What are we gonna do with Ken Wilber? He writes a book called A Theory of Everything and crams it in 145 pages. Turns out the book is more like “The Ken Wilber Reader”, a condensed primer on his exhaustive theory of integral consciousness – I’m not even sure I go it right. It covers most of his bibliography, but packed enough to give Einstein a migraine.
So there’s this thing called spiral dynamics. Spiral dynamics is this theory that human beings all begin from square one and evolves through the spiral. The spiral is a social construct about the evolving consciousness. It’s built of embed levels called memes and each is color-coded. Color-coded that’s for kids… wait.
There’s the beige meme. At this level (Square one) is where it all begins for the young human and societies. It’s the meme of instinct and pure survival. The kill or be killed level. What’s important to the person at this level, is food, sex, warmth and safety. We’re talking early bush tribes here. The hairless talking monkey takes a stand.
The beige meme is followed by the purple meme. This is the stage where all things are magical and animism takes form. This is where humans start taking care of each other. The world is filled with mysticism. This is the age of shamanism and rituals. The sense of family takes shape.
Then it’s the red meme. This is the Tony Montana level, the “the world and everythin’ in it Chico” level. It’s all about survival of the strongest and getting some respect. It manifests itself in feudal kingdoms, the story of epic heroes and the terrible twos. It’s all about impulse and the ego.
The blue meme is where it all goes to hell in a hand basket. It’s about purpose and authoritarianism. It’s about bringing order to the world, control through the absolute truth. It’s about living under a moral code. The blue meme manifests itself through moral movements such as puritan America, the moral majority and codes of honor. This is where political conservatism resides.
The next level up the spiral is the orange meme. Strategy and the goal-driven life lives here. This is where the overachievers live. This is where the game is played and won. Think liberal enlightenment, think Silicone Valley, Fortune 500 and the corporate life.
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