Spiral Dynamics: Understanding The Bigger Picture

[ZenBlue]

Last night I had some interesting thoughts about the spiral dynamics model. This is my attempt to understanding the bigger picture of this model. I'm still learning so bare with me.

Leo talked about how each stage stacks on top of the other. Then something about the model hit me, and it helped me to gain a deeper understanding of it.

Every stage is an elevation of the previous two stages. It's hard for me to articulate it clearly so it might not make sense.

For instance:

Beige - The foundation of human survival

Purple - Tribal. Awareness increases and people start to become aware of their thoughts and surroundings. Everything is magical.

Red - An elevation of Beige. People become very egocentric and barbaric. Survival isn't about the elements of nature anymore. Survival is about conquering and dominating other tribes and communities.

Blue - An elevation of Purple. There is structure, authority, and rigid hierarchies. Magical thinking has been tempered down with logic and rationality, but there is still an element of faith, magic and belief in higher powers.

Orange - An elevation of Red. People are still driven by ego, but now it is about separation from rigid hierarchies. It's more about learning to become independent and self-reliant. It is like a tempered down version of red, because orange isn't as physically violent. The violence and aggression becomes more about psychological and emotional abuse.

Green - An elevation of Blue. It's less rigid, but still community based. People start to explore their inner selves and focus less on the external. Spirituality, and harmony. Compassion and empathy for others start to develop. Caring about the environment and our impact on it. There is still moralizing and demonizing of those who are not like them.

Yellow - An elevation of Orange. Still a sense of independence and personal responsibility. But there is an element of compassion and understanding how everything fits into a larger system. Appreciation for natural hierarchies and seeing how everything is interconnected. A system is an emergence of all the elements in it. Not a sum total of each part.

Turquoise - An elevation of Green. True compassion and love starts to develop. Where Green was limited to moralizing and demonizing, Turquoise embraces holistic thinking. Realizes everything is all interconnected and forms all of existence. Reality is an emergence of everything in it. There is no difference between self and other. Non-dualism.

Starting from Yellow, and downwards. Each stage looks down on the two stages below it. It is like the relationship between adults and children. Most adults look down on children. Children react negatively to this and then look down on most adults.

For example: Green looks down on blue, not realizing it is like the adult version of blue. Blue is like an immature version of Green. Orange is like an immature version of Yellow, and so on.

What I really find interesting is how each color seems to represent each stage so well.

Edited July 12, 2021 by ZenBlue

[karltiboleng]

Really interesting! I think it sorta represents the back and forth dynamic between each stage, between individualism and collectivism as well. It's like from one stage (e.g. blue), then you go to individualistic orange, then you go back to collectivist green, but green is a "improvement" of blue where it transcends blue and orange but includes elements of both stages. 

[ZenBlue]

@karltiboleng  Yes absolutely! This is quite a beautiful model when you really look at it. Each stage adds a layered foundation to build upon. If you were to take orange, then green lays the foundation so that orange can elevate to yellow and so on.