How do we know what color level someone or a group is at? To figure this out there are some questions we need to answer:
Let’s go through the color levels again, but this time asking those questions.
At Beige focus is on the individual family (tick). You know to be true what is right in front of you. You are willing to die for your family. There are a surprisingly large number of people buying missile silos to convert them into survival shelters. That is very Beige level thinking. By the way, I don’t think they are necessarily wrong. If I had a lot of excess money, I would seriously consider doing something like that too. Family is where we start.
The whole point of backpacking is to get to this level. That is why people do it for extended periods of time. It takes a while to get back into this easy communion with nature. After you have gone a few days on the trail, the city mentality starts to finally fade away and we can finally just let ourselves be one with the world. It is a very beautiful mental place to get to. So if you find a backpacker on a long hike they are probably in that moment at Beige. The energy field of these people feels very clean and whole.
This is also the stage people collapse back to if they have a lot of unresolved trauma and/or pain. All they can manage is just to survive day to day. We all go here when we have a bad flu. Unfortunately some people spend most of their lives in so much pain that they spend much of their life at this stage. They can’t rally to care too much about others because they are hurting so badly.
At purple focus swings over to tribe and community (tock). You know to be true what the tribe knows to be true. You revere the local spirits of the land. You are willing to die to protect your tribe. Many indigenous people live their lives at this level. Many more of us wish we could.
We all have a longing to be part of a tribe whether we are consciously aware of it or not. Groups like a church, or a yoga community can provide this. If the bond is strong enough this community can be said to be at the Purple level. This can sometimes be disastrous (think of religious cults gone bad), but sometimes it can be amazing.
At Red focus spirals up and back to the individual (tick). You are still part of a tribe, but your people are the chosen people. You know that your tribe’s truth is the only truth. And your destiny is to rule the world. You are willing to die for the honor of your king.
Olympic athletes are a healthy example of this stage. They are competing to be the world’s best. Why else would you wake up so early every morning and work so hard day after day, year after year? We all have that in us if we choose to find it.
Many of the people opposed to Covid vaccines are Red. Why? First because they get their Truth from their tribe not science. Second because they are mostly focused just on individual freedom and don’t really understand the need to sacrifice for the greater good. I struggle with how much judgment I have about people who refused the Covid vaccine during the early part of the pandemic when so many were dying. But it is important to really get that these people really and truly do not have scientific thinking online. It just is not a source of Truth for them. We can patiently tell them the science facts over and over, but that will not sway them. And it is not because they are dumb. Not at all. Scientific thinking is a later stage and they just don’t have that expanded world view yet. Please, please understand that is not a matter of smartness – it is a teachable skill they are missing. These people’s hearts are smaller than I want them. But that is just where they are at right now, yelling isn’t going to help.
At Blue focus spirals up and back to the group (tock). You are part of something so much bigger than yourself. Bigger even than just your tribe. You are willing to die for this greater Truth.
Mormons society is a good example of Blue. They have a beautiful focus on family and community. In my experience Mormon families do a surprisingly good job of raising their children to be decent, caring humans. Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon was the only Republican senator to vote for Trump’s first impeachment. It was an astonishingly brave thing to do. He explained why he had to do it in his speech to congress:
I am aware that there are people in my party and in my state who will strenuously disapprove of my decision, and in some quarters, I will be vehemently denounced. I am sure to hear abuse from the President and his supporters. Does anyone seriously believe I would consent to these consequences other than from an inescapable conviction that my oath before God demanded it of me?
This is such a beautiful example of Blue. With all his heart he knows there is something much bigger than just himself, and he is guided from that bigger place.
Mormon society also is a good example of the problems of Blue. Like most Blue religions they firmly believe in magical stories because they are not yet at the science (Orange) stage. The Mormon church also has a horrible history of sexism and racism because the Green stage is not yet online. Those problems are very real, but please recognize that there are benefits here too. People like Mitt Romney will not normally vote the way we want, but they can be our allies when the stakes are highest. Like when democracy itself is at stake.
Another example of Blue is Alcohol Anonymous’s Twelve Steps. The alcoholic recognizes that they are helpless before their addiction and need to surrender to a higher power. They recognize that there is a vast love and strength that is waiting for them if they can finally surrender and just let it in. This is not a comfortable path – quite the opposite, but the strength to bear it comes from something greater than themselves.
At Orange we spiral up and back to the individual (tick). The Truth can only be found within, and that Truth is rational. We are all individuals pursuing happiness. We need the freedom to do that. Give me liberty or give me death!
This is the stage where science/math comes fully online. A truly different way of looking at the world. Most people don’t appear to have learned this discipline. They pick and choose which facts are convenient to believe. Science is founded on rational thinking, but notice how much Blue faith is needed too. I personally don’t have the mathematical chops to understand Quantum Dynamics, but I trust (in a Blue way) that it is the closest we can get to the Truth right now. Each discovery takes us one step closer to Truth. Science demands that we stand accountable to the reality of the world. We can never get to absolute Truth itself but we can continue to refine our theories, always trying to get closer. When Einstein predicted that gravity would bend light, scientists measured it and saw it was true. And several hundred years of adherence to Newton’s laws were thrown out just like that and replaced by Einstein’s theory. The ability to look at the facts, recognize the existing theory is wrong, and switch to a better one is incredibly powerful. It has changed the world.
You can tell someone is at Orange when they are able to have a fully rational discussion, and you can actually change their mind. They will listen to facts and reason and recognize (at least sometimes) when they are wrong. But Orange just can’t get, for example, that systemic racism is an all too real thing. A key tell is if they complain about “wokeness” or insist on “both-siding” the issue. They just can not see it.
At Green we spiral up and back to the group (tock). We know that science is True, but we also know that a lot of our so called rationality is just a self serving illusion. We recognize how much culture dictates what we think is “True”. We start to break out of the colonizing mindset and look to create a world where all are treated with respect and dignity. We would die for our brothers and sister.
There are many less people at Green than you might think. At least in the way I have defined it. Green is a reaction to Orange. Even though Green has many (needed!) criticisms of science it does not throw out science. It recognizes that there are many other voices that need to be heard from, but science still has a place at the table. And just because you vote a certain way does not make you Green. If you don’t fully believe in science and you are group focused, you are most likely at Blue. For example the QAnon conspiracy snared many people in yoga and alternative health communities. These people presumably vote liberally, but they also do not fully have Orange critical reasoning yet. I would call that Blue or maybe even Purple.
Recently the sorting has gotten a little easier. If you are “woke” you are at least Green. And by “woke” I mean that things like critical race theory and structural racism make sense to you.
Green seems to not be able to see the other stages. People at Green think that everyone sees the world exactly as they do, and if someone does something wrong they should know better. To get them to understand our vast differences they would have to do some deep personal exploration. And if they do that, that brings them to Yellow
At Yellow we spiral up and back to the individual (tick) again. We find the Truth within, but this time it is different. At this level we start to find all the levels inside ourselves. We are back to pursuing happiness like we did at Orange, but this time we have Green to make that pursuit less selfish and destructive. At this stage we recognize that we all have to find our own Truth. Group work is immensely helpful with growth work, but in the end you will need to find your Soul all on your own. We find why we came to planet earth. We would die for our life’s purpose.
Please note Soul work is distinct from Spirit work. People can have profound spiritual experiences at any of the stages. You can have someone who is very advanced spiritually who is still at Red. That happens all the time in fact. You can also have someone at Yellow who is not very advanced in Spirit work at all. Because they are at Yellow they will at least recognize something is there, but they have much more to discover. That also is very common.
And just because someone has done a lot of self exploration does not necessarily put them at Yellow. They need to have Green online first. Green opens up the possibility that pure reason is not the only source of Truth. Green grounds us in what is truly important. It can happen that people at Orange are resistant to Green and when they have their crisis of their soul, they fall back to Blue. You can tell because even though they have done profound personal work they still don’t really get, for example, how women have an extra burden to carry in our society.
There is a simple way to tell if someone is at Yellow — ask them. When I tell the Spiral Dynamics story to someone at Yellow there seems to be a sense of recognition. They are living this. Yellow gets that we contain multitudes. That you can take the parts of religion that are profoundly good and not the other parts. They see the courage and integrity of someone like Liz Cheney (she was one of the very few house Republicans who actively turned against Trump after the capitol putsch), and take her where she is at (a mix of Blue and Orange). They do not dismiss her simply because she is not Green.
I’ve talked to young people who have become disillusioned with the endless purity wars that Green is falling back into. They are pulling out of mass movements and are turning to their own truth. Maybe they want to start a farm, maybe they want to join a small ecovillage and live as musicians. They do journey work and fast out in vast wilderness for days and days. This is very, very good. It gives me hope. But I long for when they come back out of the wilderness.
At Turquoise we spiral up and back to the group (tock). We have found the strength and clarity of our Truth at Yellow. Now we open up to the Truth of others. Time to recognize that we are meant to be as one. We would die for this bigger, shared purpose.
I am a Yellow that is longing for Turquoise. But Turquoise is by definition a group thing so I can not get their on my own. I need to find others. People who have done enough of their own work to find that they too want to open to something even bigger. Maybe you?
Yellow falls into the fallacy that you can get to the next stage all your own. Ken Wilber enumerates many stages after Yellow. And these stages are probably real. But he is just progressing further and further into Yellow. Don’t get me wrong — this is worthy work. But it is not a fundamental stage difference. Yellow’s blindspot is to not recognize that we are group animals. We can only progress as far as the group we are in. It is just how it works. And we collectively are not quite there yet. But it feels close.
My life’s purpose is to help create Turquoise. We will know Turquoise when we create it together. We will be individually strong and yet strong as a group as well. We will takes turns as teacher and student. We will take turns as leader and follower. And together we will create a culture that guides us to a much bigger joy than we have allowed ourself up to now. That is the crazy big dream I keep on talking about. You will know you are at Turquoise when you share that crazy big dream with me.