Comments on: Obama and the integral theories

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:56:12 +0000

Hi Said
Those are very good comments. I have not read the spiral book yet, but have it on my shelf – On your recommendation it is now moving up in the pile :-)
I think the way you describe it you are probably right. I was hoping for a higher level leadership to emerge – as were many other – but I am also starting to see what you are describing here. Especially when dealing with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict it seems that it is very difficult at best to approach it from any higher meme, when doing politics.
I am dreaming of doing disruptive designs in the area that might be able to spur new thought to arise and inspire understandings to emerge…
- imagine a highway on pillars between gaza and the west-bank: a highway that never interrupts with Israeli freedom of movement, yet allows the Palestinians the same privilege.
A design-utopian dream under current circumstances, I know…

By: Said E. Dawlabani

Said E. Dawlabani — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:50:41 +0000

Martin, Obama, at best has some YELLOW THINKING. For someone who worked closely with Don Beck for years on the Israeli/Palestinian issue and has been critical of how the President continues to downshift to dysfunctional BLUE to deal with the UNHEALTHY ORANGE that caused the financial crisis I’m convinced that his Center of Gravity (COG)is HEALTHY ORANGE with preference to warm colors that will allow him to hop scotch to YELLOW. I’m assuming you’re drawing your inferences from the Integral Theory. If however, you’re arriving at your conclusions based on the Spiral Dynamics theory, I urge you to read the book again. In order for Turquoise to emerge, a culture must experience access energy from YELLOW to propel it to the new vMEME. Just like the access energy from UNHEALTHY ORANGE is NOW propelling us into GREEN.

By: Ram

Ram — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 16:47:13 +0000

Thanks for interesting ideas! 2nd tier reponse will not only need turquoise but also the spiritual power of coral (the higher octave of red) to come into action in the mentioned points of detoxification of 1st tier problems

By: Martin

Martin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 07:53:02 +0000

Thanks for both your comments.
I think you are both right. Yellow meme is a very high meme, and I might have been caught in the Obamania when saying the man is turquoise. As my entry to this is mainly Wilber I might not be totally clear on what distinguishes yellow from turquoise in political leadership. I am simply impressed with his ability to stand up for good things, like Geneva convention and human rights (probably green structures, though), but also his ability to inspire hope and call-for-action from the Appalachians to Santa Monica. That must be beyond green simply due to the cross-meme character of it.

Then about the toxic interaction of the 1st tie memes: In a crisis like the one we face right now, where people loose their homes and other make millions of dollars, things are going to get ugly. Every meme has the ability to respond from its darkest side, and I am totally convinced that this is going to happen for the next 4-5 years. Unless we have leadership with high enough insight.

As to the CEOs’ profits. What would a 2nd tier response look like? In Denmark the Social Democrats tried to enforce a ceiling over bank managers wages in the last package of subsidies, but it was refused by the (mainly right-wing) majority. But the suggestion seemed like a very green thing to suggest. Green looks to eradicate differences to create equal opportunity and privileges to all.

The good question remains: what would the 2nd tier response be to the bank CEOs, the hedgefund CEOs, the investors in Iceland who destroyed the entire country.

…and remember we all rode the wave with them, except if you live outside the rich west

By: Jean Brown

Jean Brown — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:09:06 +0000

The thing I noticed missing from your comments is a realization of the toxic nature of Blue, Orange & Green in America.

If you look at the US bailout controversy, the main underlying theme is the incredible level of corruption in the Orange system. The financiers and executives have basically looted the organizations they were supposedly responsible for. US bankruptcy laws allow them to continue giving themselves obscene bonuses and perks while destroying the underlying assets. These scam artists have no personal responsibility and appear to feel no guilt – the worst of Orange run amok.

While the public is demanding heads on a platter, it’s not obvious yet how Obama will be able to address the issue. These people still have unbelievable power and money (hundreds of millions instead of billions is still huge power to buy political influence).

Green offers no help because they can’t hold the line on demanding personal responsibility. If CEOs have to be held responsible, then so do welfare moms and illegal immigrants, a concept toxic Green can’t seem to grasp. Blue would hold them responsible, but Blue brains simply can’t deal with the current level of international complexity, so they offer no workable solutions.

SDI theory says change comes with chaos and often produces the dark side of all the vMemes. I’m not sure we have yet come up with a good model on how 2nd tier can deal with such toxicity without letting a crash drive the positve change.

By: Martin Ehrensvärd

Martin Ehrensvärd — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:55:32 +0000

Thanks for this analysis in which I can do nothing but agree to most of it. I, however, don’t see anything in Obama that Yellow can’t accomplish/ envision. As I read Claire Graves and Don Beck, Yellow is a very high meme. Wilber seems to have inflated the model somewhat, when it comes to the higher memes, almost (sometimes) conflating Yellow and Turquoise, but that seems to be a contradiction to the original SD model. There, that’s my five cents.