Spiral Dynamics: The Ultimate Theory of Human Development

Imagine that on your journey of self discovery and self improvement that there is a general path that one follows when it comes to the structure that the psyche takes on as they develop. That'd be pretty helpful to know, wouldn't it? It would certainly help you understand what to expect as you go through life, so you aren't completely blindsided when you encounter something new. And it would also help you understand others as well. Have you ever wondered why some people are very rigid and absolute in their thinking, while others are much open and welcoming to new ideas? Why some people change and others don't? Why some people think in the future while some are still living in the past? Have you ever wondered why some people have seemingly crazy beliefs and are even willing to go to war over them? Have you ever wondered why history is so brutal? Have you ever wondered why today's societies are so polarized? Well, spiral dynamics is a model that attempts to explain all of this on a deep, fundamental level. Spiral dynamics is a model created from several decades of research based on human beliefs, beliefs, values, ideals and overall thought structures. And what they found is that human development has this arc to it and it's like a spiral, thus why it's called spiral dynamics. And as humans evolve both individually and collectively, they go up this spiral. And as they go up, they gradually take on a position of higher perspective. I think the man who started this research, Claire Graves, explains it in this quote beautifully. 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 stage. So in the spiral dynamics model, there are eight stages in this beige, purple, red, blue, orange, green, yellow, and lastly turquoise. And each stage on the spiral represents a worldview structure assumption about how everything works and the overall rationale for decisions being made. Each stage will have a preference of dress styles, language trends, popular cultural norms, architectural designs, art forms, religious and spiritual expressions, social movements, economic models, philosophies, and just overall moral statements about how living should be done. So I will be explaining each of the eight stages in this video and I really encourage you to stick around for the entirety of the video because it is near the end, the later more advanced stages, such as yellow and turquoise, that you are really going to get those juicy insights that are going to completely change your life. And I promise you, if you really let it, if you take it to heart to learn this stuff, it will change your life. I guarantee it. I'm dead serious. But also, as we are going forward, I want you to understand that this is just a model. Human evolution and development is such a complex topic. There are millions of variables at play, and no one model, although spiral dynamics is a very good one, could possibly be taking all of them into account. So I encourage you to listen to what I have to say with an open mind, but also not believing everything I say blindly, because it is just a model. So let's get into these eight stages. Firstly, we have stage Beige. And this stage is the most simple of all of them. It's mainly just do what you must in order to stay alive. Someone at this stage wakes up every day. Nothing else concerning them but how they are going to survive the day. Food, warmth, water and sex have priority over everything else. One at this stage barely even has a distinct sense of self. Only the immediate satisfaction of survival needs is what matters. Very ancient, primitive, loose hunter gatherer tribes might have been at this stage, but hardly anyone else in the modern world is still at this level of development unless they are severely mentally impaired. One begins to leave this stage when survival starts to get easier. So primitive, loose bands of people many, many thousands of years ago began to leave this stage when they developed some sort of system to survive that consistently worked. Survival still was not easy, but it started to be less of a difficulty. A distinct sense of I emerged as you realized you were part of a tribe and that you had a role in it. And this gave birth to the next stage of development, stage Purple. So while Beige was very individual dominated, just being all about me, me, me, I need to survive when I don't care about anything else. Purple is community dominated, as groups of people came together in order to find safety. So each and everyone in the tribe must play their role in order for the tribe to survive. So now that the most basic survival needs are met, one now has time to think about the reason things happen and make cause and effect distinctions. And since they had very little knowledge during this time, they used magical thinking. So in pretty much any ancient tribe you look at, such as Native Americans, they explained the world through spirits and such. Typically, one had to respect the chief, the elders, etc. Because they had more knowledge. There were lots of tribal customs such as rites of passage and respecting of sacred objects and places and whatnot. And it is very rare to see an absolute purple society today, unless it is a remote, uncivilized tribe, which is very, very rare in today's age. But still a lot of purple traditions and customs have been preserved and. And you can learn all about them in books and museums. But one begins to transcend out of this stage when survival becomes even easier to come by. And greater exposure to the world reveals how dumb the superstitions and a lot of the customs were. When the clan would get better at surviving, they were naturally more open for change. And to keep the change under control, leaders would typically enforce their customs and traditions on them even harder, seeking a desire for the individual to break free. Which leads us to stage red. So stage red is also known as the egocentric stage. The ego fully emerges after breaking free from the purple tribe. And when stage purple and red were still the dominant forces in humanity, the world was still a very chaotic place. Resources were still hard to come by. People were killing each other all the time. There was warfare. So since the world was seen as a jungle full of threats and predators, and naturally red would seek to dominate their opponents, A red leader will do whatever to defend his reputation at all costs. There is likely very little display of remorse. And one doesn't think deeply about the implications of their actions. Whatever their first impulse is, they will likely do it. One of the most important things to acknowledge about stage Red is they make a very strong distinction between an us versus them. They view the us as family, but the them is hardly even human. And this overly developed identity of the US can lead to things like slavery, genocide, etc. Red does not take personal responsibility. They always blame others because blaming oneself would be a display of weakness. And weakness is the last thing someone strongly in red wants to show. Red was the dominant force when empires ruled the world, like the Mongol Empire, the Byzantine Empire, etc. Typically, red societies were characterized by very rigid hierarchies with a monarch at the top. A prime example of this would be feudalism in the medieval era. We still see red in society today, Although it is minimal. I would say gangs are pretty strongly red. Young teenagers going through puberty will likely show some red tendencies. Even some adults, such as the United States very own president Donald Trump, has some red tendencies within him. The researchers estimate that about 15% of the population is strongly in red. But this would be more in less developed countries and less in the more developed countries. But red begins to be transcended when morality takes hold. When one is strongly in red, they will display concern about the people in their group. But anyone outside of them is seen as a predator, like hardly even a human. War characterized ancient civilizations such as rome, Athens, Sparta, etc. And this created chaos. So when Times got really bad. It took elites shoving religion to down the throats of the masses in order to restore order to the region. In both Judeo Christian and Islamic history, it was an all knowing, all powerful God that brought these warring red societies out of their chaotic states and restored order. With the introduction of religion, the pendulum switched back from individual to community, thus giving birth to stage blue. Stage Blue is known as the purposeful yet authoritarian stage, where when religion has unified the region, it is forced upon the people, often creating a very absolute authoritarian society that imposes the code of God onto the people. The order enforces a code of conduct that is believed to be the absolute correct way. God says what is right and wrong. There is only one right way and any deviations from the path are punished and will likely result in you going to hell. In a strong blue society, you must obey the authority, do right, abide by the rules, go by the traditions. Because if you don't, you're going against God and that is the worst thing you could ever do. Dogma characterizes this stage. So while religion helped unify a specific region as it brought together a large group of people, anyone outside the group is still like an enemy. Some of the world's most violent atrocities have come out of blue thinking. People who were against the norms were often killed. The Spanish Inquisition happened because of blue thinking. The Salem witch trials happened because of blue thinking. And a lot of the Holocaust came out of blue thinking. I would say a lot of Nazi Germany was a combination of red and blue thinking. But I don't intend to paint blue as terrible at all. The key aspect of blue is morality. Religion is morality. It is the intent to do good at all costs to serve God. But the problem with blue is the absolute aspect of the thinking. Yes, blue intent is good, but they have a hard time taking in perspectives of anything else outside their religion which can lead them to thinking everyone else is bad and inhuman, which has led to these atrocities that I have talked about. There is still a lot of blue in society today, although in first world countries it is not the dominant force. And this is where you see in society today, people with very rigid and absolute thought structures. These people tend to be very fundamentalist when it comes to their beliefs. Someone that comes to mind when I think of a blue thought structure is Ben Shapiro. A few more examples of blue include the Indian caste system, Puritan America and the Republican party. However, lack of freedom under the blue umbrella causes bitterness which creates desires of independence and breaking free. And while blue promotes a sense of purpose Self confidence and direction in life. The absoluteness of it leaves one with doubts of genuine love and acceptance. Independence. This naturally leads one to question the authority and to seek independence. Giving birth to Stage Orange which is the stage that dominates the modern world today. Stage Orange is also known as the prosperity stage and individualism takes strong hold here as one has just broken away from the blue herd. This stage is all about being free and living the good life. So naturally democracy, having rights and freedom of expression came about through orange thinking. As morals were based more on ethics rather than religion. Orange places strong emphasis on capitalism and free markets. They view the world under the assumption that there are haves and have nots and they act in their own self interest in order to have. Pursuit of material pleasures is very strong. The point of life for someone strongly in Orange is to achieve individual success and which usually means making a lot of money. They might even think that life's report card is based on how much money they make. And they love to show off their nice things like a nice house, nice car, hot wife, the latest technology, etc. In order to display this success to others. Science and rationality takes a strong hold here and this is very important because it leads to groundbreaking new discoveries and technologies which have the potential to greatly increase the the quality of life and just progress humanity in general. This way of thinking also gives birth to a lot of atheists. But religion can certainly still be a factor here, but it is much less fundamentalist. It does not rule one's life like it did in Stage Blue. The United States and other capitalist countries are strongly in Stage Orange. I know exactly what it is like to be raised in a Stage Orange society. For most of my life, up until about the age of 16 or so, my goal was to become as rich as possible. I think that's any teenager's goal in a stage or in society. But I contribute the fact that I was already born into a decently well off family and that I already had a decent amount of material pleasures to how I was able to transcend a large aspect of myself, not the entirety of myself out of this stage. Orange loses its grasp on the individual and collective psyche when it is realized that material pleasures do not buy happiness. That constantly viewing others as competition causes loneliness. That our own selfishness, this very desire to seek maximum success and profit is contributing to the suffering of others by creating inequality. And it's also hurting the earth as we are using up its resources that cannot renew themselves fast enough. This whole being lost to materialism has taken us out of touch with the greater picture. And through this thinking, Stage Orange is transcendent. As the pendulum shifts back to the community in search of higher purpose. Enter Stage Green. In Stage Green, we are much more aware of the suffering of others in the world. Feelings rather than achievements are what matters here. Togetherness, harmony and acceptance drive all decisions. Lots of social justice movements happen here. Some recent ones have been climate change movements, Black Lives Matter and others. Green is very anti authoritarian and very anti hierarchy. They want resources to be distributed equally, which naturally leads Green towards socialism. The United States has many socialist aspects to it, but Scandinavian countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Norway are much more strongly green. Liberals, hippies, social workers, etc. Are all examples of people in Stage Green. A new type of spirituality emerges here, often referred to as the New Age movement. But this spirituality is often very surface level and can become dogmatic. Stage Green spirituality tends to be too focused on feeling rather than action. The hippie is textbook green because the stereotype of a hippie is that all they do is smoke weed, live in a van, preach things like haha, it's all love, we're all one, haha. But then they're broke as hell and don't actually do much to bring about change. Stage Green is also highly susceptible to groupthink as the pressure is very strong to be in support of collective decisions, thus causing dogma. Stage Green still demonizes lower stages and thinks their way is the absolute correct way to go about things. Green can create cults of victim mentality and cause widespread censorship if something is not politically correct. Cancel Culture is a textbook Stage Green movement. So while the intent behind all Green actions is very, very good, they lack the understanding of the systems of the world in order to bring about genuine change. This stage is transcended when doubts about this collective mentality arise and you start to wonder what the hell is really going on here on Earth. Existential questions come to the surface and you wonder why everyone is so different, why everyone believes different things, why everyone thinks in such different ways, why people have different goals and passions, and why all these people clash. You wonder what really is true and what way is the right way. As a result of this pondering, you begin to realize the interconnectedness of everything. How all of Earth and all of humanity is just one system composed of many subsystems, and all of these subsystems interacting with one another is what makes up the whole. And in order to build the best society possible, we must integrate all these systems together. Enter Stage Yellow. Stage Yellow differs from the first six stages because it is the first stage of Tier 2. All of the other stages I've gone over have been Tier one. Every stage in Tier one projects their worldview onto the other stages because they believe it is the absolute correct way. Yellow realizes everything is not so black and white. All previous stages believed their way was correct and that everyone else was either wrong, immoral, deluded, crazy or insane. A stage Blue fundamentalist Christian will always project their beliefs onto red, orange and green and think they are deluded for not following the way of God. A Stage Orange rashly minded fellow who loves capitalism will demonize Blue because of their fundamentalist dogma and think their beliefs are stupid because they are irrational and not backed by science. And they will also view green socialism as stupid because it threatens their prosperity, individuality and freedom. Whereas someone in sage green would look down on the orange capitalist and demonize him for how selfish he is and how he doesn't care enough about the people who are less fortunate. So in Tier 2, rather than demonizing, they examine why the blue fundamentalist is the way he is, why the orange capitalist is the way he is, and why the green socialist is the way he is. Stage Yellow looks at the greater system at play. So when someone in stage Yellow looks at Trump, rather than hating him because of his selfishness, they look at what even led him to becoming who he is in the first place. When someone in yellow encounters racism, instead of canceling them and trying to ruin their life like someone in stage Green would do, they examine why that person is even racist in the first place and they seek to change that system so no more racism is born from it. So yeah, if you're in yellow, you are a systems thinker and if you identify strongly with this stage, I just want to congratulate you because it took you a lot of inner work and a lot of open mindedness to get here. You were able to rise above green dogma and now your concern is how do I individually make an impact? Yellow develops a big picture view in life and recognizes society is just a build up of a mix of various different systems and recognizes the clashing of the lower tiers has put everything in jeopardy. Yellow sees all of society from above and sees that the mess humanity has created can only truly be resolved through understanding it all. So naturally, people in Yellow, such as intellectuals, academics, philosophers and futurists have already dedicated their entire life to understanding how it all works and then making plans on how to fix it. Someone in Yellow is able to activate any of the lower stages within them. When needed, when a situation calls for swift action, they will be more authoritarian. And when a situation does not, they will naturally be more democratic. One begins to leave Stage Yellow. As they develop a greater appreciation of the sheer intelligence that the universe is, it is realized that global problems will not be solved by an isolated group of people. And that a global effort is required for solving these problems. And that in the grand scheme of things, the best solver of these problems is nature. Enter Stage Turquoise. Stage Turquoise is not very easy to describe because so few people on this planet fully embody this level of development. And Stage Turquoise thinking hardly has any of the power in government at all. People in Turquoise tend to be the most advanced mystics, gurus and sages. As this stage is all about experiencing the wholeness of existence through body, mind and spirit. Truer and deeper forms of spirituality emerge that include oneness and non duality. The ego that completely ran tier one thinking is no longer prevalent. The they are concerned with the well being of all of life, but not their own life. Every single action they make or thought they have is oriented towards the well being of all of life, not just humanity. In the long run, they realize the intelligence of the universe will carry everything in the direction that it needs to go. Therefore, Turquoise will only intervene when necessary. Someone at Turquoise does not learn through observation or study, but by actually becoming and experiencing that thing they seek to understand. That's how deep their empathy goes. You could think of someone fully in Turquoise, like a sort of Jesus or Buddha figure. They see no boundaries, all is one, and they care for and are concerned with everything in existence. They're more or less a pure vehicle of this force, this intelligence that flows through humanity, bringing it towards higher love and higher consciousness. A lot of Stage Green or Stage Yellow people will talk Turquoise, but will not embody it. Stage Turquoise is really about the embodiments. It is not easy to imagine what a Stage Turquoise Earth would be like because we are so far from achieving one. But I can envision Turquoise steps that could be taken in the next century. One of them being a sort of Bill of Rights that guarantees a set of rights for everyone on earth, like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, abolition of slavery, etc. Yeah, a lot of countries have this stuff already, but. But imagine if the entire Earth were guaranteed these rights. How amazing that would be. Turquoise is all about going global, uniting everyone and everything. So if society went turquoise, these country to country feuds, these strict borders would go away. And at that point we would likely not even have countries anymore. The entire globe would just be one giant country. But of course, this is all speculation. We don't actually know if this will happen. And if something like it ever does, it'll likely take centuries. Spiral Dynamics does talk of a stage beyond turquoise stage coral, but doesn't talk about it at all, really. So I don't really get what the point of talking about it was. So, yeah, this is the spiral. This is spiral dynamics. This is the general arc that humanity on an individual and collective level, follow. So if you identify with stage orange or stage green, seek to be more like yellow as you develop. And like I said at the beginning, don't get caught thinking that a person or a country or an organization is just at one singular stage. No one person is just at stage orange or just at stage green. They'll have different aspects of themselves in multiple different stages. For me personally, I see orange, I see green, I see yellow, and I even see some turquoise prevalent in the way I approach life. And for those aspects of me that are lower on the spiral, I seek to get those aspects higher up. Also remember that spiral dynamics is just a model, and all models are generalizations. Not every individual or society will develop in exactly this fashion. The development of China did not exactly follow this model. So let that be one example. Lastly, let me give you some final thoughts regarding this model. And so firstly, whatever society you are born in, you will naturally be taken to that stage the society is in. And if you want to develop further, you will have to do some questioning, some inner work, and you'll have to go against the norm. Another insight is that generally one does not regress down the spiral. Once you make it to a certain stage, you either stay there or grow out of it. Regression down the spiral only occurs if one is under serious threat. Like with basic survival, needs suddenly become difficult to come by. Perhaps the most important insight is that each successive stage represents a higher overall level of perspective, empathy, love, and consciousness. Each stage strays further from the ego and gets closer to ego transcendence, leading me to hypothesize that humanity is naturally shedding its ego. As we evolve, it truly appears that humanity is gradually moving towards higher love and higher consciousness. I believe that this force running reality, that is the same force that composed both your body and my body through billions of years of evolution, is the same force that is pushing humanity up the spiral. Today, everything encompassed within spiral dynamics only explains less than a hundred thousand years of evolution. Imagine what humans could be In a million, 5 million, 10 million, even 100 million years. In the future. It is literally unimaginable how advanced we could be. What the world needs more of today is people in tier 2. People who are able to look down on the entire system from above, love to learn, and do not demonize others for being the way that they are. It is our primitive ways, our ego, that has put human existence in jeopardy. And now it is our job as Tier 2 thinkers to undo this damage through systemic change. That's all I really got for this video, guys. This was just a general summary of the model. There are other books, other videos out there that will go much more in depth than this one. But nonetheless, I hope this was informative. Please, please, please hit that like button, drop a comment and share with a friend so that I can get that algorithm boost so as many people as possible can see this valuable information. If you're interested in supporting me on a higher level, I do have a Patreon where we got a book club and other exclusive content, so check that out if you want. I love you all. Have a great day and peace.