Ken Wilber says Trump is Stage Green?

[enchanted]

I'm reading  "A Post-Truth World" by Ken Wilber and he seems to be under the impression that Trump, (and Brexit), uses postmodern relativism, where "no truth" exists only egalitarian perspectives. Wilber claims that this shows Trump is at Stage Green that came online in the 1960's (when Trump grew up) and now has come to an unsustainable degenerated madness we see today.

[Leo Gura]

Wilber is wrong. The Integral community is wrong.

They misapply SD.

Trump is not post-truth, he's just a liar. Liars and frauds have exists since forever.

Wilber improperly applies SD because he has is own anti-Green bias from being rejected by academia. This bias warps his view of the America political situation.

Edited Monday at 12:29 PM by Leo Gura

[enchanted]

Thanks Leo, yes this seems to be the case but Ken is also saying that Trump is a backlash to green so Im slightly confused about his perspective. 

[jakee]

If I remember correctly, his view was more like that the "mean green"/cultural postmodernism, which is sceptical towards Truth-claims, makes a fertile culture for a Trump-like actors to grow and gain popularity in. He criticizes cultural stage green for its lack of leadership and constructive agency. So Trump is not Green himself, but at least partly a product of (pathologically) Green cultural movement.

Wilber seems to think that the leading edge of cultural development (Green meme) should assume the responsibility to lead society forward, and in doing so, be able to inspire and include everyone on that mission, which seems to not be the case. I'm not saying there's no allergies towards Green mixed in there too, but the overall argument seemed quite reasonable for me.

[LordFall]

  On 3/17/2025 at 3:29 PM, jakee said:

If I remember correctly, his view was more like that the "mean green"/cultural postmodernism, which is sceptical towards Truth-claims, makes a fertile culture for a Trump-like actors to grow and gain popularity in. He criticizes cultural stage green for its lack of leadership and constructive agency. So Trump is not Green himself, but at least partly a product of (pathologically) Green cultural movement.

Wilber seems to think that the leading edge of cultural development (Green meme) should assume the responsibility to lead society forward, and in doing so, be able to inspire and include everyone on that mission, which seems to not be the case. I'm not saying there's no allergies towards Green mixed in there too, but the overall argument seemed quite reasonable for me.

Green cannot lead anything as it's just an ineffective bubble of pain and empathy. Once it integrates Orange it becomes Yellow as it understands why the system is the way it is and doesn't react emotionally to it; just works to fix it. 

Post-truth just sounds like a libertarian copout to me which is just peak stage orange with some random stage red thrown in it like Trump seems to like. Might makes right! 

[Elliott]

Post-modernism gives an opening for racism just being another worldview, or 'don't trust the science'.

Edited Monday at 03:43 PM by Elliott

[HelluvaGuy]

I remember reading that book not that long ago and I certainly don't remember Wilber making such claims in said book.

What he said is Trump is a backlash reaction TO Stage Green, not that Trump is literally stage Green. Wilber also wrote how Trump appeals to ethnocentrism (stage blue). 

Think of somebody like Dugin - just because the guy uses postmodernism to advocate his worldview, that does not make him stage green. He loathes everything about that stage. 

[AION]

Wilber didn’t say that. 

[Husseinisdoingfine]

I posted this a while ago, but Don Edward Beck made the same mistake, assessing Donald Trump to be SDi YELLOW. Why are these supposed experts of Spiral Dynamics making such a crucial error in their assessment?

 

The only correct opinion of Trump and Spiral Dynamics:

 

[Nilsi]

I get what he’s saying.

The core of it is that Trump plays with truth like it’s a game, bending it however he wants, treating it as something totally malleable - almost postmodern in the way he operates.

It’s not just lying; it’s more like a Baudrillardian maneuver, where “fake news” isn’t just about falsehoods but about the whole concept of truth becoming unstable, simulated, up for grabs.

[aurum]

  On 3/17/2025 at 0:21 PM, enchanted said:

I'm reading  "A Post-Truth World" by Ken Wilber and he seems to be under the impression that Trump, (and Brexit), uses postmodern relativism, where "no truth" exists only egalitarian perspectives. Wilber claims that this shows Trump is at Stage Green that came online in the 1960's (when Trump grew up) and now has come to an unsustainable degenerated madness we see today.

I read that book. I didn't get the impression that was Wilber's position.

Wilber seemed to be of the position that Trump was deeply representative of SD Green backlash, which is correct.

Where he goes wrong is excessively blaming Green for this. He sees this backlash due to Green going crazy and not really acting as the leading edge, which is mostly incorrect. Much of this backlash would still be happening even if Green was in its healthiest, purest form.

It also is definitely a mistake to confuse post-modernism with being a pathological liar.

Edited Monday at 05:58 PM by aurum

[Rafael Thundercat]

I follow an attorney on social media and the said the following:

“Why are you bashing Trump so much?”

Because I’m a LAWYER and this fuckin guy is destroying the RULE OF LAW.

Exactly the kind of thing any REAL lawyer would be sounding the alarm about.

[Leo Gura]

I have noticed for a long time that Wilber has a strange application of SD to politics. He expect society to skip over Green to be Yellow. He wants more Yellow. He blames Green for being too mean. But he doesn't recognize that America has never reached solid Green as it's stuck in Orange-Blue and demonizes Green. Wilber expects America to go from Orange-Blue to Yellow because Green is too mean. This makes no sense. The proof of it is this regression towards fascism. Blaming Green for creating Trump is gaslighting.

Edited Monday at 08:49 PM by Leo Gura

[Daniel Balan]

Thank god, spiral dynamics isn't taught at a societal scale. Such a beautiful system is being perverted by devils. Imagine if MAGA knew spiral dynamics...

They'd corrupt this system to the point of believing someone like Bernie Sanders is a stage red communist while Trump and Vance are Stage Yellow strategic visionaries, or worse they'd believe that Trump is a stage turquoise sage saviour of mankind. 

The bottom line is that the devil can corrupt even the purest of light. 

[Leo Gura]

The best irony of all this is that Don Beck called Ken Wilber a Stage Red psychopath.

OMG, mankind is such a clownshow.

Edited Monday at 07:49 PM by Leo Gura

[Thought Art]

@Leo Gura ugh whyyy

[Daniel Balan]

From my personal experience, I believe that everyone is much lower on the spiral than what it appears to be at a first glance. I believe that mankind as a species is drowning in all the toxic aspects of red blue and orange. And I believe that it would take at least 300 years or more to be at the beginning of stage Green. So far stage green seems to me the most important stage on the spiral. Without proper understanding of it mankind could wipe itself from the face of the earth. 

[aurum]

  On 3/17/2025 at 7:06 PM, Leo Gura said:

Integral folk think JD Vance is a Yellow Spiral Wizard. Which is insanely bad political analysis.

Do you have a source?

I've not seen that, but I'd like to look into it. 

[aurum]

  On 3/17/2025 at 3:31 PM, LordFall said:

Green cannot lead anything as it's just an ineffective bubble of pain and empathy. Once it integrates Orange it becomes Yellow as it understands why the system is the way it is and doesn't react emotionally to it; just works to fix it. 

This is an obvious denigration of Green.

Also, Yellow is not just Green integrating Orange. It's way more than that.

[Nilsi]

  On 3/17/2025 at 7:06 PM, Leo Gura said:

Integral folk think JD Vance is a Yellow Spiral Wizard. Which is insanely bad political analysis.

Wtf? He’s like the most disgusting shade of blue imaginable.