Please Log in to Vote.

3 out of 3 members found this useful.

Fundamentalism: A critique of the standard SD view

Posted December 16th, 2010 by Jonathan Cobb in Spiral Dynamics

I think most of us can agree that religious fundamentalism is one of the biggest problems in the world today.  In spiral dynamics, we tend to group it all under a single stage, which we refer to as either Blue or Amber(depending on whether you're using the Beck/Cowan or Wilber/Combs color scheme).  But I think this view is missing something.  Surely there was a time in my life where my values were more absolutist and my cognition was more concrete-operational, but I don't think anyone would've considered me a fundamentalist.  If anything, I think that was a time when my absolutist values were absolutely opposed to fundamentalism.

What I think is missing from the way we conceive of developmental levels is that we don't make distinctions within each level.  Blue/Amber people are fundamentalists, and the only thing we can do is wait for them to develop to Orange or higher.  This strikes me as much too fatalistic, and misses the fact that there are many ways of being Blue/Amber, as there are for Orange, Green, Yellow/Teal, Turquoise, and so on.  No, we can't push someone from Amber to Orange, but we can help nurture more positive, productive Amber traits.

It seems that we need to add some new dimensions to AQAL.  In this case, I have in mind a distinction made famous by George Lakoff, a cognitive linguist.  Lakoff's work has focused on cognitive metaphors: that is, metaphors in terms of which we not only speak, but actually think, as a result of our shared embodied experience.  One set of cognitive metaphors he identifies is the "Strict Father" (hereafter referred to as "SF") metaphor and the "Nurturant Parent" (NP) metaphor.  These cognitive metaphors have their basis in two different parenting styles: one based on discipline and respect for authority, the other based on encouragement and compassion.  But hardly any family is entirely one way or another, and thus everyone thinks in terms of both metaphors to some degree or other.  Even if you're the most die-hard tree-hugging hippie liberal there is, if you're able to watch an Arnold Schwarzenegger film and understand it (you don't have to like it - you just have to get it), then you are able to think in SF terms.

When politicians, preachers, and other public figures speak in terms of one frame or another, they activate that frame in the individual hearing it.  This has been an issue that Lakoff has tried to hammer home repeatedly, because as a passionate liberal, he's sick of seeing Democrats get defeated in elections because they adopt the Republican party's framing of issues.  I think we can apply such ideas to religion as well.  In fact, Lakoff has identified at least four cognitive metaphors for God, two of which fit roughly into the SF frame, and the other two fitting more into the NP frame.  The former two categories are God as supreme lawgiver and God as infinite/absolute.  The latter two are God as supreme goodness and God as nature.

These metaphors are not stages.  They are available to people at any stage of development(at least after Purple).  So while it's true that we can't push someone from Amber to Orange, we can use framing to activate the more nurturant, compassionate manifestations of Amber.

Please Log in to Vote.

1 out of 1 members found this useful.

Lines/Stages/Worldviews

Posted December 16th, 2010 by Lincoln Merchant

I sometimes visualize the worldviews of Christianity, Modernity, etc. as distinct 3-D objects floating in my imagination. I picture them as prisms or mobiles of varying dynamism and complexity. 

 

I can take them on and off as a perspective, kind of like 3D glasses. Hence the word: 'worldview'.

I usually picture and utilize these worldviews in terms of what I consider to be their most natural and widespread usage. In other words, the Christian worldview is an expression of the Amber stage like Modernity is an expression of the Orange. There is also a Muslim, Hindu, etc. worldview that is equally an expression of the Amber stage.

However, I can recall learning the Christian worldview as a small child as well. Lots of fun stuff with coloring pages, costumes, arts and crafts, active songs and sometimes a puppet. Look at this smiling sheep:

It's magical...like talking snakes, giants, riding around inside a whale, all the animals in the world on one boat, angels singing for baby Jesus...so that's what we learned about. There's a magical version of the Christian worldview that can be taught to little kids which lays the groundwork and acts as an escalator to reach the mature Amber and Amber/Orange versions.

Unfortunately, there is not such a great escalator version of Modernity for people developing all the way from Amber to Orange. Many people develop to formal operations in their cognitive line of development, but don't make it central to their self-sense. These people rationalize the magical/mythical elements of Christianity to a degree and take on the Amber/Orange hybrid worldview that is so common in the United States, i.e. Conservatism. Others, however, do find that formal operational cognition is central to their self-sense and take on the worldview most associated with it, i.e. Modernity. People who grew up in fundamentalist Amber Christianity find themselves having to fight extremely hard to delete the old Amber operating system so they can fully enjoy their new Orange operating system. This creates a great deal of resentment, defensiveness, and polarization.

 

Also....here's Arnold Schwarzenegger:

 

 

 

Please Log in to Vote.

0 out of 0 members found this useful.

Spiral Dynamic waves

Posted July 18th, 2011 by John Ireland

I think I hear what you're saying and it reminds me of the emphasis that these are waves and not so fixed, that people have the entire spiral within them but that we tend to have a center of gravity (which may be Blue/Amber).  Apparently, according to Wilber, when someone is Blue, that just means that 50% of the time the opperate from that perspective, and then 25% of the time they opperate from a Red Meme and 25% of the time they gravitate toward Orange.  Reality is pretty complex and I'm fairly new to this (integral/SD) but you're right about our needing a more nuanced way of describing the different ways of opperating from a certain wave or stage.