I periodically bump into Ken saying things about the conventional stage being equated with conservative, Republican systems.  Which seems generally likely, but also it looks to me like those in a conventional stage will reflect whatever the conventional culture looks like, which may not necessarily be conservative and/or Republican.  As I was growing up in my family as well as in my social group (school, neighborhood, state, popular media etc.) it was exceedingly conventional to be liberal and Democratic.  So, for me, Blue/Amber was pro-choice, anti-gun, anti-nuke, pro-diversity, and so on.  I didn't necessarily know why I was supposed to act world centric, I just knew that that was how things were supposed to be, and so I followed the rules of my world-centric world.  I was ethnocentrically promoting what was good for my "peeps", so to speak.  And my peeps told me that diversity was good for us, and respecting a woman's right to choose what happens inside her body was good for us, and not letting people have weapons of mass destruction (regardless of their stated intentions for them) was good for us.

So, to me, it appears that being a conservative or a liberal isn't about a specific stage, per se, but about what a specific stage looks like within a specific system/culture of the Lower Left (and to some extent the Lower Right).

It's similar to the idea of framing (as popularized by linguist George Lakoff in his little book "Don't Think of an Elephant"), where the beliefs one has are directly related to the language that one normally hears. 

Another example would be people coming into second tier with a culture/background that regularly speaks of there being an omnipresent God, compared to someone who grew up with the idea of the unknown being completely open to speculation and theorizing.  The former would get to Teal or Turqouise and be quite comfortable in framing their beliefs by saying something like: "We are all expressions of God."  The latter might look at that and say "Huh?" and then continue on with: "The Universe seems to have consciousness and perhaps even self-consciousness through material beings."  It's the same thing framed in a different cultural, Lower Left language.

So I'm wondering if it's important to note that Lower Left adds a "framing" element to one's level, in a way that may not be getting mentioned by Ken and others in I-I media?

Peace, Love, and Bicycles,
Turtle

Good point Turtle. It's important to distinguish between structures of consciousness and the content within that structure.

The liberal ideas of pro-diversity, environmental care etc first emanated with the green wave of consciousness. But once that structure of consciousness had given rise to new content for the world to see, it was obviously possible for somebody at amber to adopt the ideas and use them as fundamental truths (such as yourself growing up in a green environment).

As far as some amber content goes, for example "men and women have roles given by god that can never be modified" and "all non-christians will burn in hell", that content would be harder for higher levels to adopt since it doesn't fit within the new structure of consciousness.

Ken often uses simplistic examples to reach out to people, such as labelling Republicans as amber and Liberals as green. This might be true for the majority but certainly not for everybody. I would think it's quite possible for a someone who is predominantly teal to vote for the Republicans; valuing the personal responsibility and 'being hard on red' which that party promotes. Maybe not as long as Bush is in power but you get the drift

(disclaimer: I have tried to use American examples of content even though I am not American myself. A good exercice in LL in and of itself.....)

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http://integraleurope.org
http://pelle.gaia.com
http://malmointegral.blogspot.com

Hi,

Yes, good topic Turtle.

For a more detailed account of Ken's take on this, see A Theory of Everything, pages 83-89. There, he says that conservatives tend to believe in interior causation, while liberals tend to focus on exterior causation. So conservatives are more associated with the left-hand quadrants, etcetera. This also helps to explain why you find religious people among conservatives, and orange people among the liberals. (Liberalism arose at the Enlightenment.)

In Holland, if you care to know, there's a multitude of political parties, and I made it some kind of sport to see if I could match developmental stages on them. I think it works. In some parties, there are combinations of consecutive stages; one of them consists of both amber (blue) and orange politicians, so they have a conservative and a liberal wing, which leads to lots of internal struggles.

Greens tend to focus more on the lower quadrants, I guess, with emphasis on culture (LL) and environmental issues (LR). For orange liberals it's the economy (LR) and a kind of materialstic individualism (UR). Note completely sure, here. I haven't been breaking it down into quadrants before.

In short: it's complicated

If others could comment if they see the same in their country, I'd be interested.

People at integral tend to think that both interior causation and exterior causation are important, naturally.

Peter

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"All nations should be like Amsterdam" -- Ken Wilber

I studied this stuff a while back and posted on my blog.  I think I copied the whole thing over to this forum, but it must be on "version 2".  It's on my blog at: http://integralvalley.typepad.com/blog/2006/03/liberal_and_con.html

I'll reprint it here again, though it's kind of long, and the chart doesn't show up very well.  I'm not attached to the views I expressed.  I was exploring.  (In other words, I'm not interested in defending it, so you can take it or leave it.)  Hopefully it's valuable in some way:

 

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Seeking the Unseekable

Aeryck, I'm a little confused as to why both 3 and 4 are focused on internal control in your chart.  I'm also a little confused by the idea that liberals are focused on external control and conservatives on internal control.  I tend to see it as the opposite.  Conservatives seem like they are generally looking for someone to be in charge, an external supervisor who makes the decisions for everyone else's benefit (God, dad, the boss, the President, etc.) and should be respected above all else.  Whereas I see liberals believing that people should be expected to control themselves and make decisions for themselves, internally.

What am I missing here?

-Turtle

Hi Turtle,

Great topic! Ken has actually lined up ideological perspectives within the 4 quadrants in "A Theory of Everything" end notes and in his discussion of integral politics in his dialogue John Mackey and Integral Politics video excerpt.

Essentially one puts the four quadrants up to a mirror so that they reverse and  line up correctly for left and right as we understand those terms in U.S. politics. The axis are split teween individual and collective (the I and the we) and interior (indivdiual responsibility and values) and exterior (behavior and systems). This yields Freedom Left and Freedom Right and Order Left and Order Right.

Freedom Left emphasizes that people should be free to do and say (exterior indivdual behavior) anything they want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. Freedom Right argues that we are are self responsible and make our own bed in life (interior indivdiual motivation). Oder Left argues that no matter how hard we try circumstances can be beyond our control and government (exterior collective systems) has to step in and insure fairness. Order right (collective interior) argues for tradition and values issues (and includes thoughtful social conseravtives such as George Willl in addtion to amber fundamentlists.)

This also allows for the excellent point you made in your original post- that one can be conseravtive or liberal and be at different altitudes. Ken highlights this as well. Republicans tend to be at amber and orange, Democrats at red, orange and green as a general center of gravity. But there are teal liberals (Barak Obama) and teal conservatives (Andrew Sullivan).  I really like your point about worldcentric values being receieved at a young age and held in an absolutist amber fashion. It is something I hadn't realized before so thank you. It does underline the importance of the difference between structures and content.

This model doesn't suggest that liberals aren't concerned with interiors or that conservtaives aren't concerned with exteriors, but just where they primarily locate the cause of human misery and the relief of suffering. Conservatives look to pulling yourself up by your bootstraps (interior motivation) and restoring moral values (again interior) while liberals tend to stress restraining government (allowing for free speech for instance) and passing laws to make society and systems fair and equal (exterior examples). That aside, it's not saying liberals aren't driven by interior etehics or conservatives won't use laws to influence values choices (posting the 10 Comandments in schools as an answer to school violence, restricitng access to abortion etc.)

 

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Namaste,
Harv

"(The) Practice of love is always available- and expressive of your deepest truth- right now."
-David Deida

Aeryc's exposition of the left and right alternation of SD's reds, blues, oranges and greens brings to mind another alternation that has been a topic of controversy with integral folks.

I refer to the seeming alternation between agentic leaning "memes" like red and orange with the communal tilts of blue and green.  I know that "Uncle Don" Beck has stressed this zig-zag up the spiral and has even based his classic colors on it.  Thus red and orange represent "warm" agency while blue and green evoke "cool" communion.

Ken is not so convinced about this alternation, but does admit there is some evidence of it.  I would direct those interested to Shambala's site, Ken Wilber Online: Pragmatic History of Cosciousness to his Sidebar C: Orange and Green: Levels or Cousins?

Personally, I'm hoping I'm in Aeryc's group 5 by now, able to grant the validity of each of those other 4 views.  But I must admit to a rather "blue" attachment to Ken's world for now.  It's "safest."

MarkD

There's always another color ahead.

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Just enough enlightenment for this time around, please.

*Warning: Off-Topic Post*

Mark, you do certainly seem to have transformed yourself recently, as your avatar shows so well -but, heck, even as a cat you're still orange! (albeit with some fluffy white light coming through your heart chakra . . .)

*End off topic post*

Tim

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"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky

Turtle -

Actually, in the chart, 3 is focused on internal, and 4 on external.  The left column is external, the right column internal.  It's easier to see that if you read the blog entry.

As Harv (and I, in my post) explained, I took these definitions straight from Ken.  When asked "what is the cause of human suffering?"  Generally conservatives will say it's the person themselves (internal factors) that have brought on their own suffering (either because of "sin" or because they don't try hard enough - 2 or 3 in the chart above), and liberals will say it's external forces (society, culture) that brings the person down or doesn't give them opportunity, etc.  So to fix it, conservatives will say "lead a pure life" (2) or "be successful!" (3).  Liberals will say "provide opportunities", "create equality", etc.  (1 or 4, depending on if it's the person needing help or the one providing).

Also, you are confusing the dimensions of my model, and sort of missing the whole point.  The conservative/liberal divide is the left and right sides.  For *both*, there is a top and bottom which is how "control of life" is experienced.  On top are those that feel control (both lib and cons) and on bottom are those who do not feel in control.  Different dimension.   

The (1) people have little control and feel it's things outside themselves that put them there. 
The (2) people feel that internal factors are what determine their fate (whether they sin or not, for instance), but they need that outside control (God, etc.) to keep them in line. 
(3) are in control of their own lives, and get frustrated about both 2 and 3 not being in control.
(4) understand that some need help, and want to provide it, though they themselves are in control of their own lives.

I created the model to add the extra dimension to show the fallacy of the exact thing that you described.  Some people see liberals and in control and conservatives as not.  Others see the opposite.  I maintain that there is an extra dimension and that both of those viewpoints are "true but partial".

Mark - I agree it's sort of like that, but it's slightly different in that you start on the left, and then go right, right, and then left.  Definitely a progression of some sort, but I'm not sure if it has to do with agency/communion.  I have thought about that though.

Thanks guys - hopefully this makes it at least a little more clear.  The idea is not to collapse it back down to "liberal" and "conservative".  And it's definitely progressive, or developmental.  People move up from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4.  Sometimes people are to (2) by age four (learning how to behave to get the system that controls them to do what they want).  Some are still stuck there 30 years later in a corporate environment.  If I get time, I'll rewrite this model so that it makes more sense.

  Anyway - gotta run for now.

Aeryck

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Seeking the Unseekable

aeryck:

Actually, in the chart, 3 is focused on internal, and 4 on external.  The left column is external, the right column internal.  It's easier to see that if you read the blog entry.

I assumed that that was your intent, which is why the details in 3 and 4 seemed to be the opposite of what you were intending to say, since both said essentially the same thing about the locus of control:

"I control what happens in my life.  My own abilities and internal state determine to a large extent what happens to me."

It looks to me like you are saying that both liberals and conservatives who feel like they are in control of their lives belive that that control is internal.  See what I mean?  Typo maybe?

I do really like the idea of being clear about the difference between those who feel in control and those who don't.  I'm imagining that this may be the difference between those who are Red-Blue compared to those who are Orange and up, since Orange is where the real independence comes in.  I think that's what Ken means by the pre/trans falacy.  Red can look a lot like Orange based on superficial beliefs, but the underlying stage is quite different.  I'd say that a big part of that difference, is as you say, the feeling of control over one's life.

As far as the overall view that Conservatives believe that their fate is internally decided while Liberals feel that their fate is externally controlled, I guess I just have to say that most of the Liberals and Conservatives that I've known in my life are appearantly quite different than the ones you and Ken have known :-)  Which is kind of what my original post was about, the different ways that a political persuasion can look, depending on the language of the culture, regardless of level.

Peace, Love, and Bicycles,
Turtle

Turtle- There's another piece here as well. Freedom left and right do indeed trust people to make their own decisions as you noted above. They both derive from the Enlightenment and Classical liberalism, the political philosphy of our founders. So even though we call Freedom right "conservtive" historically they are liberal, believing people are fundamanetally good and that they can be trusted to make their own decisions. Order right, or tradtional conservatives trace back to Burke in England in the late 1700s who mistrusted the Enlightenment and Classical Liberalism. This true conservtism takes a dim view of human nature and thus believes in tradition and slow change (we might just mess rapid change up and lose important tradtions.) We can see these two wings of Republicans in conflict- Freedom Right is often comfortable with Gay Marriage- while Order Right is often not. Reagan brought the two wings together, but they have been in conflict during this election. So viewing people as good or bad or trustworthy to make decisions isn't necessarily a good way of divdiidng contemporray versions liberal and conservative as you noted above. (Our defintions of liberal and conservative can confuse Europeans precisely because we call Freedom Right conservative even though they are really liberal). Plus while liberals tend to be optimistic about human nature many U.S. founders took a dim view of the passions of the masses so humans were good primarily when educated and able to think critically.

Aeryck- I look forward to seeing more about your model. 

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Namaste,
Harv

"(The) Practice of love is always available- and expressive of your deepest truth- right now."
-David Deida

Ok, now I see where the confusion is.  It's not a typo, but I can understand where you are seeing what looks like a discrepancy.  Again, it has to do with the second dimension.  Hmmm, how to explain it...

The motivation I had for developing this is that people seemed to want to split up liberals and conservatives by some defining line.  "Think people are good" vs. "Think people are evil".  "Internal causation of fate" vs. "External causation of fate".  Etc.  But, I always could find the opposite case to however people would split them up.  So I knew there must be a different dimension.  I thought Ken's definition made a lot of sense, but I could see two distinct groups on each side:  on the liberal side I could see the "needy" and the "giving" groups, both of which deal with the external.  On the conservative side I could see the "sinner" and the "self-motivated" groups, both which deal with the internal.  So that split seemed correct, but what was this other dimension?  The "In Control" aspect is what I came up with.  The needy and sinner groups both feel lack of control, the self-motivated and giving groups both felt in control.  But the focus of "needy" and "giving" were both still external, and the focus of "sinner" and "self-motivated" both were internal.  Then I realized the four groups lined up with red/blue/orange/green pretty well and that led to the posting I made.

As far as the apparent discrepency, I think that the level 4 / green / "giving" people have transcended/included the "internal-self-motivated" mode and so yes, their own internal thoughts drive their fate, but they can then recognize the extent to which external factors affect *others* (as well as themselves to whatever extent), and their focus moves back over to external.  They are wanting to put programs in place, etc. to help out people, etc.  So, it's not saying that all of the sudden, they have lost the internal aspect.  It's developmental.  You go from (external focus / no control) to (internal focus / no control) to (internal focus / control) to (external focus / control).  Each transcends and includes the previous, but usually the focus is so strong on the current stage that it seems like the other ones are "wrong".  So - it has more to do with *focus* (external or internal).

Hopefully that clears things up.  Basically I was just trying to make sense of the "welfare-recipient" and "environmentalists" both being liberals and the "religious" and "CEO" both being conservative.  I'm totally using stereotypes, etc. to get my point across.  Hope that doesn't offend.  If it does, there is a good set of videos recently released on IN to help with that. ;)

Does that make more sense?

Thanks for playing along,

Aeryck

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Seeking the Unseekable

Aeryck, that does indeed make sense.  Thanks!

And no, I'm not at all offended (that would take far more effort on your part to accomplish!), but I'm curious about the IN videos you speak of...  Might those be the ones featuring the effervescent Fred Kauffman about Authentic Communication?  Or something else?

Bicycle!
Turtle

Aeryck,

I like how you are bringing in the evolutionary aspect into an integral apprach to ideology through looking at locus of control.

For me, I react to your description of level 4 as almost more teal than Green in that it seems to bring together responsibility and external help for others when when needed. I'm not sure that Green would see their fate as  under their control (for instance the demonization of corporations per se th and globalization that sometimes occurs at Green in terms of environmental issues- sometimes deserved, sometimes not).

As noted above religious and corporate Repulican "conservatives" come from two very different political philosophies historically. Welfare recipients and environmentalists both being liberals is somewhat more problematic. I'm not saying that you are stereotyping (and Brett Thomas' points in the video were excellent) but I'm not sure it can be assumed that all welfare recipeints are receiving welfare because of a needy mindeset believing that they don't have control over their lives. It's certainly possible and maybe even probable in some cases, but in others external factors may rule no matter what their mindset. And as noted above some environmentalists don't feel in control of their issue (sometimes justified, sometimes not). Also environmentalism can often cut across liberal and conservative lines. Industrial midwestern Democrats can vote against the environment and Republicans sometimes support it.

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Namaste,
Harv

"(The) Practice of love is always available- and expressive of your deepest truth- right now."
-David Deida

Harv,

I agree with what you said, and just wanted to clarify one thing.  I wasn't saying that all the people receiving welfare have that mindset, and I wasn't saying environmentalists are always liberal, etc. 

What I was saying (or trying to, anyway) is that when I looked at those two groups that did have those characteristics, and both seemed "liberal", I wanted to figure out what the difference between those two groups of people (both liberal) were.  Same on the conservative side.  I'm not lumping everyone into the groups.  Just noticing something about pre-existing groupings that didn't make sense, until I added the "in control" dimension.

As far as the green vs. teal issue - I think that it still works because the focus is on external, and they are in control -even if they don't feel that way.  Their focus is on larger issues, so they may feel lack of control, but the "in control" aspect is really about their own lives in this model, not about control of the bigger world issues.  Probably could bring in the expansion of "circle of concern" vs. "circle of influence" stuff here, but don't have time or inclination right now.

I think Teal comes in when you are able to go back an embrace (consciously) the interior aspects, which is to say, your focus starts to include them again, and gain the ability to recognize all four parts in yourself and others. 

Thanks for the ongoing discussion,

Aeryck

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Seeking the Unseekable