Excerpt #5: vMEME Wars

  vMEMES can be dangerous when they are in harmony. What about when they go to war?
   The most obvious 'vMEME wars ' occur between the express-self and the conformist/ sacrifice-self sides of the Spiral. This is effectively a rerun of the Id-versus-Superego conflicts the great Sigmund Freud described so well.
   At its worst, it is a straight conflict between RED and BLUE.
   The student with the overactive Superego I described early in Chapter 5 was an overt example of an Id (RED) seething with frustration at its suppression by the Superego (BLUE).

  I well remember a story told by my friend, 'Nigel'….
   A harmonic of PURPLE/red led him to agree to go to the pub with his friend. It was the night before an important breakfast session to kick off a day of important meetings. A harmonic of BLUE/orange set Nigel a limit of two pints of beer. He was sure he would be fine for his important day.
   When last orders were rung, Nigel and his friend were most of the way down their second pints. It being his round, Nigel's friend asked if he would like another. By this time Nigel's RED, fuelled by alcohol, was well to the fore. He'd been having a great time and his RED didn't want to stop. In vain his BLUE called for Nigel to say 'No'. But Nigel's RED had him In Time - in the moment, with little thought for tomorrow. Nigel said 'Yes'. His friend then asked if he would like a whisky chaser to go with it. Again Nigel's BLUE said 'No'; but his RED said 'Yes'.
   As Nigel lived just around the corner from the pub, his RED used his PURPLE to invite his friend back for a coffee. Which got laced with whisky.
   I had cause to phone Nigel early the following evening. His wife answered the phone because he was still incapable of doing so!
   When we talked the incident through in Spiral Dynamics concepts several days later, Nigel said somewhat ruefully: “Now, I really appreciate the importance of vMEMES.”

  In addition to the express-self vs conformist/sacrifice-self conflict, Spiral Dynamics also allows for conflict on the same side of the Spiral, based on different orientations towards time - see Fig 19.

   For example, RED wants to indulge itself now; but ORANGE wants to achieve for the future.

   Let's say, my ORANGE wants to save for a new house purchase; but my RED wants to go to the pub every night. A straightforward time-oriented conflict between two express-self systems.
   Such a conflict is likely to produce emotional frustration.
   Or, let's say my BLUE wants to work late again because the boss has insisted the company needs it. I want to do 'the right thing' so my boss will think well of me tomorrow and I will be perceived as a 'good worker' by the company. But my PURPLE wants to go home now to my partner and my children who have been saying how much they have missed me in the past few days.
   In such a scenario, it's easy to see how anxiety could blossom when it's 'impossible to do right for doing wrong'!
(Such a conflict would be exacerbated if I were extremely low on the Psychoticism axis and thus generally of a disposition to please and serve.)

  So how does it work when, as all too often happens, conflict between vMEMES goes both across and up and down the Spiral?
   Let's take the RED-ORANGE conflict we described above. What is likely is that, if ORANGE is strong enough, in the interests of the house move it will employ BLUE's disciplining action to restrain RED's satisfy-me-now cravings. However, if the blue/ORANGE harmonic is not strong enough to stifle RED, then BLUE is likely to beat me up by activating my failure and guilt schemas for 'giving in' to RED.
   In the PURPLE-BLUE conflict, one possible resolution would be for ORANGE to come into the equation - in which case, BLUE would almost certainly win, to serve ORANGE's ambition agenda. This triumph of ambition over belonging may well be a significant contributing factor to the seemingly-unstoppable escalation in divorce rates among the professional and middle classes in the Western world over the past 50 years.

  On the other hand, RED, especially if Psychoticism is strong, might seek refuge from the PURPLE-BLUE conflict in the nihilism of booze and/or drugs. Again, this is all too common an outcome of failure to achieve a 'work-life balance'