Can stage Red people really thrive without having adequate discipline and work ethic?

[Hardkill]

So, I thoroughly watched Leo's entire vid on Spiral Dynamics - Stage Red on YouTube and have read in detail his Spiral Dynamics Stage Red Examples Mega-Thread. I now get that stage Red is that despite how brutal and relatively primitive its characteristics are it isn't necessarily evil in itself because it depends on the environment you live in and whether you choose incoporate toxic red traits or healthy red traits. I get that some of the good or healthy aspects of this stage include taking initiative & ownership, willpower, courage, heroism, having a fighter mindset instead of a victim mindset, taking practical action, getting things done, being adventurous, pushing the envelope, decisiveness, ambition, passion, dominance, assertiveness, charisma, pride, confidence, etc. I certainly agree that these are all good if not great traits for anyone to have. However, from what I also understand, stage Red doesn't involve having solid work ethic and discipline, which are stage Blue traits. Also, stage Blue is a higher level than stage Red. So, does this mean that individuals who have been prime examples of stage Red such as emperors, empresses, kings, queens, conquerors, dictators, etc. achieved the power and success without having any without ever needing much discipline or work ethic to do so? 

[Woke456]

You may argue that the phalanx is the one of the earliest differences between red and purple.  Leo's mafia example doesn't really cover any of the good aspects of this stage.  Rank, structure, and discipline are the key differences between the city-states and barbarian tribes.

 

While their ethics don't follow a universal book or code yet, they still are a lot more mature and less petty than tribespeople.  Even if they're more effective at destruction

Edited March 21, 2021 by Woke456

[Rilles]

Usually Red lack discipline hence why they kill, rob and plunder to get what they want. Now you can argue that figuring out a way to steal without being caught requires discipline but its still being very lazy. 

[Woke456]

1 minute ago, Rilles said:

Usually Red lack discipline hence why they kill, rob and plunder to get what they want. Now you can argue that figuring out a way to steal without being caught requires discipline but its still being very lazy. 

Stage purple also rapes, kills, steals, and stomps toddlers to death.  The key difference is training, discipline, and rank.

[Rilles]

2 minutes ago, Woke456 said:

Stage purple also rapes, kills, steals, and stomps toddlers to death.  The key difference is training, discipline, and rank.

Discipline at different stages I guess. Red is the first time Purple realizes that the world is at its feet, "I can have anything I want, wow, and noone can stop me!" They break out of order (Purple) into disorder (Red) only to go back to order again (Blue).

My opinion...

[GreenLight]

Here is a rare footage of a stage red criminal advancing into stage blue and adopting a work ethic.

 

[Woke456]

20 minutes ago, Rilles said:

Discipline at different stages I guess. Red is the first time Purple realizes that the world is at its feet, "I can have anything I want, wow, and noone can stop me!" They break out of order (Purple) into disorder (Red) only to go back to order again (Blue).

My opinion...

Contrary to Hollywood's depiction, there is nothing more disorderly and immature than tribal society.  In one of the spiral dynamics books an observer of an Aborigine tribe witnessed a warrior stomping a toddler to death simply because he was in a bad mood.  In another book, a linguist in the Amazon rainforest observed continuos squabbling, rape, kidnapping, and basically neverending gang warfare between groups.  I also had a friend live with an island culture for a few weeks, and he said rape was pretty much a dialy affair.  These people are not hippies who can call their moms for plane tickets home at any time.

This isn't to say that stage Red societies didn't hold these same disorderly traits.  When a commander loses control of his army, city sackings in the past have turned out to be extremely mindless and brutal even when the commander tries to reinstill discipline.  It's also not to say that organized warfare is less brutal than disorganized warfare.  No, organized warfare is much more effective, it's usually further away from home, and just because there's a designated torturer or exexcutioner doesn't mean they aren't using an organized system.

[Rilles]

2 minutes ago, Woke456 said:

Contrary to Hollywood's depiction, there is nothing more disorderly and immature than tribal society.  In one of the spiral dynamics books an observer of an Aborigine tribe witnessed a warrior stomping a toddler to death simply because he was in a bad mood.  In another book, a linguist in the Amazon rainforest observed continuos squabbling, rape, kidnapping, and basically neverending gang warfare between groups.  I also had a friend live with an island culture for a few weeks, and he said rape was pretty much a dialy affair.  These people are not hippies who can call their moms for plane tickets home at any time.

This isn't to say that stage Red societies didn't hold these same disorderly traits.  When a commander loses control of his army, city sackings in the past have turned out to be extremely mindless and brutal even when the commander tries to reinstill discipline.  It's also not to say that organized warfare is less brutal than disorganized warfare.  No, organized warfare is much more effective, it's usually further away from home, and just because there's a designated torturer or exexcutioner doesn't mean they aren't using an organized system.

Youch... Thats brutal... I will have to look into tribal cultures more, Im far from an expert on Purple. 

[Woke456]

8 minutes ago, GreenLight said:

Here is a rare footage of a stage red criminal advancing into stage blue and adopting a work ethic.

 

Violence isn't unique to stage red.  If someone is starving or going through withdrawl you may even say that it's stage Beige like with animals.

[Woke456]

15 minutes ago, Rilles said:

Youch... Thats brutal... I will have to look into tribal cultures more, Im far from an expert on Purple. 

@Rilles To top it off, there were slavery collars on display at an Eskimo artifact museum in Anchorage.  It compltely ruined  my day to find out that the movie Avatar is bunch of (hexpedal) horeshit.

Edited March 21, 2021 by Woke456

[Matt23]

3 hours ago, Woke456 said:

Rank, structure, and discipline are the key differences between the city-states and barbarian tribes.

When I hear ''city-states'' I hear Blue.  When I hear ''Barbarian tribes'' I hear mostly Red (maybe some Purple in there too).  

Also, remember there will be a mix of stages within each culture, group, and even individual.

[Woke456]

3 hours ago, Matt23 said:

there will be a mix of stages within each culture, group, and even individual.

Red societies have loads of purple and beige in them.  Red is only diluted by 3 stages including itself while blue, orange, and green are diluted by 4, 5, and 6 total stages.

 

3 hours ago, Matt23 said:

When I hear ''city-states'' I hear Blue.  When I hear ''Barbarian tribes'' I hear mostly Red (maybe some Purple in there too).  

They definitely did dabble in blue and even orange at times.  However, the rule of law, order, and premoginiture goes all the way back to ancient egypt and babylon.  If feudalism and empires are stage red, so is Hammurabi's code and the Greek phalanx.

The confusion is coming from Leo's use of the mafia and gang violence as examples of stage red, but that's simply not accurate.  Organized crime and gangsters behave like families more than trained armies.  In fact, I will even go as far to say that Leo painted ALL bullying as stage red, but you can literally look at a litter of puppies and see bullying in unsophisticated social mammals

 

Edited March 21, 2021 by Woke456

[Hardkill]

7 hours ago, Woke456 said:

You may argue that the phalanx is the one of the earliest differences between red and purple.  Leo's mafia example doesn't really cover any of the good aspects of this stage.  Rank, structure, and discipline are the key differences between the city-states and barbarian tribes.

 

While their ethics don't follow a universal book or code yet, they still are a lot more mature and less petty than tribespeople.  Even if they're more effective at destruction

Yeah, but look at how orderly and discipline those soldiers in the phalanx were. Why isn't that considered stage Blue?

7 hours ago, Rilles said:

Usually Red lack discipline hence why they kill, rob and plunder to get what they want. Now you can argue that figuring out a way to steal without being caught requires discipline but its still being very lazy. 

Yeah, I get that stage Red people always want to find the quickest way and easiest way at all costs to get what they feel they need or desire.

However, didn't very strong dictators like Saddam Hussein or truly successful conquerors like Alexander the Great actually have a tremendous amount of discipline and work ethic in order to achieve their ambitions? If so, then why wouldn't they considered also prime examples of Stage Blue?

Also, what about the Spartans whom Leo said also epitomize stage Red? Why aren't they also major examples of stage Blue people? After all, it wasn't just their exceptional valor, indomitable will, extreme thirst for battle, super brutal mindset, etc.  that made the Spartans such a force to reckon with. It was also because they were extremely well disciplined, very orderly, and had an incredible level of work ethic with their training regimen for battle or war.

Edited March 21, 2021 by Hardkill

[Woke456]

25 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

Yeah, but look at how orderly and discipline those soldiers in the phalanx were. Why isn't that considered stage Blue?

Because it's stage red.  Leo accidently used purple and beige violence to describe red, but the hallmark of red is order, not violence.  Roman legions, Greek phalanxes, and Medieval feudal societies had laws, strict marriage rules, and professional armies, but rank was mostly decided by who the biggest bully was.  This order however, is much more established than Sparticus's gladiator slaves who eventaully got their asses kicked by dissipating through individuality. 

Bear in mind, when collective cognition advances to stage blue it keeps the discipline established by stage red, but added ethics like Chivalry or the Magna Carta and then peaked out when mass production was added to the equation during the Napeolonic wars through ww2

Edited March 21, 2021 by Woke456

[Rilles]

@Hardkill I would say it is a mix of Red/Blue. A leader like Saddam would have had alot of Blue influence but still a fairly damaged twisted Red mind, then you can have more low-life street criminals who (funnily enough) arent as developed as Saddam, I would say they are even lower in development than he was. 

Think of the values as a mixed bag.

Saddam, lets say values disclipine, power and violence.

Johhny the street rat, values easy money, power and violence. 

[Hardkill]

2 minutes ago, Woke456 said:

Because it's stage red.  Leo accidently used purple and beige violence to describe red, but the hallmark of red is order, not violence.  Roman legions, Greek phalanxes, and Medieval feudal societies had laws, strict marriage rules, and professional armies, but rank was mostly decided by who the biggest bully was.  This order however, is much more established than Sparticus's gladiator slaves who eventaully got their asses kicked by dissipating through individuality. 

Bear in mind, when collective cognition advances to stage blue it keeps the discipline established by stage red, but added ethics like Chivalry or the Magna Carta and then peaked out when mass production was added to the equation during the Napeolonic wars through ww2

No, I think Leo did make it clear that brute force is one of the hallmarks of stage Red, whereas order is more of a hallmark of stage Blue.

[Woke456]

Just now, Hardkill said:

No, I think Leo did make it clear that brute force is one of the hallmarks of stage Red, whereas order is more of a hallmark of stage Blue.

Wolf packs, Bears, and even snakes use brute force to get what they want.  You can even see it in a troop of chimpnazees.  Purple tribespople will literally stomp toddlers to death on a bad day.  Leo knows this, but his presentation made it seem like vioelnce is unique to stage red which is not true at all.  

The difference is in rank, training, discipline, and order.  This doesn't mean that red eliminates brutality from the equation, but they're a lot more effective at it.  Blue just adds ethics and mass production to the equation, but they're not really that much different from red in other areas, hence the confusion.

[Heinrich Faust]

Let's canvas "discipline" a bit more! You're using it as "perseverance". That's a very red virtue.
However, the stage blue definition of "discipline" is more "restraining oneself". And there's no such a thing in neither red, nor purple. Stage red and stage purple people just didn't cultivate the ability to check themselves. When they get angry, they become aggressive. When they get horny, they become molesting. Both, Saddam Hussein and Alexander the Great were very purely stage red. When they got angry at someone, they just killed him.

Stage red keeps itself in power through violence.
Stage blue keeps itself in power through law and order.

[Rilles]

3 minutes ago, Heinrich Faust said:

Saddam Hussein and Alexander the Great were very purely stage red. When they got angry at someone, they just killed him.

Alexander killed his best friend Cleitus by shoving a javelin through his heart in a drunken fight... Pure Red... Although he was said to have been depressed for weeks after that... Interesting psychology right there...

[Woke456]

@Rilles What makes you think purple isn't above this?  How about a pack of dogs or alligators?