evolution is not biology but evolving thought: spiral dynamics

[Delight]

Humans create synthetic environments based on thought. The proverbial example is that when one looks at everything around in one's created environment, all began with a thought.

The thought creations range from material objects to symbolic objects to abstract organizing into what I call "ISMS"...These are bundles of thoughts that make up a packet like a religion or system. IMO humans are distinguished by thinking and since our physical shapes have not altered much in recent "time", we are changed and evolving collectively based not on biology IMO but thoughts.

We do have difficulty seeing the artificially constructed as some things seem natural; like the rules of society that govern competition, excellence, etiquette, morality. They are NOT natural however but learned. Have our thoughts kept us repeating patterns that do not serve a collective evolution that would grant all the opportunity to thrive (meaning the whole planet and all life found)?

Preference for one's own "kind" (brand) of what makes sense is a common barrier to change. This plays very well to "law and order" and also to interpersonal strife between ideas that drive people to be harmful.

For example, in a scarcity model, one is always in crisis and cannot "afford" long range planning. One might think one is obligated to do things that seem even "wrong" in the interest of "self preservation". These are all "ideas" and devolution is as much influenced by ideas as evolution. The crowd can have a terrible idea that we agree to support in our own sense of weakness.

IMO strength is found when one is less tied to the memes of ISMs. Scarcity is one basic idea that seems true and becomes a "religion" when it creates politics and morality based on competitive beliefs. Economics based on scarcity then creates strife and greed and enclaves all protecting turf. One deprives another because one must hold onto what is "ours"....and outrage boils into feuds that started with a thought: "There is Never enough for all".

"Religion (substitute any ISM here) is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." - Seneca

What I am looking at is my own particular thought about a basis of understanding social organizing that unlocks the hold on these ideas that are beliefs that then create....

What I am seeking is a way to understand that creates flexibility and is freedom invoking because I love freedom. IMO, traditional "ISMS" of thought have kept us in a triangulated condition of "us" (what makes sense), "them" (what we do not accept as sensible) and needs only thoughts agreed to as maintenance.

A few pulling the strings (the LORDS) keep the whole in compliance because of our acceptance. We are continuously fighting over ideas and what we think is "RIGHT".
The fight is always undoing evolution. Look at the momentum that loses all energy when a war is introduced. When a threat is accepted, when an "enemy" is identified, it is "sensible" to "FIGHT" for one's ISMness.

We IMO can benefit from taking a step out in spiral to greater perspective on what we are playing out.

A fairly small group of authorities who create and recreate powerful influence are the managers and monitors of this artificial system we take as normal. Monitors (the professionals) endowed with authority WE ascribe tell us what is true. The vast majority at the base remain in compliance with the "ISM" through our self control. This to me has been what I refer to as the ultimate ISM: (neo)FeudalISM. One sees no-feudalism in the banking system and in corporate life but it is IMO the basic model.

I see (neo)feudalism also in the way we protect our own "family tribe"... endowed with its "land" to defend. It is land "granted" to us by the "king" based on our loyalty. To keep the paradigm strong, there WILL BE those threatening our "land" so we will war. The war will appear from small community to WW wars. Appeal to PatriotISM is one manifestation.

The tribe is what we agree it is (thoughts) and is a gathering of "kindred" based on "family", "nation", "race", "religion", "beliefs", status, caste.

In the US, we cannot say we "own" land really as it is perpetually taxed. The whole "good ole boy" system in any community has preference by being "insiders". I say it is a form of promoting the "tribe'; nepotISM and "ISMs" of all the accepted tribal definitions that rules local to national to international. It is a triangulated within a revolving static circular system. It is maintenance of feudal thought form constructed "social" reality.

http://www.docpotter.com/ronincrap-feudalism.jpg


In the article Feudalism in America? by absurdistan dan writes: The term ‘feudalism’ elicits images of kings in their vast, fortified castles, knights in their armor defending the land, and poor peasants working their land from dawn to dusk. Feudalism was a strict social hierarchy in Medieval Europe and was certainly an oppressive political and economic system from the tenth century that disappeared after the fifteen century… Except that it hasn’t disappeared: Feudalism’s success wasn’t due purely to the strict separation between different social classes, but rather the fact that the population accepted their class standing in society… The American dream’s selling point is that hard work over a long period of time allows people to support their family and allow them the benefits of home ownership… Except serfdom was often defined as serfs who were bound to the land which they worked to pay taxes to their lords…

Then fast forward to modern times; as an intelligent person I keep asking myself: Why do I work as I do? A part of me knows that the only reasons I’m still working is because of the large bonus everyone in the industry looks forward to at the end of the year. The bonus that one day will release me from the tyranny of corporate slavery and allow me to do something more enjoyable like running my own business or investing in other people’s businesses. Basically, it will grant me the freedom to one day be able to live my life on my own terms, and not be stuck in the office late into the early morning, on weekends and be subject to menial tasks… Little did we all know that we were actually signing our lives away to serfdom. But if anything, this was the job that gave me the best chance to one day free myself from modern-day serfdom… A prominent politician once said; in today’s modern world the corporation is the lord and master, and most of its employees have been desensitized much as were the medieval peasants who never knew they were serfs…Mutation of Medieval Feudalism Into Modern Corporate Capitalism: The Rise of Neofeudalism in Corporate Governance… (http://bizshifts-trends.com/2014/08/13/mutation-medieval-feudalism-modern-business-capitalism-rise-neofeudalism-corporate-governance/)

I think we are reaching the critical limits of this perpetual reinforcemnet because thought is evolving. Many people are seeing through the way we are played off of one another so we cannot build a true momentum to SPIRAL out from these thoughts that bind uus in loyalty. Many of us love freedom more than security of knowing "Who am I?" in my tribe.

Freedom IMO is encouraged by

1. larger and larger boundaries...of place, of time and of "family". The most freedom I can imagine is EVERYONE being able to go anywhere, any time and be with anyone with a sense of belonging.

2. No sense of competition and transformation from parts into greater wholes...... therefore easy Sharing and enlargement of possibility by adding elements. The Stone Soup story is a transformational one where a hungry soldier (stranger) met fearful people who were hoarding their food.

The soldier gathered the townsfolk by saying he would make a stone soup and inviting everyone to eat with him. Then appealing to "delicious" he suggested adding various tastes like vegies, onions, meat etc. He tricked the out of the fear and everyone did have a much greater and more delicious dinner by transcending their beliefs in the "trick".

I appreciate Spiral Dynamics as a Model that shows the comparison of thought based focus areas.
There is plenty on the web to see about spiral dynamics but in this post I want to show a figure that has attributes and just propose...where would one like to be on the spiral of evolution to a "condition" supporting opportunity of satisfaction and freedom for all beings. Honestly, what is one supporting NOW?

http://www.successfeelosophy.com/uploads/userfiles/image/8%20Different%20Views%20of%20Life.JPG

http://eric-blue.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/spiral_dynamics_model.jpg

I have confidence we can evolve by thinking more Universally. MY tribe is all that is alive. My thought supports evolution of Creation in freedom and sense of belonging everywhere all the time. Abundance IS. There is no closed system to true reality. True reality is growing not in one form but through all channels of energy. I feel comfortable and know I have friends there. Love and Gratitude. Maggie

[Delight]

Here is something that I found about racism and evolving thinking. I was 8 years old when there were still "colored" and "white" drinking fountains, different entrance doors and an accepted notion of inequality of the races. Jews were not directly discriminated against but one did not "know any", nor "want to know any". When George Wallace made his "stand" and said the University of Alabama would never admit black students (called negros then), I was living in Tuscaloosa. I heard him on the the loud speaker from my school playground a block away. I saw the KKK crosses burning as we drove past a field near my house. It made life very strange as there were members of the KKK in my family and others supporting the desegregation.

The South did not have great opportunity for whites either and many poor people are locked into needing a scapegoat. It may be comforting to have the thought that there is someone else lower on a scale than oneself. That is IMO the need in poverty mind set, one feels bad and needy ...someone worse off to bolster one's own pride.

Then 12 years later when one great uncle was inducted into the U of A hall of fame for his work to promote football, there was a black student body president. My other great uncle was still a proud racist and loud about it: justified his ideas by speaking to the dangers of "race mixing" and black on white crime: all beliefs from his projected fears.

So the fear is the base and the people we fear take our projections. In the present day acting out (that does seem intractable0 there is always fear and the fear generates hatred IMO. These thoughts are the platform that seek expression by dividing into tribes IMO. Egalitarian seems threatening to safety and Orderly social hierarchy. There is a msimatch in thinking that is difficult to reconcile for those who have a different viewpoint. The hatred bounces back AT the racist. NO ONE can see how this is manipulated from one's position in the mix IMO.



Why then the fuss about racism?

So why isn’t it obvious to everyone that it’s not really racism but tribalism that is the problem?

Here we have to look at Spiral Dynamics’ sixth MEME, GREEN, the Aesthetic level in Maslow’s (revised 1970/1971) Hierarchy.

GREEN is the great equaliser. Its way of thinking is to see the worth of everybody and to treat them as equal. Historically, there was a great explosion of GREEN thinking in the 1960s – at its zenith in the hippie movements. Feminism, support for disabled people, equality for gay men and lesbians and, of course, anti-racism are all products of the GREEN way of thinking. The very concept of social comparison - my tribe is better than yours - is anathema to GREEN.

GREEN is a much more complex way of thinking than PURPLE; but, in its enthusiasm for egalitarianism, it tends to ride roughshod over PURPLE’s concerns for tribal safety. While it’s something of a rough and ready measure, this helps to explain why the intellectualised leaders of the Labour Party, often driven by GREEN in their thinking in these things, have so often been out of touch culturally with the PURPLE tribalism of a great many of the (traditional white) working class they ostensibly represent when it comes to the issue of race.

Thus, GREEN uses the BLUE MEME to enforce its egalitarian ethos via legislation in as many areas of discrimination as it can. (Thank goodness that way of thinking is at last tackling ageism!)

Thus, GREEN’s values don’t allow it to see the tribal concerns: quite simply everyone is equal - whatever your colour, creed or nationality and we should all help each other to get the best out of life. Yet these values are simply mysterious and unfathomable to the less complex PURPLE way of thinking.

Racism, like homophobia, simply cannot be countenanced by GREEN’s egalitarian way of thinking; yet both racism and homophobia are endemic in many working class communities where PURPLE thinking tends to dominate. Quite simply: they’re not like us so they can’t be part of our tribe. Often the more deprived the community, the more extreme the racism and/or homophobia.

GREEN is determined to stamp out racism (and homophobia) because both state that people are not equal. (My tribe is superior to yours.) Yet it is fighting something which is natural at the PURPLE level of thinking.


Tribalism and competition

One of the ways Graves improved upon Maslow’s model was to link the emergence of the motivating systems (vMEMES) to the ‘life conditions’ being experienced - either internally as in your biology or what is happening in your external environment. In the pre-Spiral Dynamics Graves Model, letter pairs were used to denote the life conditions (A-M) being matched by the motivating system (N-Z) for psychological health.

So what happens when the life conditions become adverse to the tribe? How does that affect the functioning of the motivating systems? Muzafer Sherif et al’s Robber’s Cave study (1954/1961), in which two tribes of young boys were artificially created by categorisation and identification – ‘Rattlers’ vs ‘Eagles – and then set against each other in competition, is probably the most infamous psychological study to look at such effects. (William Golding reputedly took his inspiration for his acclaimed 1954 novel ‘LORD OF THE FLIES’ from Sherif.)

When tribes are set against each other, in competition for resources especially, then you can reasonably expect the in-group/out-group effect to magnify. As the life conditions become more difficult, the threat to the welfare of the tribe consolidates the tribe’s sense of singular identity and hostility towards other competing tribes. Marilyn Brewer & Donald Campbell (1976), in their famous study of East African tribes, demonstrated clearly a strong positive correlation between the degree of competition for vital resources and the level of prejudice & discrimination experienced - eg: the closer another tribe was to a waterhole on which your tribe depended, the more animosity your tribe felt towards the other one. Is Racism Natural? (http://www.integratedsociopsychology.net/racism_natural.html)

[Delight]

The ideas behind the model of spiral dynamics are collective and personal. This makes sense to me because though we are embedded in a collective matrix, we make changes and grow personally and IMO it is the aggregate of PERSONAL change that shifts the collective. IMO the greatest power and responsibility is to avoid regressing to a collective stance when we meet challenges.

The broadest observation that cycles have occurred in the past and the ability to see from a large context is vital. Also the revelation of a "natural world" always creating seeds and always supporting life could give us a different perspective of understanding. The sun shines, water renews itself, health is not medicine, we are not objects but LIFE forms in a living system that seeks cooperation.

It is easy to afford tolerance "in the system" when we believe we are not being "held back" by social reforms. Then what about when we see our own livelihood at risk? There will be encouragement to find a scapegoat. The system depends on this struggle between opposing tribes.

I see this artificial system at work on our minds and channeling our energy just to perpetuate itself. Even those who were champions of "fair play" become scared and regress at the egalitarian stage if survival is threatened. Faith in human potential becomes a sneered at scorned "con job" when manipulated to fail.

The blow back of sexism and racism is something I have seen in the way "quotas" attempted to rectify discrimination by allotting space to minorities. This "unfair" treatment has become anathema to some thinking that used to entertain the generational "unfairness from the past" needing remedy. I see this as an aborted step to the NEXT stage only.

In college quotas were seen as a way to allow for women and racial minorities to "compete". It did "hurt" white males. The underlying idea was still that there is always competition for space. Later people began to feel the "reforms" must be wrong as they felt they were limited personally or someone in one's "tribe" became the object of discrimination.

What about the fact that artificial scarcity was never addressed. What if all children were supported to learn and to have employment based on their interests and abilities? Definitely NOT as seen by professional level eduction.

Example: in the US medical school became aligned with "money and power" and now health care workers have the good jobs so all this is a demonstration of the feudal mind set of limiting this tier of occupation to a few selected individuals. THEN promoting the need of health care that is strictly regulated itself to serve the system.

I see this in my own life also as I notice a back lash against "feminism". The news has played up the "horror stories" when most of the time, women working and having careers has not been an issue. People were supported to fear the "break down" of the family unit. It is fear that drives the back lash, not understanding a larger potential BEYOND the old system. When "one person's freedom" is promoted as "another's lack" this suits the feudal system of strict hierarchy and control.

The present moment in our collective western angst of "multicultualism" becoming a bad word shows how we have remained in survival mode too. It is splayed out royally from the Lords who like our interpersonal turmoil.

Egalitarian becomes only affordable in "good times" in the recurring scarcity. The information that bad times are worsening creates a sense of stress over "our" space and resources. "The People" revert to tribal values and the play continues for "survival".

Voices calling for regression to a "tribal" fight sound loud and maybe convincing when "times are hard", but one can refuse to be persuaded "those others" are at fault. This takes knowledge and faithful commitment to human values we will not be taught by the artificial hierarchies of the feudal state.

IMO, the personal LEAP that will afford discernment in thinking that escapes the past is evolution in the way we THINK about what is a valuable LIFE. At the break out in the model from green to yellow and from taking into account all aspects of interior/exterior and individual/group: at this collective juncture, we have more awareness.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qDVg8d6OmJY/ToSZU2KRLeI/AAAAAAAAAO8/LhIvGRj_bJo/s1600/aqal-1.jpg

[grannyfranny100]

A delightful upgrade to Maslow's Hierarchy.

Wish we had longer life spans to watch this unfold.

[Delight]

A delightful upgrade to Maslow's Hierarchy.

Wish we had longer life spans to watch this unfold.

I think we are seeing this now but it is subtle. Every time we make mind choices that are LARGER and more INCORPORATIVE, I think we each are creating the unfolding. What has personally bothered me is seeing collapse of faith in the process. When we were told to expect some sudden awakening and it seemed to fail, IMO the collective expectation of possibility collapsed a bit but evolution of consciousness is still happening.

http://static.highexistence.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/SteveMcFigure2.jpg

The trivialization of ideas such as the "new age" hope to create a spirituality embracing many themes was futilized IMO and people left feeling hopeless. IMO, the repackaging of old age concepts of "special" hierarchies of "avatars" to be followed was actually a deliberate rug to pull from under the feet of seekers. If we are on a leading edge of the "Integral Self", what does that mean?

The evolution towards greater individual responsibility for one's being states is exemplified by leaders like Joe Dispenza. The mind can imagine ANYTHING and the model suggests we must "live fully and responsibly as what you are and what you are learning to become". That takes a commitment to challenge the status quo even of our own personality.

If any created vision is taken on and believed without question, we are imagining for the same feudal system IMO. The personal vision IMO is actually CHANNELED from our own greater capacity. Individual responsibility for actions that support our individual vision takes a break from the "given" and may incorporate values from previous cycles but IMO to take on an Archaic revival "whole cloth" (like the revival of paganism) cannot be true to now.

The visionary is one who is able to embrace possibilities so far unseen by others IMO. Each of us is the one who makes it happen for ourselves. Later it groups up. "Awake and aware" is just a beginning of managing our own experience.

Is our psychological space our own? That is why I am a critic of "youtube" culture since it installs ideas that seem to be absorbed as just updated "tell a vision".

I appreciate having a chance on PA to speak my mind and read others ideas also in an open forum. I love it for its value of bringing information and allowing us to speak back. I have faith in our ability to harness greater energy and new information to create an earth tribe of all life (even interdimensionals) fully cooperating.


Stage 7 – The Leap

Graves wrote that the coping capacity or ‘psychological space’ of Stage 7 is greater than the sum of all the previous stages added together. This is a profound change that opens up a multidimensional awareness unlike anything that’s come before. Stage 7 is the first of what Graves called the ‘Being’ levels, where our focus moves from a survival mindset to pondering the question: who am I being in the world?

The challenges that trigger the emergence of Stage 7 come from the excesses of Stage 6 plus the compounding excesses of Stages 3, 4 and 5. Many social problems begin to overlap on each other, multiplying the degree of challenge. These include the depletion of natural resources, overpopulation, climate change and conflict. While Stage 6 has good intentions, most of its attempted solutions are naïve and display an inability to comprehend complex adaptive systems. In some cases they actually make things worse.

Out of these perceived problems emerges Stage 7 behaviour, which is characterised by an absence of fear as a motivating factor, and an absence of compulsiveness. Faced with problems that would overwhelm others, Stage 7 moves beyond an objective, rational approach to a detached cognitive knowing; a trans-rational intuition. With detachment comes the capacity to deal with problems without being swamped by them.

In an echo of the Stage 1 survival themes but at a global level, Stage 7 sees an urgent need for the restoration of our world so that life in all its forms, but especially humanity, can ensure long-term survival. The Stage 7 approach is to consider the systemic whole, working simultaneously across multiple dimensions. It is highly adaptable and for the first time in human history has the conscious ability to swap and change between different behaviour sets. If a problem emerges that requires a typical Stage 5 solution for example, then Stage 7 can adapt to operate like Stage 5.

A quick scan of the world today reveals growing evidence of Stage 7 behaviours, but because of its chameleon-like adaptability, it can be hard to see. Look for people who take a fearless approach, who are very accepting of others yet clear in their own mind as to what must be done; who avoid battling against archaic systems and governments, preferring instead to use minimal effort for maximum effect. To paraphrase Buckminster Fuller, these are the people who’ll build new systems that make the old systems obsolete. When Stage 7 reaches critical mass our world will change radically and quickly.
Stage 8 – The Neo-Tribal Revival

Stage 8 was the most advanced stage that Graves documented, although only six people out of the 1,065 people he studied (0.006%) showed evidence of it.

The primary challenge that triggers the emergence of Stage 8 is how to establish a new way of living that’s in harmony with all human beings, other life forms and our planet’s natural systems. While Stage 7 sought to resolve the various crises that had arisen from the excesses of Stages 1-6, now our thinking turns to long-term stability. We begin to see the Earth as one complex living system with its own intelligence, and ourselves as an integral part of it all.

Stage 8 behaviour is characterised by, in Graves’ own words, ‘an almost mystical’ nature which relies upon feelings and intuition much more than any previous stage. It embraces the mystery of existence and accepts that there are things we can never know; all we can really do is to simply be.

Just as Stage 7 has similarities with Stage 1 survivalism, Graves saw that Stage 8 is a much more sophisticated version of Stage 2 tribalism. Now the tribe is humanity itself and our sacred land is planet Earth. There’s a trend towards a non-interfering minimalistic lifestyle that’s in harmony with nature, while maintaining all the advantages of our high technology. There’s also an acceptance that the human tribe includes a wide variety of people spread across the many stages of development. So sustainable living means acknowledging, nurturing and guiding all these different peoples, their cultures, worldviews and their interaction with the planet and its resources.

Like Stage 7, Stage 8 can be difficult to see in the world due to its minimalistic approach and its chameleon-like adaptability. There is growing evidence though of a neo-tribal revival across the planet, including a growing interest in neo-shamanism and the use of entheogenic plants as allies in our own evolutionary process. Look for people who exhibit the capacities and characteristics of Stage 7, but who are focused on intuitive feeling rather than knowing, who insist on cooperation and trust and who are mindful of long-term sustainability at a planetary level.
Our multilayered unfolding

Based on Dr Graves’ research, the evidence suggests that we are indeed approaching a time of significant and rapid global change. Unlike some New Age predictions however, we’re unlikely to see a sudden leap in consciousness that affects everyone at the same time. Instead, history shows that human evolution is an emergent, oscillating, spiralling, unfolding process that ebbs and flows over time. As an example, the Stage 6 behaviour currently flaring up around the world was first noticed in the mid 1800s with the rise of civil rights movements in the USA. It likely inspired Einstein’s theory of relativity and it played a prominent role in the counter-culture movement of the 1960s. It also powered the thinking behind the World Wide Web and the rise of environmental movements.

Stage 7 has also been around for a while, probably inspiring the birth of quantum science in the early 1900s. However, when a critical mass of people reach Stage 7 its global impact will be greater than any other change in human history. We can expect to see significant changes to our ways of governing, our social systems and our technologies. Again this is a gradual unfolding that’s already underway, but current evidence suggests that we’ll see the cultural equivalent of a record-breaking quantum leap in the not too distant future. Altered state practices, rekindled by the neo-tribal pathfinders of Stage 8, may well play a significant role in accelerating this process. Watch this psychological space! the-impending-change-in-global-consciousness-our-archaic-revival/ (http://www.highexistence.com/the-impending-change-in-global-consciousness-our-archaic-revival/)