Spiral Dynamics integral - “Healthy”
When analyzing any particular expression (something manifest in form, in contrast to “thought,” which exists in the “interior” of people) from the lens of Spiral Dynamics integral, we immediately come up against the whole notion of polarities: good/bad, right/wrong, true/fake, us/them, etc. Extreme polarization happens when we adopt unhealthy Red and Blue values which result in extreme kinds of expressions which we then make meaning , and inevitably move up the Ladder of Inference to polarized Actions.
Shown on the right, this model comes from organizational psychologist Chris Argyris, made popular in Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. It proposes that we select data, make meaning out of it, and from that meaning quickly reach conclusions, adopt beliefs, and take actions based on those beliefs. The key is how quickly we can do this — sometimes in just a few seconds, and how a “reflexive loop” affects what data we select, based on what behavioral economics calls “confirmation bias.”
It’s easy to imagine how the Ladder of Inference enables us to increasingly polarize our thinking and actions as our meaning making gets more and more rigidified, based on the data we choose. The narrower the scope of data we allow into our awareness, the more rigid our thinking and actions can be. Most of this happens beneath our conscious awareness.
That is a clue to where this kind of thinking began to appear in human consciousness. Spiral Dynamics proposes that it goes back to the earliest value systems humans evolved over 40,000 years ago — to Purple/Tribal, the first collective value system that distinguished between “us” and “them”. But because Purple/Tribal is very old in the human values stack doesn’t mean it’s disappeared. On the contrary, Purple values and expressions have continued to manifest throughout our evolution. In fact, they are increasing in density and strength in today’s polarized world. Purple expressions include: Black Lives Matter; Blue Lives Matter; racism in all forms; all forms of religious fundamentalism, and numerous others.
Spiral Dynamics integral proposes an alternate way of describing an expression rather than the “black or white” kind of thinking that leads to polarization. Our “guiding star” you might say is “the Spiral,” a meme that encourages us to evolve in more and more complex, and thus more comprehensive ways of seeing the world (with the ‘ultimate goal’ being the experience of no separateness at all between me and the whole world).
We use the terms “Healthy” and “Unhealthy” to describe the likely impacts of an expression on the system we’re observing. We do this by answering two questions:
1) Does the expression help solve the problems of existence that the “system” is perceiving? (By “system” I simply mean the “circle” making up the boundary of your analysis.)
2) Does the expression support the system’s openness to evolve?
The spectrum of answers to those questions can be envisioned something like the map to the right which uses the “compass” metaphor to mean “heading in the direction toward…”
So as I write these blog posts I will be using this terminology of “Healthy” and “Unhealthy” expressions, and justifying my assessment using this set of inquiries.