What stage of SD was MLK?

[tuckerwphotography]

What stage of Spiral Dynamics was Martin Luther King Jr?

[Thewritersunion]

Orange. 

[soos_mite_ah]

No he seems mainly green (civil rights, equality, addressing systemic racism, etc.)

maybe a little blue since he is a preacher in the 1960s and some orange because he isn't solidly green

[TrustTheProcess]

I think pretty solid healthy blue with dashes of green. 

[soos_mite_ah]

@louhad @dflores321 Why would MLK be in blue? 

[soos_mite_ah]

2 hours ago, dflores321 said:

@soos_mite_ah he is very religious. This would make me think that he is doing all his acts from the lens of someone trying to be a good Christian. 

The little bit of green I agree with actually, that explains his willingness to tackle systemic issues.

His peaceful protest could have also been done from a stage blue perspective, just think of martyrs they will literally die for their cause. 

Of course during that time, Martin Luther king was very advanced. 

I mean being religious isn't something that is confined in any one stage. The way I see it, where someone is at in the spiral determines how they interpret scripture. For instance, a stage blue religious person might put more weight on how you need to disown everyone who is not like you while a stage green religious person might put more weight on something like "love thy neighbor" which extends to loving people who are a different race than you.  A stage blue Christian is more likely to try to defend slavery using the bible. 

I have met both stage blue and stage green Christians and even though both groups were religious in the same extent (i.e going to church 2x a week etc.) the way they viewed the world was VERY different. I can't speak for everyone but from my experience the first group was more prone to take the bible literally and was keen on fearfully avoiding anything that will piss of god while the second group tried to approach the bible in a more lenient way where things were up to interpretation since even though the text is there, there is no way to know what god is (at least from the limited human, stage green perspective)

The way I see it, religion is a tool. The way you use it and the way that a society interprets it has a lot to do with social and political factors, both of which are linked to spiral development. 

[tuckerwphotography]

Wow this thread is confusing seems like everyone has a different answer haha. My gut tells me his center of gravity was Green but had some Blue in him and certainly in the culture he was based in. But frankly I'd probably need to read his biography and learn more about him before I truly know.

[TrustTheProcess]

@tuckerwphotography 

12 hours ago, soos_mite_ah said:

I mean being religious isn't something that is confined in any one stage. The way I see it, where someone is at in the spiral determines how they interpret scripture. For instance, a stage blue religious person might put more weight on how you need to disown everyone who is not like you while a stage green religious person might put more weight on something like "love thy neighbor" which extends to loving people who are a different race than you.  A stage blue Christian is more likely to try to defend slavery using the bible. 

I have met both stage blue and stage green Christians and even though both groups were religious in the same extent (i.e going to church 2x a week etc.) the way they viewed the world was VERY different. I can't speak for everyone but from my experience the first group was more prone to take the bible literally and was keen on fearfully avoiding anything that will piss of god while the second group tried to approach the bible in a more lenient way where things were up to interpretation since even though the text is there, there is no way to know what god is (at least from the limited human, stage green perspective)

The way I see it, religion is a tool. The way you use it and the way that a society interprets it has a lot to do with social and political factors, both of which are linked to spiral development. 

What you ain't getting is that there are a lot of different types of stage blue christianity. I think MLK's blue is much healthier than say mike Pence blue. I would say MLK has a predominantly blue spread with a decent amount of orange and green. Just based on his speeches. 

[soos_mite_ah]

3 hours ago, louhad said:

@tuckerwphotography 

What you ain't getting is that there are a lot of different types of stage blue christianity. I think MLK's blue is much healthier than say mike Pence blue. I would say MLK has a predominantly blue spread with a decent amount of orange and green. Just based on his speeches. 

I do agree with that. Some really qualities that comes from blue include things such as duty, justice, and stability. 

Those qualities can be expressed in a unhealthy way such as mike pence type of law and order and the grace of god which then leads to things such as systemic racism. Those qualities can also be expressed in a healthier way such as a Catholic nun who decided to commit their lives to the duty of serving the lord because it is just and promotes stability. 

With MLK however, I get the feeling that his teachings were more centered around notions of compassion (stage green) rather than notions of justice (stage blue). Definitely he talked about justice but it's still under the foundation of compassion rather than authority. Also it is worth noting that MLK was trying to challenge the hierarchy rather than build a new one. Green likes to tear down hierarchies so that it can achieve equality while when blue tears down hierarchies, it's to build a new hierarchy to mirror it's own interest (think kingdoms over throwing each others structures in order to place itself in power and make a new structure).

MLK was challenging white supremacy, but he never said anything about replacing it with something that solely benefits black people and poc. Some white people thought that amidst the civil rights movement in the 1960s because they were afraid that black people asking for equality will lead them to wanting superiority. This is a stage blue projection, not the truth. You can also see the same stage blue projection now in 2020 with BLM where some people misinterpret the movement are like "All lives matter not just black lives" even though that isn't the point of BLM.  

I think it's easy to confuse green and blue because they both have notions of taking care of a larger community outside of yourself. In the way that both stages are collective, they can have similar patterns except one pattern is more limited (my country, my race, my religion) and the other pattern is more expansive (the world, humanity, all religions). 

[tuckerwphotography]

@soos_mite_ah Very well said, and this feels on-point to my gut instincts. We should note that MLK wanted to dismantle capitalism as well, which further indicates Stage Green thinking. 

[Emerald]

Green with Blue lifestyle choices and demeanor.

 

[Apparition of Jack]

MLK was 100% Green. He's like textbook healthy Green. In fact I would even say he had some Yellow in him. He understood that you can't just tackle racism by ending racist laws; you also need to address the economic causes of racism too (he was set to lead a socialist-oriented People's March a few days after he was killed.)

Of course he had some Blue and Orange in him, he was a preacher after all, but there's no way his center-of-gravity was Blue. In fact that's the reason he was killed, his Green message of tolerance and equality was too triggering for the racially-divided Blue society he lived in.

[soos_mite_ah]

11 hours ago, Apparition of Jack said:

MLK fact I would even say he had some Yellow in him. He understood that you can't just tackle racism by ending racist laws; you also need to address the economic causes of racism too (he was set to lead a socialist-oriented People's March a few days after he was killed.)\

The first thing that came to mind was this quote of MLK saying "I fear that I have integrated my people into a burning house." 

Could this be a possible hint of yellow? It could indicate the insight that America was not fully ready to integrate in the 1960s and in some ways it opened people up to more hostility (or a backlash). The way that I interpreted the quote was that in a way you could avoid discrimination through separation because you're only dealing with people in your own community in your own little section however there is nevertheless an underlying hostility due to a lack of exposure to the other hence why there is separation in the first place. In other words, even though integration is a necessary step, it can open up to a lot of messiness (think of the black people who had to be escorted by the national guard when schools first got integrated). Basically, the ideal situation is to get rid of racism and then integrate in a peaceful way.

I disagree with that because as long as there is separation and people are living in isolated groups, it's muuuuch easier to fall into the habit of demonizing the other purely from lack of exposure when given the background of a prior history of conflict. You can also see this in the way that protestants and Catholics are divided in Ireland if you want an example of how segregation can impact social views outside of race in America. It's important to expose yourself to people who are different than you so you can realize just how similar yall are and how the differences are arbitrary (applies to race but isn't limited to it). Yes, desegregation opens up to being more vulnerable when it comes to discrimination because you are along side you're oppressors and because of that there can be a lot of  craziness in the short term but in the long term, it's necessary for our collective evolution. I feel that MLK was aware of something along these lines and continued to advocate for desegregation anyway instead of just aborting mission because he knew that greats strides forward can come with collective ego backlashes. 

 

aaaaand there are also some stage blue conspiracy theorists who also view the same quote as the following: 

The people who believe this are also the one's who think that MLK was part of a conspiracy where the US government/illuminati/global elites/reptile people etc. wanted to give black people an idol to control the masses only to kill him so that black people lose their minds and because they would be in a state of grief, they'd be even easier to control. Also there is the narrative that MLK woke up from his "dream" or as the conspiracy theorists call it "mind control" and then started saying things like this and because he said too much, he was shot. Thought I'd mention it because it's a good example of how the lower stages can manipulate the original message of the higher stages for their own agenda/ narrative. 

Edited September 25, 2020 by soos_mite_ah

[TrustTheProcess]

@soos_mite_ah You have some really good points, thanks for sharing!! I guess the thing that always jumps out at me as blue is him always talking about "duty"-- as in it is our duty to be compassionate--our duty to see all of us as equal before god, etc. 

 

[tuckerwphotography]

@louhad Perhaps he was speaking this tactfully from a Yellow perspective to a Blue audience, using language he knew they'd connect with.