Spiral Dynamics

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Union College psychology professor Clare W. Graves published a series of articles which described what he referred to as an "emergent cyclical theory" of developmental psychology and human development. Spiral Dynamics emerged as a result of a collaboration between University of North Texas (UNT) professor Don Beck, communications lecturer Christopher Cowan, and Graves. Beck and Graves first met in person in 1975, and was joined by Cowan shortly after in developing Graves's emergent cyclical theory, working closely with Graves until his death in 1986. In 1979, Beck and Cowan founded the consulting company National Values Center, Inc. (NVC). By 1981, both Beck and Cowan had resigned from UNT to work with Graves. During the 1980s and 1990s, Beck made over 60 trips to South Africa applying Graves's emergent cyclical theory in various projects. Beck and Cowan first published their original extension of Graves's theory in the 1996 book Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change (Exploring the New Science of Memetics). Beck and Cowan introduced a color-coding for the eight value systems identified by Graves, and predicted a ninth value system. Additionally, Beck and Cowan integrated ideas from the field of memetics, identifying memetic attractors for each of Graves's levels. These attractors, which they called "VMemes", are said to bind memes into cohesive packages which structure the worldviews of both individuals and societies. In the same year, Cowan filed for the service mark of "Spiral Dynamics" service mark, which was registered to NVC. Beck was against the nature of Spiral Dynamics as a service mark, and by 1999, the pair had ceased collaborating, in part due to Cowan's opposition to Wilber's theory, which he regarded as overtly spiritual and unrelated to Graves's original theory. That same year, Wilber published The Collected Works of Ken Wilber, Vol. 4: Integral Psychology, which contained the first Spiral Dynamics reference in literature at the time. Following the split of NVC, Cowan and Wilber began to expound upon two different conceptions of Spiral Dynamics. Wilber's theory increasingly incorporated elements of spirituality, religion and original concepts drawn from his integral theory. In the early 2000s, Beck and Wilber launched the Integral Institute and the Spiral Dynamics Integral (SDi) brand. By 2005, however, Beck and Wilber had fallen out due to disagreements on Wilber's changes to SDi. In 2009, NVC was dissolved as business entity, By 2010, the three theories of Spiral Dynamics comprised Cowan and Todorovic's trademarked "SPIRAL DYNAMICS®", which purported to be fundamentally the same as Graves's emergent cyclical theory; Don Beck advocating SDi with a community of practice around various chapters of his Centers for Human Emergence; and Ken Wilber subordinating SDi to his similarly but-not-identically colored AQAL altitudes, with a greater focus on spirituality. Timeline ImageSize = width:800 height:230 PlotArea = left:100 bottom:120 top:10 right:05 Alignbars = justify DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy Period = from:01/01/1952 till:01/01/2023 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy Legend = orientation:vertical position:bottom columns:4 ScaleMajor = increment:4 start:1952 ScaleMinor = increment:1 start:1953 Colors = id:Exp value:rgb(1,0.8,1) legend:Initial_experiments id:EC value:rgb(0.4,0.2,0.8) legend:E-C_levels_of_existence id:MS value:rgb(0.8,0,0.8) legend:Abandoned-manuscript id:SA value:yellow legend:South_Africa_trips id:SD value:blue legend:Spiral_Dynamics id:TMf value:rgb(1,0.6,0) legend:SD_sm/tm_filed id:TMr value:red legend:SD_sm/tm_registered id:SDtm value:darkblue legend:SPIRAL_DYNAMICS® id:IntSD value:skyblue legend:Integral_with_SD id:SDi value:rgb(0.8,0.8,0) legend:SDi id:CHE value:rgb(0.6,0,0) legend:CHE id:Integral value:rgb(0,0.6,0.4) legend:AQAL_altitudes id:bars value:gray(0.9) LineData = at:01/10/1966 color:EC layer:back # "Deterioration of Work Standards." Harvard Business Review at:01/09/1970 color:EC layer:back # "Levels of Existence: An Open System Theory of Values." at:01/04/1974 color:EC layer:back # "Human Nature Prepares for a Momentous Leap" The Futurist at:31/12/1977 color:MS layer:back # The Never Ending Quest: manuscript abandoned at:08/05/1996 color:SD layer:back # Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change at:01/10/1999 color:IntSD layer:back # Collected works of KW, vol. 4 at:01/03/2000 color:SDtm layer:back # "Spiral Dynamics: The Layers of Human Values in Strategy" at:01/08/2000 color:IntSD layer:back # A Theory of Everything at:01/01/2002 color:SDi layer:back # Spiral Dynamics in the Integral Age at:01/06/2002 color:SDtm layer:back # Mean Green Meme: Fact or Fiction? at:01/11/2002 color:EC layer:back # Levels of Human Existence at:01/01/2005 color:EC layer:back # The Never Ending Quest at:01/10/2006 color:Integral layer:back # Integral Spirituality at:01/05/2017 color:Integral layer:back # Religion of Tomorrow at:01/05/2018 color:SDi layer:back # Spiral Dynamics in Action • at:01/06/2006 color:Integral layer:back # Wyatt Earpy • at:30/07/2006 color:SDtm layer:back # Observations on Wilber's Wyatt Earpy post BarData = bar:graves text: "Clare W. Graves" bar:beck text: "Don Beck" bar:cowan text: "Christopher Cowan" bar:todorovic text: "Natasha Todorovic" bar:wilber text: "Ken Wilber" PlotData= width:11 textcolor:black align:left anchor:from shift:(10,-4) bar:graves from:01/01/1952 till:01/01/1960 color:Exp bar:graves from:01/01/1960 till:02/01/1986 color:EC bar:beck from:01/05/1974 till:01/05/1996 color:EC bar:beck from:01/01/1981 till:01/12/1999 color:SA width:3 bar:beck from:01/05/1996 till:01/01/2002 color:SD bar:beck from:01/01/2002 till:24/05/2022 color:SDi bar:beck from:01/01/2004 till:24/05/2022 color:CHE width:3 bar:cowan from:01/01/1976 till:01/05/1996 color:EC bar:cowan from:01/05/1996 till:01/01/1999 color:SD bar:cowan from:01/01/1999 till:15/07/2015 color:SDtm bar:cowan from:01/05/1998 till:01/02/1999 color:TMf width:3 bar:cowan from:01/02/1999 till:01/09/2009 color:TMr width:3 bar:cowan from:01/10/2010 till:01/12/2012 color:TMf width:3 bar:cowan from:01/12/2012 till:15/07/2015 color:TMr width:3 bar:todorovic from:01/01/1998 till:01/01/1999 color:SD bar:todorovic from:01/01/1999 till:end color:SDtm bar:todorovic from:01/12/2012 till:end color:TMr width:3 bar:todorovic from:01/10/2010 till:01/12/2012 color:TMf width:3 bar:wilber from:01/12/1999 till:01/01/2002 color:IntSD bar:wilber from:01/01/2002 till:01/10/2006 color:SDi bar:wilber from:01/10/2006 till:end color:Integral bar:wilber from:01/10/2006 till:end color:SDi width:3 == Theories ==

Spiral Dynamics describes how value systems and worldviews emerge from the interaction of social and historical conditions and mental processes. While the value systems occur in a particular order, the purpose of development within Spiral Dynamics is to align value systems with the relevant life conditions rather than reach a set end goal. Under the theory, groups and cultures structure their societies around corresponding set of values, with each new value stage developed as a response to solving existing problems. Changes between states that occur incrementally are described as "first-order changes", whilst changes that emerge from a sudden breakthrough are known as "second-order changes". The emphasis on life conditions as essential to the progression through value systems is unusual among similar theories, and leads to the view that no level is inherently positive or negative, but rather is a response to the local environment. Beck and Cowan's original theory Cowan and Todorovic's "Spiral Dynamics" In 2008, Cowan and Todorovic published an article on Spiral Dynamics in the peer-reviewed journal Strategy & Leadership, edited and published Graves's unfinished manuscript, and generally took the position that the distinction between Spiral Dynamics and Graves's ECLET is primarily one of terminology. Holding this view, they opposed interpretations seen as "heterodox." Todorovic produced a paper arguing that research refutes the existence of the "Mean Green Meme" as Beck and particularly Wilber described it. and Robber's Cave study SD/SDi and Ken Wilber's Integral Theory Ken Wilber briefly referenced Graves in his 1986 book Transformations of Consciousness, and again in 1995's Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, which also introduced his four quadrants model. In the book Integral Spirituality published that year, he introduced the concept of "altitudes" as an overall "content-free" system to correlate developmental stages across all of the theories on all of the lines integrated by AQAL. The altitudes used a set of colors that were ordered according to the rainbow, which Wilber explained was necessary to align with color energies in the tantric tradition. This left only Red, Orange, Green, and Turquoise in place, changing all of the other colors to greater or lesser degrees. Furthermore, where Spiral Dynamics theorizes that the 2nd tier would have six stages repeating the themes of the six stages of the 1st tier, in the altitude system the 2nd tier contains only two levels (corresponding to the first two SD 2nd tier levels) followed by a 3rd tier of four spiritually-oriented levels inspired by the work of Sri Aurobindo. Beck and Cowan each consider this 3rd tier to be non-Gravesian. Wilber critic Frank Visser notes that while Wilber gives a correspondence of his altitude colors to chakras, his correspondence does not actually match any traditional system for coloring chakras, despite Wilber's assertion that using the wrong colors would "backfire badly when any actual energies were used." He goes on to note that Wilber's criticism of the SD colors as "inadequate" ignores that they were not intended to correlate with any system such as chakras. In this context, Visser expresses sympathy for Beck and Cowan's dismay over what Visser describes as "vandalism" regarding the color scheme, concluding that the altitude colors are an "awkward hybrid" of the SD and rainbow/chakra color systems, both lacking the expressiveness of the former and failing to accurately correlate with the latter. == Validity and reception ==

Spiral Dynamics has been criticized by some as appearing to be like a cult, with undue prominence given to the business and intellectual property concerns of its leading advocates. Psychologist Keith Rice, discussing his application of SDi in individual psychotherapy, notes that it encounters limitations in accounting for temperament and the unconscious. The journalist Patrick Vermeren argues that Spiral Dynamics is an ideological construct that is in blatant contradiction to scientific facts and has no theoretical or empirical validity, noting that Graves' speculative assumptions about human developmental stages contradict established findings in biology, physics and evolutionary psychology. Vermeren also criticises Spiral Dynamics as ahistorical and factually inaccurate in its dating of human development stages; arbitrary in its use of color codes; reliant upon esoteric and pseudoscientific concepts; contradictory to evolutionary theory; and primarily a tool that consultants use to sell services to HR professionals. Nicholas Reitter, writing in the Journal of Conscious Evolution, observes: On the other hand, the SD authors seem also to have magnified some of the weaknesses in Graves' approach. The occasional messianism, unevenness of presentation and constant business-orientation of Graves' (2005) manuscript is transmuted in the SD authors' book (Beck and Cowan 1996) into a sometimes-bewildering array of references to world history, pop culture and other topics, often made in helter-skelter fashion. Influence and applications Spiral Dynamics has been applied in some academic articles on management theory, which was the primary focus of the 1996 Spiral Dynamics book. John Mackey and Rajendra Sisodia write that the vision and values of conscious capitalism as they articulate it are consistent with the "2nd tier" VMEMES. Rica Viljoen's case study of economic development in Ghana demonstrates how understanding the Purple VMEME allows for organizational storytelling that connects with diverse (non-Western) worldviews. Spiral Dynamics has also been noted as an example of applied memetics. Schlaile also notes Said Dawlabani's SDi-based "MEMEnomics" as an alternative to his own "economemetics" in his chapter examining memetics and economics in the same book. Elza Maalouf argues that SDi provides a "memetic" interpretation of non-Western cultures that Western NGOs often lack, focusing attention on the "indigenous content" of the culture's value system. Spiral Dynamics remains influential in new-age philosophy and spirituality. SDi has also been referenced in the fields of education, urban planning, and cultural analysis. == Notes ==