Understanding apparent regression in Spiral Dynamics

[RoninWolf]

I have a friend who, since I've known him, has exhibited behaviors very clearly representative of stage orange. He has been hedonistic, success focused, atheistic, and dismissive of anything 'airy fairy'. He plays lots and lots of video games, drinks and smokes lots of weed. His ambition has been to be a rich and popular youtuber/streamer. He cares little about the environment or animals, and thinks the point of his life is to just have fun. He is very into fitness and posts lots of those motivational quotes with buff guys on his instagram, etc. You get my point - we all know guys like this.

Anyways, recently (past 4 months or so) he started watching the TV series Vikings, and got really into it. He has started to change his hair to a 'Viking'-like style, listens to danheim and wardruna, posts about wanting to 'raid England', and has even sort of changed his personality a bit to seem more like some kind of hardened warrior. The biggest thing about this, and the entire reason for making this post however, is that he has become Norse Pagan, or 'Asatru'. It is my understanding that he now claims to believe in and worship the old Norse Gods, and wishes people to respect his faith just as they would a Christian. 

From a spiral dynamics perspective, what is going on here? Could it be an undeveloped stage red that prematurely jumped to blue as a child? Stage orange romanticizing red in the way that green does purple, gone far? This has been floating around my mind for some time now, and I am very interested to hear some thoughts on this from all of you. Leo, if you are reading this, of course your insight and interpretation would be highly valued.

 

Edit: I've been contemplating this for a while, and have come up with a potential answer. To expand on @SolarWarden's first comment, it is possible that my friend has not properly integrated his stage red/blue. This absence then, will have left him with no healthy way to express these stages, thus weakening the foundations of his growth beyond and into orange. Perhaps his 'playing this character' is the psyche's attempt to express these stages, needing desperately on the deepest level to find some utility for them.

Edited April 19, 2021 by RoninWolf

[SolarWarden]

Interesting phenomena,

I watched "the man in the high castle" and sorta romanticized the idea of a axis power planetary regime in another parallel universe. I almost wanted to buy a swastika flag and hang it on the wall because of a tv-series, lol.

It is common that we have parts of ourselves in different stages while one of them is predominant.

Maybe he is expressing the stage red/blue in himself by playing out this character.  There is probably no other way to do it for him than this. Does he take it with humour I.e. not a serious way? 

[Guest EmptyVase]

*just a word of advice that being overly analytical with models about peers may get you out of touch with what is actual, and may backfire on the wellbeing of you and your environment*

*cautionary advice over*

[Carl-Richard]

Keywords: facets, aspects, center of gravity, continuum.

Stage Orange isn't exclusively defined by atheism. Atheism/theism is just one facet that can be arrived at through different pathways (Red can also be atheistic). It can be affected by other facets like cognition, spirituality, aesthetics, morality etc. For example, your friend might have Orange cognition and morality along with some aspects of Blue/Red spirituality and aesthetics.

People adopt beliefs and identities all the time that seem to deviate from their center of gravity (nobody is just one stage but instead a shaded continuum). For example, there is currently an Orange fad about simulation theory: the idea that the universe was created by immensely powerful beings outside of our world.

Sounds eerily similar to traditional monotheism don't you think? There is an obvious monotheistic aesthetic to the theory, but it's nested within a techno-materialist metaphysics (which arguably makes no difference when you're already conceding to the creator aspect).

There are many examples of Christian apologists with a deeper knowledge of philosophy and logic than most atheistic philosophers (stronger Orange cognition but maybe more Blue spirituality/morality). Look up the debate with Sam Harris and William Lane Craig. Harris abandoned the debate format midway and derailed the discussion into a pathos-fueled activist tirade. Not very "science, facts and logic" of him 

Edited April 19, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[RoninWolf]

9 hours ago, SolarWarden said:

Interesting phenomena,

I watched "the man in the high castle" and sorta romanticized the idea of a axis power planetary regime in another parallel universe. I almost wanted to buy a swastika flag and hang it on the wall because of a tv-series, lol.

It is common that we have parts of ourselves in different stages while one of them is predominant.

Maybe he is expressing the stage red/blue in himself by playing out this character.  There is probably no other way to do it for him than this. Does he take it with humour I.e. not a serious way? 

No, he is absolutely serious.

[RoninWolf]

8 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Keywords: facets, aspects, center of gravity, continuum.

Stage Orange isn't exclusively defined by atheism. Atheism/theism is just one facet that can be arrived at through different pathways (Red can also be atheistic). It can be affected by other facets like cognition, spirituality, aesthetics, morality etc. For example, your friend might have Orange cognition and morality along with some aspects of Blue/Red spirituality and aesthetics.

People adopt beliefs and identities all the time that seem to deviate from their center of gravity (nobody is just one stage but instead a shaded continuum). For example, there is currently an Orange fad about simulation theory: the idea that the universe was created by immensely powerful beings outside of our world.

Sounds eerily similar to traditional monotheism don't you think? There is an obvious monotheistic aesthetic to the theory, but it's nested within a techno-materialist metaphysics (which arguably makes no difference when you're already conceding to the creator aspect).

There are many examples of Christian apologists with a deeper knowledge of philosophy and logic than most atheistic philosophers (stronger Orange cognition but maybe more Blue spirituality/morality). Look up the debate with Sam Harris and William Lane Craig. Harris abandoned the debate format midway and derailed the dicussion into a pathos-fueled activist tirade. Not very "science, facts and logic" of him 

You're right, and of course SD isn't as black and white as us 'being' one stage in every aspect of our being. I just thought this switch in belief to be extremely unusual; and deviating from the spiral, I want to try to understand from a sort of psychoanalysis POV what is actually taking place here. 

[SolarWarden]

1 hour ago, RoninWolf said:

No, he is absolutely serious.

Ok, had that experience only temporarily for like a day or two. Never knew you could be stuck in that state.

I watched The Vikings for a moment. It came to mind that maybe he had a past life regression by watching the series? 

Just speculating. 

Would be good to learn about spiral dynamics a bit more.

[RoninWolf]

@SolarWarden I'm curious to see if this is a phase, but even still, if it tapers off by next year...what was it? I agree. Wondering if there's something I'm missing out on here, a hole in my knowledge that I can fill in. I would love for Leo to respond.

[lmfao]

@RoninWolf It's all about the unconscious. Something changed for him, something came up. Who knows what caused what exactly.

But all humans have the personal and collective unconscious. All humans have repressed or veiled/undiscovered things inside of them. The animal brain is in all of us. 

We all have a shadow. The existence of a shadow is more encompassing and certain than the existence of these spiral dynamics stages. 

People can come into sudden and abrupt contact with something in their unconscious, and it causes a big change in them. Sometimes it could look like they've been "possessed" by something. Phases or changes like this simply just happen. People digest and work through various things that arise in them. 

--

Maybe view the stages as general patterns/forces which interlock chaotically, where "Me=orange" isn't end of discussion. 

 

Using the spiral dynamics angle to look at mystical changes and spirituality often fails imo for the people on this forum it seems. It doesn't work or feel right to do that, in my eyes. The imposition of SD onto that domain seems a bit useless. 

Edited April 20, 2021 by lmfao