Why I think Spiral Dynamics is wrong.

[Carl-Richard]

@Jwayne How do you think SD was created?

[Jwayne]

Just now, Carl-Richard said:

@Jwayne How do you think SD was created?

I'll explain how a similar model should be created to avoid ideological defects.

If you want to understand non-WEIRD psychologies, you must learn their language, participate in its traditions and experience its multi-faceted civilization identity from within (its own literature, art forms and ways of life, etc.). That approach will give you an experiential basis so as to first-hand be familiar with those peoples own phenomenology, so to speak, with their own epistemology. Which of course, won't be stated in such terms, but expressed howsoever that culture sees itself.

Spiral Dynamics is just looking from a culturally and historically-contingent WEIRD perspective, with an obvious linguistic bias, from the outside at the rest of humanity in all its richness. And it assumes - erroneously - objectivity about its conclusions rather than seeing them as obviously self-conditioned.

 

[Carl-Richard]

@Jwayne

I can agree with that. But I think SD is largely on par with other types of WEIRD psychological theories. After all, the stages seem to line up nicely with most other WEIRD developmental stage theories (e.g. Piaget, Kohlberg). So it should be OK to apply it to e.g. people on this forum or US politics.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[Jodistrict]

Isn’t Don Beck known for expressing support for Donald Trump?   Spiral Dynamics is value laden and provides justification for neoliberal economics.  Indigenous people who are fighting to keep their land from multinational developers are “purple” at the lower end of the spiral, who need to be “civilized” (i.e., accept that there land was stolen) .   Academics don’t take Spiral Dynamics seriously because of the lack of empirical evidence and the heavy reliance on subjective observation.  The theory comes from popular books and articles, and not peer-reviewed publications.      

Edited May 2, 2023 by Jodistrict

[Carl-Richard]

7 hours ago, Jodistrict said:

Academics don’t take Spiral Dynamics seriously because of the lack of empirical evidence and the heavy reliance on subjective observation.  The theory comes from popular books and articles, and not peer-reviewed publications.      

It's true that SD, as far as it's based on Graves' initial data set, is not very empirically rigorous, but there is something to be said for how it correlates strongly with more established developmental stage theories. So why is SD not more popular? Well, firstly, there doesn't seem to be a culture of using developmental stage theories as main stage clinical interventions, which is generally how something becomes popular in psychology. They're mostly used as side pieces that you just learn about and have in the back of your head. There is a reason you haven't heard of something called "Piagetian Therapy" (because it doesn't exist) but you have heard about "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy". Secondly, these theories have traditionally been limited to childhood development. Adult stage development is actually a very obscure concept, which is probably the biggest reason why nobody is paying it much attention.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[Letho]

@vindicated erudite  you make really great points and critique as long as it's coming from a good place is extremely healthy.

Spiral Dynamics likewise has the right intention and what I see is that where they've been unable to account for  reverse engineering the origins and outgrowths of functionality due to theoretical weaknesses they've instead just gone for structure in terms of weighing individual changes against "correlational cultural aptitude".

Functionality however is where it all starts and ends, its the meat of the fat cow that is our laborious outdated human experience, the structures in the theory are just the compensatory correlational decorations, without detracting from the genuine insightful ideas they share there.

The main underlying pattern of the model is that the metamorphosis in human consciousness is tied to its evolution based on how a sentience categorises, strategies and identifies along the spectrum of self and other. The two main functions that evolve through this are empathy and self awareness, everything else that follows is purely as a byproduct of any one or of the two, especially how consciousness organises the structures of morality and economy relative to their respective culture.

Thinking inside the theory, its important to remember that no two Yellows or Turquoises are the same, thinking outside the theory its important to remember that every theory is a step to deriving something more profound to be even more excited about with respect to being closer to universal truth. 

I've barely studied the theory but I seemed to have picked up on its patterns by just offhandedly paying attention to related discussions on the forum. I don't want to take anything away from anyone's experiences and attachments with the theory though, its been interesting to casually learn from anyhow.

[ryoko]

Is spiral dynamics biased? Yes, it's biased to where it's created from, and it's created by observing humans. So yeah, it wouldn't necessarily apply to an alien civilization as much as it applies to a human. 

Also you're taking the evolution aspect too literally. Evolution is individual, remove culture out of the equation for now. Just because a mob of stupids come up with something they think is good, doesn't mean it's actually good. It means it's good for them, at the moment. And that's no basis for evaluating evolution. Are you really trying to evaluate evolution of all things based on groupthink? That's a shame. 

There's also a tiny quirk, this might perhaps help you understand spiral dynamics better. A stage red person who have honed in on stage red will be more evolved than a person of beginning stage yellow or even torqoise. Honing in on any one stage will unlock various perks. Also is the point the map becomes obselete to some degree. Mind you, I'm still talking about the individual. He's better off being a stage red and dying as stage red. But when it comes to civilizations, that's not how we should approach things. It will evolve, and it should. 

[BlueOak]

On 01/05/2023 at 6:18 AM, Jwayne said:

The first objection should be its blindness, or lack of self-awareness, to its own political, linguistic and cultural biases.

Next is its ensuing categorization of those biases into a universalist claim to objective knowledge rather than a model for instrumental ends and specific purposes (i.e. shorthand convenience within the ideological frame).

Lastly, would be a critique of the actual contents. But that would take as a given the above mentioned ideological assumptions as a desireable standard and I'm not willing to grant that because I think it is flawed there too.

Models of the human species are inherently going to be reductive, as is every word or sentence you or I could possibly communicate here on the subject. Its a look at a pattern of development. When new patterns emerge, they can be modelled, but as they are not here yet, they are not able to be modelled yet.

It is western and anti-suffering in its leaning, also there is a slight collective bias.

[BlueOak]

On 02/05/2023 at 11:10 AM, Jwayne said:

I'll explain how a similar model should be created to avoid ideological defects.

If you want to understand non-WEIRD psychologies, you must learn their language, participate in its traditions and experience its multi-faceted civilization identity from within (its own literature, art forms and ways of life, etc.). That approach will give you an experiential basis so as to first-hand be familiar with those peoples own phenomenology, so to speak, with their own epistemology. Which of course, won't be stated in such terms, but expressed howsoever that culture sees itself.

Spiral Dynamics is just looking from a culturally and historically-contingent WEIRD perspective, with an obvious linguistic bias, from the outside at the rest of humanity in all its richness. And it assumes - erroneously - objectivity about its conclusions rather than seeing them as obviously self-conditioned.

 

Yeah reading that, it is true. You would need to experience the cultures first-hand to model them effectively, or better put more broadly, but only so much cultural data can be included in a model of human existence. Historic accounts do exist of societies progress but obviously, they are flawed as they are third hand. Language of course is a filter in itself to construct a representation of reality.

You - The Writer - The Witness

Edited December 10, 2024 by BlueOak

[Jwayne]

21 hours ago, Letho said:

@vindicated erudite  you make really great points and critique as long as it's coming from a good place is extremely healthy.

[...]

The main underlying pattern of the model is that the metamorphosis in human consciousness is tied to its evolution based on how a sentience categorises, strategies and identifies along the spectrum of self and other. The two main functions that evolve through this are empathy and self awareness, everything else that follows is purely as a byproduct of any one or of the two, especially how consciousness organises the structures of morality and economy relative to their respective culture.

I recently found out accounts cannot be deleted from Actualized. That's quite sketchy to me. It seems to be a deliberate and deceitful capture of data at the expense of users (e.g. privacy, respect).

There are many highfalutin conversations on these forums and those are mixed with autistic banter, but very little metacognizance of the very platform itself.

It seems to me a symptom of digital degeneration which I have written about extensively at Ascetus. Accruing electronic clout by way of pseudoactivity.

Edited December 11, 2024 by Jwayne

[Letho]

@Jwayne Yes, the rumors are indeed true, Leo’s secret room isn’t just a shrine to data collection; it’s the Sistine Chapel of digital hoarding. Walls adorned with user profiles rendered in Renaissance fresco style, ceilings lit with flashing graphs depicting your browsing history, and a rotating pedestal where Leo performs interpretative dances about ‘The Algorithm’s Glory!!!!!!!!' At the center, a jacuzzi of bitcoins, sprinkled nightly with shredded NDAs. He emerges, bathrobe embroidered with ‘Self-Mastery is Surveillance,’ sipping kombucha brewed from user feedback tears. Truly, the apex of enlightenment, a guru’s ultimate fusion of spirituality and Silicon Valley espionage. 

[vibv]

Who's to say that a green sour apple on a tree is less evolved than a big red sweet one?

[BlueOak]

47 minutes ago, vibv said:

Who's to say that a green sour apple on a tree is less evolved than a big red sweet one?

Always and forever you.

It would depend on your own evolution and what you could do with, connect with, empathize with or work with. How people had reinforced that within the collective and what biases you'd picked up along the way. I've said this about religion and stage blue often, religion can be tribal or it could be enlightened depending on the observer, individual subjects are more collectively fixed in the model than individually designated. (Hence the collective bias within the model and people's individuality kicking back)

Nevertheless, it's much easier for me to tell you that the sour one is sour and the sweet one is sweet.

Edited December 11, 2024 by BlueOak

[ChrisZoZo]

On 01/05/2023 at 5:21 AM, Jwayne said:

liberal universalist

Good Lord, you think this survives a one second university you are totally wrong. The second they start reading about stage turquoise it is out the books. And if you dare state that as someone who works in a university, you are forever condemning yourself to less career opportunities.

[ChrisZoZo]

On 01/05/2023 at 5:21 AM, Jwayne said:

A kind of blind, authoritarian cultural-epistemic imperialism.

How the hell did you possibly got this idea from spiral dynamics that is absurdly wrong.

Edited December 11, 2024 by ChrisZoZo

[Biscuit]

On 5/1/2023 at 7:07 AM, vindicated erudite said:

I do not like the way this forum talks about spiral dynamics because I do not believe it's an accurate representation of reality. Spiral dynamics is a unilinear and hierarchical way of looking at the evolution of humanity. It creates a grand narrative of the progress of history and can only acknowledge one value set as valid. 

When you look at how evolution plays out in the real world you'll realise that there is no hierarchy to the process of evolution. Organisms diverge into niches in order to handle the challenges in it's environment. To put it into other words, there are no linear hierarchies in nature. 

The model of spiral dynamics is cultural relative to the unique environments it was invented in. Why can't you put stage orange above stage yellow or stage blue above stage green? I understand that each stage is supposed to build upon the last but evolution can involve the lose of traits as well as the addition of traits. Why is stage turquoise the peak of known human evolution? 

If you don't understand my point yet here's an example:

Let's say that that person A and person B meet each other for the time. Person A is stage red and person B is stage green they're both going to believe that they are more evolved that the other person because their values are culturally relative. What allows spiral dynamics to say that person B is in fact more evolved than person A? 

Person b is evolved because he/she can take on many perspectives, when you apply spiral dynamics to humans, there's something called first person perspective all the way to a 5th person perspective which is yellow, yellow can take many perspectives that's way it's above the lower stages, there are natural hierarchies not a human construct, if you look at the bee hive or ant colony you'll see