Spiral Dynamics

Paladin

Paladin

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Is there anyone familiar with the model of Spiral Dynamics? Clare Graves, professor Emeritus of Union College developed this model over nearly 40 years, and it was released in the book Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change. (Beck, Cowan. Blackwell publishers 1996)

A rudimentary explanation of the orginial model can be found here:
Colors of Thinking in Spiral Dynamics

Since the time of the original model, the two authors have gone in different directions, Beck having teamed up with Ken Wilber to create Spiral Dynamics Integral.

As a model of the emerging value or cultural memes, it uses what is termed a v-meme or mega meme. Dawkins touched on the subject in his book The Selfish Gene, and intimated that it was a unit of information in the brain suggesting that these memes might have biological ties.

I just began a study of this stuff and find it fascinating and quite heady.

Peace
Mark
 
Hi Mark--

Interesting, fascinating, heady--wait, no--make that "over my head" to a certain extent. :) ;) But I'm reading....

I look forward to comments from others. I will muddle through them. I really do appreciate the link--maybe as things become clearer to me, I will be able to contribute something more.

InPeace,
InLove
 
Ditto to what InLove just said. It will take me a bit to slog through and process the information, but I'm interested. I've heard the term meme used before in some contexts, although I have to say that it's still pretty foreign and obscure to me.

Maybe a good starting point would be a definition of that word:

meme: noun a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.

(from dictionary.com)

--P Diddy

haha. I just signed my name P Diddy. I so silly. :p
 
Pathless said:
Ditto to what InLove just said. It will take me a bit to slog through and process the information, but I'm interested. I've heard the term meme used before in some contexts, although I have to say that it's still pretty foreign and obscure to me.

Maybe a good starting point would be a definition of that word:

meme: noun a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.

(from dictionary.com)

--P Diddy

haha. I just signed my name P Diddy. I so silly. :p
Click to expand...

That could catch on :)
 
Paladin...I don't know if this is the same subject area you are referring to concerning spiral dynamics, but it may be worth looking at since it exhaustively explores the role of Fibonacci systems as a starting point to understand how nature does the magic she does. Interesting stuff.

flow....:)

Museum of Harmony and Golden Section
 
Hi Mark...Thanks for your link. Sorry for my mathematical and scientific approach, but mathematics and physics are the universal human languages of reality as they can be discovered. Could be that Beck et al have evoked, integrated, and implimented their ideas based upon these hidden principles.

It would be problematic to tie the two things together (golden mean/fibonacci systems and spiral dynamics ) but since the gyre or spiral is the most ancient of sacred symbols and the foundational footprint found in all natural systems, there would seem to be a relationship there somewhere. Thanks again.

flow....:)
 
The reason I am so fascinated with this model is that it helps me to understand what level people are coming from in conversation. A person in the Blue level would tend toward religion in an unquestioning regard to authority, moving into orange would see a more individualistic regard to life, perhaps more materialistic, and then into green, more egalitarian, more communal. And this only gives a simplistic view of the model as a whole.

Peace
Mark
 
Hi Mark.

Interesting stuff. I just skimmed the links, though. These kinds of theories based on hierarchical rankings of "spirituality" kinda rash me a little. It's not that it's inaccurate, but it leaves one with the notion that primitive survivalism, the bottom level, is somehow a thing to evolve away from, and that global consciousness and cooperation, the highest level, is some kind of supreme pinnacle of enlightenment.

It's kind of like saying one should aspire to exist only in the green through violet chakras. One should eschew all survivalist tendencies and just live in the light. Perhaps that's the path of enlightenment, but it leaves one vulnerable to manipulation by those whose focus is power. And, if you look at empowerment spirituality, like the current women's spirituality "movement", you see that what is being sought is a remedy to that loss of raw natural power, which is every woman's birthright. So there is this issue of allowing ourselves to get pansied out and emasculated to the point where we lose all connection to our real animal nature, whilst persuing an elitist conception of pussypants enlightenment which renders us vulnerable to power brokers of every sort.

Chris
 
Hi Chris

My opinion is that the higher one ascends up the spiral maze of life, the more survival instincts must be brought into play and used. One's passion determines how far one may ascend eventually.

Politicians and business people inherently know this, but most of them don't understand what the real issues are, or don't want to know. Then, in ignorance, they are brought low eventually no matter how good their survival instincts are.

Most artists know this also, but use their skills and passions in more private and spiritual ways. Just my thoughts.

flow....;)
 
I get a spiral dynamic in my tummy every time I eat Taco Bell.

Hey Flow...I'm hip! Spirals are an efficient way to move energy in two directions simultaneously. They're kind of like little perpetual motion machines. Sort of a little Taoist microcosm!

Chris
 
flowperson said:
Hi Chris

My opinion is that the higher one ascends up the spiral maze of life, the more survival instincts must be brought into play and used. One's passion determines how far one may ascend eventually.

Politicians and business people inherently know this, but most of them don't understand what the real issues are, or don't want to know. Then, in ignorance, they are brought low eventually no matter how good their survival instincts are.

Most artists know this also, but use their skills and passions in more private and spiritual ways. Just my thoughts.

flow....;)
Click to expand...

Yes! But since all the really important truths of the cosmos are locked up in paradoxes to keep little minds out, an aspect of the security system that protects the "grail", as it were, those who try to leap ahead by eschewing animality are left panting and unable to proceed at the mouth of the grotto, whilst those who forego "enlightenment" to persue power cannot withstanding the purifying light. You gotta become an expert at "damned if you do and damned if you don't"!

Chris
 
No one ever reads the books I recommend! But if you want to blow your mind wide open to the mathematical structure of nature and the universe, but don't want to wade through some lofty brain pinching tome, and you like lots of pictures, diagrams, and cool quotes from smart people throughout the ages, but want to stay on the scientific side and avoid the New Age foofoo- I recommend: A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe, The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science- A Voyage From 1 to 10, by Michael S. Schneider.

For one thing, this book shows how numbers and shapes are born from circle geometry. Ever wonder about that fish symbol that people display on their cars? That's the vessica pisces: two co-joined circles, representing the number two, which create a "womb" through which all the other numbers are "born." Ever noticed the pentagonal star when you cut through the hemisphere of an apple? That's just one manifestation of the five structure.

Get this book and get hip to the sacred geometry of nature, mathematics, music structure, and archetecture.

Chris

Chris
 
China Cat Sunflower said:
Hi Mark.

Interesting stuff. I just skimmed the links, though. These kinds of theories based on hierarchical rankings of "spirituality" kinda rash me a little. It's not that it's inaccurate, but it leaves one with the notion that primitive survivalism, the bottom level, is somehow a thing to evolve away from, and that global consciousness and cooperation, the highest level, is some kind of supreme pinnacle of enlightenment.

It's kind of like saying one should aspire to exist only in the green through violet chakras. One should eschew all survivalist tendencies and just live in the light. Perhaps that's the path of enlightenment, but it leaves one vulnerable to manipulation by those whose focus is power. And, if you look at empowerment spirituality, like the current women's spirituality "movement", you see that what is being sought is a remedy to that loss of raw natural power, which is every woman's birthright. So there is this issue of allowing ourselves to get pansied out and emasculated to the point where we lose all connection to our real animal nature, whilst persuing an elitist conception of pussypants enlightenment which renders us vulnerable to power brokers of every sort.

Chris
Click to expand...

Actually, the original model holds that the levels are "nested" in such a way that the higher you ascend the more of these memes are still within you. Here is the idea of Holon Heirarchy. Not "better than" or "less than" because you still may use or energize these other memes if you are in danger for example. And yes that is why I am still a PALADIN :D
 
Well, it's kinda like the kabalistic model. The sword and the serpent, ya know. It's not linear. Everything happens at once. There's no start and finish, it doesn't happen "in time." So, "as above" and "as below", both reaching in the same motion, set up a kind of whirlpool effect. Finger touching finger kinda thing.

Chris
 
Namaste all,

interesting discussion. perhaps this will be of some interest.

in Japanese the term for spiral is "uzumaki" and, as you may imagine, it is taken to all manner of different forms in Japan. here's a link to a movie where spirals consume a small town and cause everyone to go crazy and kill themselves...

Uzumaki (2000)

the movie was based off of a Manga (form of Japanese animation) of the same name, here you can see some clips from the animation:

Uzumaki Videos

and last, but certainly not least, here's a link to a fantastic arrangement of uzumaki that move as you watch in an optical illusion:

http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/uzumaki.gif

metta,

~v
 
interesting stuff. seems to me it's not a million miles away from the WMT end of kabbalah especially once you start associating colours with levels - in fact in the wikipedia entry on spiral dynamics it says it's been influenced by hermetism, which isn't a huge surprise. other than that it comes across as a rather complicated version of abraham maslow's "hierarchy of needs".

i suppose the important thing to remember is that the "higher" levels are not "better" than the "lower" levels; both are important in their own level. this whole way of looking at things in terms of "levels" is quite misleading especially when imposed on a linear view of history as a "progressive" development from ignorance to knowledge and from darkness to light, from "tribalism" to "universalism". this is not a mistake that is made in the jewish mystical tradition proper; we understand that there is a need for the *particular* as well as for the universal. that's why societies based on free love and communal property have never worked to any scale or for any length of time, because the child's second word (after "mama") is almost always "mine!" - or, more importantly, that our major objection to any universalising "new paradigm": how soon before you tell us we've got to stop being jewish because it's "outmoded" and move onto the "new level" of Universal Human Consciousness, blah blah yada yada yada.

not that dawkins will approve of any mystification of what he regards as being the sole province of science, ho hum.

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
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