The more I study the EC framework and apply it, the more I think it is an inaccurate formulation of human values.

It is not that the framework does not work, it is just that I can’t help but feel there is a more accurate way of expressing it. In the same way that Relativity improved on Newtons understanding of gravity, I think there is a fuller, more accurate way of modelling human values.

I do not know what this is but I can point out the flaws and I have an idea for a way forward but do not yet know how to fully formulate it.

The main issue is essentially that the value systems do not represent people, they represent abstractions of aspects of people. A person has multiple value systems interacting and rarely expresses a strong nodal value system. Extending from this there are several of what I think of as mistakes in the interpretations that were made on the SD training that I attended. I don’t want to slate the courses, I learnt a great deal from them and as a result my understanding of FS, GT and HU has changed a great deal.

The first issue I have is with the concept of being open and closed. As described by Cowan and Todorovic on the course. People can be closed or open to the various value systems. For example, a manager can be centralised in DQ and not really understand ER, yet if they are open to ER they can work with people who are centralised at ER and manage them effectively in a DQ way even though they do not understand what it is they do. My problem with this definition is that it contains an inherent contradiction. DQ always sees ‘others’, i.e. those that do not belong to the system that they belong to, as outsiders, and thus the enemy.

One way of explaining this is to say that the manager can follow the absolute DQ law, which says that the ER people are good people who belong to a different ‘caste’. This might work if the ER people were higher up the hierarchy than the manager, but they are not, so I find it hard to believe that this would sit well.

I think there is another explanation: That the value systems do not really exist, they are artefacts of the data and the way in which our minds interpret it.

The method Cowan and Todorovic use to map a persons values is to ask them a series of questions along the lines of agreeing /disagreeing with statements that express particular value systems. They then use this as a starting point to further analyse the person through one on one conversation. The result of this is a series of graphs that show which value systems a person identifies and disagrees with. It also shows if they are closed (blind) to a value system. My problem with this method is that it flattens the complexity of someone’s values into an overly simplified top down view that I do not find useful. They, and Graves, say that this is just a jumping off point and that the experienced consultant learns how to interpret the nuances of a persons values while interacting with them. I agree with this, but it does not help in understanding the process that goes on. I want to make that process concious, to see what makes it work.

A stepping stone to a different way of interpreting the data would be to suggest we have in our minds multiple value systems and apply different systems to varying situations. Therefore a person can be centralised at DQ but have other aspects of their mind that can understand ER enough to be able to work with people who are centralised at it. In the example with the manager, he understands ER in terms of human relationship, but not in terms of business strategy and thus can work with ER people even though he can not define how they work in terms of business strategy. This is the kind of approach that Wilber takes when he discusses multiple streams. I think Cowan and Todorovic used this explanation as well, but memory does not serve me well. The problem I have with this is that the evidence for distinct multiple intelligences is very poor.

A further criticism I have of Cowan and Todorovics approach, is their explanation of values memes as being meta memes and that many people confuse a meme with the value system. For example, just because someone says they are passionate about protecting the environment, which is an FS meme, it does not mean that they have FS values. My criticism of this approach is ironic, because I really appreciated the way they explained it, however I think that the explanation may be overly simplified. Perhaps this person who is passionate about the environment is genuinely FS in their passion and the life process that led them to that understanding, but their knowledge of how to protect it comes from another value system. The system could be more complex than a simple hierarchy of memes to meta memes.

With the above examples I am trying to express how Graves value system consistently collapses into complex chaos whenever a microscope is placed over a particular area. For meaningful progress to be made in the way we examine the details in the interactions of human values I think we need a new approach, one that allows us to understand the microcosm of interactions. I suspect this understanding will grow out of bio-psychology.

I’ve recently been reading On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins. It is an interesting theory on how the brains neural network functions. I think it provides the beginning of a more comprehensive explanation for how human values have evolved. He explains that our brains are essentially self reinforcing pattern recognition and prediction devices. Each time we see an image, experience a feeling, hear a noise, it triggers neurons that fired the last time we had a similar experience. This pattern of experience triggers other associated patterns, so for example, when we hear the name of our mother an image of her appears in our minds eye.
I suspect that the values that Graves uncovered are explained by the increasing complexity of neural connections in the aspects of our brain that deals with social interaction.

Our values develop through these self reinforcing feedback mechanisms as an emergent property. This would explain the multiple values operating simultaneously, without fixing them into specific intelligences.

If this is true, then there is not a specific area of the brain that deals with values, but an emergent complexity in all areas. Unfortunately this may be hard to investigate and empirically verify as our brain imaging technology may not be advanced enough to pick this up. On the other hand it may be. When someone is expressing a particular set of values, a particular set of brain areas may light up because they are more heavily interconnected than others. I also wonder if this information may be useful in the development of AI. If true, it shows, for example, that the development of self aware conciousness is intrinsicly linked (at least in humans) to our oscillation between I centeredness and we centeredness . I also wonder if it is possible to make a simplified computer model of values development via simple interacting AI lifeforms that are competing for resource. Does the I/We oscillation naturally arise?

I have been thinking about why people socialise within a EC framework.

There seem to be a few basic reasons that people group together. Although the expression of these reasons morphs with each system until ultimately they have totally different meanings.

It all starts off with the need for genetic replication, which starts out at AN as sexual desire. By the time BO evolves this has resulted in several expressions that increase the chance of successful genetic replication. These are the need for group organisation, celebration of being alive, and distribution of resources.

With BO, group organisation happens in several ways, firstly though the emotion of love, and also through the unconscious hierarchy that is expressed through the elders from the ancestors. Celebration is expressed in group rituals, feasts and by keeping the knowledge of the ancestors alive. Resources are either consumed on the spot or grouped together and divided via a pecking order proscribed by the elders.

This jump from AN to BO is huge and is probably, really many smaller systems that have become lost in time.

With CP, group organisation is through a hierarchy imposed by the strongest. Celebration is through feasting and debauchery. Resources are claimed by whoever is strong enough to claim them, but they can only claim what they can hold at that time.

With DQ, group organisation is through a hierarchy imposed by the ultimate truth – a truth that evolves over many generations as beliefs are codified. These abstract set of rules are expressed as concrete absolute rules. Celebration becomes highly proscribed and ritualised by the rules of group organisiation. Resources are distributed via the laws.

With ER, group organisation is through an elected body of competing representatives. These representatives argue amongst each other to define an ever changing set of laws that everyone is governed by. Celebration is through individual expression of wealth. Distribution of resources is through trading. Everyone in the ER group competes to convert poorly valued resources into highly valued resources and to barter these for other resources that they need – In its more advanced expression this becomes the free market economy.

It is interesting that trade can not exist until ER because this requires both the understanding that others are individuals and also that they have something of value that can be traded. Yet trade has been around for a long time, showing that ER in at least this form has been around for a long time. This is good example of the values systems being abstractions of a deeper truth that has not yet been described… but I am getting off topic.

FS is a bit of a guess as we have not yet reached this as a society and so speculation and extrapolation is needed. Group organisation is via a peer based evolving set of laws, where everyone in the society has the opportunity to discuss and change the rules. This could be achieved via a net based voting system, where individuals represent themselves rather than an elected representative. The expression of celebration is diverse but has a common theme of acceptance and openness – a party where atheists and those of faith can gather together to express their shared humanity, be it a heartfelt touching ceremony or a knees up bender. Distribution of resources is via a peer based network of needs, with basic living requirements provided for all without question, and other resources divided up as peers deem. E.G. a scientist with a good reputation would have greater access to resources than a freshly qualified one.

GT as a society norm is so far off that any speculation is really guesswork and can only be expressed in the abstract. Group organisation will be via an evolving set of algorithmic processes that second guess the needs of those in the society before they are even thought of. Celebration will be through individual expression of creativity and knowledge. Resources are fairly allocated algorithmically, removing the need for people to spend time organising them. These algorithms will evolve out of the structures that the FS society creates.

Notice that by the time GT comes around, the original reason for society coming together is no longer applicable. The group has become all inclusive and automatic, giving no one a genetic advantage over anyone else. Clearly there is another vector at work here as well as genetic. I speculate that as the value systems advance they make genetic evolution redundant.

The quantum field allowed atoms to emerge, which in turn allowed molecules to emerge, which in turn allowed basic life to emerge, which in turn allowed DNA to emerge. DNA allowed self concious intelligence to emerge though the systems Clare Graves uncovered.

Clare Graves proposed that AN to FS represented a first tier of human values development and GT the beginning of the next tier. I do not think that there is strong evidence for this, but I do think that there is evidence for a new expression of life emerging on top of the intelligence that evolved out of DNA. There will be further development, such as HU, IV etc, but these will begin to become secondary to a new system that emerges out of the self aware intelligence that has emerged as our values have developed. What this will be I do not know, but I agree with Graves that it will have a lot to do with existential reality.

The difference between how I interpret the data and Graves is that Graves sees the second tier as a continuation of the first. I see it as evolving out of and on top of the first. The first continues in addition to this new emergent phenomena. Just as molecules continued to take on novel forms once cellular life formed.

I am involved in setting up our local transition town. I became involved because I thought it might be a good way to make a difference and meet people. 6 months later, I am still hopeful, but much of the time is spent wasted in bluster trying to sort out DQ-ER issues rather than ER-FS issues. It has really brought home for me just how hard it is to work in a genuinely FS way when the mainstream is oriented much more towards ER. For example, there has been a lot of discussion about whether we should call ourselves Transition Town Hebden Bridge or Transition Calderdale Valley. As a compromise we are currently calling ourselves Transition Hebden Bridge. This is a really good example of DQ at work rather than FS. Community at DQ is based on divisions and hierarchy, it is all about who you belong to. Community at FS is all about knowing people and as a result every person has their own community of the people they know. For some who come to the transition town meetings, they know more people throughout the Calderdale valley and so they see it as Transition Calderdale valley, for others, they mostly know people in Hebden Bridge so they see it as Transition Town Hebden Bridge. The point is that at FS, it is different for everyone and that is fine. It is more than fine. It is desired. I am not saying that a name doesn’t have importance. It is important to DQ, and many operate from DQ and need DQ structure and it is important that people forming an FS community/society include this, but it is not so important that a big issue should be made of it. It is important that the group discussing and deciding on the name understand this issue.

The whole point of the the transition town movement is to respond to global warming and peak oil. These are two meta problems have been caused by ER values though a disregard for the resource and waste stream and can only effectively be responded to through a move to FS values, which have evolved to deal with the shortcomings of ER values. The transition town movement will thus only be successful if it can embrace FS in an open way.

It might be better if the transition movement moved away from town based nomenclature. At first, this seems counter intuitive to me because using the town name allows people to reclaim their identity and it allows people to locate their town easily, this greatly aids the movement by making it seem to be spreading very quickly as more and more towns turn up on the transition town list.  On reflection though, I think these are appealing to DQ and ER values and are working with DQ-ER psychology not FS and as a result are encouraging a DQ-ER system rather than a FS one. FS spreads virally through grass roots word of mouth, it does not rely on trendy names (ER) or membership (DQ). The group still needs to appeal to ER and FS mindsets, but the way in which it does this should encourage movement to FS organisation. I am not sure how to practically realise this. A part of this would be to organise the website list via a postcode search so that the nearest transition group can be found without relying on boundaried names.

There are other things that give me cause for concern, such as the identity of the transition town movement being fixed in a set of rules rather than being a flexible evolving peer group discussed and edited identity.  Membership requiring filling in a form that is decided on privately rather than openly by a peer group of interested people. There are also many good things about the transition town movement, it encourages grass roots networking and the organisational methods described in the handbook lean strongly towards FS. The website is even based on a wiki. Only time will tell if the movement can resist the urge towards codification and top down organisation.

(See spiral dynamics introduction to understand DQ, ER, FS terminology.)

Haven’t had time to write much lately. Looking after our lovely little baby takes up most of the time I am not working. As a result I have decided to change the way I am using the blog. I going to be using it more like my paper journal. Essentially as a jotter for rough ideas.

As a result, the clarity of my writing may deteriorate. Not that it was all that clear to start with.

For all its flaws the election in the USA has one great point, the whole world talks about it, or at least the English speaking world. I’m a Brit – well actually I am part of the Yorkshire republic, but that is another story – so I don’t get a say in the November the 4th election, however most of these problems apply to Britain as well. There is a lot of hope being placed in Obama, I’m hopeful he is elected and it seems near certain that he will be, but until he walks his talk and starts to effect real change I will remain a cautious supporter. Here are the top 10 things I hope Obama sorts out in the next four years. It’s a tough target, I’d like to make it tougher, but it’s unrealistic as it is, I’ll be impressed if he just gets a few of these sorted out. These are not necessarily exactly what he has stated he will do, but I think he is largely moving in this direction.

1. Political process.
   a) Voting fraud. Corruption is a bit like bacteria, provide an environment for it and soon enough it will be colonized. Regardless of whether or not the situation with electronic voting machines has already swung elections, there is a ripe environment for corruption and it needs cleaning up. All voting equipment should be made using open source hardware and software with transparent auditing to prevent tampering. A more sophisticated electronic solution could be developed that is secure and anonymous and verifiable, however this would be a bigger task. Please at least stop up the leaks. In Britain we have a similar problem with postal voting, but the situation is not as dire; still, there are so many ways we could use modern technology to shore up the security of the vote. (I’ve written about it myself, and again)
   b) Lobbying. We have our own problems with money corrupting and biasing government process, as the current Mandelson/Osborne situation demonstrates once again. However in the USA, it seems even worse with the government being run by commercial interests taking public office. Bush/Chaney and the oil industry having been a great example but the current obvious conflict of interest lies in Paulson working for the treasury bailing out the very company (Goldman Sachs) he used to work for. There needs to be a much stronger separation between business and state in a working democracy, as there is an obvious conflict of interest that encourages corruption.
2. Economy
   Lets face it, it’s shot to pieces. I can see two main reasons for this shoddy state of affairs. Firstly a lack of sophisticated (not expensive) regulation, that has allowed unrealistic speculation to bloom to gigantic bubble proportions – and then *!pop!*. However this is simply a problem within the current economic paradigm, under which there is a greater problem of how the free-market externalizes the waste and resource streams, causing them to drop off the radar and cause all sorts of major problems such as peak oil and global warming. The best solution I have found to this problem is to move to a steady state economy, where instead of incentivizing more and more resource use, we incentivize more sophisticated usefulness of a fixed resource base. The USA would benefit from this as they have no chance of competing with Asias in product economy – they have too many people who will do manual work for a lot less than the average American. A steady state economy would play to the strengths of the USA ( and the east would do well from it as well). The problem would be convincing the world of this. Who better than the USA, they would need to be a key player in re-writing the rule book for the WTO, IMF and international trade in general. (I think my hopes for Obama to do this are ambitious in the extreame, I put it here because I dearly hope he does.)
3. Media
   A free media is central to a working democracy. ‘Free’ means that the general public have a chance to say what they want about whatever they want to anyone who will listen. Media is power, if it is monopolised in too few hands it has no chance, especially if that monopolised media is presented as fair and balanced when it is clearly not. There are plenty of accusations around of the media twisting stories to gain maximum viewers, thereby gaining the highest ad revenue. The Internet has been the saving grace of current times but steps need to be taken to ensure the freedom of the traditional press. Essentially they need demonopolising, currently just six corporations own most of the media in the USA. In addition, the freedom of the interenet needs to be preserved, net nuetrality and freedom of speech must be preserved. Australia has recently installed a system not all that dissimilar from the great firewall of China, this needs to be stopped.
4. Climate crisis
   This item is really at the top of my list of priorities, if we can’t stop it, then it will cause utter chaos with hundreds of millions, if not billions, of refugees. The only reason it is number 4 is because without action on the first three items I don’t think we have a chance of tackling this one, moving to a steady state economy is a particularly important part of the solution to global warming as it would inherently place ecological limits on all pollutants. We need to do much more than this though. We need to incentivize new technology on every front possible and at the same time transform the way we live our lives so that we are no longer a burden to the eco system. This is doable, it is only the lack of will, both public and political that is preventing us from tackling this.
5. Energy
   Most of our energy is generated from non renewable resources – fossil fuels, not only is this adding to the climate crisis but many of these fossil fuels are nearing the peak of production – they are reaching the point of maximum production capacity, in some cases because the resource is severely depleted and in others because although there are abundant remaining resources they are energetically and economically too expensive to utilize. The renewable energy sector needs to be incentivized and invested in far more than it is now – in both research and deployment.
6. Education
   Education in the UK is in a terrible state, but from all I read on the internet, it is worse in the USA. The essential problem is that when you judge education achievement on simple tests rather than incentivizing education it incentivizes students passing the test and schools corrupting the process to do better in league tables. It has resulted in kids today being significantly less clever than those from before. A more sophisticated methodology of judging education success needs to be employed, but this only the start of the problem. The educational establishment tends to teach kids what to think rather than teach processes of thinking that lead to creative individuals. A bunch of robots is the last thing we need, especially in a steady state economy, we need to revitalise creative exploration, not just in the arts but in the sciences as well. Further more, critical to our society is development of people with values that can push society forwards. At present society is centralised on rational/reductionist values and these are precisely the values that ignores the waste and resource streams, we need to move forwards to create a society that has more pluralistic/relativistic values, education needs to be rebuilt around developing these values.
7. Health
   This problem is very different in the UK, but the solution is essentially the same. People can not help the lives they are born to, but they can help how they look after themselves. We need to incentivize people to look after themselves at the same time as providing health care for issues beyond peoples control. Emergencies should be free with no questions asked. For illness, a more complex approach, where self inflicted harm through over eating, smoking etc is dealt with differently – not just ignored as that does not solve the problem in society. There also needs to be clear and fair limits on the budget for treating illness.
   The relationship between pharmaceutical companies and health care need to be re-thought. There is a clear conflict of interest that invites corruption: It makes better financial sense to develop medicines that keep people coming back for more than medicines that cure everything quickly and cheaply. We need to develop a system that changes this and incentives not just the health of the patient but the quality of life. In addition, non pharmaceutical approaches need to be more thoroughly researched and where there is good evidence they need to be used. E.G. A paper has recently been published showing that the Alexander Technique is a very effective treatment for chronic back pain. The Alexander Technique has been around for over a hundred years, yet it is only now that this has been confirmed; this happens because there is no control over teaching the Alexander Technique, no patents or copyrights and therefore the market economy does not incentivise its investigation.
8. Technology
   I think that one of the greatest problems that the current economic paradigm has brought is still not really recognized. It is very centered on progress in the present and does not really care about problems it creates for the future. Global warming is one very good end result, but there could be many more subtle effects that we are just not noticing. Most of the systems that our society depends upon, from the eco system to the complexity of our own bodies are chaotic systems, and these systems are all interlinked. It is impossible to predict all the interactions in a chaotic system, it is like predicting if it will rain on my house one year from now; it is mathematically impossible. Yet we are developing new technologies at breakneck speed. I am not anti technology, I just see a problem that needs to be adjusted for. One solution would be an institution, with the necessary funding and power to take action, to constantly look for unexpected interactions in the technologies we develop through modeling and statistical correlation. I want us to take command of our genetic heritage, to create nano machines that can cure any illness, but we need to get there safely and the free market does not incentivize this, it is just too short sighted.
   In addition we desperately need a rethink of intellectual property laws. We need to think up a way of incentivising research and development without locking the insights of that development down. A steady state economy goes a long way towards this.
9. Military
   Just get out. Out of everywhere. Stop being the bully boy.
   I know; who are we to talk. We need to stop being your sycophant.
10. Global peace. Yeah, a tough order, but Obama is the man, lets give it a chance.

I wrote a post a while ago about upgrading democracy. Reading it back now, it is rather wordy and my ideas have moved on a little; I think it is more important to find solutions that only a little ahead of where we are now because they are easier to implement. So here is a quick update.

The problem:
Democracy, as it is now, does not really represent the people and it is open to corruption in many ways.

The solution:
Use technology to enable the public to have a greater say.

The details:
People continue to vote in general elections as they do now. However when attending the polling station they have the option to sign up to an electronic platform.

Government continues to operate as it does, except rather than each MP getting one vote, they get a vote proportional to the number of people in their constituency. E.G. if there are 40,000,000 eligible voters and 645 MPs then each MP will have approximately 62015 votes.

People who have registered for the electronic platform can change who represents them to be any of the sitting MPs. They can do this as often as they want. When this happens, their current MP losses one vote and their new one gains one.

Why this is better:
The public can decide who represents them the most accurately, without the public having to get involved in the real nitty gritty of policy making. It does this without disenfranchising those who are not tech savy, or wanting to play a more active role in government.

Concerns:
Have to make sure the system is secure. Suggest an open source software and hardware solution to enable this.
Have to make sure the website is very easy to use.

Next step:
Once this system was settled in then it may need developing so that the public have more say in what motions are put before parliament in the first place.

Time for a bit of fun. I had a crazy 3am idea this morning.

I had just woken up after a nightmare where I was being tortured by having my legs twisted off (Which is what you get for reading The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross before going to sleep.) when I had this crazy idea.

Why can’t we build a space elevator using hot air balloons – or helium, whatever is cheaper/more ecologically sound. kinda steam punk I know, but why not.

As I lay there for two hours the idea evolved in my head. It couldn’t work on the same principles as a nano wire elevator… here’s a drawing of how I thought it might work (click for large version). The biggest problem I can see would be cross winds blowing it off course.

Someone please put me right with the physics and tell me it can’t be done.

I am planning[1] on this being the first of several posts taking a critical look at Graves’ research into E-C theory, commonly known as Spiral Dynamics. While I think that Graves’ research methodology was superb for the era it was performed. In a time when most psychological researchers developed a theory and then tried to fit evidence to that theory, Graves designed an experiment that removed his ideas from the research and only developed the theory after many years of research [2]. However there are known flaws[3] and further academic research (and peer review) would be wonderful.

The issue I want to look at today is one that lies at the heart of his theory. Graves developed his theory after gathering written descriptions from freshman students about their ‘conception(s) of psychologically mature human behavior’ [4]. He then has a second group of students categorise these conceptions. This on its own is a wonderful idea; rather than try to impose his own order on the conceptions, he had many different groups of students categorise them for him. The categorisations that were developed were markedly similar, although there was some variation.[5]

My criticism is that because the students needed to be graded and in order to incentivise his students to be honest he developed a set of criteria that would be used for grading.[6]

1. Breadth of coverage of human behaviour
2. Concurrence with established psychological fact.
3. The internal consistency of the conception.
4. The applicability of the conception.

I can see issues with several of these criteria but today I am going to concentrate on just the third.

Graves states that 60% of conceptions where considered to be consistent by the judges [7], but by incentivising consistency he may well have inadvertently introduced artificial consistency into the conceptions where there is none, or at least biased the degree of consistency. I can think of reasons for Graves wanting to keep the conceptions consistent. For example, this allowed him to ask his students for an updated conception at the end of the course and use this data to work out how conceptions evolve over time, this is very useful knowledge, but it may be the case that peoples conceptions are rarely consistent.

Further to this. Whilst using students to create the categorisation prevented Graves from artificially creating categories, it did not address the potential problem of biases within human perception of others values. In other words, the conceptions that are identified could be artificial constructions of human perception and language rather than points that are inherently unique.

Several vectors were identified when peoples conceptions evolve that I do not think are effected by this issue. (although further research would be needed to confirm this.)

1. Increased evolution brings an increasing complexity of conception.[8]
2. Increased evolution brings a greater degree of behavioural freedom.[9]

Other issues are, I think, more likely to be effected. For example, that conceptions, when consistent, oscillate from ‘I’ systems, with an internal sense of authority and an external locus of control to ‘we’ systems with an external sense of authority and an internal locus of control. When the conceptions are inconsistent this may no longer be the case. Inconsistent conceptions may not centralise on an ‘I’ or a ‘we’ state in the same place as the consistent conceptions when looking at the complexity of conception or the degree of behavioural freedom.

This brings into doubt the even, ordered nature of the way peoples conceptions evolve. For example, in not looking at the inconsistent conceptions, he may be missing conceptions that are not easily categorisable because they consist of a mix of easily identifiable conceptions. For example, someone might express a mixture of DQ and FS (pairing in Cowan and Todorovic language) with low ER and yet have the behavioural freedom and complexity of conception of someone with a consistent ER conception.

Further study would be needed to confirm this and unfortunately Graves’ many years of raw data has been lost so it would need to be done from scratch. Some longitudinal studies are ideally needed to identify how all peoples conceptions evolve and not just the consistent conceptions. A good starting point would be to identify an up to date methodology for identifying the degree of complexity of the conceptions and the degree of behavioural freedom expressed by people.

Notes

1. I say ‘planning’ because I have about ten ideas for posts for every one I have time to write.

2. The Never Ending Quest. Clare W Graves. pp38-39.

3. We looked at several on Cowan and Tordovics SD1 and SD2 course. In particualar the poor sample that 1950s American colledge students made.

4. The Never Ending Quest. Clare W Graves. pp44-46

5. The Never Ending Quest. Clare W Graves. p47

6. The Never Ending Quest. Clare W Graves. p45

7. The Never Ending Quest. Clare W Graves. pp56, 92

8. cognitive complexity – Graves used a modified version of George Kelly’s REP test. http://www.clarewgraves.com/research_content/CG&OJH/2.html

9. behavioural freedom was measured by the student judges – The Never Ending Quest. Clare W Graves. p114

I am not an expert in economics, yet I don

With world markets dropping like a stone, crucial resources such as oil depleting and pollution in the form of global warming threatening our very habitat, I still have hope. Why?

Strangely, five years ago, when nearly everyone else was partying, I was afraid. I strongly suspected the credit crisis was coming, I was investigating peak oil and was raised to be concerned about our environment. I was a doomer.

Today I am optimistic. I do have concerns and things could certainly go down the pan, we have a long struggle ahead of us. Now that the problems are largely being recognised I feel a sense of relief and am able to focus on what needs doing more clearly.

Perhaps I just like to be contrary, but there is reason to my madness. As anyone who has followed this blog will notice I find Graves’ E-C theory fascinating. It is popularly known as Spiral Dynamics and deals with how humans value their lives and the world. Although his theory predicts some reasons to fear, my reading of the current situation is hopeful. Here is why.

Graves studied how people value the world and how that impacts on their behaviour, I have written about it elsewhere on the site, so will not go into a lot of detail here. It is complicated to sum up the whole theory in a sentence without oversimplifying, but essentially the way humans value the world is evolving.

For the last few hundred years a values system known as ER (orange) has been growing in strength as more people embrace its ideology. This system is characterised by an ‘express self’ attitude, where we put our selves and our own needs first. Yet it is a system that does so through planning rather than immediate gratification. It is a rational, thought out value system, but one that is reductionist and tends to have tunnel vision. For all ER’s ability to create an economy that can produce unparalleled wealth and freedom it is useless at seeing the side effects of its externalisations. It does not equate the waste or resource streams into its economic model because equating them is not in its foundational interests. As a result we have major economic crashes, depleting resources and an eco system that is becoming unfit for civilisation as we know it. This value system has brought us many great things from democracy through to the scientific method, it is not that the system is bad, just that it has had its day. It is time to develop a new way of valuing the world that takes on board the best that ER offers us, yet also has inherent appropriate responses to the problems it has caused.

For all its flaws the ER system has many benefits over the previous dominant value system, DQ (blue). DQ is an absolutist, dualistic, fundamentalist, dogmatic value system in which it is believed everyone has their place. This was a world of caste systems, an absolute belief in how life works that is handed down from superiors without question. DQ is still around today, it is still a strong value system that many embrace whole heartedly, there are even more primitive value systems around to a lesser effect. The world is a complex place.

It is important to stress that these are systems in people, not people in systems. A person is not in the DQ system. DQ is a system that is operating in a person, often at the same time as other value systems. People are complex.

If we have overshot our resources to such an extent that the ER system is no longer viable then it is very likely that the dominant system will descend back towards DQ. There is a very good historical example of this happening before. 1930s Germany. ER science with DQ values is not a pretty sight. As I said, I am not without my concerns.

However, I have hope, and it is with reason.

Over the last 100 years a new value system has been evolving in response to the shortcomings of ER. It is known as FS (Green). FS takes Newtonian physics and relativises it. FS takes a colonial anthropological perspective and pluralizes it. FS takes modern art and post-modernises it. FS takes the scientific method that ER created and runs with it, transforming it into a multiperspictival tool. Rather than looking for a single formula that explains all existence, it conceptualises a formula to its environment. Someone with FS values cares about the environment beyond their back yard, they care about peoples happiness and ability to live life to the full regardless of their cultural origins. FS inherently develops economies that care about the resource and waste streams and it is capable of doing so without abandoning all the benefits that the ER economy brought about.

FS is a ’sacrifice self’ value system as was DQ. However the sacrifice is not to an omnipotent dictator or creator, but to the equality of all. DQ develops a strong sense of community but where everyone outside of that community is an evil ‘other’. Everyone with FS values appreciates community, but that community is different for every person, it extends to everyone that touches that persons life, no matter how far away that person is or how culturally different they are. A purely FS system of government would be inherently anarchistic, but not in the sense of the barbaric CP value system, it is a peaceful, peer reviewed, consensual seeking anarchism. It is democracy as it truly could be, with everyone having a say.

FS brings its own problems, it can take a long time to find consensus, but solutions to these will be found, in fact they are already on the horizon. Lets not race ahead, ER loves to get to the top of the pile and when ER looks at the system after FS (GT) it sees something it wants to be, but it can