Politics and Consciousness
This year’s campaign rhetoric provides a great database for studying different structures or levels or paradigms of human consciousness.
Richard Rohr recently offered a helpful one-page summary of Integral Theory’s “levels of consciousness” here:
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=4244f53c-334e-4d9d-bd8d-906292a44625&c=bc420c90-eeea-11e3-98e3-782bcb740129&ch=bd312780-eeea-11e3-9905-782bcb740129
Beige: Instinctive/Survivalistic — The basic theme is to do what it takes to stay alive, with a preference for pleasure over pain. There is a unitive absorption with one’s mother and an original innocence and naïveté. (Sunday)
Purple: Magical/Animistic — It becomes important to honor and obey the spirit-being presented and the group’s leaders, rituals, and customs.
Red: Impulsive/Egocentric — The individual realizes that he or she can be distinct from the tribe and can break free from group constraints; the heroic self.
Blue: Purposeful/Authoritarian — The “true believers,” the concrete-literal fundamentalists, love certitude and knowing who is right and who is wrong. They presume they are right and will be rewarded.
Orange: Achievist/Strategic — People who are self-reliant, rational, educated, and willing to take risks will “win.” Societies will prosper through competitiveness and technology.
Green: Communitarian/Egalitarian — “Seek peace within the inner self and explore, with others, the caring dimensions of community.” Political correctness, human rights, and equality are the highest virtues.
Yellow: Integrative — Human lives and society are seen much like vibrant, resilient ecosystems where chaos and fluctuation are expected.
Turquoise: Holistic — The entire world is “a single, dynamic organism with its own collective mind.”
For those who are interested, I synthesize these eight levels in a four-stage schema in Naked Spirituality:
Simplicity: Beige/Purple/Red/Blue
Complexity: Orange
Perplexity: Green
Harmony: Yellow/Purple