Understands-Gnosticism-Platonism-and-Neo-Platonism&p=1234062&viewfull=1#post1234062) operating at this level.
Level 9 people are the ones who try and harmonise their ego with Gods divine mind, to become one with the Tao.


Graves described his character development system as The Never-Ending Quest (http://www.clarewgraves.com/neq/neq.html), because no one really knows how many layers of character development you might find above these levels.