Thanks to Rob at Emphasis Added; he’s located an important monologue at blog USS Clueless via Radio Free Blogistan.

 

The Captain of USS Clueless performs a thorough analysis of the Iraq/Al Qaeda problem; however I cannot subscribe to his fundamental premise that another culture (in this case, Islamic) is the sole enemy.  A substantial portion of the problem is US.

 

For those of you who are older siblings: remember when your parents told you “you’re older and smarter, you should know better…” – well, as a culture farther along the human emergence scale, we should know better.  We’re supposed to be leading the world by example, not swatting others down when we feel the mood strike us, as if we were toddlers or preschoolers.  (“Mom, he’s looking at me” – sounds just like George W.’s rationale for pre-emptive strikes.)  We’re not merely supposed to point an accusative finger, either; we’re supposed to get our hands dirty and help.

 

In the Captain’s log, the Captain lays out the reasons Ralph Peters’ claims the “enemy culture” will fail.  I’m copying these same points, for comparison against Beck/Cowan Spiral Dynamics.

 

Ralph Peters’ description	Beck/Cowan Spiral Dynamics	Beck/Cowan Spiral Dynamics
“enemy culture” traits	Purple value Meme	Red value Meme
	Manifested by: rites; rituals; taboos; superstitions; tribes; folk ways & lore	Manifested by: gratification; glitz; conquest; action; impulsive; lives for now
Restrictions on the free flow of information.	Taboos, tribes, folkways	Conquest (subjugation of knowledge)
The subjugation of women.	Taboos, superstitions, folkways	Conquest
Inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure.	Taboos, tribes, folkways	Impulsive; lives for now
The extended family or clan as the basic unit of social organization.	Tribes, folkways
Domination by a restrictive religion.	Rites, rituals, taboos, superstitions, lore	Conquest (religion as a tool of subjugation)
A low valuation of education.	Tribes, folkways	Impulsive; lives for now
Low prestige assigned to work.		Action, gratification, conquest, glitz

 

By contrast, the majority of the U.S. population manifests itself primarily in the following value Memes; only one of these appears to partially map over to the “enemy culture” traits:

 

Red v-Meme	Blue v-Meme	Orange v-Meme	Green v-Meme
gratification; glitz; conquest; action; impulsive; lives for now	meaning; discipline; traditions; morality; rules; lives for later	materialistic; consumerism; success; image; status; growth	egalitarian; feelings; authentic; sharing; caring; community

 

We are in the process of emerging from the value Meme at the left to the value Meme at the right.  We have already migrated from the Purple value Meme above, to these four value Memes.  The largest percentage of U.S. citizens tend to express as Orange value Memed individuals. 

 

There is an overlap between the Red value Memed peoples in both U.S. culture and “enemy culture”; it’s also easier for a value Meme to relate to the next closest value Meme; hence, Red does understand Blue fairly readily – both here and overseas.

 

This is not a simple case of “we’re right, they’re wrong”, that the “enemy culture” will fail.  We live in totally different realities.  Changing the status quo effectively means grasping this concept more fully, that we are in different states of consciousness, awareness.

 

The so-called “enemy culture” of Islam in second- and third-world countries does not need to succeed.  It needs to emerge to successive levels of awareness.

 

Our so-called “advanced culture” does not need to succeed, either.  It also needs to emerge to successive levels awareness.  This is NOT a win-lose situation, we’re both in the same boat.

 

In order for our “advanced culture” to emerge to its next level, it needs to gain a skill not unlike learning a different language to a degree of fluency – it needs greater consciousness of other cultures, their states of emergence, and an understanding of how we can help these cultures optimize their development (without making the mistakes we’ve made), as well as a specialized dialogue for groups at each level of emergence.  We need to adopt not a paternalistic-punitive-directive-achievement based attitude, but a maternalistic-nurturing-communicative-communal attitude to assist and coach, not forcing the emergence of other cultures. 

 

What exactly do the people of the “enemy culture” want?  Nothing less than we want for ourselves: they want the freedom to live their lives in the manner of their choosing, clean air, water, wholesome food, healthy children, education, the opportunity to grow and become something greater, better prospects for a brighter tomorrow.  What can we do to assist them?  (This is not the same as giving them carte blanche access to the piggy bank!  Think Grameen and micro-loans which empower women to become self-sufficient.)  If we sit down and have this dialogue on a frequent basis, we begin to break down the barriers between “enemy” and “advanced” cultures; we are in dialogue transferring value Memes.  In making this attempt, we evolve as a culture.

 

Seeing others as an “enemy culture” instead of as valuable sub-optimized trade partner, as an opportunity for our own growth, means that we reinforce this cycle of violence.  “Enemy” is merely the most recent of hostile labels we put on Islamic culture; it demeans us to broadly paint with this brush.  As long as any group is viewed as outside, external to us, excluded, surely their instabilities will remind us they’re not that external.  Coaching simply doesn’t work on people who are reminded persistently they play for the other team.

 

Do not in any way take this as a defense of those who seek to kill innocents – there cannot be any rationale for the extermination of members of a particular ethnic group (including women, children, infants in arms when Saddam gassed Kurds), or for the killing of innocents (again, non-combatants in WTC, the Pentagon, the passengers, pilots, attendants on the four hijacked flights killed at bin Laden’s orders) to “make a point” or “get attention”; there is no rationale in sending children jacketed in bombs to kill other children (with Arafat’s approval).  These actions are outside the map of consciousness, insane, beyond ken.  This is not emergent or evolutionary behavior.

 

But we in the U.S. have failed in similar ways, using similarly flawed or irrational logic…our failures are many and sad.  Does anyone remember My Lai and the events that led up to, followed this tragic event?  Or farther back: The Trail of Tears – the utter subjugation of another race?  What of the internment of Issei and Nisei, the Japanese-Latin Americans taken by the U.S. as hostages?  Is it possible for us to look more deeply at these failures to find a curative path?

 

Here is little fable, to help illustrate some of my points.  As all fables, this one begins “Once upon a time…”

 

There once was a small self-governing nation; it was prone to occasion internal disputes between tribes which did not affect any other nations.  This country lived undisturbed for many years, and only lately (within the last 150 years) forsake its pagan/animistic religions for Christianity, moved to a constitutional monarchy, and taught itself how to write its own language (under the rule of a queen, I might add). 

 

Foreigners “discovered” this country, found it rich in resources and located optimally for trade (including illegal trade in drugs as well, formerly unknown to this country).  These foreigners brought with them disease and pestilence which decimated the local population by nearly 80 percent; further, the foreigners moved to adversely possess the land; they viewed the locals as little more than dark skinned savages and slaves, not understanding their cultural heritage nor acknowledging the natives’ property rights.  By mob rule, the monarch was placed under house arrest and the country literally stolen; natives had their civil rights stripped from them.  After much upheaval and an attempted coup, the monarch was forced to abdicate.  The country completely subsumed by the foreigners’ government less than 50 years ago. 

 

The land has since been ravaged by development, tourism and unsustainable agricultural practices.  Natives can no longer reasonably expect to own land there without a significant windfall of cash typically beyond their average ability to earn, although they had been granted the same rights of the occupying forces.   Amazingly, foreigners visiting recently cry “racism!” when they are not always treated with the highest regard by the locals.

 

Does this sound familiar?  It’s the story of formerly sovereign Hawaii.

 

The monarch?  Queen Liliuokalani.

 

Do you need me to name the “enemy culture” in this fable?  (I should hope not.)

 

And do you actually believe the foreign culture and government injected into this once-sovereign nation was an improvement over the former tribalistic monarchy?

 

Put aside this fable now, having looked a little closer in the looking glass…Is there any chance at all that the tribal cultures of Islam and their nations may view our occupation of oil-rich lands or the birthplace of their religion and our fickle support/opposition (changing every presidential regime) of tyrannical leaders in the same way?  And perhaps the concept of “pre-emptive strike” sounds as much like a rationalization as “manifest destiny”?  Place yourself in the shoes of someone who is living in a Red-Purple value Meme, and look again at our actions.

 

Once you genuinely experience this shift in consciousness, it changes the entire equation, completely changes the solution.

  11:22:30 PM    comment []

Okay, here it goes…the Spiral Dynamics meets States of Human Consciousness discussion, and some possible answers to world peace.  This has been swimming around in my head for months, for lack of clarity. 

 

[You might want to grab a beverage here, or go run your errand now, before going any further – it’s going to get deep from here on out.  Put the waders on when you come back, maybe swim fins, goggles, snorkle too.]

 

Following is a mapping of different levels of human existence, defined either as a state of development or a state of consciousness.  Depending on where any particular group or key parties are on this grid in relation to others they affect, results of interactions can be expansive or disastrous.

 

Graves’ States of Existence	Beck’s/Cowan’s Spiral Dynamic vMEMEs	Wade’s States of Consciousness
--	--	Pre-birth/Perinatal
A-N – Automatic	Beige	Reactive
B-O – Tribalistic	Purple	Naive
C-P – Egocentric	Red	Egocentric
D-Q- Saintly	Blue	Conformist
E-R – Materialistic	Orange	Achievement
F-S – Personalistic	Green	Affiliative
G-T – Cognitive	Yellow	Authentic
H-U-- Experientialistic	Turquoise	Transcendent
--	--	Unity
--	--	Post-Death

 

Please use the links at the top of the Graves and Beck/Cowan columns for further elaboration on each level; Wade’s book is the only source for the mapping of her proposed conscious states.  Beck's/Cowan's work is based upon the theories of Dr. Clare Graves; you'll see a strong relation between their work.

 

Note there is not a complete one-for-one mapping across the grid by theorist.  In the case of Wade's conscious states, there is not a state of existence which correlates with Graves’ or Beck’s/Cowan’s theoretical levels.  This is primarily due to the lack of an autonomous physical human body at the earliest and latest states – in certain theories, this connotes a lack of existence.  (Depending on your belief and values, you may concur or disagree.  Not our current topic for discussion.)

 

There may be a degree of overlap between levels, which may explain the difference in the number of levels between Graves’ states of existence and Wade’s states of consciousness (apart from the pre-birth/post-death states).  It’s possible with elevation from one step to the other that humans retain some of their old values and a portion of their perception of reality – this may explain some overlap.  According to Wades’ model, Achievement and Affiliative states of consciousness are co-emergent – they reside in tandem beside each other.  (I suggest that Affiliative overlaps between Orange and Green, in tandem with Achievement at Orange and Authentic at Green.)

 

At the very heart of U.S. socio-economic-political problems within and between the U.S. and MidEast, we find that affected parties are at different levels along this map.  For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll primarily use Beck/Cowan color terminology:

 

§         Those of us in the U.S. live in a country that is weighted to Orange-materialistic-achievement conscious.  There are minority groups in each of the egocentric-Red-egocentric, saintly-Blue-conformist, personalistic-Green-affiliative, cognitive-Yellow-authentic.  (Between 3% to 5% of functioning adults populate the remainder; function by majority standards may be diminished greatly in Beige-Purple adults.)

 

§         Majority vote selected an individual who is Orange with the ability to shift to either Blue or Green (Al Gore), parallel with the previous administration’s level; minority Green was able to influence the election with another candidate (Nader);

 

§         President sworn into office is Blue-Red, occasionally shifts to Orange, as are closest and most powerful members of his circle;  some members are Orange-Blue and few if any are Green-Orange.

 

§         Problematic parties and groups are at different levels: Saddam Hussein operates at Red-Purple with Blue tendencies; Al Qaeda and Arafat operate at Purple-Beige with Red tendencies.

 

Based on this spread, the problems are:

 

§         We the people of the U.S. frame our expectations of George W. Bush on a higher state of consciousness than he and his circle manifest on a daily basis (put aside intelligence, think only in terms of perception of reality).  We the people had expected policies generated at a state of existence, consciousness mirroring our own, hence our hesitancy  to openly accept the President’s policies; in other words, our elected officials do not act with the same awareness, within the same experience of reality of the majority of the population;

 

§         While it’s possible that a Blue-Red president may be effective in dealing with others at the next closest level, decisions and actions may not be clear to others at two levels above or two levels below.  (Blue-Red folks are great with absolutism and unilaterialism, surprise.  Purple-Beige range comprehend readily life-or-death questions, so absolutist threats reach them.)

 

§         Most effective decisions and actions are those which can embrace the entire spectrum of human development and existence – those with the greatest level of buy-in, support across the population; this requires skills of consensus manifest at the Green-Yellow levels.

 

§         Certain problematic parties in Purple-Beige may never be reached using Blue or Orange skills; they simply cannot comprehend the different levels of consciousness and may never be moved to progression.  (Actions by Red-Blue-Orange may simply be perceived as life-threatening.)  Change within these groups may need persistent effort across multiple generations, as generational shift may be the only effective tool.

 

I know, I know.  Sure sounds like the dang Liberals just don’t get along with the Conservatives.  Dear God, I wish it was that simple. 

 

As in my post last month about Wades’ Holonomic Theory of the Evolution of Human Consciousness, it’s entirely possible that conflicts result and continue because WE CAN’T SEE EACH OTHER.  People outside the same level of consciousness and comprehension simply do not exist within our reality.  How the hell do we reach each other?  For crying out loud, we still have problems talking one-on-one between genders (and in the U.S. they’re co-emergent, same approximate level, next room over)!  Imagine, if you are operating at the Orange-materialistic –show-me-data level, trying to work with someone at the Yellow-transcendent level – if they explain to you what a transcendent experience is like, do you get it?  Do you feel motivated to try it yourself?  Or do you think this transcendence-stuff is a bunch of hooey from a crack-head yogi-pretender because you can’t measure it?  That’s exactly the problem.  We just don’t get it.

 

It’s unfortunate, but one of the greatest tragedies of our time is also one of our greatest opportunities.  The shock we felt on 9/11 is the closest experience we had as a group that can help us understand the gap in conscious states, between ourselves and groups like Al Qaeda, like other militant Muslims and other fundamentalist groups. 

 

We didn’t get it, it makes absolutely no sense, unfathomable, how could any human being do this to other humans? 

 

But that’s exactly how the people who are, who support Al Qaeda, perceive US.  They don’t get us, we make absolutely no sense, we're unfathomable, how could humans do what WE do to them? 

 

An incredibly tragic looking glass, a mirror held to our faces by force.  Don't perceive this as apologetics -- there is absolutely no excuse for the criminal intent and behavior.  But there is an opportunity to learn from looking deeply in this mirror.

 

Depending on your own position on the map, you may ask, gee, what did we do, how do we prevent it from happening again this year, in five years, in our lifetime.  Or you’re going to say, f*ck that noise, I’m shooting the motherf*cker bin Laden and then Saddam Hussein myself.  And maybe you’ll say something that’s none of the above.  Don't answer these questions, they're purely rhetorical: Where are you on this map?  and can you see the others at levels above and below you?  Can you build a bridge?  Do you feel any motivation to do so?

 

So there it is, the magnitude of the problem laid out in a sketchy map.  I’m sure I’m missing stuff, it’s a lot to chew on.  Feel free to point it out, keep the comments rationale and close to the Orange-Green-Yellow end of the spectrum; I’m not too savvy with the Blue-Red-Purple stuff.

 

And now, the solution…you tell me, if you believe you understand the breadth of this conundrum.  Thread the eye of this needle, walk this razor’s edge.

  12:39:55 AM    comment []