Why is "Actions Speak Louder Than Words" Considered Stage Blue?

[Truth-Seeker]

I just watched the video on Stage Blue by @Leo Gura. It is an absolute masterpiece since he was literally describing my relatives and some people I met from Louisiana. However, he mentions how there are a few slogans that epitomize stage blue. I can see blue in all of them except:

"Actions Speak Louder Than Words."

"Honesty Is the Best Policy"

I was guessing that "Honesty Is the Best Policy" is blue due to their neurotic attachment towards being truthful WITHOUT CONSIDERING NUANCE in some situations. It might be linked to their compulsive desire to be these people who want to uphold what their religion tells them, "Tell the truth or you go to the everlasting fire."

However, I am definitely not stage blue but I do believe that Actions Speak Louder than Words to a huge extent. ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO STAGE BLUE THEMSELVES. For example, in my country, those who are most religious and pray the most and are the most sanctimonious in their moralizing of others tend to cheat and steal and lie the most...As such, their actions speak louder than their empty words. 

The only way I can see this "actions speak louder than words" as blue is if I consider it as being something lacking nuance and how it lacks an ability to go Meta. But then again, ask any stage orange if they resonate with "actions speak louder than words," and they MOST CERTAINLY WILL. Ask any stage green, and most of them will too. I don't get how this is distinctively blue.  

[Carl-Richard]

It cuts through all abstract rationalizations ("words") by focusing on what is concrete ("actions"). Blue is correlated with the "Concrete Operational" stage in Piaget's model of cognitive development.

Simple propositions like that also encapsulate the relative simplicity of Blue (also seen in Commons' Model of hierarchical complexity). It doesn't involve long strings of formalized arguments, and it's strongly reductive.

[Carl-Richard]

6 hours ago, Truth-Seeker said:

But then again, ask any stage orange if they resonate with "actions speak louder than words," and they MOST CERTAINLY WILL. Ask any stage green, and most of them will too. I don't get how this is distinctively blue.  

It's distinctively Blue in the sense that it's the first stage where this kind of thinking becomes prominent. The higher stages just go beyond that.

[thisintegrated]

It's such a rudimentary concept that only a child / a blue would find it profound.

[Razard86]

1 hour ago, thisintegrated said:

It's such a rudimentary concept that only a child / a blue would find it profound.

This statement reeks of superiority. Also Jordan Peterson is stage Blue so I guess he is a child.

[Razard86]

48 minutes ago, Roy said:

Don't be so quick to dismiss. Notice that plenty of those higher than blue would be wise to revisit it.

It's the difference between living and actualizing your principles, rather than just preaching them for personal comfort of the ego and maintaining an identity.

Don't just listen to what people say, watch what they do.

I have far more respect for a fundamentalist stage blue person that acts out goodness even if it's misinformed, vs a green liberal that just criticizes the world around them without living out their own values.

Great point! That was rather illuminating. Way to raise my awareness in a single post to another perspective of looking at Spiral Dynamics.

[thisintegrated]

1 hour ago, Razard86 said:

This statement reeks of superiority. Also Jordan Peterson is stage Blue so I guess he is a child.

Be careful with jumping to conclusions like this.

 

Consider why you're so quick to get defensive and projecting your insecurities.

Edited April 8, 2022 by thisintegrated

[thisintegrated]

1 hour ago, Roy said:

Don't be so quick to dismiss. Notice that plenty of those higher than blue would be wise to revisit it.

It's the difference between living and actualizing your principles, rather than just preaching them for personal comfort of the ego and maintaining an identity.

Don't just listen to what people say, watch what they do.

I have far more respect for a fundamentalist stage blue person that acts out goodness even if it's misinformed, vs a green liberal that just criticizes the world around them without living out their own values.

Of course I'm not dismissing it. 

Would you consider "rape is wrong" to be a deeply profound concept?

No? So you're dismissing it??!?!?!?!?

 

You get what I'm sayin?

 

IF you considered "rape is wrong" to be a deeply profound concept, this would say something about you.  Most grow people are long past this being a profound concept.  As you progress up the spiral, such basic ideas become so obvious that they're not even on your radar anymore.  They cause no reaction.  For a blue, however, more basic ideas such as this DO show up on their radar, as they're only now discovering them.

[Carl-Richard]

10 hours ago, thisintegrated said:

It's such a rudimentary concept that only a child / a blue would find it profound.

It depends on how the concept is viewed. You could actually argue it's a lesson in construct awareness ("self-deception happens at the level of words"), which Blue isn't fully able to articulate but is still able to experience the benefits of by adopting it dogmatically. Instead of judging its value based on elaborate syllogisms, they instead point to its constancy throughout history as words of wisdom.

So Blue realizes its value through other means than the higher stages, but the concept itself may be immensely valuable in ways that only the higher stages can articulate. Said more generally, one of Blue's most powerful technologies (the power of tradition) contains a profound wisdom which can be meaningfully explicated using say a mature systems view at Yellow+, but even then might not be fully given justice.

[OceanRiver]

On 7/4/2022 at 2:56 PM, Truth-Seeker said:

I just watched the video on Stage Blue by @Leo Gura. It is an absolute masterpiece since he was literally describing my relatives and some people I met from Louisiana. However, he mentions how there are a few slogans that epitomize stage blue. I can see blue in all of them except:

"Actions Speak Louder Than Words."

"Honesty Is the Best Policy"

I was guessing that "Honesty Is the Best Policy" is blue due to their neurotic attachment towards being truthful WITHOUT CONSIDERING NUANCE in some situations. It might be linked to their compulsive desire to be these people who want to uphold what their religion tells them, "Tell the truth or you go to the everlasting fire."

However, I am definitely not stage blue but I do believe that Actions Speak Louder than Words to a huge extent. ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO STAGE BLUE THEMSELVES. For example, in my country, those who are most religious and pray the most and are the most sanctimonious in their moralizing of others tend to cheat and steal and lie the most...As such, their actions speak louder than their empty words. 

The only way I can see this "actions speak louder than words" as blue is if I consider it as being something lacking nuance and how it lacks an ability to go Meta. But then again, ask any stage orange if they resonate with "actions speak louder than words," and they MOST CERTAINLY WILL. Ask any stage green, and most of them will too. I don't get how this is distinctively blue.  

Actions do speak louder than words though right? Whether we’re talking about spiral or not. I can see how it makes sense to add phrases to help with connections to different stages.

[T_i_m]

12 hours ago, Knowledge Hoarder said:

Also, I don't think that "rape is wrong" is on the same level of obviousness as "actions speak louder than words"

"Rape is wrong" is just moralizing. Not obvious at all. Every man says rape is wrong but would they abstain from rape when there's no consequence? Like when they took over a settlement during a war and  everyone else is doing it or when it's your wife and the  blue society of that country doesn't really consider rape within a family a rape? Rape is deep in men's nature. And those actions speak louder than words .

[Truth-Seeker]

On 2022-04-07 at 7:06 AM, Carl-Richard said:

It cuts through all abstract rationalizations ("words") by focusing on what is concrete ("actions"). Blue is correlated with the "Concrete Operational" stage in Piaget's model of cognitive development.

Simple propositions like that also encapsulate the relative simplicity of Blue (also seen in Commons' Model of hierarchical complexity). It doesn't involve long strings of formalized arguments, and it's strongly reductive.

Yea, I intuited that it is their lack of abstraction ability and their fixation on literalism that might make it blue. 

 

On 2022-04-07 at 7:40 PM, Roy said:

It's the difference between living and actualizing your principles, rather than just preaching them for personal comfort of the ego and maintaining an identity.

Don't just listen to what people say, watch what they do.

I have far more respect for a fundamentalist stage blue person that acts out goodness even if it's misinformed, vs a green liberal that just criticizes the world around them without living out their own values.

DUDE EXACTLY. That is why while I am definitely no longer blue, I can resonate with this idea. For me, it is all about being genuine and actualizing what you truly believe rather than talking a lot about your lofty ideals and moralizing while not actually following through with it in your life. You can't respect those people, no matter what stage they are. 

That's why I had difficulty seeing why this is A QUINTESSENTIAL blue thing, because I'm not blue but I get it and agree with it. But like Carl explained, the blue part about it is the fact that it is reductive, simplistic, and focuses on concrete and visible stuff rather than the abstractions and ignores nuance. So that is what makes it blue, but it still holds merit. 

I guess that a stage Green or Yellow can believe the same thing but to him it is not an "end-all-be-all" type of thing. He agrees with it but is FULLY CONSCIOUS of the nuance. 

[Truth-Seeker]

On 2022-04-08 at 5:09 AM, Carl-Richard said:

It depends on how the concept is viewed. You could actually argue it's a lesson in construct awareness ("self-deception happens at the level of words"), which Blue isn't fully able to articulate but is still able to experience the benefits of by adopting it dogmatically. Instead of judging its value based on elaborate syllogisms, they instead point to its constancy throughout history as words of wisdom.

So Blue realizes its value through other means than the higher stages, but the concept itself may be immensely valuable in ways that only the higher stages can articulate. Said more generally, one of Blue's most powerful technologies (the power of tradition) contains a profound wisdom which can be meaningfully explicated using say a mature systems view at Yellow+, but even then might not be fully given justice.

Again, very impressive articulation of what is going on at the mind of blue vs higher stages when it comes to something like "actions speak louder than words."

I have literally seen it in my life where they try to convince you of a value of a particular concept by pointing to its constancy throughout history. THEY LITERALLY DO THAT LOL. 

But what you say about Yellow in the end makes me believe that Tier 2 cannot be entered only through expansion of consciousness (as all the other stages would). A tier 2 individual with systems thinking needs to have a superior cognitive ability, intelligence, and a wide breadth to his/her lexicon (which is developed from their ability to read a lot of books) to simply be able to truly dive in that stage. That's the only way they can articulate the power of tradition with a systems-thinking perspective.