The 'Red' Infection | a Spiral Dynamics/Integral Somatic View

This entry is for people familiar with Integral Spirituality, as taught by Ken Wilber, et. al., or with Spiral Dynamics.
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Up to the present time, human history has been governed by the immature and partial motivations and capacities of First-Tier humanity.

It's fast approaching time when we will have a different situation -- with the leading edge of human evolutionary development governing the larger body of humanity -- but not through political means, but through release of the deeply ingrained habits of mind, the development of new and superior human capacities.


In present time, we see a heavy preponderance of "Red Meme", "booting-up more and more power", mentality. This kind of development roughly corresponds to the concern of a two-year old:  the development of their capacity to exercise power. It's one step beyond potty training.

And, obviously, it has its place. It's necessary to have the ability to exercise power -- power over oneself and over ones circumstances (and to some extent, people). It's also necessary for the power you exercise to be well-regulated.

Unfortunately, some individuals never seem to outgrow the "booting up power" stage; they are perpetual two-year olds -- with power. And, as we have observed, a two-year-old will not willingly relinquish power.

As a result, we have later stage memes, "Amber/Blue", and "Orange", that are heavily infected with residual "Red Meme" motivations.

"Amber/Blue" concerns itself with organized group behavior, and with it, group-approved values -- which is to say, shared memories that form the backdrop of a shared culture. These people exist in a mature childhood stage, receptive and prone to reinforce what has been learned, still obedient to the imposed official values of time and place. This pattern is helpful when organizing a family, a tribe, a walled city or a nation-state.

However, when "Red power drive" combines with "Amber/Blue" authoritarianism, what do you get? Barking Dog Authoritarianism -- and the dog means it.

The Healthy Development of Orange Meme
With "healthy Orange", power takes a new form. Instead of being confined within the tribe (or corporation) and pitted against everyone else in a hormone-driven thrill of acquisition and power, it starts seeing the next-larger level of organization: integration. It sees the possibility of mutual complementarity, trustworthy relationships, shared overall intention (the greatest good for the greatest number) and the valuation of ingenuity -- ingenuity in rendering obsolete the solutions of the past and ingenuity in creating the next life-supporting developments. This exists within the Field of Possibility.

Barking Dog Authoritarian Orange
However, whereas a well-balanced Orange has the competence to apply power in a well-organized way and the competence to organize power, Barking Dog Authoritarian Orange wants to apply power more and more.  It is aggressively expansive in a mono-maniacal, crazed ecstasy -- like an adolescent-on-hormones with a one-track mind; it wants to throw off the rules and "have its way"? This description of Barking Dog Authoritarian Orange is also a description of "sick Capitalism". Toooo much Red. It is adolescent, but in a King Kong sort of way.

Need to tone down the Red.

Green
Even the Green meme (or "structure stage") has been infected with excessive Red-ness. It takes the form of something different from Barking Dog Authoritarianism: Wagging Tail Authoritarianism With A Barking Dog in the Doghouse: "political correctness" and "lovingkindness" -- where the price paid is self-oppression for the sake of ideals. Oy.

Self-Oppression: Anger turned inward, being "down on oneself", guilty, ashamed that we aren't Spiritual enough, or as Spiritual as we would hope others believe we are -- and therefore aspiring to be innocent, comfortable being oneself, and loving all beings. We do that precisely because we believe we're not that -- and we know it. Hoo, boy.


Which brings us to the punch line of this entry:
Humanity has been run by First-Tier interests with an excess of Red and subversion of Amber/Blue, Orange, and even Green by Red. The Reds are in control.

We, Second-Tier Humanity 
will, at some point and in some way, have to take Red in hand.

At least two general approaches are possible -- and a third.
  1. Put Red in its proper place, its proper proportion.

    That means we may have to become at least as Red as Red, to face Red down -- and that might involve military and police.

  2. Red must self-subjugate itself before Second-Tier -- or accept subjugation by Second-Tier.

Now, do you seriously, for a moment believe that Red will self-subjugate before Second Tier (or anyone else, for that matter?). Do you believe that even if Second-Tier subjugated Red, that Red would stay subjugated? Well??

Therefore, I think it cannot be accomplished that way, the usual First-Tier way that seeks dominance -- and still, Red must not be permitted to taint the higher stages with poorly-regulated excess.

It must be accomplished differently.

Instead of being accomplished through imposition, as in First-Tier mentality, I suggest it may be accomplished, instead, through release.

One possible means is through introduction of new tendencies into the morphogenetic field. The morphogenetic field is a world-wide field of consciousness that shapes the genetics and the behavior of living beings. It's what makes popular opinion have felt force; what makes laughter and tears contagious, what makes you want to yawn when you see another yawn; what makes sacred places have a distinct feeling, what attracts individuals to, and repels us from, each other.  See the writings of Dr. Rupert Sheldrake for more information.

Introducing new tendencies into the morphogenetic field means what it sounds like it means: a new medium of control by which the behavior and development of individuals may be tempered from "behind the scenes", first through a dissolution and release of old, fixated, binding patterns of thought, feeling, and action to allow things to change, and then through introduction of new, intelligent, benign tendencies into that field. There are experimental -- and personally accessible -- means for that, about which I will say more, later.

With the Red Infection quelled, Amber/Blue can be tempered, wholesome and whole, as a developmental stage favoring generative creativity and the emergence of imaginative capacity, tempered by the "safe zone" of tradition.

At the edge of that safe zone is where "Healthy Orange" comes into play, in reorganizing how economics carries itself out along many lines of intelligence, world-wide.

Healthy Orange favors ingenuity, and yet retains the flavor of a well-tempered life. Where the exercise of power is concerned, the question, "Could it be done?" always followed by, "Should it be done?" Ingenuity empowered by capacity and flavored by Wisdom: the recognition that effects spread far and wide and the willingness to temper the urge to action. "Keep it in your pants."

AND:

Healthy Green
The role of Green is to temper all the previous stages of develop sufficiently that they may all be considered fairly (for their virtues) and integrated into their proper place -- the "momentous leap into Second-Tier".

If Green were not infected with Red, Green would allow equal consideration of previous stages of development, including their truth-claims -- and so foster the great Leap to Integral (which includes all previous forms of consciousness without giving permanent privilege to any one of them) --  and without imposing the universally deconstructive righteousness that negates healthy social and behavioral structures along with the unhealthy and renders knowledge into pap: ineffectual nonsense.


The quandary we have, for the moment, is, "How do we temper Red, when Red doesn't want to be tempered." "Persuade a man against his will, he remains an unbeliever, still."

I suggest: Influence the morphogenetic field, the ocean of evolutionary potential in which we all live.

The question that must follow: How?

I leave you, for now, with that question. There is an answer, however, and so, more to come.


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