From the Cultural Maturity Blog
A recent e-mail asked that I comment on the Spiral Dynamics work of psychologist Clare W. Graves (given more popular form in the work of Don Beck and Christopher Cowen in their book Spiral Dynamics). I would be happy to as I think it represents some of the more interesting work out of the Transformational/New Paradigm thread of emerging thought. A briefest of critiques:
I see two important strong points and one near fatal failing. The strong points include its framing of development in terms of evolving worldviews, and, most significant, a formulation of the cultural tasks ahead (referred to as second tier memes) in terms often quite consistent with the concept of Cultural Maturity. While the resulting picture of the future leans some to the left, it doesn’t do so nearly as egregiously as most “Transformational” thinking.. [While we are on positive points, CST would add that the stages in Spiral Dynamics and those in CST share at least crude parallels.]
The failing is a sufficient shortcoming that it would have me dismiss the whole framework were it not for the above and the fact that its origins appear benign (lack of a needed aspect of sophistication not a major hidden creative bias). It misses key distinctions the absence of which can result in significant misunderstanding. Spiral Dynamics tend to lump together Pattering in Time periodicities and make no distinction between these and Patterning in Space discernments. A system is Red or Blue or Green—but is that a function of cultural developmental stage, a reflection of the lifetime developmental stage of key individuals, an expression of personality styles, or a product of the system’s creative function in culture? These are not at all the same things and confusing one with other results in some rather nonsensical conclusions. Just one illustration—it leaves people whose temperaments constellate around early stage dynamics appearing lesser developed. (In related shortcomings, the framework lacks a notion like Capacitance—a key to effectively making such additional discriminations—and also an appreciation for developmental amnesias.)]
In short: Spiral Dynamics is good effort that in its general approach succeeds as culturally mature conception and has some useful applications particularly in work with organizations and cultural systems. But it desperately needs additional levels of discernment if its observations are to be sufficiently nuanced and if it is not to result in misleading conclusions.