Amber People, Orange People, Integral People

It seems very awkward to label people. It seems to dumb down the conversation.

On the other hand, if we throw out all labels about altitude, then we can no longer make sense of stuff. For example, the Muslim woman who claims it is liberating to cover her face, versus the feminist who can't accept that it is liberating.

We can sense complexity, and we can intuit that one thing may be more complex than another.

And yet, calling people labels seems to oversimplify things; reduce complexity.

What's going on?

I think it is very very simple. It goes back to Ken's philosophical point regarding the question, "What does it take to have a Kosmos?" ie. what is the thing that you need before anything else? What is it? Do you need subjects? Objects? Platonic Ideals? What? What is the most fundamental thing?

Ken's answer to this is "perspectives".

Now, consider all the stage models, all the colours, all the researchers, and all the data they gathered.

Every piece of data they gathered about people, they gathered by asking a question. They approached people from a particular question, and that question elicited or revealed an answer, and the answers were then systematised into a model, using the methods of logic and reasoning. 

Every model is a perspective, its data revealed by that perspective, its model a summary of perspectives.

So, to the pernicious issue of whether there exist "amber people" ?

Amber people don't exist any more than the vase on the table exists. Rather, we have a perspective that discloses me observing the vase. From the perspective of a fly, no vase is disclosed.

We only "see" amber people because we are taking a perspective that discloses that. The real person? The real you? The absolute you? That's the absolute beyond perspectives. But everything else is just perspectives, and can't be anything more than perspectives.

So, all we need to do is, when we say, "Bob scored BLUE vMEME on the Spiral Dynamics test", is to just bear in mind that we took a perspective. It is to remember that perspectives are all we can take. Be conscious of the perspective as you speak your insight about Bob. Be conscious of our authorship of the perspective and what that perspective discloses.

Remember that, these models were created by submitting people to tests. The test was a perspective on the person. So, if you want to know if Bob is amber in morals, you need to ask Bob to take the test. The test is what discloses the result. The test is the perspective.

There is no such thing as a centimetre. We have rulers which we use as a method to take a perspective on objects. You take the perspective, hold the ruler to the object, and read off centimetres. The test is the perspective. The data is the perspective. These are all bound together, the perspective "binds" subject and object together (or rather, discloses both).

So really, there are just two things to bear in mind:

- when we say "amber" it is in the context of a specific test, and the test is just a perspective

- unless we've submitted Bob to a test, we are just guessing (a different perspective)

and,

- all we have is perspectives anyway, so just remember its a perspective, not something "real" and "solid"

If John says Bob sounds amber, then that is John's perspective on Bob, which is not the same as Bob taking a test and being amber in that test's perspective. The usefulness is in the overlap, the shared meanings, but they are also different, so remember that they are all just perspectives.