A beautiful SD analysis on Islam. I read it twice and it inspired curiosity within me

[Lindsay]

 

Said E. Dawlabani posted this on his Facebook group called, “Beck-Graves original Spiral Dynamics”

——————————————————

ISLAMIC HISTORY THROUGH THE LENS OF SPIRAL DYNAMICS

I tried to stay out of the debate on Islam as long as I could. When I created this page, I wanted it to be a learning forum, so it’s in that spirit that I post this material. I know it is difficult for my Western friends to have inward reflection on this issue when emotions are flying high, but the religion’s own state of arrested development is only made worse by the West’s continued incompetence in understanding of its vMemetic stages of development, and must share equally in the blame.

The image below is from Elza’s research at the Center for Human Emergence Middle East. Unfortunately, Elza is suffering from a neurological disorder that prevents her from engaging on this issue that’s near and dear to her heart.  This is from notes on one of her PowerPoint presentations that she made to the State Dept with Don and at SD Confabs and integral theory conferences.  While we all react to the symptoms on the surface, I urge you to look at the history of the deeper vMEMETIC codes below.

____________________________________________

The 1st vMemetic period is Al JAHILIYA, The Age of Ignorance: TRIBAL HEROIC VALUES. BANDS OF NOMADS LEADING A SIMPLE LIFE. They were used as mercenaries by conquering armies. Heavy Purple/heavy Red with not much of anything else.

The 2nd vMemetic period is THE ISLAMIC RENAISSANCE:  With the birth of Islam came religious BLUE that gave tribes a sense of purpose. Suddenly they had ideological reasons to spread the message of the Prophet as a way of life. Islam then was an OPEN SYSTEM that followed in the Hellenistic traditions of other world religions.  Scholars like IBN SINA & IBN RUSHD were catalysts for advancement of science, cosmology, Math, Physics and Psychology at a time when Europe was going through its dark ages. This is where you see The THICKEST ORANGE in Islamic History. You even begin to see the appearance of green as Islamic expansion reached as far as Andalusia where Christian, Muslim and Jewish scholars collaborated in translating world philosophies.

Then Memetically something important happened in the 11th century. An influential Scholar named AL GHAZALI claimed that the Quran is the direct word of God, and Islam will no longer be subject to philosophical interpretation.  His works was called “Tafahat Alfalasifah” the West translated it to The Incoherence of the philosophers, the actual Arabic translation of that is the “Insignificance of the Philosophers”  This is something that is not understood until it’s placed in MEMETIC terms … AL GHAZALI brought an end to the Hellenistic traditions. No more philosophical debates of Islam. His doctrine brought back the patriarchal dominance to the religion and made it into closed system.

The Decline Phase of the Ottoman Empire. That’s where we begin to see the slow decline of Science, Cosmology and free thinking and the return of Heavy Red, heavy Purple.  Blue is limited to Religious Blue on which institutions are built.

Then Came the Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Colonial Mandates where the administration of the entire region was given to England & France. Based on their Western Colonial Values they drew the easiest Borders and called them nations. It is very important to understand this… WE CAN’T FORGET OUR ARAB TRIBAL IDENTITY.

Suddenly colonialists wanted us to let go of Centuries of tribal vengeance in 25 years of rule… All They did, is give more rise to RED & Purple and Imposed a non-indigenous, secular Blue that was out of region’s developmental sequence and absent the evolutionary mechanisms imbedded in the indigenous intelligence of the culture.

The vMemetic period is Arab Nationalism. Here you see Influential Arab Thinkers like Michel Aflaq the ideological father of the Nationalist Baath Party, the most prominent PAN ARAB movement which attempted to influence the thinking of a culture where Life Conditions were in Purple Red with a non-indigenous ideology created in Western Ivory towers, high Orange-Complex Green with well-established institutions. Aflaq who was educated in France at the Sorbonne and many others like him were trying to impose COMPLEX WESTERN VALUES FROM AT LEAST 2 or 3 LEVELS, ABOVE THE cultures vMEME Center of Gravity (COG). This huge mismatch between Ideology and Life Conditions is seen in places like Iraqi and Syria that adopted THE BA’ATH IDEOLOGY without fully understanding the COG of their own people.

THE END OF THAT MOVEMENT CAME WITH the death of Gamal Nasser in Egypt, which defaulted the culture to RED and gave rise to Dictators. Those dictators were very clever in blaming people’s misery on the FAR ENEMY OF ISRAEL AND U.S. TO STAY IN POWER. That worked for few decades…

THEN CAME the TRANSPARENCY of THE INFORMATION AGE that SHOWED PEOPLE THE TRUTH AND BROUGHT NOTHING BUT CHAOS…Arab spring turned into an Arab Winter. THE GENERALS OF THE BAATH ARMY IN IRAQ TURNED INTO ISLAMIC STATE…

AND ALL THIS IN MEMETIC TERMS SHOWS THE TRANSITION from RED to A- YET-TO-BE -KNOWN BLUE THAT IS STRUGGLING TO DEFINE ITSELF.

 

 

[TrustTheProcess]

fascinating. I think this is a good example of how trying to progress a social system too quickly can backfire-- both with the golden age movement and with the ba'ath movement. 

[Rilles]

Omg! Love this! Amazing! We need more analysis like these, more history!

[Lindsay]

I thought the diagram was really interesting. I’m completely ignorant of Islamic history and politics. I barely know U.S. history (I blame poverty and Chicago Public Schools lol). This analysis made me curious about the history in the Middle East because I have no clue other than they got oil, terrorists, and fundamental radical religious people. Basically what ever I hear from CNN and Fox coverage of the war in Iraq. 
 

It blew my mind when last year I seen this picture of college women dressed like western girls in Afghanistan. I was 28 years old and shocked that women could dress like that in the 70s over there. I know nothing about Afghanistan other than Osama bin Ladin and the Taliban. I never even heard of the Ottoman Empire. I feel really stupid. I’m going to go binge watch crash course world history. 
 

 

 

Edited October 22, 2020 by Lindsay

[Opo]

That chart is definitely sus. 

There should be a lot more orange and blue now. 

[Lindsay]

@Opo

4 minutes ago, Opo said:

That chart is definitely sus. 

There should be a lot more orange and blue now. 

why more orange? Do you have any examples?

[Opo]

38 minutes ago, Lindsay said:

@Opo

why more orange? Do you have any examples?

Allowing women to drive. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_to_drive_movement

Dubai seems very orange. 

I found this, it's green but still. 

https://www.mpvusa.org/

[electroBeam]

absolutely beautiful. 

[Lindsay]

@Opo My right wing client listened to this audiobook written by Ben Hubbard. He made it seem like MBS is only copying the appeal of the western world so his people will want to stay in their country and grow the economy. 
Ben Hubbards journalist friend was murdered with a bone saw in some embassy I forgot, you can google it if your interested. But it was because of that mbs price. I’m not sure if the perspective of MBS being so ruthless like in this book. I’m not sure if it’s right wing fear mongering propaganda  or unbiased/balanced facts. 

[tuckerwphotography]

I saw this on FB but don't understand the Green aspects in the 14-16th Centuries. I thought Green didn't even exist until around 100 years ago? How could Green have existed in the 1500s? Confused. 

[Opo]

3 minutes ago, tuckerwphotography said:

I saw this on FB but don't understand the Green aspects in the 14-16th Centuries. I thought Green didn't even exist until around 100 years ago? How could Green have existed in the 1500s? Confused. 

Oh yea, green starts in the sixties. 

[commie]

14 minutes ago, Lindsay said:

I’m not sure if the perspective of MBS being so ruthless like in this book. I’m not sure if it’s right wing fear mongering propaganda  or unbiased/balanced facts.

Nothing is unbiased but the Saudi regime is generally considered to be very brutal, like most of the region's regimes basically. I don't know the first thing about the author or the book but I don't know why you'd think it would be right wing propaganda. The Saudi regime is right wing after all.

I'd be more concerned about the reliability of the bizarre take on al Gahazli you posted. Nothing signals bias like making a such a big deal of Averroes.

Edited October 23, 2020 by commie

[tuckerwphotography]

@Opo This is the reply I got on FB from Said in response to me asking if he might be confusing Green for Blue. 

"Blue is rigid ideology that has very little room for other competing Blues. It would have never accepted Jewish and Christian ideologies from the values that created it. Listen to Graves' own words regarding this on the YouTube video. It can't be Purple which is far less trusting of exogenous tribes, so the harmony that existed is Green on a very simple spiral that has little of the complexity we have today. Keep in mind Graves-Beck is a Western model that was influenced greatly by the values of the Industrial Revolution. This particular manifestation of Green resulted from the transcendence of much simpler Orange limited to trade and early scientific discovery and philosophical discourse that considered and accepted multiple views."

 

Not sure I buy it, but I'm not an expert in the topic by any means, so don't know...

[commie]

I don't care for the colors but it sounds like this guy doesn't understand the pre-modern world.

[tuckerwphotography]

Green in Iran today: A #MeToo Awakening Stirs in Iran

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/world/middleeast/iran-metoo-aydin-aghdashloo.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

[Lindsay]

51 minutes ago, commie said:

Nothing is unbiased but the Saudi regime is generally considered to be very brutal, like most of the region's regimes basically. I don't know the first thing about the author or the book but I don't know why you'd think it would be right wing propaganda. The Saudi regime is right wing after all.

I'd be more concerned about the reliability of the bizarre take on al Gahazli you posted. Nothing signals bias like making a such a big deal of Averroes.

 Because my client is a super Trump fan, watches fox news 24/7. And a lot of the books he chooses to listen to are usually affiliated with fox news and career politician. So i have trust issues with the stuff i learn from my client.   

[commie]

According to a quick web search, the author looks legit. Possibly somewhat right wing (I don't know) but certainly not the Fox News type.

Simply never trusting the information people push on you is less stressful than being suspicious I think.

[Lindsay]

http://www.humanemergencemiddleeast.org/build-palestine-blog/2020/10/a-summary-of-islamic-history-through-the-lens-of-spiral-dynamics?fbclid=IwAR1eftkrXfe3l_WXQUeR0WVnNdzjyXBxofCKrDxQYT6WkoEyeFAC1cdtqHE
 

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