An Explanation of Spiral Dynamics
Memes and Vmemes What are they?
This article introduces one of the most exciting theories emerging today, the Theory of Levels of Existence that arises out of the seminal research of the Dr.Clare W.Graves, late emeritus psychologist at Union College in Schenectady, New York. Dr. Graves was a comtemporary and close friend of Abraham Maslow who disagreed with Maslow's hierarchy as being too limited. The same goes with Erickson, Kohlberg, Rogers, Loevinger, Csikszentmihalyi, and others. Graves saw their understanding of human development as limited and closed. Whether seeing human nature as going through 4, 6, or 8 stages, each of these psychologists regard the last stage as a final and ultimate stage. This is where Graves differed. Realizing that the various psychological theories of human development differed and did not totally, to his satisfaction, explain all of human reality, Graves (professor of psychology at Union College in NY) in 1952 launched into a 30-year research career seeking answer to one question: "What are the conceptions of psychological helath extant in the minds of biologically mature human beings?" In other words, What does the biologically mature adult human being look like? Graves sought to get to the mind of the matter and explore why people are differnt, why some change but others don't, and how better to navigate through the emerging and often chaotic versions of human existence. After thousands of interviews worldwide, Graves developed a theory which he laboriously called: "The Emergent, Cyclical, Double-Helix Model of Adult Biopsychosocial Systems Development." He later modified the name as "The Theory of Levels of Human Existence." Graves summarized his theory in this manner: "Briefly, what I am proposing is that the psychology of the mature human being is an unfolding, emergent, oscillating spiraling process marked by progressive subordination of older, lower-order behavior systems to newer, higher-order systems as man's existential problems change."
Graves' theory can be summarized in the following five key points:
1.Human nature is not static, nor is it finite. Human nature changes as the conditions of existence change, thus forging new systems. Yet, the older systems stay with us.
2. When a new system or level is activiated, we change our psychology and rules for living to adapt to those new conditions.
3. We live in a potentially open system of values with an infinite number of modes of living available to us. There is no final state to which we must all aspire. [Here is where GRaves differed with Maslow and most other psychologists. Maslow, before his death, told Graves that he (Graves) was correct and he (Maslow) was wrong in thinking of human development as a closed state.
4. An individual, a company, or an entire society can respond positively only to those managerial principles, motivational appeals, educational formulas, and legal or ethical codes that are appropriate to the current level of human existence.
5. A Spiral vortex best depicts this emergence of human systems as they evolve through levels of increasing complexity. Each upward turn of the spiral marks the awakening of a more elaborated version on top of what already exists. The human Spiral, then, consists of a coiled string of value systems, worldviews, and mindsets, each the product of its times and conditions. In other words, new times produces new minds.
The reason why few people have ever heard of Graves is that he published very little, and died just before publishing his major work, a book he was going to title: "evels of Human Existence." The heart of the theory was published in The Futurist, April 1974, in an article titled: "Human Natrure Prepares for a Momentous Leap." Two of his students, Don E. Beck and Chris C. Cowan, have published the essence of his research in the book, Spiral Dynamics: Masteing VBalues, Leadership, and Change," (Blackwell, 1996). Graves died in 1986, and his theory is now called "Spiral Dynamics", a simpler and descriptive term. Since Graves death Beck and Cowan came across the concept of Dawkins' concept of "memes" and discovered how much it related to Graves essential ideas, and have incorporated the term into Graves Value Systems theory, but in the process coined a new term vMEMEs, for value-memes, and capitalized it to distinguish it from regular "memes." Let me explain how Graves' "values" and Dawkins' "memes" are similar and yet different.
Graves spoke and wrote of surface values, what people, groups, and societies usually quibble over: geopolitics, beliefs, education, crime, justice, religion, norms, racism, business practices, etc. This is similar to what Dawkins called memes, self-replicating ideas or cultural DNA, beliefs, and actions that like viruses use the human mind as a host and are transmitted from mind to mind. But Graves contribution went further. What he discovered was that beneath these surface values or memes [Graves never used the term "meme"], human behavior tended oscilate between two forms of action--focus on the individual, focus on the group; independence, interdependence. He called it, "express-self belief/behavior" and "sacrifce-self belief/behavior." Other psychologists came to the same conclusion. Csikszentmihalyi calls it "differentiation" and "integration"; Val Geist calls it, "dispersal modes" and "maintenance modes." And you, Howard, call it "diversity generators" and "conformity enforcers." Where Graves differs from all you of you is that his research showed that people move from one mode to the next, then back to the other, and on to the next, in every increasing and widening spiral of development or levels of biopsychosocial complexity. Graves called these levels "deep-level Value Systems." Beck & Cowan regard these as the Big MEMES or "vMEMEs", the little "v" standing for "values" or "value-MEMES. These are conceptual frameworks, paradigms, worldviews, core intelligences, deep-level decision systems or mindsets from which emerge the surface memes or little memes, which you, Dawkins, Csikszentmihalyi, Aaron Lynch, and others talk about when discussing memetics. Graves said that these vMEMEs or Value Systsems "alternate between focus upon the external world, and attempts to change it, and focus upon the inner world, and attempts to come to peace with it, with the means to each end changing in each alternatvely prognostic system. Thus, man tends, normally to change his psychology as the conditions of his existence change. Each successive stage, or level of existence, is a state throgh which lpeople pass on the way to other states of equil98brium. When a person is centralized in one state of existence [read "vMEME"], he has a total psychology which is particular to that state. His feelings, motivations, ethics and values, biochemistry,m degree of neurological activation, learning systems, belief systems concepts of mental health, ideas as to what mental illness is and how it should be treated, preference for and conceptions of management, education, economic and political theory and practice, etc. [read "memes"], are all appropriate to that state."
Graves research showed that humans have evolved thus far through six stages or levels of biopsychosocial development, that are like six themes or movements in a symphony, beginning with its simplist expression and working through ever-increasing levels of complexity. In other words, as the Life Conditions (LCs) or existential problems change, humans alter their Neurological System (NS) in the brain or mental capabilities to adjust to these changing conditions. Graves used letters of the alphabet for each stage, dividing the alphabet in half, the first half for NSs and the second half for LCs. Beck and Cowan discovered that using a color scheme was more useful. The six stages or "Subsistence levels" are:
| vMEMEs | COLOR |
THEME | FOCUS | VALUE SYSTEMS |
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Natural processes, mutual realities; live for mutuality |
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Harmony, holism, spirituality armony, holism, spirituality |
As humans evolve from one level to the next, as in a spiral, their world and their thinking becomes more complex. What Graves also discoverd is that humakind is on the verge of a momentous leap forward, as the six stages recycle but at a higher and more complex level, what Graves called the "Being" levels. Thus far, there is evidence for human involvement in the next two levels, Level 7 (G-T)--YELLOW-FlexFlow, and Level 8 (H-U)-TURQUOISE-GlobalView.
Memes are the horizontal differences among human beings, such as culture, color, gender, religious beliefs, actions, lifestyles, etc. The vMEMEs are vertical differences, such as deep-level belief systems, core ways of thinking. Thus, an African American gang member and a White Neo-Nazi Skinhead, though on the surface look different and spout angry language filled with memes of hate toward each other and could end up killing each other, below the surface at the vMEME level the astutte observer using Spiral Dynamics, will notice that essentially both groups are at the same level, members of PURPLE tribes using RED talk.
The vMEMEs help explain human evolutionary development. Graves put it this way. First a caveat, remember Graves was writing before there was a social concern for inclusive language: "At each stage of human existence the adult man is off on his quest of his holy grail, the way of life he seeks by which to live. At his first level he is on a quest for automatic physiological satisfacion [AN Beige]. At the second level he seeks a safe mode of living [BO Purple], and this is followed, in turn, by a search heroic status, for power and glory [CP Red], by a search for ultimate peace [DQ Blue], a search for material pleasure [ER Orange], a search for affectionate relations [FS Green], a search for respect of self [GT Yellow], and a search for peace in an incomprehensible world [HU Turquoise]. And, when he finds he will not find that peace, he will be off on his ninth level quest. As he sets off on each quest, he believes he will find the answer to his existence. Yet, much to his surprise and much to his dismay, he finds at every stage that the solution to existence is not the solution he has come to find. Every stage he reaches leaves him disconcerted and perplexed. It is simply that as he solves one set of human problems he finds a new set in their place. The quest he finds is never ending."
Biology exacerbates racism by providing physical markers, which separate us first in our minds. Out of these mental constructs come the social constructs that then separate us in society, and are undergirded by Power-the preservation of privilege! Both of these constructs, however, are merely surface issues, differences in one dimension. The problem with the usual approaches in diversity training to resolve racial, ethnic, gender conflict, is that the focus is on the surface container (race, skin color, gender) rather than on the contents of the container (value systems-how people think and act in terms of the world they are in). The result is a failure to recognize that racism and diversity function on two dimensions - Horizontal and Vertical.
To comprehend these two dimensions one first needs to grasp Spiral Dynamics. Spiral Dynamics is a bio-psycho-social-spiritual framework for understanding human development and human systems. It unveils the hidden codes and dynamic, spiral forces that shape human nature, create global diversities, and drive social change.
Don Beck
Developed by Don E. Beck and Christopher C. Cowan of the National Values Center, Inc. in Texas, from two converging streams of thought-primarily, Clare W. Graves' Value Systems theory of 'levels of human existence' and, secondarily, biologist Richard Dawkins' concept of 'memes'-Spiral Dynamics explores the new science of memetics, the study of ideas and their transmission.
Memes are cultural units of information that self-replicate by means of thought-contagion, using the human mind as a host, and attach themselves to individuals, organizations, entire cultures, and societies. They culturally impact the body politic, just like genes, the code carriers of DNA, biologically impact the body physical. Spiral Dynamics shifts the focus from the WHAT of human behavior, the surface issues, beliefs, actions, artifacts, and values-the memes-that fragment or unify human groups, to the WHY and HOW of such behavior-the vMEMEs - the core Value Systems awakened by changing life conditions and manifested as a dynamic spiral of levels of human existence. Memes operate on two levels, horizontally and vertically. The Horizontal dimension is the surface level of human relations, the area where our differences-color, gender, status, language, physical features, culture, values, worldviews, and national origin-conflict. To focus on these surface differences, the what-the container-is to miss the larger picture, the Vertical dimension, the why and how of human action-the contents. This is the area of Value Systems, the big memes, or vMEMEs-the core intelligences, conceptual schemes, and frameworks for beliefs and behaviors, from which emerge the surface differences, the little memes. Ninety-five percent of all diversity training, workshops for unlearning racism, conflict resolution, motivational training, law enforcement, education, business management, and social policy planning focus on these surface differences, the Horizontal dimension. Yet our struggle is not with human types, but with deep-level human Value Systems-vMEMEs-that like migrating, bio-psycho-social-spiritual tectonic plates, on colliding, release energy that reverberates to the surface in conflict over group differences and competition for scarce resources. The problem is not that we are White or Black, male or female, environmentalist or logger, First World or Third World, atheist or believer. It is the vMEMEs within us that are at war. Since vMEMEs are deep decision systems in people, not types of people, they transcend race, gender, age, class, culture, and societies.
Racism is a meme-a contagious idea-that infects individuals, organizations, entire cultures, and societies. And, like a deadly virus, it has contaminated all areas of life. What divides us in society, however, is not our genes, but our memes. We look different because of our genes; we think and act different because of our memes. Our genes are only Horizontal differences. It is the deep, memetic, bio-psycho-social-spiritual magnetic forces on the Vertical axis that attract and repel humanity. Racism manifests itself differently depending on the memetic level it is located.
For more information on Spiral Dynamics go the the home website of SD, http://www.spiraldynamics.com