jacob wrote: ↑Thu Nov 24, 2022 2:02 pm
Those sociocentric Kegan3 tribes can be quite the pain, alright. The way I've navigated it is to see myself as a hyperobject (this mental model really is quite useful). Picture a 3D cylinder (representing Kegan4+). One flatland-tribe (representing Kegan3) will see it as a square (from the side). Another (Kegan3) flatland-tribe will see it as a circle (from above).
(If you want, you can use dimensionality as an analogous metaphor for Kegan levels in terms of what facets the consciousness is aware of.)
If you're a cylinder you can never really fit in with the squares or the circles tribes. Or rather, the squares and the circles will never really grok the full you. Instead they'll each see a part of you.
In my case, the libertarians think I'm a Marxist, the kumbayas think I'm an evil capitalist, the minimalists think I own too many tools, the left thinks I'm too much into guns, the right thinks I trust government too much, and so on.
I've come to accept these limitations. Leaning towards being an individualistic introvert, I might have done the whole Kegan4+ on easy-mode.
However, the inability to truly fit into any Kegan3 tribe (which is 56% of people) also comes with the flexibility to join different tribes. Connecting over what you have in common rather than fighting over differences. Kegan3 can be approached in both ways. It's just that everybody has come to take for granted that differences means war.
The permaculture/natural principle of the edges being the most productive holds in general. The practicalities of ERE came about from combining the values of the simple living tribe (who thinks capitalism is evil) with the values of the capitalist tribe (who thinks deliberate consumption is evil). And so on.
Instead of trying desperately to align 100% with one tribe, it maybe be more useful to align 60-70% with two or more different tribes and bring them closer together. This can lend some [dynamic] purpose to your role in life?
I've found that insofar I manage to become part of any given tribe, call it A, I'm more likely to build bridges to other tribes, call it B, C, ..., because sociocentric thinking (herd feeling/monkey brain) is more about who says it than what is being said. With a foot in multiple camps---I step my foot into their dimension and appear as a circle or a square all things depending---I can communicate with tribes in a way that tribal outsiders can not. I can skew the squares towards the circle and vice versa. The only way to do this is to avoid the "black/white"-thinking, which in this metaphorical framework is better thought of as "perpendicular"-thinking.
As long as the majority of humans are still dominated by monkey-brain, this is a productive role for those who see the hyper object. Those who don't see it are kinda screwed. So ... maybe ... they can copy those who do.