Ken Wilbur's understanding of Trump from an integral perspective

[andyjohnsonman]

A great read.

[Zigzag Idiot]

I haven't Red the book but right after Trump got elected, Cynthia Bourgeault started distributing Ken Wilburs material about this phenomena. A portion of which I'll go look for and paste below.

,,,,this is the heart of the article I just posted below :

An [increasingly] hyper-sensitive political correctness that consistently stirred the pot of resentment and anger (both within green itself, the so-called “mean green meme,” and certainly against it, among the other levels of consciousness).

This “aperspectival madness,” as Wilber terms it, left the ostensible evolutionary leading edge caught in an increasing cul de sac of “nihilism and narcissism.” Trump was able to successfully fan the smoldering fires of resentment building at all three lower levels — red, amber, and orange — into a roaring blaze of anti-green sentiment — an “anti-green morphogenetic field” that went on to torch the entire green value system. However apparently contradictory and volatile Trump’s agendas may be, Wilber points out, the common denominator is that they are always anti-green.

Without condoning these agendas, Wilber does lay out a scenario through which it is possible to discern a coherence (I’ll stop short of saying a “justification”) behind the otherwise unfathomable upheaval that awaited the world on November 8. Rather than simply further demonizing Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” that put the man in office, or resorting to ominous and paralyzing specters of Hitler and Armageddon, Wilber’s hypothesis offers a way to make sense out of what happened —and to cooperate with evolution in making the necessary adjustments.

Cynthia Bourgeault is a leader in the Contemplative Christian move movement 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by Zigzag Idiot
Cynthia Bourgeault is a leader in the Contemplative Christian move movement

[Zigzag Idiot]

WILBER’S TRUMP AND A POST-TRUTH WORLD: AN OVERVIEW AND CRITIQUE

February 1, 2017/43 Comments/in Contemplative Wisdom, Teilhard de Chardin /by Cynthia Bourgeault

Cynthia Bourgeault offers a critique on Ken Wilber’s article “Trump and a Post-Truth World: An Evolutionary Self-Correction” as a study guide for contemplatives.

Now that Ken Wilber’s paper on “Trump and a Post-Truth World” is officially posted and making its rounds on the internet, I feel at liberty to share my initial “cliff notes” and comments a bit more widely. My comments below were generated originally (and somewhat hastily) for a group of senior Wisdom students who are already working their way through this tract. It is still to be regarded as primarily a “working draft” for limited circulation, not a formal response to Ken’s thesis.

The first part is a quick overview of the main points of Ken’s argument as I understand it. The second part raises a few points for feedback/critique/further reflection.

I. THE ARGUMENT IN A NUTSHELL

Ken Wilber’s wide-ranging and fundamentally hopeful monograph is an analysis of the recent presidential election from the perspective of levels of consciousness as developed primarily according to his own Integral Evolutionary Theory. The powerful contribution he brings here is to move us beyond the reactivity gripping both sides of the political spectrum and offer a much broader perspective. He proposes that Trump’s upset victory reflects an “evolutionary self-correction” necessitated by the fact that the leading edge of consciousness, the so-called greenlevel, lost its way in a mass of internal self-contradictions and gradually failed to lead. His 90-page paper is a lengthy, often verbose, occasionally brilliant analysis of how this situation came to be and what needs to happen to heal it.

To enter this discussion, one first needs to have some familiarity with the general schematic of levels of consciousness which Wilber has been steadily developing and refining for more than thirty years now (since his Up from Eden, first published in the early 1980s). Wilber summarizes this in an early section of his paper, but here’s the cliff notes version:

Levels of consciousness are “color coded” as follows:

Red: egocentric, self-referential, instinctual

Amber: (alias “mythic membership”): ethnocentric, authoritarian, pre-modern

Orange: world-centric, rational, individualistic, modern

Green: world centered, pluralistic, post-modern

Green, the highest evolutionary level consistently attained to date, began to emerge in the 1960s and has gown steadily for the new [following] five decades, to the point that by Wilber’s estimate, some 25% of the population are presently functioning at that level (how does he generate this data?). But along the way, green began to wander off course, increasingly caught in some internal contradictions that were inherent in its worldview from the start; i.e.:

Its inherent tendency to relativism, which progressively morphed into the notion of the claim that there is no such thing as universal truth or universal values.

An inherent “performative contradiction” between its claim that all values are equal and its inner assurance that its value (“that there is no universal truth”) is nonetheless normative and binding.

A failure to distinguish between “dominator hierarchies” (based on oppression) and “growth hierarchies” (based on evolutionarily necessary differentiation), and a general dislike of all hierarchy.

An [increasingly] hyper-sensitive political correctness that consistently stirred the pot of resentment and anger (both within green itself, the so-called “mean green meme,” and certainly against it, among the other levels of consciousness).

This “aperspectival madness,” as Wilber terms it, left the ostensible evolutionary leading edge caught in an increasing cul de sac of “nihilism and narcissism.” Trump was able to successfully fan the smoldering fires of resentment building at all three lower levels — red, amber, and orange — into a roaring blaze of anti-green sentiment — an “anti-green morphogenetic field” that went on to torch the entire green value system. However apparently contradictory and volatile Trump’s agendas may be, Wilber points out, the common denominator is that they are always anti-green.

Without condoning these agendas, Wilber does lay out a scenario through which it is possible to discern a coherence (I’ll stop short of saying a “justification”) behind the otherwise unfathomable upheaval that awaited the world on November 8. Rather than simply further demonizing Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” that put the man in office, or resorting to ominous and paralyzing specters of Hitler and Armageddon, Wilber’s hypothesis offers a way to make sense out of what happened —and to cooperate with evolution in making the necessary adjustments.

In the final section of his paper, Wilber does exactly that. He lays out several steps (some theoretical, others quite practical) whereby green could help heal itself and get back on track. In the end, however, Ken’s conviction becomes increasingly transparent — and finally explicit — that the basic performative contradictions inherent in “green-think” are so deep as to be unsalvageable, and that the only long-term and truly satisfying solution will come only from a robust emergence of the next level of consciousness: Integral (color-coded turquoise or teal), which is truly “second tier” (i.e., transitioning to the non-dual), capable of integrating and including all perspectives, unafraid of healthy hierarchy, and hence truly able to lead. It is from this level, he believes, that the ultimate evolutionary resolution will emerge — once a “tipping point” of about 10% of the population functioning at that level is stabilized.

If it takes the Trump election to create this evolutionary jolt, so be it; the important thing is not to miss the window of opportunity now that it has so dramatically opened.

 

 

 

II. Comments and Critique

1. The greatest contribution of this paper is that it gets the scale right: it “nails” the arena in which events are actually playing out and offers a plausible hypothesis as to the underlying causes, a hypothesis which restores both coherence and an empowerment. Virtually every other analysis I have seen — political, sociological, Biblical — is working from too narrow and limited a perspective (that’s the nature of intellectual discourse in the post-modern era; you either get rigor or breadth, rarely both). While I do not share all of Ken’s conclusions, I am totally in agreement that the evolutionary frame offers our best shot at a coherent explanation and a mature and skillful resolution.

2. And as Teilhard discovered a generation before, it is at the evolutionary scale — i.e., over deep time — that “deep hope” becomes possible. I am gratified that Ken seems to agree with Teilhard that evolution is intrinsically purposeful (and in much the same terms as Teilhard sees it: moving toward greater “complexification/consciousness” — not specifically so-named — and an ever-fuller manifestation of Love (or “Eros,” in Wilber languaging). I wish Teilhard were more generally cited in Wilber’s work; it would certainly draw the dual streams of Teilhardian and Integral Evolutionary Theory into a more creative and ultimately illumining dialogue.

3. I continue to suspect that Wilber often conflates “levels of consciousness” with “stages of growth.” The two are not identical, at least according to the criteria I have gleaned from my own Christian contemplative heritage. I remain to be convinced that orange and green are actually different levels; to me they look more like simply progressive stages of the same level. Orange may be individualistic while green is pluralistic, but both are relying on the mental egoic operating system (“perception through differentiation”) to run their program; green’s “groups”, therefore, are merely “individuals writ large,” (which “co-exist,” not a new holonic unity [which “coalesces”]). Or another way of saying it: green is simply orange looking through a post-modern filter.

This, incidentally, I believe to be another fatal “performative contradiction” undetected by Wilber; greens think FOR oneness but FROM “perception through differentiation;” how crazy-making is that? It’s a pretty significant developmental gap to navigate, causing their minds always to be out ahead of what their psyches can actually maintain. Hence the anger, the arrogance, and the hypocrisy.           

4. I’m no political historian, but I think Wilber takes some pretty large leapfrogs through the history of the political parties in the US. I’d be highly skeptical that he can make his assertion stick that Democrats by and large function in a higher level of consciousness (green/orange) than Republicans (orange/amber). This may be true of the past few decades, but given that prior to its infiltration by the Religious right, the Republican party was more often the standard bearer for the leading edge of consciousness, case in point: Abraham Lincoln), while the Democratic party was the home to most ethnicities and nearly all of the South. Thus, it’s difficult to see how it would be without its share of well-entrenched ethnocentric (amber) perspectives.

5. Finally, and most substantively, the most important corrective the Christian mystical tradition has to bring to current secular or Buddhist-based models of “second tier” (and higher) states of consciousness is the insistence that the leap to this new level of conscious functioning is not simply an extension of the cognitive line but requires “putting the mind in the heart,” not only attitudinally but neurologically. There is a supporting physiology to each tier of consciousness (which is why I think green and orange are still basically at the same level), and that all-important shift from 1st-tier to 2nd-tier will only happen when grounded in an active awakening of the heart.

And this means, basically, it will happen in the domain of devotion — i.e., our heart’s emotional assent and participation in the ultimate “thouness” of the cosmos and the experiential certainty of the divine not simply as “love” but as Lover. That is to say, I believe it happens beyond the gates of secularity, in the intense, holographic particularity of the upper echelons of each sacred tradition. This is for me the profound strength of Teilhard’s model, as over and against Wilber’s more secular model; it unabashedly is able to stir the fires of adoration and spiritual imagination as it “harnesses the energy of love.” Striving to light this same fire with metaphysical matches, Wilber is left essentially “anthropomorphizing” evolution, transforming it into a new version of the classic demiurge, the creative and implementing arm of the logoic omniscience.

I look forward to hearing your comments and feedback. I repeat: this is a groundbreaking and heartening essay, at the right scale, and headed in the right direction. It’s worth taking the time to grapple with.  

[Forestluv]

Below is a link to chapter 1 excerpt from the book. I think Wilber is placing far too much emphasis on toxic postmodernism as being the leading edge and failure of green. That is, the belief that everything is relative and social constructs, which leads to nihilism and narcissism. Since there is no truth there is no truth to lead toward. 

This has been Wilber’s bread and butter for years. To me, he seems to be immersed within a academic philosophy and perceives through that lens. Perhaps Wilber would take issue with this as I am suggesting his view is relative, based on his own conditioning in intellectual and academic theory. I don’t think Wilber has embodied essential essences of green and I don’t think he fully “gets” green. Green is not simply an intellectual model of the shortcomings of post-modernism.

My actual direct experience immersed within green contrasts with an intellectual model such as Wilber’s. Emotion, feeling, intuition, empathy, love. Wilber writes about “inclusion” like an academic conceptualizing in his office. A key to fully understanding inclusion is not purely through intellectual modeling - it must also include the direct experience of being marginalized and ostracized.

My experience within green communities is not the nihilism and narcissism Wilber suggests. The essence is not a hyper-relativistic mindset in which there is no common truth or meaning - an anything goes nihilistic/narcissistic hybrid. Yet I can see that perspective from an academic observing world events and intellectualizing at home or in their office. The leaders of green are not postmodern academics promoting a truthless, meaningless free for all. The Green leaders are Bernie Sanders and AOC - that is who Green resonates with and who speaks the collective voice of leading edge Green. They are promoting a common truth/meaning that incorporates relativism yet not to a toxic degree as Wilber suggests. For example, they see the relative experience of gender identity and support inclusion, equality and fair treatment for the LGBTQ community. Yet it’s a long stretch to label this as nihilistic/narcissistic. That is not how I would describe Green leaders like Bernie and AOC. To me, Wilber seems to heavy on intellectual modeling and hasn’t actually embodied green. And I don’t think he will fully “get it” until he does.

https://www.shambhala.com/trump-and-a-post-truth-world/

[Scholar]

5 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

Below is a chapter 1 excerpt from the book. I think Wilber is placing far too much emphasis on toxic postmodernism as being the leading edge and failure of green. That is, the belief that everything is relative and social constructs, which leads to nihilism and narcissism. Since there is no truth there is no truth to lead toward. 

This has been Wilber’s bread and butter for years. To me, he seems to be immersed within a academic philosophy and perceives through that lens. Perhaps Wilber would take issue with this as I am suggesting his view is relative, based on his own conditioning in intellectual and academic theory. I don’t think Wilber has embodied essential essences of green and I don’t think he fully “gets” green. Green is not simply an intellectual model of the shortcomings of post-modernism.

My actual direct experience immersed within green contrasts with an intellectual model such as Wilber’s. Emotion, feeling, intuition, empathy, love. Wilber writes about “inclusion” like an academic conceptualizing in his office. A key to fully understanding inclusion is not purely through intellectual modeling - it must also include the direct experience of being marginalized and ostracized.

My experience within green communities is not the nihilism and narcissism Wilber suggests. The essence is not a hyper-relativistic mindset in which there is no common truth or meaning - an anything goes nihilistic/narcissistic hybrid. Yet I can see that perspective from an academic observing world events and intellectualizing at home or in their office. The leaders of green are not postmodern academics promoting a truthless, meaningless free for all. The Green leaders are Bernie Sanders and AOC - that is who Green resonates with and who speaks the collective voice of leading edge Green. They are promoting a common truth/meaning that incorporates relativism yet not to a toxic degree as Wilber suggests. For example, they see the relative experience of gender identity and support inclusion, equality and fair treatment for the LGBTQ community. Yet it’s a long stretch to label this as nihilistic/narcissistic. That is not how I would describe Green leaders like Bernie and AOC. To me, Wilber seems to heavy on intellectual modeling and hasn’t actually embodied green. And I don’t think he will fully “get it” until he does.

1. It requires healthy structures at all stages for individuals to transition through these stages without dysfunction.

2. Religious systems and institutions which were responsible for teaching people blue are being disintegrated and not replaced by functional blue replacements.

3. A lack of healthy blue institutions, which teach important transitional tools like absolutistic truth and morals, will lead to people seeking absolutistic truth elsewhere.

-> Alex Jones, Jordan Peterson, Flat Earth, Anti-Fascism, Right-wing extremism, general skepticism of institutions all rising in popularity

-> Higher stage memes, due the the current cultural environment, are adopted as absolutistic truths. Stage red and blue people adopting Green Memes (especially evident in Anti-Fascistic movements)

-> Destabilization of the cultural environment due to conflicting world views and inability to communicate and harmonize with different cultural viewpoints (something that requires a healthy integration of stage orange and green)

 

The very important question I think we need to ask ourselves is, with our knowledge of Spiral Dynamics, specifically knowing that it requires a transition through all stages to create a healthy individual, how can that possibly be the case if there is no strong stage Blue insitution which transitions people through stage blue? How are people in the 21st century going to transition through stage blue? Where are they going to learn everything that was previously done by religious systems?

 

I think the problem is not green inherently, the problem is that there is no stage blue, which people need. We all know that. We know there can be no healthy orange, nor green, without a healthy stage blue. So why in the world are we ignoring that people are starting to listening to someone like JP or Alex Jones, or starting to believe in Flat Earth? How can we expect people to transition into green and orange when they are not even getting their blue foundations?

 

Religion basically taught everyone. Millions upon millions of people. And we didn't replace it with anything at all. We just demonized it, and now we are getting the backlash for it. Evolution is supposed to happen by building ontop of what previously came, not by destroying it and just moving on. And this is what we have done, and maybe it is irreversable, atleast in the west. China is going all out on protecting their culture. They have a huge rise in Christianity. I am really curious where they will be in 50 years compared to the US.

[Forestluv]

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

Religion basically taught everyone. Millions upon millions of people. And we didn't replace it with anything at all. We just demonized it, and now we are getting the backlash for it. Evolution is supposed to happen by building ontop of what previously came, not by destroying it and just moving on. And this is what we have done, and maybe it is irreversable, atleast in the west. China is going all out on protecting their culture. They have a huge rise in Christianity. I am really curious where they will be in 50 years compared to the US.

I agree that Blue has an immense amount of infrastructure that has been built over hundreds of years. Green is relatively new and has no where near the infrastructure of blue. For example, for hundreds of years people based their community on their religion. They go to church each week and are involved in church community events. It had been the foundation of most people’s social foundation and identity. Over the past 20 years, church attendance has plummeted  rearing a void. There is no green level infrastructure to accommodate the exodus. Even if there was, Blue would need to jump Orange to reach green. Foe many people, “Spiritual, not religious” is a big jump. And there are many many more churches than spiritual centers.

The question of how to efficiently evolve upward is nuanced, imo. One strategy might be to utilize Blue infrastructure to transition to Green. For example, to keep the social fabric of community gatherings each Sunday, yet more toward Green spirituality. To evolve churches into spiritual centers. Of course there would be resistance to this.

I think the idea of building on previous stages is helpful in certain contexts and unhelpful in other contexts. In particular, teaching someone something they will later have to unlearn and re-learn is not helpful. For example, if we wanted to learn how to pronounce Spanish, we would start with simple mono-syllable words and then build on that for more complex words. Yet the key is, we would teach proper pronunciation for the simple words. We wouldn’t teach them improper pronunciation in the beginning, yet will cause problems later on. That would be inefficient.

To me, saying we should use Blue as a foundation is only wise for what is useful as a foundation. For example, learning the difference between good and bad during childhood is a useful framework for future frameworks of continuums of good/bad and relativism of good/bad. Unfortunately, Blue wants to stay contracted within blue, so we would need a center of adult collective consciousness higher than blue to allow development beyond blue. There are also rotted foundational components that would actually interfere with future develop. For example, teaching children that of thinks homosexuality is immoral or that a women’s place is within the home. These are not good foundational aspects and would need to be de-conditioned and unlearned. There is a lot of this going on and it makes the process highly inefficient.

Regarding demonization: I think the Jew of Green demonizing Blue is grossly exaggerated, in part due to dramatic exaggerated YT videos and media portrayals of unhealthy green as being the norm. There are several problems with this. First, it misses the whole point of development. Blue demonization of Green is more common and intense than Green demonization of Blue. Green is further developed. Similarly, 12th grade students are more mature than 6th grade students. To say they are all immature is a false equivalency within an important context. The majority of Green are good decent people that value and are embodying Green values of human connection, empathy and love. That is what they want more of. Yes, Green will blame blue and orange for many societal problems and will demonize, yet at a lower frequency and intensity than blue. If one goes to a Bernie Sanders rally and a Trump rally the difference in frequency and intensity is palpable. In 2016, Trump crowds wore “Trump that bitch!” t-shirts, while Bernie crowds wore “Free Hugs” T-shirts.

Blue is a stage currently worthy of consideration in the short term. Yet over the long term, most of blue will evolve away - just like purple has mostly evolved away. 

And. . . there is a lot more going on in the spiral than intellect. Intellectual abstraction, modeling and an analysis is one component - yet I think a lot of people are missing non-intellectual information. 

 

[Scholar]

24 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

I agree that Blue has an immense amount of infrastructure that has been built over hundreds of years. Green is relatively new and has no where near the infrastructure of blue. For example, for hundreds of years people based their community on their religion. They go to church each week and are involved in church community events. It had been the foundation of most people’s social foundation and identity. Over the past 20 years, church attendance has plummeted  rearing a void. There is no green level infrastructure to accommodate the exodus. Even if there was, Blue would need to jump Orange to reach green. Foe many people, “Spiritual, not religious” is a big jump. And there are many many more churches than spiritual centers.

The question of how to efficiently evolve upward is nuanced, imo. One strategy might be to utilize Blue infrastructure to transition to Green. For example, to keep the social fabric of community gatherings each Sunday, yet more toward Green spirituality. To evolve churches into spiritual centers. Of course there would be resistance to this.

I think the idea of building on previous stages is helpful in certain contexts and unhelpful in other contexts. In particular, teaching someone something they will later have to unlearn and re-learn is not helpful. For example, if we wanted to learn how to pronounce Spanish, we would start with simple mono-syllable words and then build on that for more complex words. Yet the key is, we would teach proper pronunciation for the simple words. We wouldn’t teach them improper pronunciation in the beginning, yet will cause problems later on. That would be inefficient.

To me, saying we should use Blue as a foundation is only wise for what is useful as a foundation. For example, learning the difference between good and bad during childhood is a useful framework for future frameworks of continuums of good/bad and relativism of good/bad. Unfortunately, Blue wants to stay contracted within blue, so we would need a center of adult collective consciousness higher than blue to allow development beyond blue. There are also rotted foundational components that would actually interfere with future develop. For example, teaching children that of thinks homosexuality is immoral or that a women’s place is within the home. These are not good foundational aspects and would need to be de-conditioned and unlearned. There is a lot of this going on and it makes the process highly inefficient.

Regarding demonization: I think the Jew of Green demonizing Blue is grossly exaggerated, in part due to dramatic exaggerated YT videos and media portrayals of unhealthy green as being the norm. There are several problems with this. First, it misses the whole point of development. Blue demonization of Green is more common and intense than Green demonization of Blue. Green is further developed. Similarly, 12th grade students are more mature than 6th grade students. To say they are all immature is a false equivalency within an important context. The majority of Green are good decent people that value and are embodying Green values of human connection, empathy and love. That is what they want more of. Yes, Green will blame blue and orange for many societal problems and will demonize, yet at a lower frequency and intensity than blue. If one goes to a Bernie Sanders rally and a Trump rally the difference in frequency and intensity is palpable. In 2016, Trump crowds wore “Trump that bitch!” t-shirts, while Bernie crowds wore “Free Hugs” T-shirts.

Lastly, Blue is a stage currently worthy of consideration in the short term. Yet over the long term, most of blue will evolve away - just like purple has mostly evolved away. 

 

But it's not Green who has primarily been demonizing blue for the past 6 decades, it has been orange. Orange has been deconstructing Christianity.

 

I still don't understand how any of what you say is possible if we have no blue teachings at all. Again, if you have a child born today, how will they possibly transition through blue? Where will they possibly find blue values? A foundation is not optional, it is necessary. We know that Blue is required for Orange, and yet, where are people going to be taught blue in our society? Why do people seek out Jordan Peterson and Alex Jones? How can we just ignore this and pretend it's not happening? How is any of this systemic thinking?

For me this is not about blue vs green. Green has nothing to do with this. This is a consequence of blue having been deconstructed by orange. I don't think blue will evolve away and everyone lives happy ever after. I think the deconstructiong of blue by orange might be a civilization breaking limitation that will be survived by civilizations which integrate blue instead of destroying it, which is why I was pointing to China. I don't know, I might be wrong, but I don't think the arguments that green will replace blue and make it unnecessary are very compelling. Especially when we have real life data to indicate the opposite. Atleast in our current cultural environment, people will seek out blue if no institution will help them transition through it.

 

Red never evolved away. Red is an integral part of how children function, every child goes through stage red, if it does not it will develope a shadow. Blue on the other hand is a very artificial stage, it is the stage civilization is founded upon. It is not part of a natural psychological evolution, it is one of the first stages which is culturally constructed by a means of memelogical evolution. Cut that away and you cut everything away, unless you have some magical stage yellow solution for it which we are far away from.

Absolutistic notions of truth are especially important in an environment in which there are foreign entities which seek to destabilize other societies. If you have no absolute truth, any foreign entity can feed notions of truths into your society to create deliberate destabilization and conflict. You can do this in the US, but it will be far more difficult to do that in China. And that might be the next evolutionary trait which civilizations develope, a sort of immune system against disinformation campaigns targeted so as to destabilize that civilization.

 

In my opinion we have to recognize that the availibity of information by means of the internet has changed everything we know about Spiral Dynamics.

Edited September 2, 2019 by Scholar

[Forestluv]

53 minutes ago, Scholar said:

I still don't understand how any of what you say is possible if we have no blue teachings at all. 

I never said that and that is not my view. That itself would be a blue level binary “all or nothing” frame.

What I said was there are structural components of blue that I see as being helpful in building a foundation for development and components of blue that are not helpful because they need to get unlearned. For example, teaching a novice skier to snow plow down the mountain is not helpful in the long run because the person will have to unlearn snow plow before learning how to parallel ski. Unlearning the snow plow technique is a major neuromuscular retiring process and can take a person years to break out of. Imo, it’s much better to teach someone parallel skiing from the beginning. Progress will be slower in the begging, yet will be much more efficient in the long run.

Of course, this is all dependent on the particular value or teaching. I’m not making a back or white blanket statement. There are many blue values that I think are good to build a foundation for development - as long as their is understanding that it is a foundation to build upon and is not the end.  For example, I think it’s helpful to establish some people as authorities to children - such as a parent, teacher and police officer. Yet this is just a transient stage since young children don’t have the capacity for higher level cognition yet. After about 8 y.o., a child can start learning that parents and teachers are human too and that we all make mistakes from time to time.

I agree that Orange has been the driving force in deconstructing Blue. Orange rationalists deconstructing and rationalizing Blue. Orange will demonize blue to a greater extent than green, yet to a lesser extent than blue. For example, Orange may call a blue religious zealot as being an irrational idiot. Yet most Orange would be cool if religious blue just kept their irrationality to themselves - Orange gets most upset when blue tries to push religion into secular culture - such as teaching creation in science courses. In contrast, blue demonization would be more intense. Blue would see an Orange atheist as lacking morals and even a demon. 

Ultimately, much of blue values will be better taught through green. For example, loyalty would be better taught through a green lens than a blue lens. It isn’t necessary to create a blue level foundation on loyalty. Perhaps just a tiny bit to get started since green level loyalty is more nuanced. Yet it’s not like we need a whole stage of one’s life dedicated to learning blue level loyalty. Teaching blue level absolute respect and loyalty for authority makes it a lot harder to evolve to Orange and green down the road. 

[Scholar]

28 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

I never said that and that is not my view. That itself would be a blue level binary “all or nothing” frame.

What I said was there are structural components of blue that I see as being helpful in building a foundation for development and components of blue that are not helpful because they need to get unlearned. For example, teaching a novice skier to snow plow down the mountain is not helpful in the long run because the person will have to unlearn snow plow before learning how to parallel ski. Unlearning the snow plow technique is a major neuromuscular retiring process and can take a person years to break out of. Imo, it’s much better to teach someone parallel skiing from the beginning. Progress will be slower in the begging, yet will be much more efficient in the long run.

Of course, this is all dependent on the particular value or teaching. I’m not making a back or white blanket statement. There are many blue values that I think are good to build a foundation for development - as long as their is understanding that it is a foundation to build upon and is not the end.  For example, I think it’s helpful to establish some people as authorities to children - such as a parent, teacher and police officer. Yet this is just a transient stage since young children don’t have the capacity for higher level cognition yet. Unfortunately, some people spend their lives in blue. The essentials of blue can be learned by teenage years. 

I agree that Orange has been the driving force in deconstructing Blue. Orange rationalists deconstructing and rationalizing Blue. Orange will demonize blue to a greater extent than green, yet to a lesser extent than blue. For example, Orange may call a blue religious zealot as being an irrational idiot. Yet most Orange would be cool if religious blue just kept their irrationality to themselves - Orange gets most upset when blue tries to push religion into secular culture - such as teaching creation in science courses. In contrast, blue demonization would be more intense. Blue would see an Orange atheist as lacking morals and even a demon. 

Ultimately, much of blue values will be better taught through green. For example, loyalty would be better taught through a green lens than a blue lens. It isn’t necessary to create a blue level foundation on loyalty. Perhaps just a tiny bit to get started since green level loyalty is more nuanced. Yet it’s not like we need a whole stage of one’s life dedicated to learning blue level loyalty. Teaching blue level absolute respect and loyalty for authority makes it a lot harder to evolve to Orange and green down the road. 

But the problem is that blue pretty much lacks entirely in our current western world. It is being completely deconstructed. We are not seeing what you are describing, where green takes the healthy things of blue and integrates them in some sort of spiral wizardry. We see the opposite. Because many of the green people you talk about themselves have never gone through and learned the healthy aspects of blue.

This is a catch 22. How can you have healthy green people teaching blue values when we disintegrated blue and basically have this weird mutant green that will get worse and worse the more people are going be educated without any blue values at all.

Again, why do you think we have these systemic issues. Why do you think we have Jordan Petersons, Dave Rubins and Alex Jones? What if you are wrong that it is purely a reaction towards green? What if there is actually a lack of healthy blue teachings in western societies?

How do we determine who of us is right here? By intuition?

[Forestluv]

38 minutes ago, Scholar said:

What if you are wrong that it is purely a reaction towards green? 

Multiple times you have recontextualized what I’ve said into an absolute binary either / or framework. This is not my perspective. You are having a discussion with someone else that you are imagining. You have imagined someone who thinks we should have no blue teachings and the problems are purely reactionary against Green. I’m sure that person exists, yet that isn’t me. I don’t see this through a binary lens. I see it as nuanced with binary, spectral and relativist components. For example, I see some Blue aspects as helpful for forming developmental foundations and that a portion of the problem is reaction toward green. If one is to explore systemically and integratively, one cannot be restricted to a simple binary framework.

38 minutes ago, Scholar said:

How do we determine who of us is right here? By intuition?

I don’t see it as one of us is right and the other is wrong.

And I don’t see the solution as coming from either reasoning or intuition. 

I see things much more nuanced, integrative and holistic. For example, I see value in integrating reason and intuition for higher-order problem solving. 

[Scholar]

31 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

Multiple times you have recontextualized what I’ve said into an absolute binary either / or framework. This is not my perspective. You are having a discussion with someone else that you are imagining. You have imagined someone who thinks we should have no blue teachings and the problems are purely reactionary against Green. I’m sure that person exists, yet that isn’t me. I don’t see this through a binary lens. I see it as nuanced with binary, spectral and relativist components. For example, I see some Blue aspects as helpful for forming developmental foundations and that a portion of the problem is reaction toward green. If one is to explore systemically and integratively, one cannot be restricted to a simple binary framework.

I don't understand. What is your prescription for solving this problem, outside of the theoretical?

[Forestluv]

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

I don't understand. What is your prescription for solving this problem, outside of the theoretical?

Theory is one component. This is why stage green is so important to embody, because it ventures into non-theoretical modes. A pure theorist is contracted and limited. This is my biggest concern about orange intellectuals trying to theorize their way past green into yellow. They would be highly limited in yellow. People that simply theorize from some elevated academic mindset and environment have value - yet that don’t fully “get it”. One needs to get in there and actually experience, embody and be it. This is important because we need well-balanced individuals in yellow. In this context, AOC and Gabor Mate are at a higher level than Wilber since they have embodied green through direct experience. They “get it” in a sense that Wilber does not. 

In terms of ways to solve the problem, one solution might address the point you brought up about the deconstruction of blue community such as religion with no replacement. Well, in a lot of communities there is replacement, yet at a small scale. Many towns and cities offer plenty of multicultural events with an expanded sense of community. It’s natural and people from many different ethnicities, religions and sexual orientations are co-existing in harmony. We just don’t hear much about these thousands of events that occur each week in the U.S. It doesn’t make the news as it’s not nonconflict and bad for ratings. As well, we can do better at reaching out to people that feel like they are being left behind as culture evolves. .   . You had mentioned that Orange is overly de-constructing blue and demonizing blue. Perhaps we can highlight the value of dignity, responsibility and the rule of law. Perhaps we can get Orange atheists to stop mocking blue as irrational idiots. Perhaps we can get Orange intellectuals to stop mocking blue as irrational idiots. Perhaps we can show that intellect is just one aspect of intelligence. In the U.S. one of the biggest insecurities of men is intelligence. It doesn’t help when politicians, media, academics and elitists are looking down on blue as lesser. 

[Scholar]

1 hour ago, Serotoninluv said:

Theory is one component. This is why stage green is so important to embody, because it ventures into non-theoretical modes. A pure theorist is contracted and limited. This is my biggest concern about orange intellectuals trying to theorize their way past green into yellow. They would be highly limited in yellow. People that simply theorize from some elevated academic mindset and environment have value - yet that don’t fully “get it”. One needs to get in there and actually experience, embody and be it. This is important because we need well-balanced individuals in yellow. In this context, AOC and Gabor Mate are at a higher level than Wilber since they have embodied green through direct experience. They “get it” in a sense that Wilber does not. 

In terms of ways to solve the problem, one solution might address the point you brought up about the deconstruction of blue community such as religion with no replacement. Well, in a lot of communities there is replacement, yet at a small scale. Many towns and cities offer plenty of multicultural events with an expanded sense of community. It’s natural and people from many different ethnicities, religions and sexual orientations are co-existing in harmony. We just don’t hear much about these thousands of events that occur each week in the U.S. It doesn’t make the news as it’s not nonconflict and bad for ratings. As well, we can do better at reaching out to people that feel like they are being left behind as culture evolves. .   . You had mentioned that Orange is overly de-constructing blue and demonizing blue. Perhaps we can highlight the value of dignity, responsibility and the rule of law. Perhaps we can get Orange atheists to stop mocking blue as irrational idiots. Perhaps we can get Orange intellectuals to stop mocking blue as irrational idiots. Perhaps we can show that intellect is just one aspect of intelligence. In the U.S. one of the biggest insecurities of men is intelligence. It doesn’t help when politicians, media, academics and elitists are looking down on blue as lesser. 

Yes but is Peterson not doing precisely what you are suggesting he does, just in a, from your higher point of view, dysfunctional way? I mean look at why he is so popular, as far as his psychological stuff goes it is on point stage blue stuff. People seem to lack that. People lack so pathetically in stage blue memes that you tell them to clean their rooms and their entire lifes turn around.

I don't think community is enough to fix this, many people completely lack purpose, they have not learned to take responsibility. They have not learned the stage blue values so that they can one day transition to orange.

 

 

Sure he has his devilry, but do you really think he is fake crying? Do you really think all the people who are so grateful for his advice are just dismissable as stage blue biggots who react against progressive values? The question here is, who else is doing what Peterson is doing on that large of a scale? This is the problem when you have a stage green person teaching stage blue values.

A stage green person will not resonate to stage blue/red people. It will simply not happen on the large scale. That stuff happens at Tier 2, that stuff is Spiral Wizardry stuff. So of course people will listen to someone who reflects their stage, which Jordan Peterson does.

 

Sure Peterson is a devil, sure he is flawed. Sure his followers are devils too. But are you sure that they would be better of without Peterson? Who do you think would they listen to, who do you think they would seek out if Peterson was not part of this? I take Peterson over Alex Jones every day of the week, because Alex Jones is a threat to the fundamental fabric of society. Peterson is kind of regressive, but at least he teaches people blue in a more or less helpful way for the people at that stage.

I know a lot of people personally who have been kind of depressed, nihilistic hedonists who have listened to Peterson far before he became political. And I can see the effect he had on them, they started their own life purpose, they expanded their responsibility. I honestly don't know if that would have happened without him. There is no way in hell these people would have listened to Leo. And what is the alternative to Peterson for these people, that can actually resonate with them?

 

I feel like often we can fall into the trap of elitist spiral dynamics thinking, where we do not recognize the perspective of these people. They are not as conscious as we are, and we can't just spoon feed them green level stuff. It just doesn't resonate with these people, if it did, clearly Peterson wouldn't be necessary. But this way, I can't say whether the world wouldn't be worse off without him. It could be far, far worse.

[Forestluv]

@Scholar I think JP has made some contributions in theoretical clinical psychology, psychedelic therapy and personal responsibility. However, he also plants poison pills in areas such as LGBTQ, gender roles and equality, and climate change. I think he would be fine if he stuck to his strengths. Yet he won’t and I don’t think, overall, he is a strong teacher for consciousness evolution into Orange. With his platform come responsibilities and I would hold him at a higher standard. In the big picture, I think he has too much harm baggage. I’d probably put Tony Robbins above JP since Tony doesn’t plant poison pills.  However, I would put JP on a level higher than a Ben Shapiro.

[Scholar]

12 hours ago, Serotoninluv said:

@Scholar I think JP has made some contributions in theoretical clinical psychology, psychedelic therapy and personal responsibility. However, he also plants poison pills in areas such as LGBTQ, gender roles and equality, and climate change. I think he would be fine if he stuck to his strengths. Yet he won’t and I don’t think, overall, he is a strong teacher for consciousness evolution into Orange. With his platform come responsibilities and I would hold him at a higher standard. In the big picture, I think he has too much harm baggage. I’d probably put Tony Robbins above JP since Tony doesn’t plant poison pills.  However, I would put JP on a level higher than a Ben Shapiro.

The question we must ask though is, would the world be better off without Jordan Peterson or not?

Furthermore, do you have anyone who can, in practice, replace the blue teachings that Jordan Peterson is giving? Here we have to keep in mind that higher teaching will not always be more effective, because they might simply not resonate with lower consciousness people.

And I disagree about Tony Robbinson. He doesn't teach any blue values at all. People who listen to him stay at their stage, with increased islamophobia. People who listen to Jordan Peterson might atleast integrate some blue and orange, which allows them to eventually go beyond that. (I confused Tony Robbins with that guy in the UK who is against Islam, lol) 

I don't know much about Tony Robbins, but does he have the same resonance as Peterson does?

 

Our disagreement here is that I believe people are already so dysfunctional that they are better off listening to both the good and bad of Peterson than to not listen to him at all. In this case the harm baggage does not overweigh the postives, because the lack of the positives are more catastrophic than the harm baggage. I am solely interested in getting people up to green asap, and I think Peterson was a net-positive, even if it seems like he is making people stuck in blue/orange.

The problem here is that there is no alternative to Peterson. If there was, Peterson would be a net negative.

 

Just think of all the individuals who have benefitted greatly from Peterson's psychological teachings. Where would they be today without Peterson? And then compare that to the alt-right people, who if Peterson would be lacking, would simply listen to another Alt-Righter. Not much would have changed, in fact I would posit that they would be more dysfunctional as they would lack the few teachings that Peterson is communicating.

Edited September 3, 2019 by Scholar

[Apparition of Jack]

@Scholar I

2 hours ago, Scholar said:

 am solely interested in getting people up to green asap, and I think Peterson was a net-positive, even if it seems like he is making people stuck in blue/orange.

He is keeping people stuck in blue and orange. If he wants to truly be a force for good in the world, he needs to drop his demonisation of green.

[Scholar]

32 minutes ago, Apparition of Jack said:

@Scholar I

He is keeping people stuck in blue and orange. If he wants to truly be a force for good in the world, he needs to drop his demonisation of green.

I agree. But the question here I don't think is how Peterson could be improved, but whether the world would be better off without him. I intuit that it would be worse off without him, that people would be even more stuck in blue in orange while being more dysfunctional than they are with Petersons teachings.

 

Of course it would be more ideal if everyone listened to Leo. But that is without question. It's easy to point to things reality should be doing. It's harder to judge what consequences the lack of a certain thing would ensue for reality.

Sure, replace Hitler with Jesus 2.0 and we would probably have a better world. But just remove Hitler without replacement, and I am not so sure anymore. Would germany have developed the atomic bomb and then gone full on Third Reich with noone able to stop them? Would there still be life on this planet?

Who knows.

[Zigzag Idiot]

2 hours ago, Scholar said:

I agree. But the question here I don't think is how Peterson could be improved, but whether the world would be better off without him.

Why couldn't JP improve? Can't we all continue to go through transformations?

Doesnt the Maslow model apply to everyone.

As far as the general population, I know of a 17 year old in South America who has processed some on his own and has emotional understanding which it seems JP has yet to realize. There are definitely a lot of problems associated with youth but then it seems each generation is more sophisticated than the previous.  Im 52 and feel like Conan the barbarian sometimes,,,

[Scholar]

40 minutes ago, Zigzag Idiot said:

Why couldn't JP improve? Can't we all continue to go through transformations?

Doesnt the Maslow model apply to everyone.

As far as the general population, I know of a 17 year old in South America who has processed some on his own and has emotional understanding which it seems JP has yet to realize. There are definitely a lot of problems associated with youth but then it seems each generation is more sophisticated than the previous.  Im 52 and feel like Conan the barbarian sometimes,,,

I didn't say JP couldn't be improved, I said that the primary question is whether the world would be better off with or without Peterson, whether he improved or not. That is an interesting question to me. The question of "If Peterson would be better, would he be better?" is kind of a non-question. If Peterson would be better of course he would be better.