Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

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7Wannabe5
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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@black_son_of_gray:

Very interesting suggestion. I would note, although likely obvious, that the peasant woman would also have to resolve all these different types or levels of conflict from her end of "the silken rope to which they cling", and this is what makes relationships difficult and novels intriguing. For example, if/when attempting to nudge a partner towards frugality or "simple living", the ability to hold the up side of "spending" and the down side of "frugality" in mind will tend towards improvement and ultimately transcendence of one's ability to argue/nudge/promote/model/intelligently-leverage the up side of "frugality" and the down side of "spending."

Also, as with Persephone and Hades, the tension provided by conflict is often essential to the larger system. What a dystopic nightmare it would be to live in "everybody does it like me" or "beige compromise" world.

Jin+Guice
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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by Jin+Guice »

Interesting discussion everyone!

Re: Dialectics:

I probably should have used a different word for this. What I was noting is a lot of the models have a pull between two poles structure, or can at least be viewed this way. This creates the possibility of a pre/ trans fallacy situation where group n-2 can mimic group n, while group n-1 cannot.

Dialectics are not integral to the rest of the posts (at least to my knowledge).



On the other hand, Value Memes are integral to the rest of my posts. I'm using the value meme structure outlined by Hanzi Freinacht in his books "Listening Society" and "Nordic Ideology" so the different value memes do have specific meanings as outlined in those books. I appreciate the discussion and in-depth explanation of the different value memes.


I think the use of post-modernism is that it provides meaning for modernism. Objectivity only takes us so far, it never asks why, always assuming knowing more objective truth is better. Outside the context of science, which so perfectly embodies modernist ideas I feel compelled to call it "modern science" (as opposed to the "traditional" or "post-modern science described by @jacob) modernist ideals also permeate American (and most Western) society. Here it's the constant pursuit of more and the idea that the primary purpose of humanity is to raise the "standard of living" through economic gain. Economic progress is seen as human progress.

Post-modernism asks whether or not this is a worthy goal and why it is a worthy goal? Modernism assumes the subjective, assuming that the primary driver of most problems are economic and can be solved with money or by increasing material wealth.
jacob wrote:
Fri Jan 31, 2025 7:15 pm
The thing is that ERE1 left "purpose" up in the air. It just provided the means and the option to find one's purpose.
Dare I say ERE1 harnessed the power of modernism by pointing out that first world citizens long ago past the point where raising economic standards and pursuing more material wealth achieved their stated goals (usually of increasing subjective happiness or completing some objective task with less time or effort)?

The "purpose" left up in the air is exactly what i'm exploring. It's well documented in many journals that a lack of purpose at WL6 often occurs. Even for those with a strong "freedom-to" the initial post-work "freedom-to" goal is often achieved with decades of life left over. If we're looking for something as ethereal as purpose then it is the subjective post-modern views we need to explore. The ability to do this rests on the foundation of certain modernist institutions remaining intact, yet appealing to modernism as the be-all-end-all philosophy means our only purpose is to accrue continue to accrue more.

Scordatura wrote:
Sat Feb 01, 2025 7:44 pm
I was reading the Mark Manson section, and I'm thinking the three planes need integrated, at least in the sense that the highest level (value based social interactions) contain the other two. Yes, transactional relationships may be gross if you notice the transactional nature, but even value based altruism has the positive feeling after giving, which seems transactional, even if the other party didn't give back.
This is a "transcend and include" model, which means that you can't reach the higher levels without transcending the lower. So in this way I agree the three levels are integrated. You can't make choices in a transactional relationship without knowing what feels good, because you will have no preferences over which to transact and you can't achieve the value based level without moving through the transactional because you will quickly be bled dry by all of the transactional people. The value-based level requires strong boundaries so you do not give more than you have.

However, value-based giving is not based on altruism. it is based on the understanding that meaningful human interaction is ultimately based on what you can give, not what you can get. In order to understand this, one must be confident they have all they need (it's possible to compartmentalize to different areas though, so you don't need to have this confident in all areas to embody it in some).

If the lens the world is viewed through is primarily transactional, then the transactional can be found in any interaction. The point of value-based interaction is to act from a place beyond transactionality. It fulfills Kant's categorical imperative to "treat others and yourself as an end, not just a means."


black_son_of_gray wrote:
Sun Feb 02, 2025 6:15 pm
Considering all the different concepts you define in this post, you may derive some value from investigating "the types of conflict in stories".
This is an interesting idea and I will have to look into it. However, as you've described, my main thesis is examining instances of "man vs. himself" as he is befuddled by undigested experience brought about in "man vs. the modernist society which defines his ideas while remaining invisible to him."

Henry
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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by Henry »

John Gardner, who wrote Grendel, the "follow-up" to Beowulf wrote a book that is generally acknowledged as the best book on how to write fiction On Writers and Writers. He states there are really only two types of stories: a person goes on a journey or a person comes to town. So it's really either a personal quest or the experience of meeting a new person. Kind of simplifies things.

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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by jacob »

So someone leaves .. or someone arrives.

Henry
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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by Henry »

I guess someone "leaving" in terms of a death can be associated with either but the "leaving" is usually in terms of a quest, Odyssey being the big one.
The arrival is often seen as the teacher with undue influence, The Karate Kid being the big one there.

delay
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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by delay »

jacob wrote:
Sun Feb 02, 2025 11:06 am
@delay - Maybe "works like magic" got lost in the translation.
Thanks for explaining it like I'm five. My English is good enough to be aware of the common use of the word "like magic". I triggered more on "the key to the universe of human beings and thought" and "It's important to match the key to the lock", sentences which sound like they come straight from Dogme et rituel de la haute magie.
jacob wrote:
Sun Feb 02, 2025 11:06 am
It doesn't mean that it involves rituals, incantations, transmutations, or other hocus pocus.
You write that "applying different lenses" works wonders when talking to different "Spiral Dynamics" types. An alchemist would write about a "transmutation" to handle "different planets". I think these are different words that describe the same thing.
jacob wrote:
Sun Feb 02, 2025 11:06 am
These are not the guys you want running your laboratory.
It's well known that Isaac Newton spent as much time on alchemy as on what we now call physics. He certainly didn't think alchemy was hocus pocus. And he had a stellar track record running laboratories.

In the spirit of avoiding yes/no discussions, and not hijacking a journal, I propose to let the argument lie here. Thanks for providing an open enough space to mention the topics above!

Henry
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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by Henry »

delay wrote:
Mon Feb 03, 2025 12:49 pm

It's well known that Isaac Newton spent as much time on alchemy as on what we now call physics.
I didn't know that. Now you got worried about other well known stuff I don't know.

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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by jacob »

delay wrote:
Mon Feb 03, 2025 12:49 pm
You write that "applying different lenses" works wonders when talking to different "Spiral Dynamics" types. An alchemist would write about a "transmutation" to handle "different planets". I think these are different words that describe the same thing.
Repeatedly jumping to the conclusion that [a subject you haven't yet demonstrated having any understanding of like the Graves method above or SD itself] is the same as [something you read about alchemy in a couple of blog posts] simply because some of the words or idioms sound the same to you does more harm than good in terms of people's understanding of the goal of this thread. Continuing to misunderstand the subject whether deliberately or due to getting triggered eventually leads to getting overly simplified responses that ultimately serve no other purpose than to limit that harm. I'm definitely happy to end this weird tangent and get back to the topic at hand.

Henry
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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by Henry »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Mon Feb 03, 2025 11:20 am

Post-modernism asks whether or not this is a worthy goal and why it is a worthy goal? Modernism assumes the subjective, assuming that the primary driver of most problems are economic and can be solved with money or by increasing material wealth.
Modernism assumes the subjective but still operated within a reference to an objective order. You can still have a meta narrative with modernism. There is no meta narrative with post modernism. Also, Modernism did not have the destructive impulse of post-modernism. Modernism is a remolding, a re-forming, a re-imagining. Reimagine art, the city, literature, sexuality. Post-modernism wants to destroy the existing form and rearrange its pieces. And do it all over again five minutes later. Modernism you have drag queens. Post-modernism you have sex changes. Post-modernism has nihilistic traits and it is why it has led to post-truth culture or whatever you want to call it. Because the teleos of post-modernism is to necessitate a changing of the perceived power order in whatever dimension it is addressing. Everything is in service to that, including the truth.

Jin+Guice
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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by Jin+Guice »

@Henry:

We have different interpretations of the post-modernist paradigm. I am relying on a text for my definition and then adding my own interpretations to it. I found the two books in my aforementioned post to be very thought provoking and well thought out, but I know no reason why they are the authoritative texts on the subject, I simply like their ideas and am using them to further my own.

So with that in mind, I almost whole heartedly disagree with what you wrote.

What is the metnarrative of modernism and why is there not one for postmodernism (I admit I don't know what you mean by "metanarrative")?

Modernism was and is by many measures the most destructive force on earth.

Modernism destroyed the existing forms of traditionalism when it was new. This is part of the definition of value memes, the next value meme always dismantles the previous.

Are drag queens modernist? They play with the existing form of sexuality and gender, spitting in the face of the rules supposedly imposed by the hardnosed biological realities of objective genders.

Post-modernism is organizing, social and culture in nature. Monotheistic religion, using the traditional value meme, subjects strong men to the same rules as everyone else. In doing so it created an order and organization much larger than was previously possible. Post-modernism holds the wealthy to the same human frailties as the poor.

One thing I like about value memes is the comparison with artistic movements. Post-modern art is not soley Jackson Pollock. Something we all groan over, such as a blank canvas as art is taking post-modernism to its conclusion, and once one person has successfully hung it in a museum, it's really not that interesting anymore. Post-modern art didn't become stuck at 4'33" of silence or drip paintings, the artists famous for these works were in the right place to capture that moment in the progression of art. A progression where we moved from faithfully representing the observable reality of how light hits an object to capturing the subjective reality of how certain events felt to those people who were there and felt moved to paint about them.

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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by jacob »

Henry wrote:
Mon Feb 03, 2025 2:28 pm
Modernism assumes the subjective but still operated within a reference to an objective order. You can still have a meta narrative with modernism. There is no meta narrative with post modernism. Also, Modernism did not have the destructive impulse of post-modernism. Modernism is a remolding, a re-forming, a re-imagining. Reimagine art, the city, literature, sexuality. Post-modernism wants to destroy the existing form and rearrange its pieces. And do it all over again five minutes later. Modernism you have drag queens. Post-modernism you have sex changes. Post-modernism has nihilistic traits and it is why it has led to post-truth culture or whatever you want to call it. Because the teleos of post-modernism is to necessitate a changing of the perceived power order in whatever dimension it is addressing. Everything is in service to that, including the truth.
I think it's useful to distinguish between "young/adolescent postmodernism" and "old/mature postmodernism", here using age as a metaphor but speaking in terms of how new a culture is. (Traditionalism and modernism also have these early and late phases in their evolution.)

In the adolescent or early phase, postmodernism all about critiquing and tearing down the previous uniform objective order. If postmodernism has a meta narrative, though, it's that every and all subjective perspectives matter. In order for this meta-narrative to defeat modernism, postmodernism has to insist that modernism's objective standard is nothing special but just yet another subjective perspective. (The whole deal behind post-structuralism and its various fads---as far as I understand it---is to make the argument that they are not as objective as they claim to be. I don't know if postmodernists have really truly defeated the "I refute it thus"-argument or accepted any invitation to disprove the theory of gravity by jumping out of a 20th floor window.) IOW, a postmodernist will insist that "science is just a middle-aged white male narrative" and that there are also other equally valid perspectives. That's the adolescent (they do protest a lot) phase of it.

Mature postmodernism (after a postmodernist culture gets done protesting modernism), the meta narrative changes to inclusive community and caring for subjective orientations. Objective truth matters less than forming a community and reaching some kind of consensus that accepts every subjective perspective. It's not post-truth. It's post-objective truth as everybody gets to have their own personal truth. The caring-consensus-community will go to great lengths to promote this [meta-narrative]. Instead of figuring out an objective truth, the community will spend a lot of resources to ensure that people can have their own personal truth. (The modernist remains aware that objective truth matters or like the meta-modernist that at least some truths are better than others). Mature postmodernists believe "every human are born with their own innate wisdom and by engaging in conversation we can find out what everybody's truth is and together form a consensus".

Mature postmodernism can ONLY get to this point when the previous power order (modernism) has been thoroughly defeated. Postmodernism only works when the underlying foundations to postmodernism itself are not questioned (the meta-narrative). However, because the meta-narrative is rooted in consensus and inclusivity, it's also powerless (blind even) to modernist individuals who don't care about consensus at all when it comes to truth and traditionalist who don't care for the out-group at all when it comes to truth.

Henry
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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by Henry »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Mon Feb 03, 2025 4:17 pm

We have different interpretations of the post-modernist paradigm. I am relying on a text for my definition and then adding my own interpretations to it. I found the two books in my aforementioned post to be very thought provoking and well thought out, but I know no reason why they are the authoritative texts on the subject, I simply like their ideas and am using them to further my own.
Um, that's like the most post-modernist statement in history "we have different interpretations of the post-modernist paradigm". And I have no idea what you are talking about. And I don't think you do either. I parroted the traditional definitions of the terms as they have been discussed historically. If you want to redefine the terms and create your own school of thought based upon a few quotes and your gnostic insights, and then dismiss anyone who sits under your e-tree, that's good and plenty. But I don't know, seems a little Jim Jonesish.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Henry wrote: He states there are really only two types of stories: a person goes on a journey or a person comes to town.
Really, this is just one kind of story told from either the masculine or the feminine perspective. Humans are out-breeders, and this tendency extends to our memes as well as our genes. Although parthogenesis is technically now possible for humans, it seems likely that the out-breeding tendency would be retained due to its impact on resilience.
Henry wrote: Modernism you have drag queens. Post-modernism you have sex changes.
I would argue that sex changes are also representative of Modernity. For example, simply using the technology of a birth control pill is a form of sex change, because it alters your hormonal profile to the extent that you may choose to no longer experience a monthly period, and it completely alters your sexual and life strategies by reducing your vulnerability to years spent either pregnant or breast-feeding. In fact, reliable birth control technology may come to be seen in retrospect to have been the most important and consequential scientific technology of the 20th century. A human who has undergone male to female transition can't have a baby, but neither can a human born with a womb who regularly take her birth control pills. The fact that Modern-minded men often prefer for women to be/remain in this state does not make it any more natural of an alteration.

Also, in "Detransition, Baby" , Torrey Peters describes how humans going through the process of male-to-female transition often looked to older heterosexual recently divorced women as role models, because of the way they would also often strive to reclaim aspects of their youthful femininity as they return to the dating world. And, clearly, "divorce" is a thoroughly Modern concept.

I think the playfulness of the post-modern pastiche might be better represented by the juncture where the meaningful freedom to be a female drag queen becomes available.

https://www.out.com/drag/chappell-roan- ... belltitem1

Anyways, I find the end-game Modern power-gasp ability to transform Total Nerds into Robber Barons much more surreal-> nihilistic than a simple sex transition.
Last edited by 7Wannabe5 on Mon Feb 03, 2025 6:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

black_son_of_gray
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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by black_son_of_gray »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Mon Feb 03, 2025 11:20 am
This is an interesting idea and I will have to look into it. However, as you've described, my main thesis is examining instances of "man vs. himself" as he is befuddled by undigested experience brought about in "man vs. the modernist society which defines his ideas while remaining invisible to him."
Indeed, there is a chicken and egg issue whereby society and the individual influence each other. Though, 'influence' is probably too mild a term because the influence is historical, developmental, foundational. His ideas are invisible to him because they were built into him during his development by society (which, itself is just a long-running, overlapping continuum of a group of such individuals). So a central issue becomes how to disentangle them? Of course, I don't know the answer, but a potential approach that pops up in my head might be to oscillate between "man vs. himself" and "man vs. society" (perhaps whenever a snag is reached along one line of investigation that resists further progress). Occupational hazard: turtles all the way down.

With respect to the various Important Concepts, though, I do wonder whether some are conditional upon the other. Or maybe 'more primary' would be a better way to phrase it. E.g. I don't know if you are specifically incorporating Kegan levels into your work, but it would seem that they matter greatly in figuring out how conflicts are resolved (I suppose you might say 'alignment is achieved'?) when looking through different lenses. Different levels have potentially different options. Take Traditionalism (as discussed in the last several posts)... as a worldview it seems to be quite heavy-handed on a person adapting a sizeable chunk of identity/lifestyle/beliefs from some socially prescribed documents/edicts/norms. This suggests to me that Kegan 3 dominates, and also that the most available option to 'resolving' conflicts is that the 'man' conforms to the 'society'. I struggle to articulate how a Kegan 4 (also 5) person would operate with that worldview. ("I know I don't have to let the rules told in this book define who I am, but I choose to let them any way"?? That might be the case, or just a more sophisticated rationalization of 'man' conforming to 'society'.) Whereas there might be a good deal more Kegan 4 orientation under Modernism, which perhaps is more supportive of people breaking free of the opinions of society and figuring things out for themselves, provided the 'data is convincing'. Such a person might indeed buck societal norms when necessary to actualization, but also may choose to just 'go with the societal flow' when the battle isn't worth the cost of winning it. That type of capitulation seems to me to be more convincing from the viewpoint of a Kegan 4 Modernist rather than a Kegan 4 Traditionalist.

Why is all of this important? Because a Kegan 3 might have a harder time resolving man vs. himself conflicts, which by extension might mean that different orientations/societal colors/memes/etc. might not all be sitting on the same self-actualization playing field, so to speak. They cannot disentangle the man vs. himself and man vs. society conflicts because the concept of 'himself' is not strong enough to stand separately. Perhaps some lenses are primary to others...

7Wannabe5
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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@black_son_of_gray:

Any concept that is pre-fixed with 'self", including the top rungs of Maslow's Hierarchy, assumes the Modern soul. Both mature Postmoderns and Neo-Trads place importance on Love and Belonging Needs, but with different perspectives on the Sense of Self within Love and Belonging. Does Jesus love you because you are a Christian or does Jesus love you because Jesus loves Every One? How does having a wife better ground a man in Traditional Love and Belonging? How does becoming in touch with his own feminine qualities better ground a man in Post-Modern Love and Belonging? I think Nate Hagens is pretty good example of a man centered/strong at the Post-Modern, but also strong in the Modern and Meta-Modern. He tears up like a man who can get things done.

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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by jacob »

black_son_of_gray wrote:
Mon Feb 03, 2025 6:08 pm
Indeed, there is a chicken and egg issue whereby society and the individual influence each other. Though, 'influence' is probably too mild a term because the influence is historical, developmental, foundational. His ideas are invisible to him because they were built into him during his development by society (which, itself is just a long-running, overlapping continuum of a group of such individuals). So a central issue becomes how to disentangle them? Of course, I don't know the answer, but a potential approach that pops up in my head might be to oscillate between "man vs. himself" and "man vs. society" (perhaps whenever a snag is reached along one line of investigation that resists further progress). Occupational hazard: turtles all the way down.
SD offers one way to disentangle them. The SD book describes this in greater detail (about 100 semi-dense pages) than what is available here or on the internet.

Purple: Sacrifices self to society.
Red: Expresses self to society.
Blue: Sacrifices self to society.
Orange: Expresses self to society.
Green: Sacrifices self to society.
Yellow: Expresses self to society.

This oscillation between the egocentric and the sociecentric constructs the spiral. What makes the process "go"? The observation that each vMeme or worldview comes about because the previous vMeme somehow failed to deal with all the pertinent features of the world. Each vMeme develops from young/creative/full of energy over effective processes to codified and ultimately calcified and incapable of new ideas. This failure begets the next vMeme which at least in SD theory is driven by a reversal back to individual or group initiatives. For example, Green developed in response to Orange's inability to consider the subjective well being of people. Similarly, the metacrisis is a result of Green's inability to deal with the systemic practicalities of a complex world, so that's for Yellow to figure out.
black_son_of_gray wrote:
Mon Feb 03, 2025 6:08 pm
With respect to the various Important Concepts, though, I do wonder whether some are conditional upon the other. Or maybe 'more primary' would be a better way to phrase it. E.g. I don't know if you are specifically incorporating Kegan levels into your work, but it would seem that they matter greatly in figuring out how conflicts are resolved (I suppose you might say 'alignment is achieved'?) when looking through different lenses. Different levels have potentially different options. Take Traditionalism (as discussed in the last several posts)... as a worldview it seems to be quite heavy-handed on a person adapting a sizeable chunk of identity/lifestyle/beliefs from some socially prescribed documents/edicts/norms. This suggests to me that Kegan 3 dominates, and also that the most available option to 'resolving' conflicts is that the 'man' conforms to the 'society'. I struggle to articulate how a Kegan 4 (also 5) person would operate with that worldview. ("I know I don't have to let the rules told in this book define who I am, but I choose to let them any way"?? That might be the case, or just a more sophisticated rationalization of 'man' conforming to 'society'.) Whereas there might be a good deal more Kegan 4 orientation under Modernism, which perhaps is more supportive of people breaking free of the opinions of society and figuring things out for themselves, provided the 'data is convincing'. Such a person might indeed buck societal norms when necessary to actualization, but also may choose to just 'go with the societal flow' when the battle isn't worth the cost of winning it. That type of capitulation seems to me to be more convincing from the viewpoint of a Kegan 4 Modernist rather than a Kegan 4 Traditionalist.

Why is all of this important? Because a Kegan 3 might have a harder time resolving man vs. himself conflicts, which by extension might mean that different orientations/societal colors/memes/etc. might not all be sitting on the same self-actualization playing field, so to speak. They cannot disentangle the man vs. himself and man vs. society conflicts because the concept of 'himself' is not strong enough to stand separately. Perhaps some lenses are primary to others...
Yes, this is also covered in the SD book albeit not in Kegan terms, so I'll try to "translate".

First, each turn on the spiral describes a bigger (more comprehensive) and bigger world view. For example, Purple sacrifices the self to (ancestral) traditions and the wishes of the elders leading to crazy shit like this: viewtopic.php?p=298000#p298000 Treating human bodies (including one's own) as bags of meat to be killed or mutilated practically requires a Kegan1 mentality. Red expresses the self by overpowering or bullying others out of purely selfish motives. Red cares about the self but not about the others: Kegan2. To understand Blue's sacrifice out the self in the now for greater rewards in the afterlife insofar one acts as virtuous member of the [religious] in-group, one has to at least be aware of how one comes across to others: Kegan3. However, in order to express the self within such hierarchical rules and pursue personal success and play the game ala Orange, one has to be aware how previous virtues are situational: Kegan4.

Second, this does NOT mean that there's a 1-1 correspondence between vMemes and Kegan. Both "man" and "society" can be respectively, OPEN, ARRESTED, or BLOCKED in terms of whether a person or the society they inhabit is capable of adopting a vMeme. A person may be blocked from later vMemes because they e.g. lack intelligence and can't process sufficiently abstract ideas or is incapable of feeling emotions to the required degree. Society itself may be arrested because it's stuck with old rules (legal system, infrastructure) that takes time to unwind or perhaps society is too occupied dealing with infectious diseases or putting food on the table to spend time pondering new ideas ... or man may be arrested due to past trauma that need to be resolved by therapy. Man may be open and capable of accepting a new vMeme except that it's not available from society leaving man to figure it out for himself (like ERE) and DIY discovery takes much much longer than having an existing infrastructure for learning.

IIRC, the adult distribution in the US in terms of Kegan is
~0% Kegan1
14% Kegan2
56% Kegan3
30% Kegan4
<1% Kegan5

This distribution (see In Over of Heads) determines and proscribes the kind of vMemes people have been OPEN to accept and have managed to adopt. If you looked at the distribution in the prison population, it would be tilted towards Kegan2---probably not that many Kegan4s. Conversely, if you looked at the executive suite of a US corporation made out of people from good^H^H^H^Hexpensive schools, there would be a pre-dominance of Kegan4... much more than you'd find in the typical STEM department, which doesn't select for interpersonal "skills".

I think a good way to think about it is that people both need the language AND the ability to use it. Problems obtain when people have access to language they don't know how to use. This begets problems like Boomeritis wherein people aggressively (Kegan2/Red) war on out-groups using the otherwise much deeper worldview of Green as mere slogans w/o understanding them. An example of the opposite would be online trolls who use advanced technology of Orange+ to "pwn people for the lulz" w/o caring (Kegan2) that there's a human being on the other side (Kegan3) or what the rules of the online space are (Kegan4). In terms of language, I suspect a major reason why we don't see more Kegan5 is that grammatically, our available conjugations only set up to handle Kegan4 (third person) w/o having to resort to abstractions and talking in isms. For example, "You and I interact differently when They are watching Us" is a simple sentence that expresses Kegan4 complexity(*). However, there's no easy way to communicate how our interaction changes when the context of Them and the extent to which their watching affects our interaction. That requires book-length "post-structuralistic"-level of analysis that specifies in detail what we mean when we use words and how we comprehend it. This level of nuance can not be conveyed in a simple sentence. Likewise, if we presume that Kegan6 follows the same method of abstraction (ala Bateson), it follows that it involves a 5th person perspective, but I don't think anyone knows how to even think about that in a functional manner. This is the equivalent of saying that I understand what 10 dimensions are in the abstract (I can describe it with math) but I can't make a 10 dimensional piece of art. (Interstellar tried to convey 4D space.)

(*) But consider how structurally complicated that sentence is compared to "Me hungry" or "I'll pay you". Much like children or people learning a new language can only express simple relations between people and/or society, so can we using the standard grammar of most languages only express relations up to Kegan4 w/o having to go through massive amounts of elaboration and (re)definitions.

As such, a lot of the frontier remains descriptive, like zoology, but lacks theoretical power in the predictive sense. It can explain what we have in a rather powerful way, but it can't explain/predict things we haven't seen or experienced yet.

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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

In approach to the meta crisis, Bill Gates, Jacob, Robin Greenfield and Bernie Sanders/Ralph Nader would each occupy a quadrant and Nate Hagens would be in center Diplomat square. ENTJ, INTJ, ENFP, INFJ/INFP. Or something like that with Capitalism and Consumerism as axes. Although anti vs post might require another dimension or three. I don’t know who would occupy the post-consumerism/post-capitalism quadrant, but ERE2 might be headed that way.

@jacob:

We need more words like “wherewithal.” Also some way to express the multitudes within “you”, “I”, and “They.”

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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by jacob »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Tue Feb 04, 2025 11:05 am
We need more words like “wherewithal.” Also some way to express the multitudes within “you”, “I”, and “They.”
It's my understanding that at least the English language is heading in the other direction. "Thou" vs "You" was used to signify a social class perspective for example. People from classes that were inferior in the chain of being would be addressed as "thou". As such, the way language was used would simultaneously convey social status between the speaker and the speakee. Speaking in emojis (hieroglyphs, pictograms, ...) is a further regression in that regard.

As an example of the opposite, there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithkuil ... AFAIK, there's no active user community of that language unlike say Esperanto. It would be interesting though.

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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by Scordatura »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Sun Jan 19, 2025 5:36 pm

This is a concept from the book "Listening Society." It's similar to Spiral Dynamics, though I find it easier to use. The effective value memes (corresponding SD levels in parenthesis) are:

Archaic (beige): Pre-historic
Anamistic/ Post-Archaic (purple): Hunter-Gatherer societies (think cave drawing)
Faustian (red): Early agrarian societies (might makes right)
Traditional/ Post-Faustian (blue): Religious agrarian societies
Modern (orange): Industrial Societies
Post-Modern (green): Post-Industrial Societies (manipulating symbols)
Meta-Modern (yellow): No society yet, possibly emerging in Nordic Countries

The next value meme pair is modernism/ post-modernism. Modernism is the value meme dominant in western democracies. The struggle between traditional, modernist and postmodernist values are a lot of the struggles we see today. Modernism worships progress and economic growth. The technological innovation that brought it to fruition was the industrial revolution, coupled with fossil fuels. Modernism is able to pull off the large-scale coordination of traditionalism by transitioning from religion to nation state (and/ or economic progress) belief coordination.  Postmodernism, which is yet to be determined as a mainstream cultural movement, deconstructs modernism.

Postmodernism is in its early stages as a cultural movement. It appears to be all critique and no action. However, compare religion to warlords. Based on purely material concerns, warlords should crush religious leaders. Yet it was the religious leaders who controlled and manipulated warlords and ultimately raised the larger armies. In the same way, postmodernism relies on the massive material, technological and productivity gains of modernism, yet recognizes that, with all its pragmatism and realism, modernism is subject to social control by those who can manipulate its meaningful symbols and coordinate its output.
I quoted this older post to make the observation that we may be conflating lowercase postmodernism according to your reading material with uppercase Postmodernism, the movement. From what I can tell from the original quote, Post-Modern 1) manipulates symbols (we do this currently, social control exists in value systems everywhere) and 2) just follows directly after Modern industrial societies. All this Postmodernism talk, as much as I've enjoyed it, may be comically missing the original point.
7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sun Feb 02, 2025 10:40 am
@Scordatura:

I think there is pretty good evidence that altruistic behavior is a social extension of breast-feeding. For example, in studies of multi-generational gift giving across cultures, more value consistently flows along maternal lines.
There are incidents of altruistic behavior in non-mammals (I. E. no breastfeeding) so I think your example is overstated. To change what I THINK is your viewpoint into something I would agree with, I would say the care of helpless offspring has profound effects on altruistic behavior on the human species with women being affected more due to the mother-infant bond. Men are also affected, though probably less so.

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Re: Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

jacob wrote:AFAIK, there's no active user community of that language unlike say Esperanto.
Very interesting. I will have to ask my DS36 about Ithkuil. His primary INTP focus is linguistics and ancient languages, and he taught himself Esperanto and joined online community when he was around 12, so he would understand the article you linked and would probably explain it to me if I invite him over for home made apple pie and some of the stew I made from the bison roast I picked up in the free food line.
Scordatura wrote: I would say the care of helpless offspring has profound effects on altruistic behavior on the human species with women being affected more due to the mother-infant bond. Men are also affected, though probably less so.
Yes, I agree. My father was the more cuddly,and actively engaged parent and this is often the case. This study indicates that oxytocin levels rise as high for engaged fathers as engaged mothers, but for different forms of behavior.
The bursts of oxytocin that women experience during birth and breastfeeding have been documented, so the mothers' high oxytocin levels didn't surprise researchers. What did surprise them was the fact that even without these huge hormonal triggers, fathers showed levels of oxytocin matching those of mothers during both time periods.

What gave dads that lift? Oxytocin levels in men were triggered by stimulatory parenting: tossing the baby in the air, pulling the little one up to sit, or encouraging exploration and laughter. A mother's oxytocin levels, by contrast, were related to affectionate parenting such as soft hugs, caresses, light pokes, baby talk, or simply gazing into the baby’s face.

"It's possible that oxytocin is related to the type of behaviors from which mothers and fathers derive the most reward," Feldman wrote in the Aug. 15 issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry. "Infants tend to prefer fathers as playmates when they are positive and choose mothers for comfort when distressed. The infant's preference may be of a high reward value for the parent, and thus, although mothers and fathers displayed similar levels of affectionate and stimulatory play, oxytocin may be linked to the behaviors each parent found the most rewarding."

I think these patterns even hold true in adult-on-adult love relationships. One mistake men frequently make is to confuse "protect" with "wrap in cotton batting." What's the point of having broad shoulders if they can't be used as launchpad into the lake? Just like down men often only have their female partner for empathetic listening, etc., up women often rely on their male partner to bring rough-housing level of muscular vigor. etc.

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