ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

The "other" ERE. Societal aspects of the ERE philosophy. Emergent change-making, scale-effects,...
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ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by jacob »

jacob wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 11:05 am
[...] think of ERE as a wide syncretic collection of several modules that are organized in a holistic way. ERE will fail gracefully into any one of these module. One module is FIRE. However, another is minimalism and closely related to that is zero-waste if you want to go the aesthetic way or ecological footprint calculations if you like counting beans. In some sense, the problem is already solved. With ERE being Yellow, it's a kind of conciliation of earlier ideas that often hold mutually antagonistic values.
AxelHeyst wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 3:19 pm
ERE is designed to fail into several possible module states... I was misunderstanding how you were using the word fail earlier. To *become*/manifest in an entity, it has to undergo a collapse into one of these states. Some thing something electrons, observation, velocity/location. Maybe. (Too much?)
Insofar earlier Wheaton Levels can be considered "failure modes" or "manifest subsystems of a collapse integral system higher in the holarchy", it should be possible to construct WL tables from multiple points of origin (for example SD: Green) all leading to the strategist/systems perspective (SD: Yellow) which is the first time they come together enough to be able to recognize each other for their respective contributions rather than seeing each other as the enemy.

As such I posit that "all roads lead to ERE1" or at least very close to it on the way to something else. The parallels to many different kinds of human development theories are just too strong. This is just a working hypothesis. Self-selection bias may be prevalent.
RoamingFrancis wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 1:22 pm
I may be able to make a Green -> Yellow WL table at some point in the future, as I had a lot of Green in me when I read it. The reason it landed so squarely with me when I read it was because I was a 19-year-old desperately searching for a way to Not Interact With The System, At All, whereas I believe @AxelHeyst was already pretty far into his career.
I see the first ERE WL table as mainly Orange , especially WLs 3-5. It's time to transition from a "set of directions" to a map. I'm taking the liberty to start a thread here in pursuit of a Green ERE WL table.

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by white belt »

I’d love to hear examples/timelines of those that started at Green. I thought Greenfield might be one, but after reading this I’m not so sure: https://www.robgreenfield.org/timeline/

Edit: Maybe here is where a transition occurs:
Greenfield wrote: 11/2011 Started to get into sustainability and began to pay attention to things like trash, resource consumption, and growing food. I started to learn about how my actions affect the earth, other people, and animals from documentaries and books.

02/2012 Decided to take action on what I learned and began a transformation into a healthier, more natural lifestyle and refused to make bad influences on earth. There was no moment of clarity or significant occurrence, just a realization through education that my simple daily actions were causing a lot of destruction to the earth, to fellow humans both near and far, and to the creatures that I share the earth with.

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by RoamingFrancis »

I read ERE mainly at a green stage. I was a far-left activist in high school and was desperate for a way to escape the System, so reading ERE had a huge impact on me. Here's my timeline over the past two-ish years. This is just my own experience -

2020
Jan: Got into ERE and started my first journal. At the time I was in a nursing program. Biked to school in the freezing cold because #frugality.
March: COVID happens, forces me to really reexamine my life and dedicate myself to anthropology instead of nursing
Oct: Left my parents' house, lived in a squat and focused full-time on howlie research, eco skills, meditation, and endangered languages. Came up with the term "contemplative ethnoecology" to describe the synthesis of my interests. This was a nascent form of my Web of Goals.
Dec: Got kicked out of squat, had my savings drained while spending three months in an apartment. Got stoked on the Gert concept.

2021

Jan: Kept going in apartment, trying to figure out ERE
April: Lived on a permaculture project. At this point I was contemplating going moneyless.
June: Hitchhiked across the country to visit friends and meet with an ethnobotanist.
Present Day: Got into Integral Theory and Druidry. Mainly focused on some deeper shadow work and discerning whether being an anthropology professor is a good career choice. If not, I'll have to figure out what is a good career choice. Learning a lot about realpolitik.

Analysis

Though this provides a timeline of events, it's harder to describe exactly what headspace I was in during each period. I started as a largely Green idealist anarchist activist kid. However, there are a couple developmental bits that stand out that might be able to be used to construct a Wheaton Table.

1) Web of Goals development

When I started I had no Web of Goals. I just knew I hated the System and was looking for ways to escape it. So naturally ERE appealed to me. And I had enough Green that I was even more stoked once I found out about the covert environmental mission. The early bits of my WoG can be found when I decided to quit the nursing program to research endangered cultures. It developed more when I came up with "contemplative ethnoecology" and was able to chunk various interests into a single term. I eventually sat down and consciously drew up a Web of Goals with the areas of life I knew I wanted to invest energy, which included contemplative ethnoecology, art, health, and relationships.

In August I realized I could visualize my WoG in 3D and do telicity analyses with much greater ease.

Until my hitchhiking trip my WoG took up a lot of mental bandwidth. On some days I could hardly remember all the categories! Since the trip, my Web has chunked. There are now fewer nodes, but each node contains greater complexity. Current nodes include Druidry, Shadow Work, and Anthropology. Also, now it is easier to forget about the Web, Just Be, and trust that the Web will be there when I get back.

Within Druidry is chunked the earlier nodes of contemplative practice, ecology, and art. Contemplative practice has a footnote to integrate Unified Mindfulness, non-dualism, and Integral Theory.

The shadow work I'm doing is extremely somatic, and it has absorbed relationships and physical health. It's a sort of re-embodiment process and by its nature I am learning about and shifting food and exercise habits.

The anthropology is still there. I've narrowed my next language down to either K'iche', Ixil, or Tibetan. Though my research on the academic job market has me inclined towards a different career track. I may just have to pursue this as an avocation.

2) Emotional Maturity

Around January 2021 I noticed I had more emotional maturity than many people 10-20 years older than me in various social scenarios, including work. This is mainly because I had a couple years of dedicated mindfulness practice under my belt and got good at staying equanimous in difficult situations. This was a somewhat disillusioning experience, but it primed me for Wilber and Kegan. When I read The Integral Vision and saw Wilber talking about differing stages of adult development, I just thought "Ohhhhh, this explains so much."

3) Post-Green Critique of Green

The third significant developmental thing to happen was that I became very disillusioned with the activist communities I had formerly been a part of. I grew very sick of the paradoxical combination of woke orthodoxy and wishy-washiness in many of those communities. Once I read Wilber, I had words for what I was experiencing. At least within my politics, I think I broke through to a post-green stage. When I read the text messages I sent to a friend to complain, it seems like I was basically making a post-green critique of green. I just didn't have the vocabulary to say that at the time.

I think this is the only area where I am post-green. I believe most other areas are green or pre-green. And I won't turn my focus to further development for a while, as I have a lot of shadow work to do first.

Conclusion

I hope this is helpful to construct a Green Wheaton Table. I realize the information I provided has more to do with internal SD development than it does with skills in deindustrialization. Part of this is that I've picked up a lot of theory and done a lot of internal growing, but still am not super great at Renaissance skills. A lot of these coming months, both in my shadow work and in my ecological practice, will have to do with better embodying what I've learned mentally, intellectually, and emotionally. Regardless, I hope there's enough in there to lay the groundwork for another Wheaton table.

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by AxelHeyst »

Quickie Green Crib Sheet:
Values: Relatavistic, socio-centric, equality
The world is a shared community.
Community is the prime paradigm.
"I sacrifice myself now to be accepted by the group"
Egalitarian.
"Be the Change"

Realizations:
The world (system) is brutal and unfair.
Almost everything about status quo system is toxic (physical; social; emotional)
If my slice is bigger, someone else's has to be smaller. (Merkel put it like "You show up to the buffet, and you're first in line. How much do you take?")
Hustle culture is a method of exploitation for maximum resource extraction and movement of resources to top elite. (Gervais Principle etc)
Martyring myself does no good to anyone else, and is self-indulgent.
We can't make the world we want using the methods of the world we don't.

Phases/elements:
Awakening and signaling. Consumer activism. lots of reading leading to Che t-shirts, dreadlocks, obtuse solidarity gestures. Simple "speak truth to power" moves. Often associated with university.
Hair-shirt environmentalism. Sacrifice, guilt.
Protest involvement (show up to events others organize).
Activism (engaged with organization).
Self-work in order to (with the goal of) being able to show up for others better.

Actions/projects:
Detoxify physical environment (natural cleaners, because the toxic stuff hurts turtles; natural soaps, because parabins hurt babies; food; etc).
Detoxify social environment (deal with toxic relationships, let go of relationships that don't serve either one of us, build relationships with people who are also trying to build a healthy community).
Detoxify internal environment (trauma and shadow work, internal dysfunctions; then, improvement work, how to "be the change", be able to turn around and help others out of the pit I was just in).

Metrics <- This might replace the SR column?
Ecological footprint
Privilege (?)

Indicative Living circumstances:
Recycle.
+ compost.
Diet is aligned an ecological strategy (veggie/vegan/freegan/carbon sequestering ruminant pasturage/etc)
House with like-minded roommates and a garden out back.
Housing Co-op, all local food
Full-on ecovillage (??) or homestead

Focuses:
Raising awareness of others as to how effed the System is.
Reducing own harm to others.
Increasing benefit provided to others.
Sees self as an interdependent component of ecosystem. Values health of ecosystem over health of self (but health of self is integral to health of ecosystem, which is *why* the agent cares about health of self).

A couple preliminary stabs at levels:
5: Have finished minimizing own harm to others (e.g. diet, impressively low carbon footprint while still enjoying most benefits of 1st world nation, etc). Might have basically negative view of humanity as species ("we're a virus with shoes, okay?") (??)
6: "Cross the moat" to designing lifestyle to provide benefit to others. Sees ways humans can improve plight of the planet/species.
7: Sees self as a component of social/ecological ecosystem, with 'responsibility'/ability to pass resources around in systems.


Defining the 'moats' might be a place to start. It makes sense off-hand to me that the moat between 5 and 6 for green is a shift from reducing harm to providing benefit, but might be off there.

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Axel Heyst wrote:Defining the 'moats' might be a place to start. It makes sense off-hand to me that the moat between 5 and 6 for green is a shift from reducing harm to providing benefit, but might be off there.
Two books originally published in 1991 (30 years ago!) which I recently re-read are "YMOYL" and "Second Nature" by Michael Pollan. The general theme of "Second Nature" is that we have to accept that the wilderness is just a romantic construct at this juncture and it is the responsibility of humanity to think/act globally and locally as gardener/stewards of the natural world. Since 1991 was also the year that I gave birth to my second child, which is a life event likely to cause at least mild reversion to Blue (if you only have one baby, much easier to stick to Orange or Green), I would note that there is likely something about the more concrete practicality of Blue that can serve to forward the thoughtful weave of Orange and Green. How will I care for this baby that is mine? How will I care for this garden that is mine? Vs the more abstract "care" of Green and/or lack of care of Red/Orange.

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by jacob »

In all likelihood, this too will follow the CCCCCC template(*), so here's a suggestion for a column.

WL1: Solution is to join a community.
WL2: Search for different communities to join.
WL3: Realization that different communities have different objectives, etc.
WL4: Join the "best" one and show up.
WL5: Saturate learning limits.
WL6: Explore and join several other communities.
WL7: Begin to tie community lessons together. Adding value beyond social capital.

(*) To see how this works, replace "community" with "job", etc. and tell me that's not how Orange careers work.

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by jacob »

Suggestions for other columns.

Whereas Orange will almost surely have [the column of] "work" graded in terms of how successful it is (position, income), Green will likely grade in terms of "meaningfulness" and "impact". It'll probably start with online volunteering... increasing in scope as we go along.

Interaction with the consumer market will likely increase in consciousness moving from greenwashed products and recycling to fairtrade and localism, possibly anticonsumerism/buy nothing or aesthetic values (zero-waste). Not sure here...

Living arrangements also seems like it might be its own column as measured in size/involvement/tightness of community/community-efforts.

The Wheaton Eco-scale itself does have a heavy dose of Green in it.

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by AxelHeyst »

Generally, does "the map" look something like this, when zoomed out?
Image
(Maybe there's a yellow smudge in the middle of 7 circle?)

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by RoamingFrancis »

Woah. That graphic is doing cool things to my brain.

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by mountainFrugal »

Cool graphic! Convergence! This reminds me of watershed convergence with different underlying geologies/mineral deposits that gradually mix as they move further downstream:

https://www.reddit.com/r/EarthPorn/comm ... &context=3

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by jacob »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Tue Oct 19, 2021 7:18 pm
Generally, does "the map" look something like this, when zoomed out?
Image
(Maybe there's a yellow smudge in the middle of 7 circle?)
Yes and yes.

It is of course a very ERE-centric(*) map (and thus not the whole map), but for the purposes of expanding what we know.

In particular, it's the map version of local to/from driving instructions.

How to get to Chicago: If you're coming from the east, the best approach is via I-90 going through South Bend, Toledo, Cleveland.... If you're coming from the south east, take I-65 through Louisville, Indianapolis, ... If you're coming from ...
How to get from Chicago: Going North, take I-94 til Milwaukee.

(*) And thus emphasizing the things that lead to ERE. And someday to be replaced with an ex-ERE map.

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I’m calling B.S. on getting to Yellow without going through Green. Further note being that I don’t believe Green is what it seems to be described as here.

In particular, the Green=post-modern perspective would first have to gaze upon “ERE” through critical lenses such as the psychological analysis of its author and also its emergence from the movement(s) inherent in its bibliography and social context. To simply accept the document as offered, to accept it as Yellow simply because described as such by author, is to remain firmly entrenched in Orange.

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by jacob »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 3:59 pm
I’m calling B.S. on getting to Yellow without going through Green. Further note being that I don’t believe Green is what it seems to be described as here.

In particular, the Green=post-modern perspective would first have to gaze upon “ERE” through critical lenses such as the psychological analysis of its author and also its emergence from the movement(s) inherent in its bibliography and social context. To simply accept the document as offered, to accept it as Yellow simply because described as such by author, is to remain firmly entrenched in Orange.
All a burned out Orange person in pursuit of happiness needs from Green is the insight that the [Orange] game [of individualist success] they've been playing isn't the ultimate game in town(*) and that ultimate is in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps they'll spend a few years exploring new perspectives with Green as they slowly grow frustrated by the endless meetings trying to include increasingly more people to agree on a common formulation of the essence of its replacement [game]... and then go "screw this, I'm just going to go ahead and make the replacement myself."

(*) Which is a revolutionary idea until the first person has it. The majority of humans today are still stuck in the Orange idea of eternal human progress on a single historical track. Onwards and always upwards.
Purple: There's no game. The outcome is undetermined.
Red: There's no game. The outcome is determined by how well you fight to survive.
Blue: There's one game. The outcome is predetermined by God.
Orange: There's one game. The outcome is determined by how well you play.
Green: There are 4 games, so nobody knows what to do about the outcome. Lets talk about this.
Yellow: I see 5 interacting games and a meta-game determining the outcomes.
Turquoise: Everything including the outcomes are games within games within games.

One does not need to go through a historical derivation or academic reenactment of whatever foundations of the ideas of a given color. One does not need a corporate career in individual wealth seeking or derive lunar orbitals from Newtonian first principles to go from Blue to Green. To go from a community oriented life based on commandments and hierarchy to ditto based on inclusiveness and acceptance may only require a few years in an out-of-state accounting school to see how there's more diverse life beyond the valley while realizing that "pursuit of lucre is selfish and unfulfilling".

I will agree that the strength of a synthesis does rely on the strength of the antithesis that's used to drive development forward. I think of each individual being primarily warm (individually oriented) or cold (socially oriented) and staying mostly on the respective warm or cold side while drawing ideas from the other side. It would be rather weird to swing back and forth between socially and individually oriented with equal strength as one goes along the spiral. It's more of an eccentric orbit.

It's crucial to distinguish the evolution of individuals within the spiral with the evolution of the spiral as a whole. They do not happen at the same rate, nor do they happen in the same form as they did historically. Individuals create the environment which in turn create individuals. As long as there's continuity, the same environment does not have to be individually (re)created.

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Gotcha. As usual I was being half silly with what I typed, but OTOH, it does seem to me that you are giving Green short shrift for its flavor of "clever." Green has to be integrated towards Yellow, and not just in terms of its stereotypical easily described values system. For instance, it may not be enough to observe that humans often engage in therapy at level Green; it may be necessary to actually participate in therapy and explore ones less developed Warm or Cold or FITB(s) sides in order to gain the empathetic perspective which will prove valuable at Yellow.

My thoughts are actually a bit muddled, but most of these life development models are based somewhat on insights gained in field of pedagogy, and I am currently teaching in a setting where the student population is heavily Red, but some of the staff aspires at Yellow. So, for instance, any given day I may be having a discussion with another teacher about how we might behave differently if our own perceptions of the situation were changed. It's difficult to move beyond believing that strict establishment of order is necessary first step, but experiments can be revealing. For instance, if instead of treating a bunch of wild adolescents like a bunch of wild adolescents, you pretend that the humans entering the classroom are your middle-aged adult peers entering a conference room at a suburban hotel in order to hear you present a Grade C Ted Talk, how does your behavior influence their behavior?

Quite likely I am confounding Kegan and SD, but maybe there is something like the "How to Go to Grad School Without Going to Grad School" cheat sheet created by the author of "The Art of Non-Conformity" that could apply at different levels.

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by jacob »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:08 am
Gotcha. As usual I was being half silly with what I typed, but OTOH, it does seem to me that you are giving Green short shrift for its flavor of "clever."
Probably because I grew up in a country with mostly Green values (+some Orange).

Age and society definitely determines how a given Color manifests. A Purple society with adult purples may need trial by tribal warfare to transcend the belief that their culture is immortal because "our clan has always lived in this valley where a magic dragon protects us". Conversely, a Purple 6 year old getting harassed by a Red bully for having an "imaginary magic dragon friend" may simply need to "stand up for himself" once or twice in order to appreciate and begin to rely on Blue school rules.

The research frontier always looks incredibly complicated but I assure you that it is possible to engage in a Green culture without engaging in postmodern dialectics or needing to deconstruct each other in order to communicate with each other. However, the meetings with "dialog kaffe" (dialogue coffee) in pursuit of compromise are ever present. The postmodern conclusion that all perspectives are equally valid manifest as the Law of Jante in which no opinion is better than any other opinion. You are not how much money you have in the bank. You are not your khakis. Extended late-personal empathy is manifested through the welfare state and almost everybody believes strongly in that even if they're not late-personal themselves. Basically, the concrete manifestations are already there, so one does not to formally analyze the philosophical foundations. It's a bit like the ERE books and the web of goals. Once telicity, modularity, etc. are internalized one simply becomes more efficient at spending. One doesn't sit and draw WoGs all day.

So the dose and medicine is different depending on where you're coming from/how old and set you are/... Deconstruction (ala ERE book chapter 2) is strong medicine.
7Wannabe5 wrote:
Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:08 am
Green has to be integrated towards Yellow, and not just in terms of its stereotypical easily described values system. For instance, it may not be enough to observe that humans often engage in therapy at level Green; it may be necessary to actually participate in therapy and explore ones less developed Warm or Cold or FITB(s) sides in order to gain the empathetic perspective which will prove valuable at Yellow.
But so does Beige, Purple, Red, and Blue in terms of integrating to Yellow. However, I don't think deep experiental knowledge is required for all these colors. This would require spending a decade living in the woods, going to war and killing someone, becoming a monk, going to college and having a career as well. Instead they take different forms as people grow up in society. The strict rule-bound hierarchical system that was developed by Blue in the form of religion is now practiced in Orange and Green in the form of rising through the grades of primary and secondary school as long as one obeys the commandments of "sit down, shut up, face front, listen to the teacher, do your homework, raise your hand before you talk".
7Wannabe5 wrote:
Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:08 am
It's difficult to move beyond believing that strict establishment of order is necessary first step, but experiments can be revealing. For instance, if instead of treating a bunch of wild adolescents like a bunch of wild adolescents, you pretend that the humans entering the classroom are your middle-aged adult peers entering a conference room at a suburban hotel in order to hear you present a Grade C Ted Talk, how does your behavior influence their behavior?
Your behavior is part of their environment as are they themselves. The humans themselves are increasingly diversified in terms of adult development as they grow older. In a group of 14 year olds, you'll have everything from people still resorting to compartmentalized concrete operations (monkey see, monkey do) and but also people using formal operations (thinking about their thinking) beyond classroom exercises. They'll mostly be Kegan2 developing into Kegan3 but a few will be Kegan4. Some will still live in a Purple world of prepersonal fantasies whereas others may be trolling memes on social media to mess with "adult" politics.

I have a few memorable experiences from my institutionalized years in the school system that involved changing the school environment/format. One of them (7th or 8th grade) was one day long project of "playing warehouse" for lack of a better term that was in the business of wrapping school books in brown paper. We had to write "job applications" in advance and based on that there were "interviews" and so we got jobs for that day. The acceptance letter even arrived in the mail. I was in management, head accountant (because "best at math") with an assistant accountant. Our job was to make sure that everybody got paid according to their salary and productivity (in units of candy). So it was basically like a war game. During the day the teachers would have a blast sending in orders for so and so many wrapped books. One order arrived in French---nobody spoke French, so the CEO had to find someone (turned out the older sister of someone in the PR department spoke French). The wrapping personel could decide whether they wanted to be paid by the hour or by the book wrapped (this caused some accounting problems :-P ). However ... what was most interesting in retrospect was that one of the otherwise tardiest (amongst other issues) kid ending up making the most candy (more than the CEO) wrapping books by being the most productive. The kid who always got into trouble and being sent to the principal was initially assigned the lowest wage as a janitor but turned out to be the most enthusiastic and helpful of all and ended up the only one awarded a raise.

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by Jean »

Could it bé that what is described by those coloris are in fact différent coping mécanisms for thé fact that we don't live in hundredish individual tribes anymore?

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

jacob on the blog wrote:Strongly individualistic persons focus on the private, the for-profit companies, as it allows them the greatest benefits to thrive. Social or group-oriented persons focus on the public, the city, and national values. And the non-profit sector dealing with universally human values like education, religion, and health.

From this perspective, it becomes fairly clear, at least to me, that any economic system that concentrates on just one sector is bound to make some people unhappy and thus unproductive. A viable system would thus have all three sectors represented.
This popped up happenstance on the blog feed today. Happy coincidence, because almost exactly what I was aiming at in my muddled manner.
jacob wrote: The postmodern conclusion that all perspectives are equally valid manifest as the Law of Jante in which no opinion is better than any other opinion.
It does seem highly doubtful that all perspectives are equally valid, but recent research in educational practice has revealed that given VERY high level social skills, the group brain will prove more intelligent than its most intelligent member. (IOW, even the most intelligent member of any social grouping can become even more intelligent through process of engaging in VERY high level social interaction.)The basis of these VERY high level social skills is akin to internal motivation towards co-operation. I don't really think this is necessarily a huge leap from the individualistic perspective of Orange, because it is assumed in market capitalism. It's beneficial to all to trade goods in the marketplace, so why is it not beneficial to all to exchange ideas, insights, and varying perspectives at the Green meeting table?
jacob wrote:The strict rule-bound hierarchical system that was developed by Blue in the form of religion is now practiced in Orange and Green in the form of rising through the grades of primary and secondary school as long as one obeys the commandments of "sit down, shut up, face front, listen to the teacher, do your homework, raise your hand before you talk".
This regressive style of education is no longer deemed optimal in most reasonably affluent contexts. I have taught in schools in the better neighborhoods of the most educated city in the U.S., and it is assumed that children there for the most part have already absorbed a good deal of Green and Yellow prior to age 6, but they must also be granted adequate slack for natural phases of development. So, for instance, there is a subtle but important difference in the way children go through the "princess" phase and the "rough housing" phase in a school in a neighborhood that is primarily Yellow vs. primarily Red. This is why the common practice of coming down heavy-handed Blue on poor kids in Red neighborhoods is of debatable merit. Obviously, if an educator is only operating from maybe Blue/Orange herself, there is no other option, but when an educator (or leader in other context) is operating from Green/Yellow, and, therefore has the option of variety of approaches, "heavy-handed Blue" might just be the sub-optimal default where lack of Patience meets lack of Trust.

The example of the turn-school-into-business-for-a-day exercise that you described is a good way to engage students with more individualistic outlooks. Small scale school economies in which students can earn tickets or tokens which they trade in for loot such as mechanical pencils and stickers are recommended practice. The number one privilege students hope to earn these-a-days is free time on their phones. Students who are more socially motivated may benefit from activities such as age differentiated tutoring opportunities and/or community engagement activities such as having 8th grade rake leaves for the elderly.

Anyways, circling back around to blog quote above and actual topic of this thread, my question would be how are all three sectors; private, public, and non-profit meant to be included in "ERE?" My general concern being that if there is not a Green or, perhaps, Turquoise answer to this question, then the default is going to have to be Blue. For simple, specific instance, what would be the "ERE" solution to the problem of dealing with the existence in community of a cognitively impaired young adult male with some reflexive tendencies towards violence and an 8 year old girl exposed to Zika virus in utero?

The only solution I can come up with, which might also address internal motivation of Green team (as described by Axel Heyst) is promotion of freedom to form ones own non-profits or foundations and/or freeing up of time towards direct volunteer activities. This might also go some ways towards fixing the problem of ennui due to lack of "freedom to do something meaningful."

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

I of course can’t speak for ERE, but I always personally favored the Spartan “leave the defective baby on the hillside” approach.

You see Simba, when we die, our bodies become….grass, and the antelope eat the grass….

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by jacob »

Jean wrote:
Fri Oct 22, 2021 12:46 pm
Could it bé that what is described by those coloris are in fact différent coping mécanisms for thé fact that we don't live in hundredish individual tribes anymore?
Indeed. Each new color (subjective or intersubjective evolution) is an attempt to cope with a situation that has become untenable for some [subjective or objective] reason. Perhaps an individual feels subjectively stilted or restrained and start thinking in new and dangerous ways ... or perhaps society itself runs into objective physical limits.

For example (Red->Blue), slow population growth and migration for new hunting grounds lead to too many warring tribes in an area for properly planned agriculture to work -> warring era -> consolidation under a single ruler and a hierarchy to enforce it with a universal/God-given explanation for why that was. (The our divine beliefs obviously wants us to behave this way now; it's a hierarchy; thus God is on top and created all this---replacing the worship of Warrior gods like Thor, Zeus, Athena, etc. who just meddle with human affairs.)

Another example (Blue->Orange), the hierarchical society provides sufficiently successful in feeding humanity that some people, likely those on the top, become wealthy enough to start thinking about individual aspirations. What has previously been one [god-]given concept differentiates into "the good, the beautiful, and the true" as morality (the good), art/aesthetics (the beautiful), and science (the true) becomes THREE MUTUALLY INDEPENDENT fields instead of being unified in the form of religion. It's impossible to understate what a difference this makes (both positive and negative). On the one hand, it allows science to discover almost everything. On the other, science can now be done w/o moral concerns in the form of e.g. the nuclear bomb. It is also done without a concern for the beauty of creation and so people will happily thrash the environment as long as the damage happens out of their individual sight.

So these issues require a new coping, so you get Orange->Green e.g. the Silent Spring, Sand County Almanac, ... etc.

And so on and so forth.

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Re: ERE Wheaton Map project: Green origin

Post by jacob »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 8:30 am
It does seem highly doubtful that all perspectives are equally valid, but recent research in educational practice has revealed that given VERY high level social skills, the group brain will prove more intelligent than its most intelligent member. (IOW, even the most intelligent member of any social grouping can become even more intelligent through process of engaging in VERY high level social interaction.)The basis of these VERY high level social skills is akin to internal motivation towards co-operation. I don't really think this is necessarily a huge leap from the individualistic perspective of Orange, because it is assumed in market capitalism. It's beneficial to all to trade goods in the marketplace, so why is it not beneficial to all to exchange ideas, insights, and varying perspectives at the Green meeting table?
Exactly!! I underlined the pertinent parts. This is why Green became a thing at the individual level [of people with high level social skills]. (See e.g. Stoa... my apologies for constantly bringing it up, but it's the only space I know where Kegan is on average above 4.5). There's a strong selection bias effect at work there though.

However, due to the success of this [underlined idea] it was translated into society at large. Unfortunately society at large does NOT have a high level of social skills. Thus Green society is dealing with a social methodology that is more advanced than many of its members are immediately equipped to handle. But hey, that's what schooling is for. Since the developed world is on average "slightly above Orange" this means that some of the brighter members of society will suffer when they don't have the required social skills (yet or ever). Hence, the quote which I have to paraphrase because I don't remember the source: "You can't put a number of people in the same rooms and get anything better than you would otherwise get by just asking the best ones in the rooms." <- That quote suggests that that meeting has zero social complexity---it's just a bunch of individuals. Very Orange.

In a Green school setting, this method is taken and applied to Kegan2 and 3 kids. The emphasis is not so much on learning as it is on socializing the children into the Green meme. Of course the children aren't told this. Rather Blue structure and Orange thinking is used as tools for this process. How is this carried out in practice? Individual achievement is frowned upon. Unlike the Orange (American, say) idiom where "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" the Green culture works on the principle that "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down". Groups are formed explicitly to contain a number of smart kids so that they may help the dumb kids. This of course creates mutual resentment. The idea is that if you're smart you should do the mental job of everyone, as in "if you're so smart you should be able to explain your ideas so everyone can understand them without even having to think about it". That's a Green mindset. Another way of differentiating is that Green is very much a process-oriented educational method. You're learning the meta-lesson of group socialization and solidarity while being in class. Correct results are not important. What's important is that you tried and participated. (I remember the standard informal rule for grades was that insofar you put your hand up once during every lesson, you'd be guaranteed a non-inflated C at the end of the year.

I can of course only speak from my own Green experience. Since all children gets this treatment by virtue of everybody going to the same school system that is mixed up between rich and poor/educated and uneducated, the societal outcome is an almost uniform set of commodity children. Hence, social mobility is rather high but not non-existent.
7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 8:30 am
The example of the turn-school-into-business-for-a-day exercise that you described is a good way to engage students with more individualistic outlooks. Small scale school economies in which students can earn tickets or tokens which they trade in for loot such as mechanical pencils and stickers are recommended practice. The number one privilege students hope to earn these-a-days is free time on their phones. Students who are more socially motivated may benefit from activities such as age differentiated tutoring opportunities and/or community engagement activities such as having 8th grade rake leaves for the elderly.
Really?! That seems like trying to externalize motivation via rewards ... and in other settings that tends to destroy internal motivation. E.g. "I'm just being nice and helping out so I can get a free pen. No pen, no bueno." My Green experience practically banned this. Indeed, my conditioning to shun such awards are still part of my ego. "Congratulations, you've been nominated for an award."---would leave me to turn and walk away lest I be seen as trying to bring attention to myself. Orange wouldn't understand.
7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 8:30 am
Anyways, circling back around to blog quote above and actual topic of this thread, my question would be how are all three sectors; private, public, and non-profit meant to be included in "ERE?" My general concern being that if there is not a Green or, perhaps, Turquoise answer to this question, then the default is going to have to be Blue. For simple, specific instance, what would be the "ERE" solution to the problem of dealing with the existence in community of a cognitively impaired young adult male with some reflexive tendencies towards violence and an 8 year old girl exposed to Zika virus in utero?
At a societal level Green/Yellow resulted in the so-called third way. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way ... of reconciling Orange (private capitalism) and Green (social regulation)(*). This balance is not perfect. For example, non-profit had almost no seat at that table. As a result, non-profit work is universally presumed to fall under the government and so private charitable efforts are near zero. Blue has likewise been subsumed under the state as "state-religion" and "royal tourist attraction" and serve mostly "for symbolic appearances" but without holding neither secular nor spiritual power over the people.

(*) These are usually known as "social democracies". After much experience and many debates, I'm firmly convinced that Americans and Europeans understand that word very very differently.

ERE is mainly a transition game for operating in an Orange/Green world w/o failing [individually] as it goes towards Yellow. Not sure what the Turquoise answer is. This is what the ERE2 forum seeks to find out.

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