I’ve frequently referenced Spiral Dynamics, a model of human development and values by Dr. Don Beck and Chris Cowan. This model builds upon the foundational work of Dr. Clare W. Graves.
The model classifies human values into various colored vMEMEs, or simply MEMEs, each symbolizing a distinct way of thinking and a corresponding set of values. This progression through MEMEs is often compared to a spiral, giving the model its name. Here’s an overview of the primary stages:
- Beige (Survival Sense): Basic survival, driven by biological needs.
- Purple (Tribal Order): Safety via affiliation and rituals, emphasizing tribal bonds.
- Red (Power Gods): Focus on power, action, immediate gratification, and dominance.
- Blue (Truth Force): Prioritizes order, stability, and purpose, with a strong adherence to higher principles or laws.
- Orange (Strive Drive): Aims for achievement and success through individualism and competition.
- Green (Human Bond): Emphasizes community, equality, and inner peace within a values-driven community.
The model suggests that individuals, organizations, and even entire societies progress through these stages based on their prevailing life conditions and challenges. Each stage offers a unique perspective on interpreting and understanding the world.
These MEMEs can be applied in both macro and micro contexts. In a macro sense, they trace human evolution from premodern, to modern, and then to postmodern epochs, delineating our evolving boundaries.
For instance, Beige revolves around innate desires, while Purple expands the boundary to about 150-person scale relationships, aligned with Dunbar’s number, which matches the neocortical cognitive limit for remembering faces and names without external aids.
Red allows charismatic leadership to surpass this cognitive boundary of tribes. By idolizing certain individuals, larger communities can be maintained. Blue institutionalizes such charismatic leaders, enabling religious, political, and other organizations to encompass even larger populations beyond leader-driven communities.
Orange pushes these boundaries further, emphasizing individualism, modernization, and globalization, with material prosperity as a driving force. Green seeks to address the shortcomings of Orange, championing diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability.
On a micro level, these MEMEs also illustrate individual growth. For example, in Beige, we resemble infants or mischievous toddlers. In Purple, our focus is on family and tribal ties. In Red, we admire great leaders. In Blue, we’re willing to champion ideologies, even to the point of sacrificing ourselves. In Orange, our goal is materialistic satisfaction, while in Green, we align with principles of social justice.
These six MEMEs elucidate the various conflicts that arise from their inherent limitations. Every community and individual embodies these values to varying extents. Progressing to a higher level doesn’t negate the influence of the preceding stages. Depending on changing life circumstances, one’s alignment with these MEMEs may shift upward or downward.
For example, if I focus on my physical desires and emotional state, I can sense an immediate impulse that might emerge. This is true for everyone. If I indulge in these instincts, the center of gravity of my MEME would lean dangerously towards Beige. If I prioritize a so-called tribal mentality favoring members I closely know, the center of gravity is dangerously Purple. If I idolize one individual excessively, I lean dangerously towards Red.
On the other hand, in my everyday life, the center of gravity might hover around Blue, Orange, and Green. As a traditional churchgoer, my Blue stage is significant, as are the ideologies I lean towards, consciously or unconsciously. As a corporate employee seeking wealth in life and embracing globalization, I exhibit traits of an Orange individual. Emphasizing the values of diversity, inclusion, human rights, and environmental concerns, I also show that Green values cannot be ignored.
The portfolio of these MEMEs is dynamic, shifting from one to another based on the life conditions I focus on or am bothered by. Each color MEME opposes the others, emerging by overcoming (transcending and including) the one below it to address its specific life condition. In this regard, the first-tier six MEMEs are naturally conflictual.
Green critiques Orange’s materialism. Orange grows weary of Blue’s ideological rigidity. Blue is wary of the charisma of the Red leader. Red seeks to distance itself from Purple tribalism. Purple sets taboos to control Beige’s instincts. All these conflicts can be present within an individual or a community. The boundaries of each are indeed the root causes of the conflicts humanity faces today and has encountered throughout history.
While Green is meant to represent the resolution of all these first tier conflicts, suggesting a human bond, it is not immune to pitfalls, either. Its downside, dubbed “Mean Green MEME,” is a prime example.
Although Green promotes diversity and inclusion, it paradoxically becomes aggressive in asserting its unique value over others, leading to what’s known as the tyranny of relativism. Green proponents believe all viewpoints are valid, which can create a “anything goes” mentality. Yet, what they subconsciously regard as ‘right’ is their specific brand of relativism. This contradiction is often observed in social justice movements and cancel culture.
At the apex of the first-tier domain, Green is expected to be the most encompassing and inclusive MEME. However, in practice, it exhibits tendencies toward nihilism and narcissism. While everything is considered valid, this makes it challenging to discern what is genuinely right. Despite this, the Green perspective insists that their view is the only correct one, grounded in the belief that Green alone acknowledging all views are valid.
As MEMEs evolve, becoming increasingly complex and inclusive, addressing their downsides becomes more challenging. Introducing Purple’s tribalism to Beige’s primitivism is simpler than using Red’s charisma to counteract Purple’s kinship. This step is more straightforward than employing Blue’s institutionalization to overcome Red. In turn, it’s easier than utilizing Orange’s material rationality to surpass Blue.
Yet, all are easier than properly addressing Green’s relativistic values without falling into nihilism and narcissism. The more advanced the MEME, the more complex its challenges. How do we address the challenges of Green? It might be the most pressing and intricate challenge humans have recently faced.
The short answer is that we don’t know what to do about it.
While all the MEMEs evolved, Green remained merely an extension of a specific boundary. The spectrum of self-consciousness has transitioned from egocentric to group-centric, and finally to world-centric. Referring to Dunbar’s number, our cognitive reach has grown from less than 150, to 150, then to millions, and now billions as the global population has expanded. Our brain has evolved from the old cortex to the neocortex, and subsequently to external devices and networks. Our cognitive boundaries have continuously widened. The higher we ascend, the more expansive and profound our perspectives become. This is a true testament to human evolution.
However, boundaries remain boundaries. Merely extending and expanding them is not the solution to transcending them altogether.
We need a significant qualitative leap from the boundary-based first-tier domain to the so-called boundary-less second-tier sphere. In the current Spiral Dynamics, the first two MEMEs in the second tier are defined as follows:
- Yellow (Flex Flow): Flexibility, functionality, and natural systems; integrates various vMEMEs.
- Turquoise (Global View): Holistic and interconnected; global consciousness.
Following these two, color choices such as Coral and Teal are proposed. What could be the implications of them?
In a way, the second tier resembles the first. Yellow can be seen as a radiant Beige. Both seem to represent spontaneity on the surface, yet Yellow is qualitatively distinct. Similarly, Turquoise is like radiant Purple, Coral resembles radiant Red, and Teal mirrors radiant Blue, and so forth.
In essence, it’s challenging, if not impossible, to articulate and describe the second-tier MEMEs. They represent a sphere that the majority of us have not yet experienced. We encounter self-proclaimed second-tier individuals, but we lack ways to validate their claims. Their descriptions sound esoteric.
This is why some equate the second tier to descriptions of religious enlightenment and realization, where one experiences Oneness or Emptiness without boundaries. In Christian evangelism, the born-again experience might be likened to this. In mystical traditions, practices such as contemplative prayer could be comparable. In Zen Buddhism, terms like satori or kensho might capture a similar essence.
Among these ideas, one certainty is the endeavor to step back from all self-defined boundaries of the first tier. Our self-consciousness is, after all, merely a MEME-defined boundary. Beyond that, we become formless. In this realization, even if just for a fleeting moment, we might immerse ourselves in the boundary-less Oneness or Emptiness. From this meta-perspective, truly knowing ourselves might lead us to forget ourselves. Is this feasible? I’m uncertain. I’m always reminded of the words of Dogen:
To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.
And the following verses from the Gospel:
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.
Mark 8:35
Image by Martin Str
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