Could a stage blue person regress To red if they realised good and bad dont exist?

[Tom T]

I’m currently building a workshop for childhood shame and one of the exercises is to contemplate weather good and bad is objective or subjective.

now I do realise that a stage blue person would be closed minded to pondering such a question to begin with but  let say they were open to it and they pondered this question for a few months and they realised good n bad are illusory. Dose anyone think they could regress into stage red since a stage blue persons sense of what’s okay to do and what’s not okay to do is completely held together with the firm belief in good and bad??

[Tom T]

I’m also not sure weather to set this exercise for homework becuase it could lead to people becoming nialistic and negative. I could describe how it’s actually okay in detail but you kinda need a positive mystical experiance to understand I recon. What do people think?

 

[bmcnicho]

If you haven’t read the Spiral Dynamics book by Don Beck and David Cohen, I’d recommend it.  It provides lots of great insights on how to help people develop.

One of their key ideas is describing what happens when someone becomes essentially trapped between stages.

In your case, you’re trying to transition people from blue to orange.  Now, if you reveal to them the problems with blue, one of which being that objective morality doesn’t exist, you also need to guide them toward stage orange.  

Otherwise, they’ll be trapped between the stages leading to nihilism and depression. Some people could regress down to red, but most will cling to blue for as long as possible, despite it no longer working for them.  

Since you’re specifically addressing childhood shame, maybe you could tell people that pursuing personal achievement could increase their confidence and self esteem.  That way they could begin developing healthy stage orange rather than a dysfunctional stage red.

[Leo Gura]

Tis always possible to misconceive a stage and improperly apply advice.

But most Blue people would just reject stage Green (relativism) rather than devolving into Red. So I wouldn't worry too much about devolving people merely by getting them to contemplate relativism.

The transition out of stage Blue often feels like death, loss of faith, or the collapse of one's reality. Because stage Blue is so addicted to its rigid ideology and morals. To them it feels like their whole world is collapsing into nihilism. This is all just exaggeration and illusion, but it feels real to them nonetheless. Which is why its so hard to evolve people out of Blue. They are stubborn like mules and they will bite a helping hand. They will act aggressively ignorant.

But it's worth trying. It's a good learning experience for you as a teacher to see how far you can push them.

If you are teaching children, they can be quite openminded to radical ideas. But their parents might make a stink that you are corrupting the youth with your socialist post-modernist agenda.