Zizzero

I actually believe the opposite. Spirituality does not make you an expert on politics; they are different things. But obviously there are always lessons that you learn in one field which you can apply to other fields. I agree that political questions are important ones; I personally am super interested in politics. I simply believe that ideological wars and constant arguments have no place on a personal development and spirituality forum. But the ones I'm looking at when making this criticism are exactly the ones who pride themselves on being the nonideological ones. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Fully agreed. That was not what I was trying to say - quite the opposite actually. My criticism was the use of SD to determine the quality of someone's beliefs and ideas. A true statement is true whether it's said by a 3rd grader or a 12th grader. Painting a cultural debate as green vs blue/orange and saying that the reason we should support the green side because they are more highly developed is what I dislike. It doesn't get to the core of issues and, as you said, since higher stages aren't better, a blue perspective is sometimes more useful than a green perspective. All it does is prevent the side that's supposedly green from listening to the other side because why would they listen to something that's below them. (On top of that you have the practical problem of assigning the correct stage to a person or policy which in reality is often more complex and difficult than we would like to admit). What I'm trying to say is this: An individual does not have to be tier 2 to say smart and true things. To quote something you said in your SD series: The map is not the territory. In fact, there is a real risk of using a model you like in an absolutist stage blue fashion. What I perceive as toxic is seeing two sides arguing which both believe they have the absolute truth on normative questions and therefore don't see any value in listening, but instead in throwing their opinion at other people because its' them who are the problem.

@Leo Gura The difference between a culture war and a "discussions about the fundamental structures of government and society" is linguistics. There are clearly two sides that we can observe which fundamentally disagree. Both claiming that the other side is ideological and to at least some extent dangerous. I'd call it a culture war and I would also call what goes on in the US and EU a culture war. And yes, I absolutely think you contribute to this. Your emphasis on categorizing and generalizing people for example through your use of Spiral Dynamics is merely painting an image of these political debates being a questions of good vs evil. Claiming to having a higher, non-ideological perspective followed by clearly picking a side does not make you much different to Fox News; it simply makes you use better arguments to justify your positions. I don't criticize talking about politics, I criticize the atmosphere it creates. Whether my criticism is valid depends on your priorities with actualized.org. If your priority is to find and share answers to deep questions, then it's absolutely valid to perceive emotional drain as a mere side effect. If your priority is to create a space that helps people grow on a personal and spiritual level, then the current state of the forum does not contribute to that I find. I would want the spiritual forum of my choice to promote love, unity and appreciation for the individual - I honestly don't see much of that in here. Instead I see personal development used as a currency to determine who's more right about philosophical questions. Now, I can only talk about my own experiences. I simply know that the judgmental atmosphere in here and the constant debating and disagreeing on what is true and what is not is affecting my mood - There's too much negativity and morality for my taste - and I have seen how encouragement and a positive vibe can do wonders to people who want to improve their lives. Maybe that's just me who feels like that however, I know that I'm way more sensitive than normal people.

So happy once the US elections are over and we can make actualized.org about personal development rather than politics again. The culture war inside this very forum is making this place extremely toxic and emotionally draining.

I see disagreements as a strenght, not a weakness of a political culture. Disagreements will always be there and will, in an increasingly complex world, only become more common. I'd rather see us learn how to tolerate disagreements and be less attached to our moral beliefs than strive for unity.

Yeah, according to political scientists mobilization is way more effective than persuasion in terms of success of political campaigns. I think that's a very yellow way to look at things This dwelling in uncertainty, this thinking long-term and this realization that a good intention is something completely different from a good outcome is classical yellow to me.

Let go of this need to be more yellow; it's just a color. Here's what yellow wouldn't do: Imagining what yellow looks like and trying to become this and blindly believing what someone says because they are higher up on the spiral and they know better, so it must be true. Moving from green to yellow is to stop being a sheep and start being a seeker. You will be yellow once your priority is not to be something, but to understand something. Paradoxically, moving up to yellow even though you feel like staying at green gives you meaning is not yellow. Staying at green because you feel like life needs more soul and meaning, now that is how yellow goes about things. You're plan of getting to yellow by integrating all prior stages is definitely a very good plan! Just be careful not to filter every stage through green lenses. Based on the posts I've seen of you so far on this forum, you're one of the only people on this forum willing to learn, not trying to force your ideology onto others and I can feel your passion in every post you write - don't worry bro, you're on the right track! Going meta often means taking a step back and looking at it from a distance. Don't worry about what stage you're at and be open-minded that people who you disagree with might see something that you aren't seeing. You don't need to be yellow to say true things; right things are right whether they're said by yellow, blue, turquoise or red. It might even help to forget about Spiral Dynamics for a while; it makes it hard to be open-minded because it makes it very easy to not listen to others because your mind labels them as "below me" on the spiral. So, assume that other people see something that you are not seeing, but never trusts someone else's judgement over your own. Yellow is about the individual finding the answers, not the individual following the one who he believes to have the answers.

Yeah! Don't even bother thinking for yourself! As we all know there are only two types of opinions: 1. Those held by @Mezanti and 2. Wrong ones Why vote for who you like, if you can just vote whatever other people tell you to?

This girl strikes me as the epitome of healthy green: https://www.youtube.com/user/MyTinySecretsTV

Orange. He seems quite dogmatic about science and empiricism. At least from what I've seen from him.

Too many platitudes in this interview. Saying that you want a more ethical society or more conscious government sounds good, but it's like...what does that mean? Everyone can consider their own views "conscious". Using spiritual terminology is not a qualification for a political position imo. Then I found this which is about her policy-ideas: https://www.marianne2020.com/issues Definitely agree with some of her visions like putting more emphasis for healing trauma, but she seems like any other statist; "give me all your money and do what I tell you to do because I am an authority about what's right and what's wrong". To me she's way too moralistic and authoritarian; wanting to regulate seemingly everything. Also, several of her positions like on race and the economy I cannot support. Her positions might me highly conscious, but seem also a bit philosophically weak

You are moving into yellow I presume. Also, a very important thing to remember is that a stage in SD is not determined by your diet, what party you vote for or how you earn your money. A stage is what drives you and what fundamental beliefs you have about the world. What you're triggered by is probably stage blue, rather than green. Many stage green movements and ideas regressed into stage blue. my theory being that this is because of how easy it is to live in an echo chamber and only hear and read perspectives you agree with; this can very easily lead to an absolutist view on things which is core blue. I believe you're spot on with your observation of their black and white thinking because that is exactly what they do. Basically the difference between blue and green: Green believes that there's value in all perspectives, blue believes that his perspective is the only right one and therefore has the right to shut down other opinions. The reason I believe this makes you yellow is your sensitivity of the spiral. Two people can both support more animal rights, but with green and blue this is coming from a completely different place. Green people are often oblivious to stage blue extremism if these stage blue people are on their side on key issues, yellow people aren't.

Who gets to decide who these individuals are?

It's one thing to say that you don't see any value in discussing something. It's another thing to say that there is no value in discussing something.

That's how it looks when you don't look at the philosophy, but at the people. Every political philsophy looks bad when you judge it by the average person who subscribes to it. That's why I used the word philosophy. I mean just look at what you wrote here: I don't believe I ever said that. But it makes me believe that you have a generic view on what a libertarian is. These comments make you look like some guy on YouTube who calls feminists dumb because he saw a few "feminists get triggered by facts" videos. Just with different actors. I generally agree with your description of good government. We agree that reality is too complex for a simple solution like "libertarianism is always the best choice". Because people have different views, and because good government depends on the people it's supposed to govern. The brilliance of libertarianism lies in the following question: Who gets to decide what good government is? It's one thing to philosophize what your ideal government would look like, but at the end of the day are your values just that - your values. A good political philsophy must consider that people disagree on things. Libertarianism is, besides anarchy, the only political philosophy with the humbleness to say that it's not obvious what good government looks like.

I don't think you understand the philosophy behind libertarianism. Otherwise it would be blatantly obvious for any integral thinker to see the importance of implementing libertarian principles in good government

@Leo Gura Something I would be interested in, and it would be cool if you could share this in one of your videos or here on the forum, is the following: How did your political views change throughout your life and what made them change? What was the epiphany that made you outgrow a particular political philosophy?

"I am right and everyone who disagrees with me is low consciousness" - this forum in a nutshell whenever politial topics come up

And they have been talking about Spiral Dynamics since 2014

@Norbert Lennartz Lol. You savage

@Serotoninluv Very true! But let's assume that the example I described is not as realistic, but more simplistic. Not to understand what actually goes on, but as a thought experiment to learn about what happens when you are exposed to only a single stage; will you reach that stage or where would one get stuck? My intention is to better understand the mechanisms of moving up the spiral in relation to social conditioning of the different stages.

If we imagine a child growing up in a blue household, neighborhood and society; this child's friends, parents and teachers are all stage blue, then this child will probably end up at stage blue. (Obviously there are many exceptions, but you get my point). In this scenario, the parents and institutions will teach blue values to the child. So, I would assume that this child will take the beliefs of its peers and parents as absolute truths since there is an agreements about blue values with every person this individual interacts with - The child will believe in typical stage blue values in an absolutist stage blue manner. If we assume that to be the case, a few questions arise: 1. When the child was exposed to blue since early childhood, how did it ever integrate purple and red? But the more interesting questions are what happens if we play the same scenario with a different stage: 2. A green household, neighborhood and society where the child gets taught green values since it was born etc. Will the child end up at stage green? Or will it be stage blue about green values; for example the child will value harmony, but will be very absolutist about this typically green value - an individual that from the outside might appear to be green, but is actually blue and never been to orange? 3. Orange? 4. Yellow and above? I assume here the child will receive active help to move up the spiral and not get stuck at blue.

Incredibly good Netflix show; just watched the second season. Green/yellow/turquoise

@Leo Gura ?? thx for the answer