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Perspective Shift:
- Group identities are developmentally fluid. Traditionalism, Modernism, and Progressivism are not fixed to specific developmental stages but are socialized group identities that can be enacted at any stage. This fluidity explains phenomena like Green Traditionalists or Amber Progressives, inviting a more nuanced understanding of how values manifest.
- Diversity of beliefs transcends simplistic categories. Political beliefs and meaning-making are far more diverse than they appear, spanning all vertical stages of development and horizontal group identities. Recognizing this overlooked complexity allows us to see that people with the same political affiliation or group identity can hold radically different worldviews, shaped by their unique developmental structures and cultural contexts.
- Curiosity is a transformative practice. Moving beyond binary judgments and stepping into genuine curiosity fosters empathy and deepens understanding. Asking questions like “Help me understand” creates bridges across divides and opens space for integrating perspectives.
Keith Martin-Smith and David Arrell continue to unpack the Structure/Content Fallacy, using the recent Presidential Election as a lens to explore the diverse ways voters across developmental levels and the three main cultural value stacks — Traditionalism, Modernism, and Progressivism — may have made their choices for or against Donald Trump’s candidacy.
Donald J. Trump’s remarkable return to the White House has sparked both elation and celebration from a slim majority of voters, while leaving the other half of the electorate grappling with varying degrees of disappointment, frustration, and despair. Among the most fascinating responses has been the shock and confusion from many intelligent voices on the Left. How could so many people, despite widely acknowledged concerns about Trump’s personality flaws and checkered past, still elevate him to the highest office in the land? And why did certain prominent figures, once respected by the Left, appear to “turn heel,” embrace a sharp Right, and throw their support behind him?
Is it possible to make sense of this election without resorting to reductive tropes, such as dismissing half the country as a “basket of deplorables”? Could it be that reasonable, good, and intelligent people pressed the red button on November 5th for reasons that are genuinely coherent and even noble?
In this discussion, Keith and David examine how vertical developmental structures and Value Stack content can mix and match in ways that enable individuals to participate in “horizontal” clusters of group identity, such as Traditionalism, Modernism, and Progressivism, from any stage of development. While these group identities often emerge from specific value stages (Traditionalism grew out of Amber/Blue, Modernism grew out of Orange, Progressivism grew out of Green), once these values are socialized, they begin to take on a life of their own as a self-perpetuating code, meme, and/or group identity, becoming more like “attitudes” than “altitudes”. These value sets, though often still largely regulated by their stage of origin, are continually shaped and reshaped by the contributions of everyone who enacts and engages with them — an interplay between developmental stages in the individual’s interior, and group identities in the cultural space, that helps explains phenomena such as Amber-stage progressives, or Green-stage traditionalists, challenging the typical associations between stages, values, and types of shared meaning.
Keith and David invite listeners to move beyond surface-level disagreements and instead “step through the looking glass,” exploring how other people’s meaning-making systems arise from unique combinations of structure and content. Their conversation emphasizes curiosity, empathy, and the importance of building relationships that transcend ideological divides, grounded in our shared humanity and common aspirations for a better world.
What Is the Content/Structure Fallacy?
The content/structure fallacy refers to the mistaken assumption that a person’s surface-level beliefs or statements (content) directly correspond to their deeper developmental stage (structure). In reality, just because someone expresses ideas that seem to align with a particular developmental level doesn’t mean they are themselves operating from that level.
In other words, it’s not what we believe, but how we hold those beliefs that reflects our stage of development.
For example, someone might champion pluralistic (Green) values but do so with the rigid, dogmatic mindset of an earlier Amber stage. This is common in certain ideological movements where progressive values are enforced in authoritarian or dogmatic ways — a clear case of later-stage content being interpreted and enacted through an earlier-stage lens. It’s similar to memorizing the solution to a calculus problem without knowing how to do the math that produces that solution in the first place.
Conversely, just because someone identifies with a traditionally Amber affiliation like Christianity doesn’t mean they hold that faith in a purely Amber way. A person could practice Christianity through the reflective, self-authoring lens of Orange (modern) or even from an Integral (Teal or Turquoise) perspective, embodying a more complex and nuanced understanding of their faith.
We often encounter stereotypes like “environmentalists must be Green” or “entrepreneurs must be Orange,” but these assumptions overlook the complexity of how individuals hold and express their values. It’s possible to advocate for environmental causes (typically associated with Green) from a highly rational, results-oriented (Orange) perspective, or even from a deeply principled and disciplined (Amber) perspective. Similarly, an entrepreneur might embrace meritocratic values (Orange) but approach their business with a more inclusive, systems-aware stance (Green or Teal). Or perhaps they are using Orange-adjacent language while pursuing their own self-centered acquisition of power and wealth (Red).
As we can see, judging someone’s developmental depth based solely on their surface beliefs or affiliations is a mistake. Especially since, once the products of a given stage are socialized within a larger group, they often function more like a horizontal cultural typology than a vertical developmental structure — for example, postmodernism may have emerged from individuals at the Green stage, but as it became widely adopted across the larger culture, it was no longer exclusively populated by Green-stage individuals. In other words, not everyone participating in postmodern culture is operating from a Green stage of development. We can observe similar patterns in movements like DEI or even in the Integral movement itself.
Lastly, we must also examine our own developmental structures and how they influence our interpretation of others’ content. Our judgments about others might reveal more about our own developmental limitations and blind spots than theirs. If we are using stage theory in shallow or stereotypical ways, it may indicate that we ourselves may have a content/structure fallacy built into our own self-concept, as we repeat integral-sounding content while holding it in decidedly sub-integral ways.
How Do Cultural Value Sets and Group Identities Emerge?
The evolution of social values and group identities follows a dynamic process that bridges individual and collective meaning-making:
- Individual Creation of Artifacts
An individual expresses their interior stage of values development through a tangible artifact—such as a sentence, song, or book—mediated by their cognitive stage of development. For example, John Lennon sings, “All you need is love,” an artifact shaped by his interior values and worldview. - Socialization in the Collective Space
That artifact enters the cultural LL (Lower-Left) quadrant, where it resonates with individuals at similar stages of values development, fostering shared meaning. Simultaneously, it is interpreted and enacted in diverse ways by individuals at other developmental stages, leading to a multiplicity of responses and adaptations. - Cultural Tipping Point
As artifacts from multiple individuals at a similar stage circulate and gain influence, their shared resonance and meaning-making reach a tipping point. This results in the emergence of a self-perpetuating cultural “scene,” meme, or identity with its own social currency, selection pressures, and orienting worldview. - Adapting Beyond Origins
Although such group identities often originate from a specific stage of values development, they are ultimately open to everyone. These cultural “scenes” and group identities are continuously shaped and reshaped by all who participate, regardless of their developmental stage of cognitive or values intelligence, becoming more like shared “attitudes” than “altitudes”. For example, someone operating at an Amber/Blue stage of values or cognition [structure] can adopt and enact progressive language and value sets [content], contributing their interpretation and influence to the shared worldview.
This helps us better understand how group identities often transcend their origins, allowing individuals at various developmental stages to engage with, reshape, and reinforce cultural movements. Recognizing this process helps illuminate the rich complexity of how values and identities evolve and circulate within society.
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About David Arrell
David Arrell is an Executive Coach & Consultant with a background in Entrepreneurship and Leadership Development & Training. He is passionate about both personal and professional growth and supporting those making meaningful and positive change in the world. www.catalystforchange.xyz david@catalystforchange.xyz
About Keith Martin-Smith
Keith Martin-Smith is an award-winning author, writing coach, and Zen priest. He is passionate about human connection, creativity, and evolution. His books include "The Mysterious Divination of Tea Leaves", "A Heart Blown Open", and "The Heart of Zen". His most recent book is his first novel, "Only Everything", a novel that explores the promise and the pain of following an artist's path.