Some morning thoughts on Spiral Dynamics solicited on reading some posts from the SD community. And in particular this thought from D.Beck (citing C.Graves) “[we] are [able to] recalibrate our entire world when life conditions overwhelm the existing patterns”
This key thought about the way people organize and how they change the structures and basis of the organization is found in the general model of Spiral Dynamics. Largely a model that describes the adaptations of humans to new meta ‘life conditions’ as they emerge out of the existing structures of relationship and understanding of the world.
It is dynamic in the sense that it describes and predicts a Tao swing from a broadly individualistic center to a broadly group/community center – each movement incorporating the lessons of the prior modalities, but also in the movement, over time, creating new conundrums which emerge out of the new organization.
We humans do not remain at a functional static level of experience and/or existence. Always moving, testing, inquiring, searching for ways to meet the needs and longings of each of our multiple levels of awareness and physical needs. It is this compulsion that is the engine of the dynamo that is the human spirit. It is this ability to “to re calibrate our entire world when life conditions overwhelm the existing patterns” that makes humans so interesting. Even rising to the lofty place of “being the consciousness of the planet”, as James Lovelock put it recently.
It is spiral because the issues that are encountered by humans in this world are essentially the same, but have different inflections and details depending on the “life conditions” that are in force when they are engaged. Similar in terms of being at similar places in the circle of life, but spiral as they are encountered at different levels. Levels distinguished by unique particulars of complexity and organization and paradigmatic context. (For example: The questions of needing food and shelter are similar for the tribal peoples of Africa living on the veldt as well as the modern urban apartment dweller. But the details and complexities of each system are very different requiring very different patterns, systems and knowledge’s to negotiate each context.)
These processes can be seen to function in individuals as well as more generally in large historical human development over centuries. In each domain, from the small to the large, the individual to the national, and even the global context, there are forces of creativity and a restlessness that are not capable, or willing to “leave well enough alone”.
As each of these centers of life undulate through the pursuit of meaning, understanding, “peak experience”, satisfaction they will be faced with the same questions over and over, but just from ever more complex levels. What is the pattern of organization as a community? What is the pattern of organization that is me as an individual? Always seeking to understand the underlying “I”. Sometimes it seems clear who that “I” is. And in that moment perhaps it becomes a little less clear who “We” are as a community. And visa versa. Sometimes it is clear who we are as a community. Think of times in western history when ones identity was folded into ones relationship to the church, or ones feudal lord. Or the current “individualistic” western meme contrasted with the more traditional community/group identity of Eastern frames of reference.
In these conditions/states the identity of the group is well established, and the inklings about who “I” am as an individual can be experienced as a radical act of protest. How does what “I know about it is in our group/community: A sort of Group “I”, now square up and incorporate with what I now know of “I” as a separate entity. How does “I” fit into the context of “Us”? And that sets off a new inquiry.
New in the sense that it is unsettled in the current context, and the ready answers of the past are insufficient to the present. Same question. Different Context, or Paradigm from which it is being asked. Later, that question will be more or less answered. And the patterns developed to engage the inquiry will begin to be insufficient to the now emerging question: Who are all these individuals in terms of the community…. And a new level of inquiry begins.
Same questions. Different starting point. The Tao of existence. The Tao of inquiry.
New. Old. Same. Different. Patterns within patterns.
In these transitions of growth from one clarity into a state of non-clarity on the way to a new clarity, there are, broadly speaking, two responses/reactions. These transition times are epochs of serious perturbation as people and groups have to make a decision whether to go forward into the unknown or remain in the thrall and comfort of the well known; if not worn out well known.
In these periods, and I suggest we are in such a period of turbulent transition now, these very opposite forces lay claim to the “truth”. The “middle” essentially vanishes into extreme polarities and points of view. Some saying “We must look forward to find the answer to our challenges”, as A.Lincoln put it in his day: “…As our times are new we must think anew, and disenthrall ourselves from the creeds of the past…”. Others unrelentingly holding out that the way it is is just fine, it just needs to be reformed. Maybe cleaned up. Maybe just try harder to do it and do it better. “If we would just quit being sinners, hold fast and true to the old and established ways (..The Founding Fathers The Old Time Religion.) and shape up everything will be ok”. And this polarity gives rise to what is called in the current environment the “conservative” or right wing position of fundamentalism, and the presumed contrary position of “liberals” or the “left wing” position of progressive. (Of course these are not the only poles of this dynamic. And indeed these political manifestations of the “dynamic” are not even the most important. But they do occupy a large amount of the conscious attention of the nation and the world.)
The Spiral Dynamic model now predicts an emergent condition that integrates the lessons/learnings from the entire past history of humankind’s questions and answer to the fundamental questions of “Who am I” and “Who are we”, “How do we/I survive?” “What is happening around me?”. The model suggests that the levels of experience with these questions has led through various modalities of organization of relationships. All necessary in their time. All no longer sufficient to contend with and encompass the challenges and needs of the present. Now, again, we are in a transition period from This to That. What “That” will be is as yet unclear. But some of the general qualities and outlines are coming clear.
Perhaps the most essential quality of the emerging meme is systemic integration of all that has come before. After all the fights and struggles, the wars and the killings; enlightenments and learnings, and whatever else it takes and will take to get thru this particular transition; eventually all of the past human experience will synthesize into a new, larger comprehension, more complete and complex organization. One large enough to contain the questions and breakdowns of the prior condition. One sufficient enough to be the basis for the next level of human endeavor.
