June 2004
Jerry Coursen PhD has been on my perceptual radar since shortly after I was first
exposed to Spiral Dynamics in Spring 1998. An irregular but highly-thought-provoking
contributor to the SD e-lists, his postings struck me as being of a far deeper structure
than many others. Over the years we've occasionally exchanged thoughts both off-
and on-list; and, in Spring 2001, I was privileged to see Jerry make a presentation
at Don Beck's First Annual Confab in Dallas, Texas. His postulation that C-P/RED
assumes leadership in the B-O/PURPLE tribe to begin the transition to a C-P/RED power-based
system was something I'd not heard before yet fitted with my own experiences in PURPLE/RED
organisations. From there on in, I was more than convinced of the calibre of the
man's thinking!
The following interview was conducted with Jerry by e-mail during May and June 2004
after he agreed to let me publish 'A Spiral Perspective on Human Development...?',
a piece he wrote about the way he understands the biopsychosocial model of Clare
W Graves. The views he expresses in the interview about the need to 'debug' and revise
Graves in the light of today's science may be contentious to some; to me it's good
Psychology and good science. Chris Cowan has talked about the need to update Graves'
“neurology stuff” and Don Beck has stated regularly how we mustn't freeze Graves
but develop his work further.
For the past 5 or so years, Jerry has been back where he started. That is, he's returned
to university teaching. Earlier, his career had taken a sharp turn when he left education
and moved into industry. Although his training had been in Neuroscience, Zoology,
and Embryology, he became the executive in charge of organizational development for
a healthcare organization with a billion dollar annual revenue and about 10,000 employees.
It was there he learned about Graves' ideas. He once told me that it was Graves'
model, along with social insect theory, to which he attributed any success he might
have had in his career in healthcare administration.
Keith: I've met quite a number of people that have an interest in the work of Clare
Graves, but I think you may be the only person with this interest that I know who
teaches what I'd call 'hard science' for a living. Why aren't there more people like
you with an interest in Graves?
Jerry: To start with, Graves is pretty much unknown in academic circles. He didn't
publish much and he didn't mentor others who became successful for their achievements
in academia. In fact, I don't think there's any mention of him in the literature
of the biological or physical sciences.
K: Then maybe the right question is not why aren't there more physical scientists
aware of Graves. Maybe I should be asking how it is that you heard of his ideas?
J: I left the university environment quite some time ago and returned only a few
years ago. I worked for over a dozen years in the healthcare industry. So, I learned
about Graves' ideas while I was away from academics.
K: You were the corporate director for human and organisational development in a
very large non-profit healthcare system, right? Why would Graves' ideas be of interest
there?
J: The person that was in charge of human resources, my boss, had come from regular
industry and had spent a lot of his life dealing with issues involving unions. He'd
been introduced to Graves' ideas by a consultant group that specialized in union
avoidance. When he moved to the healthcare field, he continued to use Graves' concepts
for a variety of organisational and management purposes. Since I'd never heard of
Graves, he saw to it that I got the appropriate training.
K: And from there the rest is history? You found Graves' ideas to be fascinating?
J: No, not really. Actually, I didn't particularly care for the underlying implication
of Graves' theory that there is no 'real' reality. The thought that everyone lived
in a different world of their own making just didn't fit with what I believed, and
it was certainly nothing I'd been taught. And at that time, I hadn't paid much attention
to the different nuances associated with scientific paradigms.
When I went to college and graduate school, most of the Physics and Chemistry I was
taught had 'practical' application. It turns out that what was meant by 'practical'
was that you could see a cause-and-effect relationship. So, basically the science
I'd been exposed to was Newtonian. Quantum mechanics and phase transitions and that
sort of stuff were considered useful for theoretical bantering but somewhat hard
to apply to the 'real world'. Basically, we ignored it.
K: If I've got this straight, you were educated in American universities and did
your doctoral work in the basic sciences departments of a medical school there. So,
what you're telling me is that what they're teaching is from what we in the Gravesian
community would call the D-Q level.
J: I agree with all that. At least, that's been my experience.
K: And in that D-Q teaching mode, there's a kind of underlying belief that we're
all experiencing the same thing, that there's one reality out there, that anybody
who doesn't see things in this one 'realistic' way is missing the boat?
J: I know I certainly was of that mind before I knew about Graves' model. And, like
I said, even after I knew about Graves' ideas, I pretty much held with things being
the way you just described.
K: What changed your mind?
J: My job. Part of my job was to teach Graves' ideas to management personnel. I was
fortunate to have about 2 1/2 hours of video tape that I could use that was prepared
by CVR, a consultant firm that sold products based on Graves' ideas. Anyway, I ran
interactive eight-hour workshops on Graves' theory and its application to various
aspects of healthcare management. As a part of those workshops, I watched the 2 1/2
hour video tape probably a hundred times or more. And I watched the people who were
enrolled in these workshops. Almost no one 'got it' right away, but there was definitely
something that deeply resonated with almost everyone in attendance. I'm not prone
to accept anything that's in any way 'airy-fairy', but I became convinced there's
something important in what Graves created.
K: What's been your history in terms of interacting with key figures in the development
of the Graves Model and 'builds' like Spiral Dynamics?
J: I'm aware of three groups beside Don Beck & Chris Cowan that have sold products
based on the ideas of Clare Graves. The first was Scott & Susan Myers who are credited
with creating the first of the 'values questionnaires' - through which one's 'value
system' could be determined. There was also the Center for Values Systems Research
(CVR) that was founded by Charles Hughes & Vincent Flowers and staffed by, among
others, Debra Heflich. And there was Dudley Lynch and his dolphin-thinking version
of Graves. I had contact with the second group for about ten years. I attended a
number of their trainings in Dallas, and later, after CVR split up, in Pottsboro,
Texas. I liked everybody I met connected with CVR. Charles and Vince were among the
most intelligent/most creative people I met during my years in the corporate/business
world. Subsequent to that, while I was still a healthcare executive, I met Don Beck
through one of his former students. The organisation I worked for contracted with
NVC, and Don did several trainings for us as well as some facilitation of executive
retreats. Through Don, I also met Chris and Natasha Todorovic. Although during that
period, my interaction with Chris was minimal, I had a good deal of contact with
Don. Like the people at CVR, I found Don and Chris to be extraordinarily creative
and intelligent. Those traits seem to be characteristics of people who are attracted
to Graves' model.
All of the products these groups developed were marketed and sold to purchasers of
business consulting services. In that regard, it seems to me that Graves' ideas have
been most successfully introduced to an E-R community.
K: You've given me the impression at times that you're concerned to protect and preserve
the integrity of the Graves Model from potential distortion and pollution...?
J: I think you're confusing me with Bill Lee. If there is an archivist dedicated
to the preservation of Graves' ideas as Graves stated them, that's Bill Lee.
I'd like to see Graves material revisited and developed in light of what we now know
from science as opposed to what Graves knew of science when he proposed his model.
In some respects, what Bill Lee is trying to do is preserve Graves 1.0. I'm solidly
supportive and most appreciative of his efforts. Having access to authentic writings
and lectures of Graves in which he details his ideas and provides documentation of
how and why he developed them is invaluable. But I'm also of the opinion that we
need to do two more things.
First we need to debug what we might call 'Graves 1.0'. Some of the claims Graves
made could have been debunked at the time he made them using knowledge that was available
to him, but Graves apparently worked pretty much alone and his model was not given
the scientific scrutiny that -at least I think - it deserves. Beyond that, Graves
did not reference, and, thus, maybe wasn't aware of and didn't consider, a lot of
other research occurring simultaneously with his. Graves' model could have had impact
on the theoretical framework on some of that research. And, the available research
could have been used by Graves to refine and develop his model.
So, I think we ought to try updating to a Graves 1.1, and then clean it up again
with a Graves 1.2, etc. For example, Graves made a point of his model being 'biopsychosocial'
in nature. During that same time period, George Engel and others were using that
same term within the medical community as they tried to look beyond conventional
medicine toward a psychosomatic approach. Engel's seminal article was published in
'Science' in 1977 and cites some 50 references. Although Graves had published articles
in 1966 and 1970, Graves is not included in Engel's bibliography. At the same time,
in Graves' reference lists that Bill Lee has provided us with, there's no mention
of Engel. And maybe more importantly, the '66 and '70 papers of Graves were his only
publications in academically 'reputable' journals, and all total, they have been
cited less than a dozen times. By comparison, the Engel 'Science' article alone has
been referenced over 1500 times. Does the biopsychosocial model of Graves have potential
impact on the biopsychosocial 'new medical model' that Engel's paper calls for? I
think yes, and Graves 1.1 could, 27 years belatedly, attempt to demonstrate why and
how it does. If the case is convincing, then potentially Graves' model could bootstrap
into the demographic Engel has created. If Graves' model turns out to be valid, interest
in it could soar.
Then there are the things that the scientific community now knows that weren't even
part of the speculation when Graves was active. So, in addition to creating a 1.1,
then a 1.2, then a 1.3 version of Graves' model, we could begin on a Graves 2.0.
Is this interesting? You bet! Graves studied seven 'levels' of individual/societal
awareness. He speculated on the existence of more levels that would emerge in the
future. So, Graves 1.n is limited to what he labelled as systems A-N through G-T.
Graves 2.0 might include two more systems. Additionally, Graves considered A-N to
be a single system. The advances in Cognitive Neuroscience that began in the 1980s
suggest that A-N may be several to many inner/outer directed levels. Since this couldn't
have been a part of Graves' original model, I'd put it in Graves 2.0. Graves 2.0
could also be presented using complex, nonlinear theory which would change it substantively.
Graves 2.0 could not be presented using the ladder-rung metaphor Graves used. Sequential
inner- and outer-directed rungs no longer make sense given what we know now, although
the validity of inner- and outer-directed 'level' remains.
Revisions of Graves 1.0 as Graves 1.1 and Graves 1.2 would continue to be easily
understood by anyone with D-Q or 'higher' awareness. Graves 2.0 would be less accessible.
K: Can you expand on what you've said about rungs no longer making sense but to think
in terms of levels being OK?
J: Graves described his 'value system' levels as being sequential. He also acknowledged
that each new 'value system' alternates as to whether it is considered 'inner directed'
or 'outer directed'. And from a linear perspective, this all does looks continuous.
This is the way Graves saw things. But when you reconsider this from a different
non-linear scientific paradigm, the need for sequentiality (to coin a word) no longer
is important. What's more, if you think from within the paradigm of Complexity Science,
you can consider Graves' observations without the baggage that the term 'hierarchical'
brings into things. The so-called 'hierarchy' on which Graves built is historical,
and it is not a necessary condition for the emergence of the various 'value-systems'
(or whatever we end up calling them).
To anybody who has followed Graves' ideas, this may seem like heresy. It may seem
like Graves' model is one and the same with a sequential emergence of hierarchical
value systems. But it isn't.
With any theory, there are always things that don't seem to fit that theory advocates
chose to either explain away - these explanations can sometimes be quite ingenious
- or to simply ignore. You and I and probably almost anyone who has ever conducted
a Graves' theme workshop have experienced such issues when we were presenting Graves'
ideas to the uninitiated. For example, during the management training I referred
to earlier, one of the common arguments was whether one could move from one inner
directed value system to another inner directed value system without passing through
an external value system. In particular, in the business settings where I've conducted
Graves' workshops, it is not unusual for a person to feel that he/she has G-T awareness
but at no point in their life do they recall having F-S characteristics. They can
envision moving from E-R to G-T but not passing through F-S. Typically, we 'experts'
say either that, if they're truly G-T-ish, that they somehow just don't recall their
dabbling in F-S, or we invent some sort of explanation that says that there are different
forms of F-S some of which don't have the characteristics Graves described as F-S.
If you look at people as having an inherent capacity to perceive reality through
either an 'internal locus of control' or an 'external locus of control', you can
see that this capacity rests in the individual. The shift is in the cultural paradigm
through which they're filtering. The first one of these paradigms is shared by B-O
and C-P, the second by D-Q and E-R, and the third by F-S and G-T. These paradigms
correspond to what I've referred to as 'levels'. What I'm just now beginning to realise
is that they are not obligatorily sequential in their emergence. The stratification
Graves assigned leads neatly to what we perceive to be the social evolutionary reality
we have in western civilization. But, again, this is a historical reckoning. It may
well be the way it happened, but it's not necessarily the way it had to happen. In
fact, it may be that in other social milieus that you find in 'non-western' parts
of the world that the emergences have indeed occurred in a different sequence.
So, what do we call these filters? Value systems, paradigms, perceptions of reality,
levels of awareness? Actually, what we end up calling them will depend on the group
of people that winds up working on the validation of Graves' ideas, if such a group
ever comes about. The terminology is less important than the shared understanding
of the concept the terminology conveys.
So, I've rejected the term 'rungs' because it implies necessary sequentiality. But
your confusion as to why 'levels' would be any more acceptable is well taken. When
I use the term 'levels' I'm thinking, levels of awareness', but the term 'levels'
does imply that there's something above and something else below. That is not what
I want to convey. Okay, I'm willing to forego the term 'levels', too. But, then I
don't know what language to use. The term 'values' can be volatile. At times it seems
to trigger an emotional response by people who are offended that their values might
be being questioned, so I am not particularly comfortable using it. And in my experience,
'paradigm' is a word that just isn't well received (if I had a quarter for every
time someone's objected to the use of that term by saying that they understand 'paradigm'
to mean the same thing as four nickels….well, I'd have at least a couple bucks. Sorry
if this pun doesn't translate into an economic culture based on the pound! )
K: I've just started skirting around the edges of Neurobiology - at least enough
for me to teach A-level Psychology! - so I'm a little in awe of a real neuroscientist
who can cross-relate to Graves. When Bill Lee's transcript of Graves' 1971 seminar
at the Washington Institute of Psychiatry came out last year, you told me that Graves'
comment "In a childlike manner the individual progresses through the first six systems
in the first year" was an interesting one....that there was nothing you were aware
of in the Neuroscience literature at the time Graves was writing that would lead
to this conclusion. However, within the last couple years brief-in-time neuroendocrine
'windows' that alter the capacity and functioning of the brain have been noted in
the development of the very young infant brain. While you pointed out that this still
isn't an equivalent to progressing through the 6 systems thing, it does point out
how intuitive Graves was in making what appeared to be unsubstantiated comment....Substantiated
or not, you said you tend to take Graves' ideas seriously - that you saw him as a
kind of an H G Wells in this respect. Presumably, as a neuroscientist, you're inclined
to think Gravesian concepts will hold up?
J: You're quoting me as well as Graves? I'm kind of surprised.
I'd forgotten my H G Wells/C W Graves comparison, but I like it still. In some ways
Graves was an intuitive fictionist. However, futuristic creative ability serves the
scientist well. And the science Graves took on, Psychology, had a tradition of advancing
through creative intuition. Certainly Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung would fall
in this category.
While Bill Lee's the archivist, I do have an anecdote that was conveyed to me by
one of my colleagues here who began his academic life at Union College while Graves
was winding down there. He said that Graves' colleagues found him bombastic on issues
he felt strongly about. One of those issues was the fragmentation of the field of
Psychology into multiple disciplines like Anthropology and Sociology. Graves thought
the discipline of Psychology was better served as a unified entity. I'm of the opinion
that this is great intuition on Graves' part, but, even today, it still bucks the
reductionism trend of science.
To your question about a child cycling through the first 6 levels in the first year
of life, that seems absurd. Graves' levels beyond A-N require what we're now calling
'reflective consciousness'. One of the requirements for that seems to be the human
genome. Another requirement is for brain development sufficient enough to allow cortical
memory.
The infant has the genome but not the brain circuitry. The latter doesn't develop
until sometime around the third year of life. You can easily prove this to yourself.
Ask anyone what his or her earliest memories are. It's rare for anyone to remember
anything before they were two. This is because the outer, cortical layers of the
cerebrum are actively growing, establishing interneuronal connections, and remodeling
during early infancy. It's only after the cerebral cortex stabilises that consciously
accessible memory becomes possible. (As an aside, but one that could have meaning
for Gravesian models, after this first cortical development, the cortex is actively
pruned and restructured for the next 15-20 years. One of the major contentions of
Graves was that early in their lifetime a person develops a 'primary value system'
that is traceable to the whole of their childhood experience. Thereafter, to move
from this value system - this filter through which the individual perceives the world
- requires a 'significant emotional event'. The final result of the 20-or-so year
cortical development may correlate with the establishment of an individual's 'primary
value system'.)
About the early life developmental windows to which you refer: There are some interesting
postnatal genetic-hormonal interactions which result in 'normal' or 'abnormal' neuronal
functioning thereafter, but I don't see these as being related to the cycling through
the first 6 stages Graves spoke about. We could talk about them, but I see this whole
thing as a red-herring in our Neuroscience discussion about Graves' model. I think
Graves got hung up on his notion that there was a cyclic nature that was fundamental
to his model, and he tried to force-fit that notion wherever he could. I also think
he was completely wrong about there being cycles in the model he was proposing. I
think that if today's concepts of 'emergence' and 'fractacality' were a part of his
thinking then, he might likely use these ideas rather than opt for cycles. (Of course,
those concepts were unheard of when Graves was creating his models.)
K: Graves was consistently explicit in his postulation that G-T signalled the commencement
of a 2nd Tier. In varying degrees you've expressed reservations about the 2nd Tier
concept. Care to explain why?
J: Without the emergence of a new scientifically generated social paradigm, any behaviour
beyond G-T would have to be explained using existing paradigms. Thus, it's not hard
to appreciate that what lies beyond G-T might well have looked to Graves like variations
on what had come before. Graves couldn't understand what he was observing using scientific
concepts that had not yet emerged - science that we now have. So, he defaulted to
D-Q thinking and postulated cycles.
With the advent of Complexity Science, we now understand the mechanism underlying
emergence quite differently from the way it was envisioned by Graves and his colleagues.
They saw things in a linear fashion. Graves' model even employed a ladder or staircase
as a metaphor for the linear, step-by-step nature of his model.
