What is mean green?  I know this question is quite elementary, especially for this forum, but I can't seem to get a fix on the answer.  (Makes me wonder if I simply have not had the "pleasure" of meeting a real mean green or if I might be one, and therefore not be able to see it.) Anyway, maybe an example might help me get it.  Thanx, Bev

You know, I was just thinking about this yesterday and reflecting upon the fact that-especially the more and more I experience and notice it- "mean green" really is a very real, palpable and accurate description.

Take for example, the following, that my wife is experiencing now on an almost daily basis.

She joined a presumably progressive mothering forum (in part because we are expecting a new child). Nearly every day she expresses to me some example -sometimes almost horrifying-of how incredibly MEAN people with what always turns out to be "green" consciousness and attitude can be. (BTW, she doesn't even know the term "green" aside from it's more mainstream political implications.)

Obviously, it is the hip thing amongst this group to be having at-home-births, free from doctors and the ("horrible, evil") modern medical profession. When a woman will log on and post with an absolutely sincere question or concern, such as "I have such and such a serious medical condition and therefore can not risk home birth, does anybody have suggestions about . . .?" And some of the responses will be utterly insensitive to the fact that the woman NEEDS to be in the presence of trained medical attention for her own health and the health of her baby, completely ignore her fears and concerns and just systematically chide her for not going what I shall call here "the full-on green dogma way" in having her baby. Basically, anyone who expresses a view, need, concern or opinion in opposition to the green view, is derided and made to feel guilty and shameful, not even to be a good person but a horribly bad one. This is just mean.

One woman on the forum stored her baby's cord blood and it was eventually used to SAVE ANOTHER BABY'S LIFE! This fact is overlooked by a large number of the mothers on the forum who rather than acknowledge such a beautiful miracle, such a beautiful sentiment and such a fantastic use and wonder of modern technology, rather continually attack the woman for even storing the blood in the first place. (Your baby needs that blood, you're a bad mother, I don't know about you but I am concerned for my own baby and wont even consider the evil of "storing" the cord blood, that belongs to my baby etc. - with not one single, sensetive and caring ackowledgement of the baby who's life was saved and that family) 

Today's example: Someone started a thread with the funny post "What kind of baby are you having?" Most of the women thought it was funny and responded in kind "A girl baby, a boy baby, we don't know yet but we hope it'sa human baby, but who knows considering my husband, etc." And, of course, at least one person so far has completely missed the playful humor and posted "I am offended by the wording of your question. I don't know about you but I am having a human baby" etc.

Mean green is, of course, pathological green; green gone bad; green gone wild. This otherwise in healthy circumstances extremely sensitive level of consciousness, turned super-ultra-negative, absolutist, judgmental and since this is also an extremely sophisticated level of consciousness -above the general average-with an incredible amount of power to almost literally eat people alive, hurt them very deeply and insensitively, just . . .cause all sorts of damage.

There are other examples that I can think of, but I'll leave t there for now. Mean Green is just Green gone pathological and being very mean and hurtful to all other people. Sometimes, or even often, with an incredible vengeance, that most other folks could never even comprehend or dream of-even in pathological circumstances. Again, just mean.

Peace, 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

Relativism is probably the main feature of green, and extreme relativism is the breeding ground for the mean green meme (MGM).

Extreme relativism means that there can be no absolute truth (which is of course a performative contradiction, but mean green does not or does not want to understand this). Therefore everything is equal, everything has the same value, hierarchies of any sort are nasty domineering structures designed to oppress, etc etc

Most of all extreme relativism means that all truth is subjective (there is no objective truth), and therefore my subjective take on something is the only thing that has value to me. This gives rise to extreme narcissism, initially often masked in seemingly open-minded statements such as you do your thing, I do my thing. This will then progress to subtly putting down another person who shares  a brilliant insight by telling him/her that is your way of looking at things. From there on matters will spiral downwards, and the lack of respect for amber boundaries and orange civilisation will unleash the red meme in its full force, and just like Tim describes so well people will think nothing of hurting others terribly just because they do not subscribe to various green meme "holy cows".

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

Some people (even Ken himself sometimes) say that pluralism is a main feature of the green meme, but I agree more with the SD dogma that says that pluralism emerges with the worldcentric abilities of the orange meme. What green does is add relativism to the mix, and mean green infects pluralism with extreme relativism - which (unfortunately) becomes a very potent mixture...

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

Hi Tim.  Thank you for your reply.  And congratulations on your upcoming role as a parent!

Your post got me thinking about people who seem to think they are right and know what is right for everyone else.  But the ones I experience are not coming from green.  I live in a very conservative/republican town (blue?)  And I have learned to just keep my mouth shut.  As examples - when a coworker learned that my niece is gay, she told me she will be going to hell.  When Bush began the march to war, the flags got pasted up on the windows.  Before I even realized how ashamed I was of Bush's playground bully tactics, the "I'm proud to be an American" bumperstickers were everywhere.  When others noticed that I was not pasting flags and slogans all over my office and car, I got the silence and avoidance treatment.  The two or three discussions about war I tried to have, with people I thought were intelligent, resulted in them talking over me, getting louder whenever I tried to say anything, refusing to hear anything I had to say and repeating over and over what we all already kept hearing on the news. 

Yes, I'm bitter.  Still working on this one.  The issue, for me, is twofold.  Being told what to do/think/feel and not being heard.  I hear echoes of this in your example of mothers-to be being bullied into homebirths.  (In the days when I was considering being a mom, I was surrounded by people who believed in the near-divinity of doctors and were appalled that I would consider homebirth.  When I mentioned finding a midwife I was told a caesarian was the way to go.)

So, I think the wider issue is one of mutual respect for each others needs and choices.  But I still can't get a handle on "mean green."  Is what I have experienced "mean blue?"  I encounter the term "mean green" in Wilber's books and in videos on integralnaked, and even with the explanations, I'm drawing a blank.  Do you have any more examples?

Thanx, Bev

Hi pelleB,  Thanks for your reply to my question.  I am not quite sure where I am, color wise - but I am confused. 

When I replied to Tim, I said that the issue was of respecting peoples needs and choices - Tim giving an example of mothers-to-be being bullied into natural childbirth, my remark that if I had given birth in the eighties, I would have been forced into a hospital birth, against my wishes, most likely with all the medical intrusions.  So what is right for one mom is not right for another mom - a very green, relative answer, yes?  That makes me squarely green, because that is what I believe, but the mean greenies were the ones who had the one right way to give birth and were not respecting one mom-to-be's need for a different approach. 

I hear in both your reply and Tim's reply how hurtful the mean green can be, and I think I have just never encountered one.  Is there any TV or movie character that might embody this behavior, or maybe a politician or other public figure?  Something that will give me a better sense of it? 

Thanx again, Bev

What happens when relativism infects pluralism?

I am going to "think out loud" on the computer screen.

Just to keep me on track I looked up the definitions -

Pluralism is a state in society in which members of diverse ethnic, racial, religious or social groups maintain an autonomous participation in and development of their traditional culture or special interest within the confines of a common civilization.

Relativism is a view that ethical truths depend on the individuals and groups holding them.

For an example, I am thinking about female castration as practiced on children by a culture in Africa.  Is it the green in me that says "Who am I to judge the cultural practices of another culture?"  Is that an example of relativism infecting pluralism?

What is it in me that says, "Wait a minute, every child should have the protection of adults, and if that protection is not provided by the members of that culture then adults of another culture should step in and provide that protection?"  Is this just another shade of green? - a belief that I have the right answer and so I will try to force it on this culture?

But still, stepping into a long-time traditional practice of an indigenous culture and telling the leaders they are wrong and must stop - I don't think that will work.  Somehow, they need to learn and understand for themselves that inflicting this sort of violence on children is wrong, and the choice to stop should be their own.  (What color is that?)

And back to the example of Moms-to-be.  Even though my ideal would have been a home birth, if a doctor that I trusted had been able to convince me that I was risking my or my baby's life, then I would have agreed to a hospital birth.  In other words, I can be influenced by information. 

Can a culture that castrates their children be helped to see how cruel and violent that is?  And be persuaded to stop? (A voice in me says "Only from within.") 

My brain hurts now so I'll stop writing.  But thanks to you and Tim for making me think and I look forward to any feedback you (or anyone else) may have on what I've written here.

Bev

Hi Beverly,

Well sure, there's mean amber (blue), mean orange, mean green, mean teal (yellow)... For every broad stage of consciousness there is at least one major pathology, sometimes I even think that it's inevitable to have a structure of pathology that corresponds to the constructive gains that a new level of consciousness brings. Everybody has a shadow and that shadow will find it's expression through the level of consciousness that dominates the person. The reason mean green has become so prominent in the sphere of Ken Wilber is probably due to the fact that it has been so influential in the academic world, and effectively blocked brilliant new material such as Ken's.

I am not quite sure how to explain the MGM more than I already have. There is a difference between relativism, which is generally a good thing, and extreme relativism - which is a disaster and wipes out all sense of depth, beauty, truth, etc. Extreme relativism unleashes subjectivity, trashes all objectivity - even approximations of objectivity - and a strong, primitive narcissism enters the driver's seat. Mean green is that special blend of extreme relativity that with the permission of red narcissism feels free to attack anybody who is not distinctly green.

Because such is the makeup of mean green, and it cannot see the performative contradictions involved when they first say you do your thing I do mine and immediately afterwards attack somebody who does not embrace green values. Green is very tolerant as long as you are also very tolerant and green.

Healthy green can have a hard time identifying mean green, just as healthy integral can easily be seduced by unhealthy integral.

I am not the right person to give you an example of mean green, I will leave that to somebody who's American just like you.

Pelle

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

Relativism is a view that ethical truths depend on the individuals and groups holding them.

As a stand-alone definition, this is mean green. I believe a more integral approach would be to say that there are ethical truths that span across all groups of people, and developing the moral line will help identifying these truths. Other (more minor) ethical truths can be culture-specific.

For an example, I am thinking about female castration as practiced on children by a culture in Africa.  Is it the green in me that says "Who am I to judge the cultural practices of another culture?"  Is that an example of relativism infecting pluralism?

Yes. Do you respect the culture of the mafia that kill people on a regular basis? No, nobody does. So why should we respect the mutilation of little girls in Africa?

The people who practice female circumcision are doing it from their level of consciousness (integral tells us this) and are also brainwashed by their traditions (green tells us this). The problem with mean green is that they won't acknowledge that any tradition is worse than another, nor will they acknowledge that this tradition originates from a lower level of consciousness than is generally prevalent in western countries. So they are left with no tools to condemn what happens, which leads to them having to accept such atrocities.

What is it in me that says, "Wait a minute, every child should have the protection of adults, and if that protection is not provided by the members of that culture then adults of another culture should step in and provide that protection?"  Is this just another shade of green? - a belief that I have the right answer and so I will try to force it on this culture?

I don't believe this is green. I believe it is a healthy human being talking from amber or any level above.

But still, stepping into a long-time traditional practice of an indigenous culture and telling the leaders they are wrong and must stop - I don't think that will work.  Somehow, they need to learn and understand for themselves that inflicting this sort of violence on children is wrong, and the choice to stop should be their own.  (What color is that?)

Well, how to implement or encourage change is often a tough question. I do not have the answer to that, but I do know that if mean green rules the day and does not even try to disturb the practices of some African tribes - then we have a problem.

And back to the example of Moms-to-be.  Even though my ideal would have been a home birth, if a doctor that I trusted had been able to convince me that I was risking my or my baby's life, then I would have agreed to a hospital birth.  In other words, I can be influenced by information. 

I would say that this is an integral way of thinking. You can see the benefits of home births that green has outlined, but you also evaluate the truths that the mostly orange medical community brings to the table.


Pelle

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

Hi Beverly --

Since it's Ken Wilber who coined the phrase "mean green" (closely related to "boomeritis"), here's some discussion on it from his book, A Theory of Everything:

The point is simply that the very high developmental stance of green pluralism--the product of at least six major stages of hierarchical transformation--turns around and denies all hierarchies, denies the very path that produced its own noble stance. It consequently extends an egalitarian embrace to every stance, no matter how shallow or narcissistic. The more egalitarianism is implemented, the more it invites, indeed encourages, the Culture of Narcissism. The the Culture of Narcissism is the antithesis of the integral culture.

(We saw that narcissism, at its core, is a demand that "Nobody tells me what to do!" Narcissism will therefore not acknowledge anything universal, because that places various demands and duties on narcissism that it will strenuously try to deconstruct, because "nobody tells me what to do." This egocentric stance can easily be propped up and supported with the tenets of pluralistic relativism.).

In short, the rather high developmental wave of pluralism becomes a supermagnet for the rather low state of emotional narcissism. ....

In other words, the very high developmental meme of pluralism becomes a shelter and a haven for a reactivation of some of the lower and intensely egocentric memes (e.g., purple and red) In green's noble attempt to move beyond conformist rules (many of which are indeed unfair and marginalizing), and in its genuine desire to deconstruct a rigid rationality (much of which can be rigid and stultifying)--in short, in green's admirable attempt to go postconventional--it has often inadvertedly embraced anything nonconventional, and this includes much that is frankly preconventional, regressive, and narcissitic.

.... A typical result is that the sensitive self, honestly trying to help, excitedly exaggerates its own significance. It will possess the new paradigm, which heralds the greatest transformation in the history of the world; it will completely revolutionize society as we know it; it will revision everything that came before it; it will save the planet and save Gaia and save the Goddess; it will be the most extraordinary...

Examples of mean green? It can be a tricky thing to see, because healthy green and mean green often hang out together and work on the same projects. Here is a kind of simplified U.S. example: Anti-war protesters, be it during the Vietnam War, or during the current Iraq War. There are healthy green anti-war protesters, people with a worldcentric stance who have worthy concerns about the ethics, motivation, and effects of these wars, and who are acting from a place of sensitivity and compassion. But there are also mean green protesters, who will go to "peace" marches with an irate (and unpeaceful!) attitude of "nobody, especially that devil incarnate, GW Bush (or anyone who supports him) tells us what to do! We and only we are to be the saviors of the world, after all!" Their stance is more egocentric than sensitive and compassionate -- but because they are participating in seemingly worldcentric actions, they might initially be mistaken for healthy green.

With mean green, you get people who want to deny all hierarchies and argue that all stances are of equal merit -- but who don't see the irony contained in rejecting hierachy while also lauding their own egalitarian and tolerant stance as the most valuable stance. And while mean green may pride itself on its apparent tolerance, it often will not tolerate the intolerance of others. But -- believing that all opinions are of equal merit -- it doesn't admit to this intolerance. So instead of recognizing that some ideas have more merit than others, mean green might criticize and trash those who do recognize such things ... but will still shout its own oh-so-tolerant and "compassionate" opinions from the rooftops.

This is kind of rambling: sorry. I'm not an SDI (Spiral Dynamics-Integral) expert either -- and have actually come to see lately that what I know of SD is limited and elementary. Anyway, hope this helps a little with explaining "mean green."

Ciao for now,

Mary

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Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

~Rumi

try looking up the Green Party, or Ralph Nader.

Remember, Walmart is the great enemy!

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myspace.com/zentaimusic
resting.awareness@juno.com

Actually this is a good question, because we always need to explore the foundation of belief. I'm not 100% on concrete worldviews being inevitable, because it’s almost impossible to know if Wilber is describing the reality for all people everywhere and every when, or just for the people in our cultural space and time. I.e., perhaps this makes so much sense to us because we experience it, but perhaps it’s not applicable to other cultural spaces and times, because the research just hasn't been done.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that Wilber is describing at least our reality very accurately, and I came across a news story recently that is more of a concrete analogy to the MGM in the latest Anthropology News newspaper. In it was an editorial written by a primatologist working with chimps. She talked about the hate mail she gets and the protests her lab sometimes gets by animal/human rights people. She noted that primatologists in the U.S. at least, are run very humanly. She also noted the destruction of natural habitat in Africa, along with the wholesale killing of primates there, and that he chimps were better off where they were until those conditions could be ameliorated. She noted the fact that her organization and others like it were some of the only ones spotlighting those conditions and trying to stop them, while the protesters, were being very myopic in not seeing the problem in its totality, nor helping with the chimps’ natural habitat.

I can attest to this. There’s a primatology lab attached to my university for the physical anthropologists to do their work and it is very human and caring. The primatologists there are professors who teach students about the conditions in Africa, and note that it is the personal interest of the students to help with the protection of primates and the conservation of their habitat.

So basically, MGM is a worldview that sees injustice, etc… very myopically. They often attack individuals and not the problems in their totality. While attempting to only bring about good, they often cause more harm in the process and damage their own causes.

Another example is an org. at my school. It is comprised of atheists who protest the evils of organized religion, and fail to reflect upon the context of neither religion, nor their own actions in any kind of deep, non-superficial way. Recently they had a program of trading porn for bibles. They called it “Smut for Smut.”  They weren’t helping anything, and causing more harm than good.

rick

 

 

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"The extreme complexity of man's emotional reactions to life finds necessarily its counterpart in his attitude to death." -Malinowski

Thank you for yoru time and explanation. I am new to Ken's approach and books. As a matter of fact what I have read from him applied directly to my own spiritual tradition(s) and I am not very familiar with all thoe terms. Although the more I read, the more I realize that we (you and me) are referring to similar or the same Ancient Truth or wisdom, but my vocabulary is limited in this new language. Is there a book that you might reccomend that will help me get some of these basic concepts?

For what I have gathered, Mean green, is the negative aspect of green. Green corresponds to a lower level of consiousness of awareness. I therefore assume that there most be three aspects of green, the lowest of the lowest (mean) 2. the Green itself as a principle (therefore non judgement is placed on it perse) and the highest of the Green which most be a transitional place or "lifting of awareness".

I am an ex-catholic priest, currently have a Reformed Church which combines Christianity, budhism and Ancient Wisdom fromthe East together (of course, both christianity and Bidhism have the Ancient Wisdom built in, budhsim is a little more pure, while Ancient being the purest, in my limited understanding).

So please forgive me, if I am posting and interrupting the flow of this chat. I am reading different posts and trying to gather a better understanding or grasping of IS.

 

Hi Pelle

I think I am starting to get it.  I just printed "What is Spiral Dynamics Integral" by Don Beck from the integralnaked site to have a basic reference to the colors.  This is all so complex.  I keep rereading your posts, and the others.  I need to go back and reread Wilbers SES and brief history.  Do you recommend any books on Spiral Dynamics? 

Hi Mary

Your quote from Wilber and your examples are also helping.  I think I am just so immersed in people that live at beige, red and blue - people who listen to Rush Limbaugh and Hannity every single day and quote them, and people who go to church to be constantly reminded of the evils of abortion, homosexuality, the liberal media, the terrorists, etc.  I have found a way to listen to these people briefly, to say no thank you to their brainwashing and to bless them in my heart and wish them the best as I go on my way but they literally give me the creeps, and I leave the room, whenever possible, when they start in on their fearmongering/critisizing/hypocritical-baby-jesus-loving-its-okay-if-we-overlook-the-killing-of-innocent-Iraqis-for-freedom talk.  They are so self-righteous, and maybe my blinders to mean green is the fact that, if I was to say what I really feel --("How can you all be so stupid to re-elect the man who lied to us to take us to an illegal war?"  "How can you permit the deaths of innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq when we all felt so keenly the pain of the deaths of our citizens on 9/11, when the very god in whose name you are going to war tells you murder is wrong?")-- then I would be mean green.  I am absolutely bewildered that the good people I know could be so totally brainwashed by the media, by the Bush administration, by their religious leaders.  They are either stupid (cannot understand reality) or ignorant (refuse to see the damage we are doing and the lives we are ending) or evil (how else to label a person who does not follow his or her own ethics and morals, ie Do not kill).  Given that daily background exposure to beige/red/blue, any green, mean or otherwise, is a breath of fresh air. 

Have I exposed my mean greeness?  Tell me, am I baby-naive-mean-greenie?  Don't hold back, I'm here to learn.

"With mean green, you get people who want to deny all hierarchies and argue that all stances are of equal merit -- but who don't see the irony contained in rejecting hierachy while also lauding their own egalitarian and tolerant stance as the most valuable stance. And while mean green may pride itself on its apparent tolerance, it often will not tolerate the intolerance of others."

Maybe there is hope for me - In my existentail crisis days I was keenly aware of the paradox of my own feelings of intolerance for the intolerant, criticism of the critical, judgement of the judgemental.  And I only dislike hierarchies when they are used to justify violence to others - hierarchies have just been so misused though the ages - religious, political, patriarchal, etc, that I can understand the knee-jerk reaction to them.  But, for me, Wilber's hierachy was the ticket out of the my existential wilderness.  (Thank you, Ken) 

Hi ats

I looked up the green party.  Surely the ten core values are healthy green, yes?  And you mentioned Walmart-spawn-of-the-devil.  What about it?  Just kidding.  I'm almost afraid to joke because I have found that, since 9/11, here in my little conservative town (bless their little terrorist hating/fearing hearts) nobody gets my jokes or attempts at sarcasm, irony, etc - including, I am beginning to see - my closet-co-greenies who are so uptight (bless their little righteous politically correct hearts) that they mistake me for beige-red-blue because I am not clearly on anyone's side. 

Anyway, I have a love-hate relationship with Walmart and to me, the consumers and stockholders who benefit from their business are at least as guilty as they are for the abuses of their employees, workers in China and the communities they force themselves into.  That leads into the larger issue of corporate power and corruption in general and I have to say that I have more fear of corporate sponsored "terror" than the kind of terrorism the nightly news spews nightly.  What do you think?

Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time and energy to respond.  It means a lot to me.  Bev

Don't apologize for asking a question. Other's will chime in and probably know more about Wilber's theories than myself. I've read 3 of his books and found that he really just says the same thing over and over again, in different ways to try to get across complex ideas. Buddhists really do the same thing, and actually, I find Wilber's ideas just a modern, repackaging of Buddhism. In Buddhist philosophy the manifest world we experience temporarily moment to moment, is manifest from “emptiness,” or that which is not created, formed, acted on or effected, permanent, etc… You will experience this during meditation as you feel thoughts before they manifest, and begin to look for where they come from. This also helps to explain Karma.

Wilber notes that while this “emptiness,” or un-manifest reality, does not change and is in effect permanent. (Like a Buddhist abbot once told me, “We say that all things are impermanent, but that is only half the story.”)  The manifest world of flux does, in fact, evolve. Along with the evolution of the Universe, life on Earth, etc… Wilber equates the evolution of mankind as a whole, with the evolution of the worldviews of individuals on a whole. As the Universe evolves it also evolves within each of us. This evolution is simply the inclusion of more the universe into ourselves and a lessening of personal ego. I.e., as children we feel that our families are as deserving of life, happiness and freedom as we are, but we could care less about those not in our family, and as we develop we include more and more people into that sphere, until we include the totality of the universe, gain enlightenment and no longer distinguish between the suffering of others and our own.  Again, these are just Buddhist concepts, but Wilber has brought in modern developments in developmental psychology, anthropology, physics, etc… into this paradigm.  So he equates a mental worldview or “meme” to say a socio-political stage of cultural development like bands, tribes, nation-states, etc…

He doesn’t feel that these account for every aspect of personality, but are as loosely defined as those political stages of development. That is, a tribe is defined more by what it isn’t than what it is. I defy anyone to tell me what a tribe is, although I’m pretty sure I can take understood attributes that define aspects of a tribe to know one when I see one.

 

Anyway, the Green Meme is actually high up on the personal development of an individual. It is the point when a person begins to include all other people into their personal sphere of importance. It’s number 5 I think. Anyway, according to Wilber, until an individual reaches the stage of consciousness beyond the green meme, they remain unaware that different worldviews exist, and that they are all equally valid unto themselves, as well as integrating all those memes that came before. The green meme is the first time that an individual concludes that all other views are equally valid in and of themselves, but fails to recognize that equality of validity, does not mean equal. This creates a living paradox among these individuals that some people take to extremes. This is because they have yet, like the next meme, to understand that they, and everyone else, goes through different stages of development and have to in order to elevate their own consciousness. My personal simile for this is that it is like a person using a ladder to get to the top of a roof, kicking the ladder away after they get there, and then yelling at those stuck below to get the hell up there.  I have a pretty good handle on this, because I was a MGM.  I look back on my life and can see every previous stage, especially from Blue or the conventional rule governed stage, on up.

 

It is this particular aspect of consciousness development that Wilber really brought to previous understanding.

 

Another aspect to this idea, is that you literally can not understand this on the level of true, inclusive, lived knowledge until you yourself get beyond green. Therefore it is up to all of us that are at that point to try to put that ladder back, but alas we are an extreme minority at this point in time, so the theory goes.

We can know those that have integrated this understanding by their works, to loosely paraphrase.

 

rick

 

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"The extreme complexity of man's emotional reactions to life finds necessarily its counterpart in his attitude to death." -Malinowski