Misinterpretations of Spiral Dynamics

[BlueOak]

41 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

I disagree! Beige doesn't mean an literal ape. This is what AI has to say about beige:

Group vs. Individual: Purple is tribal, focused on group survival and identity; Beige is individualistic, focused solely on personal survival with no group concept.
Culture and Spirituality: Purple has a rich culture—rituals, myths, animistic spirituality, traditions; Beige has no culture, no spirituality, just raw instinct.

When I read these two lines it was the perfect description of me

All stages contain those before it. This is especially evident when looking at an individualist or collective stage compared to the others.
You are describing an isolated form of individualism. 

Are you acting somewhat animalistic, as in attacking people who come near your home? Do you walk into the shop take all you want, with no regard at all for any system of law. I don't mean you avoid getting caught stealing, I mean you don't consider its existence.

You can see trends of these behaviors reflected in any individualist stage, but they'd contain the developmental phases prior to them also. So an orange patterned behavior might be well aware of the law, taking what it could solely for its own gain, and try to skirt the law where it could for example, rather than not being able to comprehend or acknowledge its existence. 

Edited April 14 by BlueOak

[Daniel Balan]

@BlueOak I am extremely respectful of the law. But in all honesty, I have to confess I am very animal like. I look with hostility at bystanders that pass by my house, I always have the feeling that someone wants to trespass my property and try to steal from my house. Evertime my dogs start barking I'm in full atack mode and I open the door to see who is passing by! I have knifes and baseball bats hidden across all my household! I have a hammer under my bed! I am very animalistic in that sense. The more time passes I start to wonder if I'm actually insane or mentally deranged! 

[Daniel Balan]

@OmniNaut Thanks a lot! I really appreciate your post!

[BlueOak]

@Daniel Balan

A good friend of mine who I met last year and is now moving away, speaks a lot like that. When I first met him, he was always talking to me about fighting, as if it was the most important thing on the planet, boxing mostly but also where he grew up, which was quite violent. he was shot at as a teen, and had experiences with drugs, family violence, things like that.

He still has that in him. the first thing he did when I showed him the new jewelry equipment I am working with, is pick up the ring mandrel and say you could do some real damage with that . So it doesn't make you a bad person; if I felt pushed to the limit, i'd act beige also in that moment. if I felt where I lived was under threat or I was personally in a survival scenario. Its the first pillar of everything that comes later.

But my friend reawakened my courage, and got me out of the house again, helped my sense of self worth anxiety settle at work, and got me socialising again, and in return I was able to show him the patterns in his life not serving him, and as I got to know him relate to him why he acted like he did. He got counseling for PTSD, he got on meds for his panic attacks, and I showed him his need to frame everything as a battle meant he'd always be in one for example, among other things.

That part of you isn't wrong; we all need it, but you don't need to live in it 24/7.

Edited April 14 by BlueOak

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Daniel Balan said:

This is what AI has to say about beige

When I read these two lines

Kill me in a video game.

[Daniel Balan]

@BlueOak Thank you for your response! Made me feel at peace! Thank you!

[BlueOak]

@Daniel Balan

Very welcome!

[The Renaissance Man]

7 hours ago, LastThursday said:

The main point of misinterpretation is that it applies to individuals. It is actually a theory about society in general. Even if individuals make up a society, collectively people will have emergent behaviour, and this is what Spiral Dynamics is on about.

THIS. If this was made clearer from the get-go 90% of the confusion about SD in this forum would disappear.

[The Renaissance Man]

@Daniel Balan Examples of beige from the Spiral Dynamics book. So this is straight from the source: 

The first peoples, newborn infants, senile elderly, late-stage Alzheimer’s victims, mentally ill street people, starving masses, bad drug trips, and ‘shell shock.’ Described in anthropological fiction like Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear.

[Mada_]

On 15/4/2025 at 1:12 AM, Emerald said:

This one is a common misconception about Red. A lot of times people think any kind of violence or ruthlessness is automatically Red. But this isn't true.

You can find violence and ruthlessness in Stage Purple using magical thinking to justify human sacrifices.

You can find violence and ruthlessness in Stage Blue using the religious dogmas and institutions of the time to crusade.

You can find violence and ruthlessness in Stage Orange in child laborer's who die in a mine in Africa so that those in the first world can get a phone.

You can find violence and ruthlessness in Stage Green in ways we haven't yet known because the phase is so new and has never been the paradigmatic center of society... but see a sliver of in the killing of the United Healthcare CEO.

Stage Red specifically is Ghengis Kahn stuff where the strongest and most ruthless dominates through conquest.

And say what you will about Ghengis Kahn... but he was eco-friendly!

None of his shenanigans ever resulted in the breakdown of large ecological systems.

Osho’s village was largely Green and arguably got pretty violent  

[Majed]

@Elliott I think spiral dynamics is very problematic. It's nice in that it shows you different worldviews and orientations in life, however people often rely very heavily on it, which isn't healthy. At the end of the day, you should generate your own insights based on your own contemplative work. Spiral dynamics is too simplistic to deal with the complexities of reality. Most people don't fit clearly in a stage or another. Sometimes people have nothing to do with spiral dynamics, in terms of their personality. 

Edited April 16 by Majed

[Majed]

On 4/14/2025 at 5:34 PM, Elliott said:

Hippy is often a religion to people, "peace love and happiness" is often just a mindlessly repeated mantra and the proclaimers embrace it as well as Jesus followers do. Stage blue, not green, of course some big figure-heads and serious people in the movement are green.

 

Psychedelics are tier 2, can be, rarely are. Can be orange 'play hard' or blue hippy religion and God.

 

Socialism is not green if you're poor, it's you worrying about your subsistence, orange, and if it's paired with hating Billionaires, it's red. If you support luigi, that's red

 

Social justice Warrior, if you're in a group that needs social justice, it's probably just self preservation, often not green

Yeah of course i mean i think hitler was a stage turquoise construct aware genius that created the fantasy of the aryan race - construct awareness - to let people - nazis - dream up this reality so that they can genocide the jews, because the jews aren't aware of judaism being dreamed up by God's infinite mind and intelligence. So that he can show people a way forward towards new levels of consciousness. 

Edited April 16 by Majed

[Carl-Richard]

34 minutes ago, Majed said:

Spiral dynamics is too simplistic to deal with the complexities of reality. Most people don't fit clearly in a stage or another.

And sometimes , always, they fit in a stage or two or three lower than they think.

[LastThursday]

This forum needs something other than SD to pigeon hole us, something that better fits the individualistic vibe on here. But I guess those shiny primary colours are just too attention grabbing - genius marketing: colours and levels.

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, LastThursday said:

This forum needs something other than SD to pigeon hole us, something that better fits the individualistic vibe on here. But I guess those shiny primary colours are just too attention grabbing - genius marketing: colours and levels.

The MBTI fanatics got banned 😝

[Nilsi]

Quote

 

Those who have tried to develop instruments have based them on what people think, do or believe, which is not the proper base for assessment devices. They should be based not on what the person thinks but how s/he thinks, not on what people do or what they believe but how they do what they do, and how they believe that which they do believe. - Clare Graves

 

Any serious engagement with this model begins and ends with Clare Graves.

What followed is less a developmental model than a devolutionary spiral of degradation - a kind of inverse Spiral Dynamics, tracing the decline of nuance, rigor, and integrity as the framework was passed around like an intellectual prostitute from one pseudo-guru to the next.

Beck blew it up with color codes and vMEMEs - no research, just a teaching gimmick.

Wilber turned it into a grand sorting machine - categorizing everyone and their mom, though at least he read the texts he was flattening.

Then Leo came along and shat all over it - didn’t read, didn’t care, just declared his version absolute truth and called disagreement “misinformation.”

And now we’re at the point where people who’ve never read a book cover to cover, use “non-dual” to excuse being unemployed, and think a weekend of ayahuasca in Tulum made them meta-aware, swear they’re Tier 2. 

Edited April 18 by Nilsi

[Nilsi]

On 17.4.2025 at 8:22 PM, Carl-Richard said:

The MBTI fanatics got banned 😝

R.I.P.

That era was the peak.

[ChrisZoZo]

On 14/04/2025 at 4:52 PM, Leo Gura said:

Elliott You are spreading misinformation

🤣

[LordFall]

@Carl-Richard why don’t you think it has a conceptual basis? Sounds to me like plenty of enlightened teachers fit the general description. 
 

Also MBTI is great but sure about being a fanatic about it but has plenty of use case. 

Edited Sunday at 07:47 PM by LordFall

[The Renaissance Man]

@Nilsi I'm reading the SD book right now, after your reply I'll for sure check out Clare Graves' work. It's a common pattern that when you go and look at the actual source you discover things were meant to be different (and very often better).

What are the top books/works on developmental psychology in your opinion?

Edited Sunday at 07:54 PM by The Renaissance Man