Characteristics:

• An autonomic state of existence centered around the satisfaction of biological needs.

• Energy is devoted to staying alive and meeting basic physical needs.

• Food, water, warmth, and safety have priority over everything else.

• Behaviors are driven by deep brain programs, instincts, and genetics.

• Essentially amoral: do what you must do to stay alive.

Where Seen:

• The first humans

• Newborn infants

• The senile elderly, late-stage Alzheimer’s victims

• Mentally ill street people

• Starving masses

• People in "shell shock"

Characteristics:

• "The way of the ancestors."

• Began about 50,000 years ago, and tends to be the home of egocentric drives, a magical worldview, and impulsiveness.

• Allegiance is shown to elders, customs, and clans.

• People begin to ask why things happen, and find answers in invisible natural forces and the actions of powerful spirit beings.

• The lines between what is fantasy and what is real are blurred.

• People are superstitious.

• People rely on tribal customs and taboos for direction.

Where Seen:

• Halloween, Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy

• Saturday morning cartoons

• A toddler with a security blanket

• Ethnic superstitions, Voodoo-like curses, religious relics, crosses, a dashboard Jesus, a lucky rabbit's foot

• The placebo effect

• Chanting, trance dancing, dream walking

• Nepotism, blood oaths, blood brothers

• Parental bonding, the nuclear family, family rituals and reunions

• Religious ritual and ceremony

Characteristics:

• "My way or the highway."

• Began about 10,000 years ago. Power is based on "might makes right."

• Aggression rules: strong individuals take unilateral control, and use charisma, intimidation, or physical force to impose their will without guilt.

• There is a limited capacity to take the role of an "other."

• Survival of the fittest. Life is a jungle and you have to take care of yourself first. The weak deserve to lose because they are weak.

• People break free from any and all domination or constraints to please themselves, and stubbornly resist any power exercised over them.

• People act on immediate impulses, and actions are not always connected to consequences.

Where Seen:

• The terrible twos

• Bullies, violent crime

• Rebellious adolescents who feel they are immortal

• Political dictatorships

• Jim Bridger, frontiersmen, epic heroes, soldiers of fortune

• The NFL

• Prison populations

• In the movies: James Bond villains, The Godfather, Rambo, The Terminator, Troy

• Wild rock stars

Characteristics:

• "The one right way."

• Began about 5,000 years ago, and indicates a worldview that is traditionalist and mythic in nature. Mythic worldviews are almost always held as absolute truth.

• Amber ethics help to control the impulsiveness and narcissism of red.

• Belief in a single Higher Truth, Power, or Authority who rules the Universe, sets human destiny and limitations, prescribes what is "right" and "wrong," and gives meaning and direction to human existence.

• Black and white, polarized thinking. Understanding and tolerance are limited.

• There is an absolute belief in one right way, and unquestioned obedience to authority.

Where Seen:

• Religious fundamentalism (my God is right no matter what)

• Fascism (my country is right no matter what)

• Ethnocentrism (my people are right no matter what)

• Hierarchical organizational structures

• Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, Andy Taylor’s Mayberry

• Puritan America

• The military, codes of chivalry and honor

• The Salvation Army

• The Boy and Girl Scouts

Characteristics:

• "The most effective, successful way."

• Began about 500 years ago with the European Enlightenment.

• Individuals begin to break free from amber conformity.

• Faith in dogma is replaced by experiential data and evidence.

• Ideas and actions are evaluated based on how intelligent or effective they are, not on whether they are orthodox or heretical.

• Ethics begin to embrace all people: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."

• Value is placed on individual accomplishments and achievements.

• People are expected to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

• The belief in human perfectibility through intelligent hard work and the constant testing of ideas.

Where Seen:

• Multi-party democracies and free markets

• The Enlightenment

• The Industrial Revolution

• Scientific materialism

• Corporate America

• "Success" ministries, both religious and secular; motivational seminars

• The self-help industry, The Power of Positive Thinking

• Wall Street & Rodeo Drive

Characteristics:

• "All ways are equally valid."

• Began roughly 150 years ago; came into its fullest expression in the 1960's.

• Where orange sees universal truths ("All men are created equal."), green multiple universal truths – different universals for different cultures.

• Green ethics continue, and radically broaden, the orange movement to embrace all people.

• Focuses on problems of inclusion, equality, and large-scale harmony in the world.

• Focuses on the need for controlled growth and protecting endangered living things.

• Believes the earth's resources should be spread equally among all.

• Rejects the displays of affluence and success so necessary to making orange happy.

• Relativistic and low in dogmatism. Many different beliefs are acceptable, and no single truth is "It." Everyone is right in his or her own way.

• There is tolerance for differences and a legitimizing of alternative lifestyles and behaviors, so long as they do not harm others.

Where Seen:

• The Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and Animal Rights Movements

• Feminism

• Environmentalism; the Sierra Club; GreenPeace

• Doctors Without Borders; Amnesty International

• Canadian health care

Characteristics:

• "The best way for now, all views considered."

• Marks the transition from 1st tier stages to 2nd tier stages.

• Honors the insights of the green worldview, but places them in a larger context that allows for healthy hierarchies, ("holarchies") and healthy value distinctions.

• Can explore many systems, cross compare them, and select appropriate bits and pieces from each.

• Sees that each one of the previous stages (infrared through green) has an important role to play in human evolution.

• Is tolerant of the needs of people at earlier stages of development, and respects each stage's worldview, values, systems, and culture.

• Works to make possible the healthy coexistence and expression of all of the previous stages.

• Works to facilitate the movement of people through stages, when they are ready.

Where Seen:

• Carl Sagan’s astronomy

• Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time

• Eco-industrial parks (using each other’s outflows as raw materials)

• Early episodes of TV’s Northern Exposure

• Governance which supports and facilitates the progression of individuals and organization through increasingly higher stages of development, when they are ready

• Mythic consciousness must establish some higher authority that takes people beyond the selfishness and egocentrism of red, before orange science and rationalism can emerge.

• Both amber stability and orange technology must be present for effective green social transformation to take place.

Less Healthy:

• People in war zone "shell shock"; post traumatic stress

• Mental illness; senility

More Healthy:

• Sensitivity to intuition about impending harm

• Heightened physical senses and abilities

Less Healthy:

• Baseless superstitions

• Tyranny, violent crime, dominator hierarchies, exploitation of the weak

• Indifference to the harm you inflict on others

More Healthy:

• Rich imagination

• Personal empowerment, courage, the inner strength to overcome challenges and explore new territory

• The free flow of liberating, creative energy

Less Healthy:

• Rigid dogmatism, close-mindedness

• Self-righteousness, judging others, intolerance, hypocrisy

• Unrealistic demands for perfection

More Healthy:

• Stability and order brought to chaos

• Service to a noble cause, having a higher purpose in life, integrity, fulfilling responsibilities and keeping commitments

• Honor, integrity, and discipline

Less Healthy:

• Scientific materialism (denial of inner realities)

• Extreme competitiveness that damages relationships

• Manipulation of others to advance one's personal success, unethical shortcuts

More Healthy:

• Healthy independence, finding your own voice

• Rational objective thinking and scientific discoveries

• Personal achievement and excellence

Less Healthy:

• Hypocrisy: the exclusion of those who do not share pluralistic values

• Extreme relativism, an inability to make any value judgments

• Being a slave to "group-think," an inability to take individual action when it is needed

More Healthy:

• Working for the inclusion of all, including the disenfranchised

• A commitment to the environment

• Tolerance: the ability to hold and see value in multiple viewpoints and respect multiple beliefs systems

Less Healthy:

• Arrogance

• Elitism

• Isolation and alienation

More Healthy:

• Mental and emotional flexibility

• The ability to perceive the whole and understand how all of the parts interact, big vision thinking

• The ability to accept, appreciate, and respect the values of all of the previous stages, the and people who hold them

Here is another way to picture the difference between subject and object:

So, how does the "subject" at one stage of development become the "object" of the "subject" at the next stage? Let's take as an example a person at the orange rational stage of development:

This person is embedded in the rational worldview. At present the rational worldview is not something she can get outside of and reflect upon (or make an "object" in her awareness). Rather, the rational worldview is the invisible "lens" through which she sees the world. Her move to this rational stage of development happened when her previous mythic worldview became something she was no longer fused with or embedded in, when it became something she could stand back from and reflect on.

In this audio clip, from NPR, David Dickerson describes his shift from amber to orange in his Christian beliefs. He describes making his amber mythic beliefs, which he was previously embedded in and subject to, into objects he could examine and reflect upon. This is what is happening when he says, "For the first time, I saw myself from the outside." And, "Basic facts about the nature of Jesus, of God, of our duties on this earth seemed to me less like eternal truths and more like things I happened to believe."

When this person develops to the point that she can step back from and reflect upon (and critique) the rational worldview, then she will have a new subjective "self": a green, pluralistic "self." In other words, she will then see the world through an invisible green lens.

Click here to hear Ken Wilber talking about the move from amber to rational and then pluralistic. To purchase the CD sets that are the source of the clips on this website (Kosmic Consciousness and The One Two Three of God) click here.


A Culture's Center of Gravity

The stage an organization or culture as a whole is at acts as a developmental magnet for the people in that organization or culture. This means that the culture will tend to pull people up to its level -- up to its cultural "center of gravity." But if individuals try to move beyond the level of their culture, the culture's magnetic center of gravity will try to pull them back down to its present level.


The Shadow

At any stage of development, we may unconsciously shut off part of our subjective "I" experience from our own awareness. For example, if I am taught that God disapproves of anger, and that "spiritual" people don't get angry, then in order to conform to what I have been taught and receive God's love and approval (or my parents' love and approval, or the church's), I may begin to repress anger when it arises, and no longer consciously feel it. When this happens, anger has become a shadow element of my personality.

This doesn't mean the anger has gone away. It just means I have stopped consciously experiencing it and owning it as mine. When this has happened, I may project my anger outward onto others. Now I no longer get angry, but I experience there being a lot of angry people out there in the world around me.

When I move to the next stage of development, this shadow part of me will lag behind, at whatever level it was repressed at. It then becomes an area of my life where I am not fully functional.


Lines of Development

We each grow through stages of development in many different "lines" of development. For example:

• Jean Piaget mapped stages of development in the cognitive line.

• Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol Gilligan mapped stages of development in men and women in the moral line.

• Jane Loevinger mapped stages of development in the ego or self line.

• Erik Erickson mapped stages of development in the psychosocial line.

• James Fowler mapped stages of development in the faith line.

• Clare Graves mapped stages of development in the values line.

• Abraham Maslow mapped stages of development in the needs line.

• Howard Gardener's "multiple intelligences" (linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, body-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, and intrapersonal) are also examples of lines of development.

Each line of development can be viewed as answering a different fundamental question:

• The Cognitive Line answers the question, "What am I aware of?"

• The Ego or Self Line answers the question, "Of the things I am aware of, who am I?", or "What am I?"

• The Moral Line answers the question, "Of the things I am aware of, what should I do?"

• The Values Line answers the question, "Of the things I am aware of, what do I think is most important or valuable?"

• The Needs Line answers the question, "What do I need?"

Click here to hear Ken Wilber talking about the relationship between "necessary but not sufficient" lines. To purchase the CD sets that are the source of the clips on this website (Kosmic Consciousness and The One Two Three of God) click here.


The Pre-Trans Fallacy

As we can see in the developmental chart above, there are stages of development before the orange or rational stage (pre-rational stages), and stages of development after the rational stage (post-rational or trans-rational stages). Pre-rational and trans-rational stages have something in common: they are both non-rational. If we do not understand the difference between pre-rational and trans-rational stages, we may lump everything into two broad categories: rational and non-rational. We are then in danger of taking something that is pre-rational and elevating it to the trans-rational level of development (as some aspects of the New Age spiritual movement do). Or, we might take something that is trans-rational and reduce it to pre-rational levels of development.

To purchase the book this diagram is from (The Integral Vision), click here.

Freud had a tendency to reduce all non-rational phenomenon (both pre-rational and trans-rational) to infantile pre-rational levels of development. Jung, on the other hand, sometimes elevated pre-rational impulses to the trans-rational level. Understanding the difference between pre-rational and trans-rational can help us avoid making this mistake.

Click here to hear Ken Wilber talking about the pre-trans fallacy. To purchase the CD sets that are the source of the clips on this website (Kosmic Consciousness and The One Two Three of God) click here.


Next: Personality Types