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Keith E Rice's Integrated SocioPsychology Blog & Pages

Aligning, integrating and applying the behavioural sciences

2nd Tier’

MeshWORKS – a 2nd Tier Perspective and Process

by Don Beck 2000 Spiral Dynamics co-developer Don Beck is occasionally prone to post what effectively amount to teach-ins or mini-lectures on the Spiral Dynamics e-lists. This is an extract from one such posting in 2000. You can e-mail Don or visit the Spiral Dynamics Integral website to find out more about his work. Introduction The term ‘mesh’ in MeshWORKS suggests a different way to connect entities, be they individuals, or structures, or interests, or functions, or people groupings of virtually any size. Some meshes will be of a static and contained nature, designed to hold together elements in some type of relationship. Other meshes are crafted to allow the movement or flow of substances, energy, ideas, stages, and sequences through conduits, cycles and spirals. A Static Mesh will be known for its strength and permanence. A Flow Mesh will be characterized by resilience, flexibility, and a morphing capacity. Our language is resplendent with such mesh-like components as blend, weave, align, integrate, stitch-together, merge, amalgamate, and embroider. A ‘melting pot’ suggests that the individual entities will lose their identities in the mixture and heat. A ‘meshing pot’ suggests that the entities contribute the best of what they are without becoming an… Read More

The First Being Level

The A’-N’ or SYSTEMIC EXISTENTIAL STATE [G-T/YELLOW] by Clare W Graves 1982 annotated by Chris Cowan July 2003 This is an extract from a handout issued by Clare W Graves at a workshop in 1982. The handout was ‘rescued’ and this extract re-published and annotated by Spiral Dynamics co-developer Chris Cowan in July 2003. Note: Towards the end of his life, Graves used A’-N’ and B’-O’ as alternatives to G-T and H-U to emphasise the concept of the 2nd Tier and his belief that the thinking systems of the 2nd Tier were more complex reflections of the thinking systems of the 1st Tier. More original Graves material can be found on the Clare W Graves web site . Chris Cowan can be contacted via e-mail – or the NVC Consulting web site. Theme: Express self for what self desires and others need, but never at the expense of others, and in a manner that all life, not my life, will profit. This is the first system in the second spiral of existence. In this system, sheer organismic life is threatened by the rape of the world by the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th subsistence levels. Thus, the A’ problems are problems… Read More

Underclass: the Excreta of Capitalism

Updated: 15 September 2016 Though records indicate there have always been a small minority of criminals and ‘wastrels’ who formed an ‘underclass’ at the bottom of whatever social stratification any society had at whatever stage in its history, it was Charles Murray (1989) who first identified this social class as an emerging and important factor in contemporary British society. Murray says of the term: “By ‘underclass’, I do not mean people who are merely poor, but people who are at the margins of society, unsocialised and often violent. The chronic criminal is part of the underclass, especially the violent chronic criminal. But so are parents who mean well but who cannot provide for themselves, who give nothing back to the neighbourhood, and whose children are the despair of the teachers who have to deal with them…. When I use the term ‘underclass’ I am indeed focusing on a certain type of poor person defined not by his condition – eg: long term unemployed – but by his deplorable behaviour in response to that condition – eg: unwilling to take jobs that are available to him.” Those long-term unemployed who fraudulently claim benefits while doing ‘black market’ jobs, the addict who deals… Read More

Graves Comparison Map

Updated: 18 November 2020 The Comparison Map provides an at-a-glance reference for comparing and contrasting other key developmental theories with the Gravesian approach. (Click on the graphic for an enlarged view of the map on its own. Click back in your browser to return to this page.) Notes:- Where developmentalists have matched their models to those of other developmentalists, they do not always agree completely with each other’s matches. There is, therefore, a small degree of my personal interpretation in the chart above. Differences between the work of Clare W Graves, Abraham Maslow, Jane Loevinger/Susanne Cook-Greuter and Lawrence Kohlberg are dealt with in vMEMES and/or 3 Stage Theories of Development. Comparisons between the work of Graves and Theodore Adorno et al (1950) are covered in Adorno’s types of prejudiced persons. The map uses the colour scheme Don Beck & Chris Cowan (1996) applied in their Spiral Dynamics ‘build’ of Graves’ work. Other differences are  outlined briefly below. Gerald Heard’s (1963) Ecological (or Leptoid Man) incorporates elements of integrated and advanced spiritual thinking which could be argued as being 2nd Tier. O J Harvey, David E Hunt & H M Schroeder (1961) identified 4 developmental types in their hierarchy. Hunt (1966) separated out… Read More

Is Sexual Infidelity Inevitable?

Updated: 20 November 2018 Personal sexual fidelity is certainly something many people truly espouse as a noble intention at certain points in their relationships – such as when first falling in love, or getting married, the woman getting pregnant or possibly resolving their partner’s bouts of insecurity. Some people seem genuinely to espouse fidelity to each other for years and sometimes even lifetimes. But these days actually sticking to one partner seems to be a real problem for an awful lot of people. In the Western world people – particularly in the professional/middle classes – tend to ‘settle down’ later (in their thirties, often with a number of ‘notches on the bedpost’). Fewer couples marry. (Marriage in itself cannot be a guarantee of permanence or fidelity; but, in theory, it is an action of intent.) People with money who do marry often make prenuptial agreements, effectively planning for the end of their relationship. Although there has been a noticeable decrease in UK divorce rates of 4.9% since 2016, the number of marriages ending in divorce in 2017 was still high at 42%. The number one reason cited for divorce remains adultery – although a number of marriages do manage to survive… Read More

Separation, Deprivation & Privation

Updated: 13 March 2021 In considering problems to do with failed attachment or lack of attachment, developmental psychologists usually use 3 categorisations:- Separation:  this is where the young child has been temporarily separated from the mother/caregiver for a period of days or even weeks, with the result that the bond between them has been weakened and/or damaged Maternal deprivation: the child and the mother/caregiver have been separated substantially, with the result that the bond is seriously damaged or even destroyed Privation: the child has never formed a real bond with their mother or any other caregiver As we shall see, it is not always easy to determine whether a child is suffering from separation or, more, maternal deprivation; neither is it always easy tell whether  a child is suffering from severe deprivation or is truly privated. However, all 3 categorisations are associated with emotional and behavioural difficulties, usually mildest in cases of separation and worst in those where the child is truly privated. This can be seen as the PURPLE vMEME not having its safety-in-belonging needs met, leading to the emergence and dominance of unhealthy RED in the child’s vMEME stack, with the consequence of Id-like thinking and beh&aviour. It is important to… Read More

The Parks Primary School

The Meshing of Two Primary Schools written with Cathy Byrne Updated: 11 September 2004 The Parks is one of the most complete project reports on the use of the Gravesian approach anywhere in the world and many people have suggested that I must have been much more involved than the report suggests. Well, I wasn’t! This is Cathy Byrne’s story, not mine.  My RED would love to report that Cathy was on the phone to me every night asking how to do *this* and how to handle such-and-such a person. Unfortunately, it wasn’t like that. My influence, as Cathy has acknowledged widely, came through the training programme and then as an occasional adviser in the background. I like to think of the remarkable story of The Parks as being a first class example of just how much you can accomplish when you really grasp these concepts at an intuitive level. Most afternoons Cathy Byrne, Headteacher of The Parks Primary School on Hull’s Orchard Park Estate, sees her pupils off the premises with something of the pastorly air of a vicar bidding farewell to the congregation as they exit a church service. However, most mornings Cathy is also in the playground, welcoming… Read More

Jerry Coursen on Clare W Graves

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… Read More

Don Beck & South Africa

Written with input from Don Beck Updated: 26 June 2021 Each participant in designing the South African transition from Apartheid to multi-cultural democracy during the early-mid-1990s will have his/her own version of what happened – and it doesn’t always suit the politicians to give too much credit to the ‘backroom boys’! What is beyond doubt is that Don Beck was involved and used the Spiral Dynamics model (Don Beck & Chris Cowan, 1996) developed from Clare W Graves’ research (1970) to replace the skin pigmentation and ethnic origin categories with an understanding of the value systems (vMEMES) and ways of thinking universally accessible to the human race. Beck (Don Beck et al, 2018) recalls: “…when I was working peacefully to dismantle Apartheid in South Africa…I used the neutrality of colours to escape racial profiling. I wanted the leaders working for peaceful solutions to Apartheid to be aware of the different codes existing in people, even of the same race. Only then could we get a realistic picture of what was happening. “Zulus tended to be stereotyped as a tribal ethnic group. Yet millions of Zulus lived in urban South African settings with Westernised urban values. The Afrikaner of European ancestry was… Read More

TURQUOISE/Transcendence

Updated: 19 May 2021 This vMEME is barely present in the world yet. Although there are increasing numbers of people in certain circles – eg: Integral salons – who claim to think in this way, there is yet to be sufficient scientific evidence to say for sure what the TURQUOISE way of thinking is. From the Gravesian approach Don Beck & Chris Cowan (1996) posit it will be on the collectivistic self-sacrificial side of the Spiral and it will be a more complex way of thinking than Self-Actualisation/YELLOW. Lawrence Kohlberg & Clark Power (1981, p257) note it is “much less unitary and definable”. Beyond this, with only tiny samples and anecdotal evidence, it is as much an untested hypothesis as a reality and descriptors must be read with great caution. Humanistic psychologists like Abraham Maslow (1943) and Carl Rogers (1959) considered Self-Actualisation to be the pinnacle of development of the human mind – the highest level in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. When someone had become all that they could be and fulfilled all their potential, then they could be said to have completely self-actualised. Maslow’s (1956) attempt to be specific about how a self-actualised person would think defined a way of thinking he… Read More