Reversion to Level Orange

[7Wannabe5]

This post might have been better filed under Friends and Family, but since I am feeling compelled to use spiral dynamics/Kegan/etc. concepts to describe it, I am posting here.

I recently realized that something odd (to me) is going on in my social circle, and I am wondering if others have shared my experience. Until recently, my social circle has been largely comprised of a rough mix of Boomer age men centered in their functioning at Level Orange and Gen-X age women centered in their functioing at Level Green. The odd thing that has happened, mostly over the course of the last 10 years, is that suddenly a large proportion of my Gen-X female social circle has almost militantly re-centered themselves at Level Orange. Very much like the Boomer characters in "The Big Chill" moving from the 70s into the 80s, and from their early 20s into their mid-30s, BUT my female peer group is doing this in their 40s and 50s!!!

So, I am also suddenly having the same sorts of problems with keeping up with the spending level of my social circle that many others here experienced at an earlier age. I would like to see this change as foreshadowing a move from center at Level Green to center at Level Yellow, but it's not vibing that way for me. It seems much more akin to Rule-Abiding Member of Community at Level Blue reverting to Reactionary Violence at Level Red. Much more like, "I put in my time defending death row inmates, teaching poor kids, editing literary magazine, playing in punk rock bands, being a queer/trans advocate, doing organic gardening, being a breast-feeding neo-hippie Mom, and now it's my turn to get me some $$$ and live large on charcuterie board and spa vacations."

However, because these are individuals who were previously centered at Level Green, it's like any suggestion towards Level Green practice, results in reactionary Guilt-> Anger. For example, when I made use of the "F" word "frugality" with one of these recent-reverters, she flamed out at me about how her previous career in public service did not provide her with enough money to get needful dental work done etc. Another argument I drifted into found me arguing for agency-in-accumulating-generational-wealth with somebody who still sees herself as member of oppressed middle-class majority even though her household income/spending is currently almost 1/4 million/year. I, of course, lost that argument due to the fact that I have not accumulated generational wealth, and can only point to my rags-to-riches multi-multi-millionaire friend and some of you guys as example.

One thought I had is that this is just another stress-reaction sign of the comng global resource depletion apocalypse. Dunno.

ETA: One particular comment that kind of got to me was the suggestion that I was so on the autistic-spectrum in my frugality that I did not think about the feelings of others in terms of exhibiiting behaviors such as buying the sort of special, expensive foods that children-of-my-peers prefer, and instead foisted my cheap home-cooking upon them.

[zbigi]

Consumerism is often a band-aid for depression, feelings of meaninglessness, low mood etc. (Similarly, people who quit smoking will return to cigarettes in a particularly low/trying moment in their lives.) Perhaps that's what's going on here?

[Jean]

I think putting those different survival strategy on a spiral is a mistake caused by how abundance changed our culture post ww2, which make them appear like a progression. Truth is context is what makes one of those strategie work the best, and for most of human history, blue was the best.

edit: orange is a luxury allowed by how efficient we are, and then, green, yellow, abd turquoise are all bandaid upon orange and eachother too keep the highly efficient society that allowed orange. But they also have a cost, and people might prefer plain orange than the cost of green or yellow.
But we've been blue for even longer that we've been hunters. Green is just a regression to blue in an orange context.

[7Wannabe5]

@zbigi:

Yes, I think you may have nailed it, because a couple of them have also literally started smoking cigarettes again, and almost all of them are drinking too much, and a couple are hitting hard on the generic Ozempic. It's like they are reverting to the habits and values-system of our suburban teen years (as opposed to our towards Level Green/Yellow college years) as they hit menopause. So, it's like I am grubby thrift-store goody-two-shoes Cabbage Patch Doll sitting at a table with some aging, bad-azz, Barbie-reverts who retain their high-post-modern level humans-who-actually-read-books argumentation skillz. IOW, it's much more difficult for me than, for instance, arguing with climate change deniers. Maybe more akin to arguing with a de-Nihilist like Franzen.

@Jean:

For most of human history we existed at Beige/Purple= Survival/Magic. We have on been at Level Blue since invention of agriculture. I agree that our ability to make efficient use of fossil fuels after the Early Industrial Era has greatly accelerated progress, and I agree that there is a thread or cohort at Level Green for whom it is simply reversion to Level Blue within Orange context, but I don't believe that Level Green is just a reversion to Level Blue within Level Orange context. The best thinkers at Level Green are functioning at a level of abstraction beyond Level Orange. For example, simply recognizing that there are different forms of capital or that context is important are towards Level Green concepts. IOW, we couldn't even be having this discussion absent the advances of thought at Level Green. Although, the fact that there are not yet many great examples of survival at Level Yellow (systems) may make it easier to dismiss Level Green. I think "Reinvening Organizations" by Laloux, a book-group pick elsewhere on forum, speaks to this.

[Laura Ingalls]

I don’t understand your color stuff but . . .

Lots of gen X are at peak earning. Many of my same age cohorts make great money and work a lot. One of my siblings just got laid off and nearly instantly got a better paying gig. If you are a spend 110% of your income type of person you are definitely spending more. You work that hard money starts to become the only tool in the toolbox.

I am starting to see more cosmetic procedures among my age cohort. I remind myself that we only notice the bad work. How may folks have had subtle well done work while I have been wandering around the beach occasionally forgetting my sunscreen?

I got expensive dental work done this year. I got an implant on a molar. I did it at a University dental school. It was two hours away. It required several visits and I still have a couple to go. Cost half as much money than just using a local person and paying the going rate.

Some people can be more consumerist and still be interesting. They are the people with lots of money that prioritize the values pf relationships and being a good human. Using money as a yardstick of success not so much.

[Frita]

Yeah, I observe this regression in some people I know, one of whom is my spouse. My theory is that it’s age-related anxiety. Suddenly, people realize that regardless of what they do, getting old and dying is going to happen. They try to choose a new old game to cope. Hedonism seems to have an easier point of access in our culture as it’s internally and externally reinforcing. If nothing else, stupid living may hasten their demise.

[jacob]

@7wb5 - See Boomeritis. Egocentric people in particular "stand where they sit". (Also just because someone battles for Green causes or uses Green slogans, it doesn't mean that they have Green values. The louder people used to do battle between Orange and Green but has currently switched to Green vs Blue. Also see horseshoe theory.)

[zbigi]

Also just because someone battles for Green causes or uses Green slogans, it doesn't mean that they have Green values.

A fun example - supposedly the people who vote for Germany's Green party drive the country's biggest cars.

[7Wannabe5]

You work that hard money starts to become the only tool in the toolbox.

Yes, this is part of it. The one who went off on me is spinning her wheels working 60 hrs/week. I actually brought up the topic of frugality in an effort to maybe help her not have a nervous break-down.

Using money as a yardstick of success not so much

I think that maybe this can happen when core Artist-type is under stress and sinks into vice of Envy towards vibing more like an Achiever.

My theory is that it’s age-related anxiety. Suddenly, people realize that regardless of what they do, getting old and dying is going to happen. They try to choose a new old game to cope

Yes, this also makes some sense of it. Maybe the combination of personal aging with the current global collapse shitshow is exacerbating it.

Hedonism seems to have an easier point of access in our culture as it’s internally and externally reinforcing. If nothing else, stupid living may hasten their demise.

Well, I'm certainly not wishing an early demise on anyone in my social circle. Also, I'm not exactly a stoic ascetic likely to make it to 110 myself; I just try to keep my pleasurable vices (sex with old guys some other females dumpstered, enough free time to read all of the library books, enough weed-ridden-garbage-strewn-soil-compacted vacant lot acreage to do a permaculture project, and a couple bags of dollar store candy) on the cheap enough side to not burn down much more than my fair share of the planet. The sad thing is that I can only currently "afford" 2 out of 4 of my favorite cheap vices. Cigarettes, Ozempic-derivatives, wine in a bottle, charcuterie boards,...waaaay out of my league.

I'm also thinking more about how this portion of my social circle compares/contrasts with the more towards male millionaire-next-door Wheaton Level 5ish Optimizer portion of my social circle. With those guys, it is more like my extreme frugal behavior is seen as 1 part admirable and 2 parts cuckoo-bananas ("You are not being practical."), as Wheaton Scale theory would predict, whereas this female Revert-to-Orange group of my peers is currently reading my behavior as "Holier than thou" and also towards a bit of "Not holding up my end of covert social contract."

[Hristo Botev]

@7wb5 - See Boomeritis.

That was going to be my response as well as I was reading through this thread. I'm not up on the colors either, but what you described in your initial post sounds like every funny trope/meme out there about boomers "spending their kids' inheritance" on cruises and RVs. And I swear the ozempic stuff--and the more ubiquitous cosmetic surgery "look" even among younger folks who certainly don't need it, such that the weird lips and tight skin is now becoming normalized--is making all of this stuff so much worse, because now you have people not only with loads of money to spend in their 401Ks on Viking cruises and homes at the Villages, but now after having spent their 30s-50s overweight and out of shape, thanks to truly awful diets and sedentary lifestyles, they all think they are suddenly sexually attractive thanks to a miracle drug that has knocked out the appetitive part of their tripartite soul.

[7Wannabe5]

See Boomeritis.

Just added it to my stack. I didn't know it was actually a book by Wilber.

they all think they are suddenly sexually attractive thanks to a miracle drug that has knocked out the appetitive part of their tripartite soul.

Well, I must admit that the egocentric part of my tripartite soul was considering whether never smoking, only very rarely drinking, and remaining chubby was giving me an edge in the wrinkles department.

[ertyu]

sounds like a bog-standard midlife crisis to me, @7w5, esp when you threw in the ozempic

[7Wannabe5]

@ertyu:

Oh, I am probably being a bit mean-spirited myself by mentioning the Ozempic. I have sincere empathy for the newly skinny woman who is on the Ozempic, because she has been chubby her entire life, and I know dealing with that in our culture can be difficult. I also have empathy for the once again very skinny woman who has always had tendencies towards classic depressive borderline anorexia and seems to be veering a bit that way again. It was the skinny woman on Adderall, nicotine, pot, and coffee who was aggressively pushing my buttons.

It's also more that I feel like a bit of a spaced-out Rip Van Winkle, suddenly waking up and realizing that my female peers have all become Muppies. It seems like just yesterday that we were shopping $5 bag day at the thrift center together, living on potato soup, sharing paperback novels, and getting one of our engineering student boyfriends to jack us some free cable tv.

[Western Red Cedar]

I agree that it could be depression, boomeritis, narcissism, etc... Here are a couple other thoughts worth exploring though:

Much more like, "I put in my time defending death row inmates, teaching poor kids, editing literary magazine, playing in punk rock bands, being a queer/trans advocate, doing organic gardening, being a breast-feeding neo-hippie Mom, and now it's my turn to get me some $$$ and live large on charcuterie board and spa vacations."

However, because these are individuals who were previously centered at Level Green, it's like any suggestion towards Level Green practice, results in reactionary Guilt-> Anger. For example, when I made use of the "F" word "frugality" with one of these recent-reverters, she flamed out at me about how her previous career in public service did not provide her with enough money to get needful dental work done etc. Another argument I drifted into found me arguing for agency-in-accumulating-generational-wealth with somebody who still sees herself as member of oppressed middle-class majority even though her household income/spending is currently almost 1/4 million/year. I, of course, lost that argument due to the fact that I have not accumulated generational wealth, and can only point to my rags-to-riches multi-multi-millionaire friend and some of you guys as example.

One thought I had is that this is just another stress-reaction sign of the comng global resource depletion apocalypse. Dunno.

Those who have spent careers in public service in the US have come under increasing pressure and scrutiny in a variety of fields. They are often attacked and undermined, after having made personal and/or financial sacrifices to support causes or institutions they believe(d) in. You've probably observed this in education, but it is true in public health, law enforcement, science, natural resource management, local/state/federal civil servants and more.

Dealing regularly with entitlement, abuse and ignorance becomes exhausting after a decade or two. On top of that, most Americans perceive institutions as decaying and have lost faith - probably with good cause. I can understand how some of those you describe lose faith in working for the "greater good" and begin to focus on themselves.

Perhaps this is all just a reflection of them confronting some portion of the metacrisis - "if the Titanic is sinking, why not enjoy some champagne and caviar?" Maybe they are just exhausted and want to enjoy themselves.

I just try to keep my pleasurable vices (sex with old guys some other females dumpstered, enough free time to read all of the library books, enough weed-ridden-garbage-strewn-soil-compacted vacant lot acreage to do a permaculture project, and a couple bags of dollar store candy) on the cheap enough side to not burn down much more than my fair share of the planet.....

whereas this female Revert-to-Orange group of my peers is currently reading my behavior as "Holier than thou" and also towards a bit of "Not holding up my end of covert social contract."

I've noticed the line of thinking in the bold above pop up in dozens of your posts. I suspect it is probably a core belief. Does it directly or tacitly come to the surface in some of your personal conversations as well?

Your friends might be getting the "holier than though vibe" because that is essentially what you are putting out when you talk about the ethics of resource consumption and the morality of living below the US poverty line. Here is a recent example where I got that vibe from one of your posts*:

My observation would be that the philosophy and advice offered on this forum is not consistently long-termist. For example, we definitely do not offer counsel towards remaining passionate about the same career over 40 years, and we do not much discuss the negative externalities of short-term pleasure travel vs. forming deep attachment and roots in one given region of residence.

Obviously, short term sexual liaisons are much less likely to contribute to CO2 emissions than short-term international travel, but a balanced approach such as your mixed long-term/short-term residence/travel approach or my mixed long term/short-term polyamorous relationship approach or the semi-ERE approach we share in the realm of work/occupation might serve as the sort of lifestyle design most likely to provide appropriate mix of robust and resilient, deep old roots energy and bright new vista energy

Hanging out with and ERE person might be a little like hanging out with a close friend who is a vegan or a cross-fit enthusiast. Even if they are an extremely cool and amazing person, sometimes judgments creep out unconsciously. They often aren't aware of their own blinders.

*I'm hoping this comes across as constructive criticism rather than an attack.

[xmj]

Two things to mention:

1) Well-off folks really do not want to listen to financial advice from perceived broke people

It's like listening to relationship advice from monks, just doesn't work

2) Compound interest

You mention people in their 40s/50s. Three things happen here: 1) inheritances, 2) kids start leaving the house (and, the budget) 3) Anyone who has put two three decades of work into their career will be at some relative peak.

[7Wannabe5]

@WesternRedCedar:

I do apologize if you felt like collateral damage to that last post which I was dead aiming at what I perceived to be Ego's rather rigid stance on sexual relationships. I was purposefully vibing a bit holier than thou on international travel in order to communicate "We all live in glass houses, my friend." I used to have a bit of a travel bug myself, but I lost it after my second marriage too fully immersed me in a different culture. So, it's easy for me to delete from my lifestyle budget, just like the "vice" of alcohol has never tempted me due to 50% chance instant sluggish headache. I hope you are enjoying your current travels at least as much as I enjoy wasting far too much time reading myself into a state of idiocy.

However, I do believe that the ethics of resource consumption are towards the soul of ERE. Otherwise, it's just akin to a very skinny bitch version of Wall Street Playboys. I, obviously, pretty much zero-percent hold the moral stance held by some on the forum that personal wealth accumulated = good done for society. I am an eNTP still a bit steeped in Level Green, so moral idealism is pretty low on my stack and subject to a good deal of relativism. I have myself, elsewhere on this forum, suggested that those who are actively doing service in environmental or social causes should perhaps be offered more slack (party budget)in their theoretical spending/burning budget than those who are simply doing no harm.

Where/why I know I push the issue a bit too far sometimes is that I have a typical eNTP (boy who stupidly spoke up about the emperor having no clothes was an ENTP) focus on the math/systems. I mean if somebody were to tell me that their solution for resource depletion was to build a billionaire bunker with private militia to gun down refugees at the perimeter, I certainly might have some thoughts about their moral functioning, but my compulsion to argue the matter would be at an end, because their math works. It's just the combination of a moral stance I admire with math/systems that won't work that puts me into socially stupid things come out of my mouth mode on occasion.

Anyways, I am well aware that there is always a possibility that I will vibe annoying, but that doesn't excuse somebody yelling highly personal insults at me in a public setting. She has apologized for her behavior, but being yelled at in a public setting is the sort of behavior that drives me to my cold place, so it's going to take a minute for me to come around. Clearly, I made an error similar to suggesting Betty Ford to somebody determined to continue on a workaholic-spendaholic bender.

1) Well-off folks really do not want to listen to financial advice from perceived broke people

It's like listening to relationship advice from monks, just doesn't work

Absolutely true. In fact, at the point at which the argument was near its most ridiculous peak, I almost took a "dare" to prove my stance by actually making an effort to accumulate significant wealth rather than just monking around like I do. The stance she was arguing was that since Picketty in his "Capital" showed that wealth status is generationally stable/immovable, she is destined to not accumulate wealth, because she was "poor" as a child (that bit is a more than a bit debatable too), even though she now lives in a household that earns 1/4 million/year. AND, the only valid solution to global resource depletion/climate change is the mostly top-down political activism design as outlined by Naomi Klein. It just kind of blows my mind when somebody perceives themselves as financialy struggling when they are in the 85th percentile for household income in one of the wealthist nations on the planet. However, my moral relativism and lack of rational belief in free will also informs me that in a capitalistic societal structure such as ours, some humans are also likely to become "stuck" near the top beyond their volition.

You mention people in their 40s/50s. Three things happen here: 1) inheritances, 2) kids start leaving the house (and, the budget) 3) Anyone who has put two three decades of work into their career will be at some relative peak.

Yes, but this is also true for the Boomer-more-centered-in-Orange and more likely to be male and moderately/conventionally frugal members of my social circle, and I'm not getting the same vibe off of them. It's just the previously Bohemian Green Forever Grad student flavor of frugal contingent that is falling off this "Big Chill" cliff. Since I am kind of obsessed with the math, it actually kind of makes sense to me from the perspective that the consistently moderately frugal and high earning maybe always spent $X/year over 30 years, and the previously Green artsy/public service low earners now transformed into high earners were only able to spend $X/2 for 20 years, so are now compelled to spend $2X for 10 years. Humans gonna human.

[suomalainen]

I tend to think of these things through a self-through-institutions lens. It's not that people were selfless at one point and then became selfish, it's that they've always been selfish. How else can one be? You can only live "your" life according to "your" values making "your" choices as "you" go along. Who else's life would you be living? Whose values would you be using? Etc. Everyone is the hero in their own narrative and everyone else is an NPC.

Anyway, what I mean is that for most normies, the twin institutions of work and family dominate life for almost the entirety of their lives. It starts with family of origin and then school (~20 years) and then transitions to "starting a family" and "building a career" (~30 years). So for call it ~50 years, people's (self-)identities are wrapped up in institutions, which are sold as idealistic things, good things, The Right Things. Along the way, they learn that both institutions suck ass. These NPCs are greedy little selfish pricks! Ideals wither. As my dad once advised me after he read a doe-eyed church talk I once wrote/gave in my early 20s, "Yeah, I see a naive, idealistic boy. As you get older, you'll get colder and harder." Regardless, the pressure of being in the thick of it keeps you from being able to fully embrace / examine it while you're going through it. But once that pressure lid comes off one or both (kids move out and barely talk to you, you get laid off due to ageism or whatever or you retire -- i.e., you come to the realization that you aren't the hero; you are someone else's NPC), then you're "free" to see what's left after this ~50 year institutional narrative has suddenly disappeared like a fart in the wind. Now, the self-through-institution has to be re-authored as a self-identity without the comforting structure and assumptions of institutions. This is why it now looks "selfish". No longer is "other-thinking" externally imposed. For the first time in your life, you are "free". And most people can't handle it.

Incidentally, this is how a church can both be helpful and so hurtful. It's an (sometimes extremely abusive) institution that can provide comforting structure, purpose and definition from birth to death (and beyond), regardless of one's changing circumstances. In other words, it is the "rock" on which your life's foundation should be built, not the sands of relationships or work or money, all of which can change / be washed away.

[7Wannabe5]

@suo:

I actually believe that you are better than what you wrote above.

I started reading Wilber's "Boomeritis" last night, and an interesting bit I happened upon was a description of Carol Gilligan's model of moral development, which can somewhat serve as a sort of shorthand for the spiral dynamics or Kegan model. Gilligan's model has females going through stages of moral development centered on "caring." First a little girl learns to care for herself (me), then she learns to care for close familiars (us), then she learns to care for the greater community or world (all of us.) OTOH, the typical moral development of a boy centers on "rights/justice." First seeking "rights/justice" for himself (me), then seeking rights/justice for his comrades (us), finally seeking rights/justice for humans (all of us.) Then, at some point, a gender cross-over occurs in moral development and fully developed humans of either gender max out at seeking "care" and "rights/justice" for "all of us."

IOW, developing the cognitive ability to abstract beyond one's own perspective (understand that if a ball is half green and half blue, other may be seeing blue while you see green) allows one to develop the social/moral ability to see others as not being just NPCs. So, I think that what you are expressing with your thoughts on Freedom and being over-burdened with care at the level of "us" is more reflective of just a bit of a struggle between your masculine path moral development and your feminine path moral development. IOW, because you married and became a father relatively young, your feminine moral path development was likely not yet quite up to the task, so you've been operating at a deficit of self-care for a long while. I do not believe for a minute that you actually view other humans as NPCs.

Upon reflection, I believe this model may also be applied to the behavior of my Level Green female cohort, but with previous moral development along the male path being more at issue. Thus, the sudden adolescent expression of seeking rights for (me.)

[zbigi]

The stance she was arguing was that since Picketty in his "Capital" showed that wealth status is generationally stable/immovable, she is destined to not accumulate wealth, because she was "poor" as a child (that bit is a more than a bit debatable too), even though she now lives in a household that earns 1/4 million/year.

If she really belives that (and was not just mindlessly babbling in the heat of an argument, as we all tend to do sometimes), then she must be some kind of educated idiot. "Educated", because she reads Piketty, and "idiot", because she fails to grasp that he's talking about trends/averages, and it's possible for individual to defy such trend. She basically doesn't understand stats, but reads books that use them?

[Jean]

i would have said educated because she reads, and idiot because it's pickety