Why Turquoise is baloney

[Scholar]

Spiral Dynamics is just describing the path of least resistance as far as societal and individual evolution goes.

Given that the limitations of Stage Yellow have not manifested yet, because Stage Yellow is in no way prevalent in society, we simply do not yet know what the "path of least reistance" is going to look like for the next evolutionary step.

 

Remember, Spiral Dynamics is not some preset way of how human societies necessarily evolve. A society, albeit it probably is less likely, could evolve completely different. Rather than stage blue, it could have an entirely different system and therefore the entire evolutionary pathway will look different.

This is just less likely to occur given that all societies are connected to each other, and given that certain pathways are just much more likely to occur.

[Leo Gura]

@Carl-Richard You make some solid points in questioning the limits of Graves' method and sample size.

Susanne Cook-Greuter's model has a much more solid grasp of the highest stages and you can use it to help you fill in the gaps in Graves and SD.

The Construct-Aware and Unitive stages are very well described by Cook-Greuter. You can wonder, what would a community/culture of such people look like? That would probably be Turquoise.

As for Green, a lot of Green New Age people parrot stuff without a serious development of it as a stage. You can parrot Alan Watts or some guru or some yoga thing, but that doesn't not mean these people have Construct-Awareness or Unitive stages. There is much New Age spirutual larping going on by immature, underdeveloped, deluded people.

The people you see at some yoga retreat are not Tier 2.

Edited October 2 by Leo Gura

[Buck Edwards]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Carl-Richard You make some solid points in questioning the limits of Graves' method and sample size.

Susanne Cook-Greuter's model has a much more solid grasp of the highest stages and you can use it to help you fill in the gaps in Graves and SD.

The Construct-Aware and Unitive stages are very well described by Cook-Greuter. You can wonder, what would a community/culture of such people look like? That would probably be Turquoise.

As for Green, a lot of Green New Age people parrot stuff without a serious development of it as a stage. You can parrot Alan Watts or some guru or some yoga thing, but that doesn't not mean these people have Construct-Awareness or Unitive stages. There is much New Age spirutual larping going on by immature, underdeveloped, deluded people.

The people you see at some yoga retreat are not Tier 2.

But this is not to imply that Turquoise is baloney. 

[Thought Art]

@hyruga Share some differences 

[zurew]

17 hours ago, BlueOak said:

Sure.

Yellow requires your rationalization to be satisfied by clear definition for an individual framing.
Turquoise requires the attention of the community reading the thread and a mutual effort.

No clue what any of that means.

17 hours ago, BlueOak said:

I still contend that each stage is inside the other because each stage evolved out of the other. So incompatibilities don't have to exist, the opposite would likely be easier to list

If you list a set of things that is compatible with both yellow and turquoise ,then you are not really laying out the difference between the two.  

This is why I asked you guys to lay out unique turquoise characteristics and then make an argument for why those things are incompatible with yellow. 

[Carl-Richard]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Susanne Cook-Greuter's model has a much more solid grasp of the highest stages and you can use it to help you fill in the gaps in Graves and SD.

The Construct-Aware and Unitive stages are very well described by Cook-Greuter. You can wonder, what would a community/culture of such people look like? That would probably be Turquoise.

That would be fine if only it didn't have exactly the same problems of sampling bias as I described initially (only US and UK samples; Cook-Greuter, 2013, p. 19). When you only sample people in the West, mystical ideas seem to pop up at the top of the model. And here, the mysticism is undeniable: Cook-Greuter (2013) explictly calls the Unitive stage "a shift from a personal to a transpersonal or immediate witnessing capacity" (p. 86).

EDIT: I'm actually blind: she had one international sample, however she states nothing about the demographics, and it's likely an internet-based sample which skews more Western anyway. The interesting samples are rural and tribal people in Eastern societies.

Edited October 2 by Carl-Richard

[Thought Art]

@Carl-Richard Do you suspect that if we sampled every where around the world (which Ken Wilbur says in his book he has looked at development all around the world) that highest stages of human development aren’t unitive or mystical or that more research is needed before it can be considered conclusive? 

[Mu_]

On 9/29/2024 at 6:24 PM, Carl-Richard said:

A couple of years ago, I found out Spiral Dynamics has a problem: sampling bias. Specifically, Clare Graves' essay samples consisted of only North Americans (primarily white, affluent college kids), and Don Beck's "samples" (I can't find anything on the methods he used) consisted of only North Americans and South Africans. Generally, the sample is biased towards Western cultures (and more importantly, it completely lacks Eastern cultures).

When I first learned about this, I thought maybe it's not a big problem, because dozens of other models (although with similar sampling bias) have come to similar conclusions (Piaget, Holberg, Loevinger, etc.). However, these models generally do not include the equivalent of Turquoise. And this is exactly what turns out to be the problem: Turquoise itself seems to be the result of sampling bias.

When Western people reach Green-Yellow, they get statistically more familiar with New Age ideas, particularly Eastern-inspired non-dual mysticism. This is because the West significantly repressed its mysticism for the last millennia, so you generally need to import it from other cultures to discover it (which obviously happens more often at Green-Yellow). And you would expect these people to describe it as their highest value, which according to Graves' methodology would be their highest stage, in this case Turquoise.

However, non-dual mysticism has of course existed all throughout history and at all stages of development. This is self-evident as you're importing these ideas from ancient religions like Buddhism and Hinduism. Now, if the creators of SD had used samples from the cultures you're importing the ideas from, mainly Eastern cultures, then they could've easily ruled out mysticism as being its own stage, because again, it's essentially present at all stages in these cultures and not just at later stages. Had they done that, Turquoise would clearly be seen as an artefact of sampling bias.

 

You can make the same case from a theoretical perspective, without relying on empirical data. For example, Hanzi Freinacht in The Listening Society, has pointed out that Turquoise fails to provide any critique towards Yellow (which I agree with). More specifically, it doesn't provide a higher level that "transcends and includes" the previous stage. It doesn't address any of the problems of the previous stage. It only sidesteps them, as I've pointed out, through mysticism. And maybe not coincidentally, Hanzi refers to Turquoise as New-Agey "holistic" or "integral" people.

 

So to summarize, "Turquoise" is essentially what you get when you build SD based on data from Western educated youth and not much else. Its purported contributions to Yellow is not substantially different from New Age mysticism, and it does not critique or solve any of the problems of the previous stage.

I think you bring up very valid points, so much so that I would be highly skeptical of it.  Personally I'm skeptical of pretty much all models like this, including lots of claims in "science", there's just so much that is or could be done poorly, of which I don't have the time to double check.

Personally I think that we are FAR off from understanding the universe and any spiritual system that could be used to improve peoples lives, thats no to say we can't make some pretty obvious observations and claims that "seem" to make a difference.

Example:

1.  Generally not eating food or drinking water will lead to death, and in between one will most likely go through some uncomfortable experiences along the way, there for eat some types of food some times to avoid this type of discomfort.

2.  Same could be said of sleep.

3.  Get some sort of physical movement in, or there will be more discomfort in your life most likely.

4.  If you just off a bridge, you will "most likely" die, so don't if you want to live.

5.  Chances are there will be some sort of challenge or discomfort in life at some point, so try and find a way to make peace with this certainty.

Edited October 2 by Mu_

[Thought Art]

You’d think that unity and holism and truth would be at the pinnacle of human development. At least I do. I wonder if there is an alternative?

[Keryo Koffa]

19 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

You’d think that unity and holism and truth would be at the pinnacle of human development.
At least I do. I wonder if there is an alternative?

On 9/4/2024 at 10:42 PM, Leo Gura said:

Alien Consciousness

[BlueOak]

6 hours ago, zurew said:

No clue what any of that means.

If you list a set of things that is compatible with both yellow and turquoise ,then you are not really laying out the difference between the two.  

This is why I asked you guys to lay out unique turquoise characteristics and then make an argument for why those things are incompatible with yellow. 

Let's see if I can respond in a different way.

I can answer in a logical, rational way that draws on everything I personally can surmise or calculate would be effective. This would be yellow in nature.

I can answer in a way that draws on everyone's contribution to the thread, and then encourage them to adapt or further what I've said to create your answer. This would be turquoise.

The way you are phrasing the question is yellow in nature. I am trying to answer in a turquoise way. Incompatibilities are less frequent the further you go along the spiral dynamics model, because all stages are accepted and brought into balance. There would only be subtle incompatibilities, but I wouldn't even call them that—just differences that might cause mild friction between the approaches—a bit like we are having here. The friction or incompatibilities often drive the development of someone's consciousness or mind.

You would like a list format. That's clear, easy to model, comprehensive, and direct. That's distinctly yellow. What you are asking for is in itself taking you out of a turquoise frame of mind. You would like an argument as to why incompatibilities exist when the very purpose is to do the opposite, I would have to argue against the model itself to complete that request. (Which I can do to play devil's advocate but the answer would negate itself).

The very premise of the thread is yellow in nature. The problem I perceive with it and within myself is how to effectively engage a collective answer within an individual reply.

[Carl-Richard]

11 hours ago, Thought Art said:

@Carl-Richard Do you suspect that if we sampled every where around the world (which Ken Wilbur says in his book he has looked at development all around the world) that highest stages of human development aren’t unitive or mystical or that more research is needed before it can be considered conclusive? 

Probably. This is just testing Wilber's Waking Up vs. Growing Up hypothesis. You should expect to find people with mystical ideas and states that do not understand Orange, Green, Yellow, etc., which means that mysticism by itself cannot be the highest level of human development.

Now, you can argue like Wilber that once you max out Growing up then Waking up would be a "step up", which to my knowledge is what he describes with Tier 3. But of course, that is different than claiming whatever has been claimed about Turquoise; that it's somehow distinct from Yellow and somehow not mystical (or is it?). I'm planning to read a bit more about Wilber's Tier 3 idea.

Now, while I don't think Turquoise currently exist, I do think it will probably exist in the future, but what that looks like, we don't know.

Edited October 3 by Carl-Richard

[Leo Gura]

You can have mysticism at any stage except Orange. There is Purple mysticism and Blue mysticism. That's basically what all the ancient religons and prophets were. They were not Turquoise.

Islam is a great example of mysticism at low levels of the Spiral. Which is why Islamic politics is so barbaric and regressive.

Study the difference between Purple, Blue, Green, and Turquoise mysticism.

Edited October 3 by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

What I find helpful with Spiral Dynamics is to break it up in your mind from a monolithic model into smaller chunks which you apply more selectively.

[jakee]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

You can have mysticism at any stage except Orange.

According to Jamie Wheal, there are bunch of silicon valley entrepreneurs and such who use psychedelics and meditative practices to enhance creativity and productivity etc. While this isn't mystical in any metaphysical sense, could this be concidered something like Orange mysticism? 

At Orange, one could see creative business operations as a spiritual practice, I suppose.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, jakee said:

According to Jamie Wheal, there are bunch of silicon valley entrepreneurs and such who use psychedelics and meditative practices to enhance creativity and productivity etc. While this isn't mystical in any metaphysical sense, could this be concidered something like Orange mysticism? 

At Orange, one could see creative business operations as a spiritual practice, I suppose.

Yeah, sure. But I don't like calling that mysticism.

[manuel bon]

2 hours ago, jakee said:

According to Jamie Wheal, there are bunch of silicon valley entrepreneurs and such who use psychedelics and meditative practices to enhance creativity and productivity etc. While this isn't mystical in any metaphysical sense, could this be concidered something like Orange mysticism? 

At Orange, one could see creative business operations as a spiritual practice, I suppose.

I wouldn't call that mysticism... The use of psychedelics isn't necessarily mystic

[jakee]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Yeah, sure. But I don't like calling that mysticism.

 

48 minutes ago, manuel bon said:

I wouldn't call that mysticism... The use of psychedelics isn't necessarily mystic

Yeah... fair enough.

[zurew]

14 hours ago, BlueOak said:

Let's see if I can respond in a different way.

I can answer in a logical, rational way that draws on everything I personally can surmise or calculate would be effective. This would be yellow in nature.

I can answer in a way that draws on everyone's contribution to the thread, and then encourage them to adapt or further what I've said to create your answer. This would be turquoise.

I don't think you are showing a difference there.  A rational , logical and clear answer doesn't presuppose that others cant contribute to it or adapt to it further. 

Also you seem to be making rational and clear answers exclusive to stage yellow and that seems to be a mistake.

14 hours ago, BlueOak said:

The way you are phrasing the question is yellow in nature. I am trying to answer in a turquoise way. Incompatibilities are less frequent the further you go along the spiral dynamics model, because all stages are accepted and brought into balance. There would only be subtle incompatibilities, but I wouldn't even call them that—just differences that might cause mild friction between the approaches—a bit like we are having here. The friction or incompatibilities often drive the development of someone's consciousness or mind.

SD is about cognitive development, the notion of a stage yellow / turquoise answer or question seems to be a category error. I don't think it makes sense to categorize answers and questions in terms of spiral dynamics or to make certain questions or answers exclusive to a given stage

14 hours ago, BlueOak said:

You would like a list format. That's clear, easy to model, comprehensive, and direct. That's distinctly yellow. What you are asking for is in itself taking you out of a turquoise frame of mind. You would like an argument as to why incompatibilities exist when the very purpose is to do the opposite, I would have to argue against the model itself to complete that request. (Which I can do to play devil's advocate but the answer would negate itself).

I think you are confusing the properties of a theory with the properties of the thing being referred to:

So for example: 

• You can create a logical theory about illogicality
• You can create a clear theory about vagueness
• You can create a rational theory about irrationality

Btw this is the same mistake what Leo made when he said that you cant create a clear theory about oblique thinking since it is oblique in nature. 

 

I think the question of preferred communication norms (like expecting  clear breakdown of a given concept from the other party or a preference for a more poetic and open-ended breakdown of things) isn't directly relevant to answer the question of what is turquoise or what is the theory of turquoise.

A relevant disagreement would be  disagreeing about what a good theory is or what constitutes a good theory. But I doubt that there is a disagreement there.

Edited October 3 by zurew

[Human Mint]

First of all, I would like to see examples of yellow comunities. Better yet, I am drawn to explore how a tribe ascends trough the spiral, the inner process and more specifically what insights are being recognized so that it shapes the modus operandi.

As of how I want to study Spiral Dinamics, I intend to read and constantly evaluate the community/society I am part of. Like an anthropologist would do. It's not the same to sit and watch a landscape, versus sit and watch a landscape after you've readed a book about the ecosystem of the place by someone who studied it.