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The Global Systems Review Issue 3  November 2008

The Global Systems Review is a periodic e-newsletter that explores critical world issues through the lens of whole systems thinking.

In This Issue:

• Memo to the President-Elect – Encouraging the new administration to operationalize interconnectedness across all government structures and actions. More...
  
  
• Reflections on Connections – Examining further the imperative to Connect the Disconnected
  More...
  
  
• A Spiral View of Terrorism – A powerful 1996 analysis by Don Beck of the horizontal and vertical patterns relating to terrorism, still relevant today. More...

Memo to the President-Elect
by Louise Diamond

Everyone’s giving the new president-elect advice on what he should do as soon as he enters office. Much of that advice outlines specific policy recommendations. While content is critical, I believe there are changes in process – in how we make decisions and how we think about complex issues – that are equally important. Here are my suggestions:

Dear President-elect Obama,
You were elected because, to a large degree, you seem to understand the nature of our interconnected world. How do I know this? Because you constantly demonstrate connectivity through your words and action.

Your use of the internet for fundraising and for building and staying in touch with a massive pool of supporters is one example. Your frequent use of phrases like, ‘We’re all in this together,’ and ‘Let us find that common stake we all have in one another’ is a second. Your meeting with Evangelical leaders, willingness to talk with adversaries, requesting that Joe Lieberman remain in the Democratic Caucus, and the inclusion of political rivals (includingRepublicans) in your cabinet are others.

You ‘get’ it, Mr. President-elect, that we have no choice now but to relate to the world as it is – interconnected and interdependent. Now it’s time to take that understanding and do two things with it: operationalize it throughout all your government’s activities so that our institutions and processes of governance catch up with this new worldview, and make it more and more explicit, so that we all come understand that ‘us against them’ is no longer how the world works, but that, in fact, as Desmond Tutu says, The whole world needs the whole world.

Here are some examples of what it might look like if you made interconnectedness your operational watchword.

At the State Department, consideration of policy for any hot spot around the world would involve people from the aid agencies, international peacebuilding community, business leaders, journalists, and others who have extensive experience on the ground in those countries, as well as a good political and economic mix of that country’s citizens. This would give you a much wider view of what’s really going on, and would likely reduce the possibility of undesirable unintended consequences.

As you move forward with new policies on such critical national issues as health care, green energy, education, the economy, and more, be in ongoing dialogue with grass roots movements and organizations already generating innovative solutions. You speak often of change needing to come from the bottom up, as indeed it does. Yet that groundswell of change must link with policies and laws made from the top down. Your new website invites comments from individuals, giving people a sense of having a say, but you need to go a step further and institutionalize avenues for bringing the best of government and non-governmental thinking together, so that policies are fully informed by the widest possible range of available wisdom.

The bureaucracy of the government is notoriously fragmented and silo-ed. Interagency cooperation is sporadic at best. Yet we know that the deep challenges we face today are truly interdependent. Climate change will potentially create social disturbance, movement of populations, and conflict – none of which can be managed by energy or environmental experts. Diminishing the recruitment of potential terrorists means crossing lines of religion, education, economics, culture, media, and politics. The impact of the economic meltdown ranges across areas of health care, employment, social services, transportation, food security, housing, and others. Your administration needs to build into the government system more collaborative processes across departments and sectors to address these cross-over issues.

In short, Mr. President-elect, it isn’t enough to speak of interconnectedness; you must lead the way and show us how to act on it. To operationalize the watchword, We’re all in this together, you need to make the connections explicit. You need to consciously Connect the Disconnected.

This means that at every turn, with all major decisions, you need to consider how you can build bridges across divides of every kind; how you can include the voice and the wisdom of those who normally have no say in matters that affect them; how you can heal broken relationships; how you can foster cooperation that leads to synergy, breakthrough thinking, and creative action; and how you can build and participate in partnerships, alliances, networks, and other joint endeavors at every level. And you need to train your staff, advisors, and appointees how to do the same. You might even wish to appoint a Special Advisor on Connectedness to help all this happen, to give it the prominence it needs.

This is your natural inclination, Mr. President-elect, and it is in large part why you were elected, yet even as you do this, you must tell us about it. Show us how to live in an interconnected world, because it is a big shift that needs the constant re-telling of the over-arching story. Make explicit both the worldview underlying this behavior and the behavior itself, so that the people can learn from you, and practice greater cooperation at every level of society.

Moving from the world of separation and fragmentation, of I, Me, and Mine, to one of interdependence and cooperation, of We, Us, and Ours, is a change of cataclysmic proportions, as we can see from the crises in the economy and the environment. This is literally a shift from one age into another, with all the chaos and turbulence that entails. You came forward as the champion of change, and now we look to you as Guide-in-Chief for how we might all, in every area of our lives, see the opportunities in the midst of the challenges and make this transition with as much grace and ease as possible.

And by the way, thank you, Mr. President-elect, for showing up and stepping up to this task. While it is true that we are the ones we’ve been waiting for, it is also true that you are the one who can help us know this truth, and live it.

Reflections on Connections
by Louise Diamond

In complex living systems, all the elements or agents are interconnected, as in a giant web. They are also interdependent – what happens to one affects all others. The more we connect consciously with other elements of the system, and realize how our actions impact others, the greater the coherence, integrity, and resilience in the system and the less opportunity we leave for dissonance, conflict, and distress. Therefore: Connect the disconnected.

This is an especially important concept in these times because we are coming out of an eight-year period where the active organizing principle was an ‘us against them,’ or separative, worldview. In fact, we are coming out of an era centuries long when the basic belief was in the reduction of wholes to their smaller parts, which then were seen to combine like cogs in a well-ordered machine. We now know the universe isn’t organized that way; it is organized as a living, adapting, unpredictable, interdependent whole, where everything affects everything else. If we didn’t understand this before, the current crises in global warming and the global economy are making it abundantly clear.

• To shift from the separative to the interconnected perspective, we need to assume connections everywhere, and weave the web to celebrate and serve the well-being of the whole. Here are some specifics:
  
  Some connections are invisible and need to be noticed. For instance, for a long time people didn’t realize or refused to believe that our patterns of energy use contributed to global warming and climate change. In fact, most still don’t recognize that human society is integrally related to the natural world in a single ecosystem, or that our thoughts and emotions affect our reality.
  
  
• In another example, only recently have physicians recognized the relationship of mind and body, or food and health, and the power of stress and poor nutrition to cause physical ailments. Therefore it’s important to actively search for and make visible all hidden connections.
  
  
• Some connections are discounted– for instance, the fact that decisions made by a few will have profound effect on multitudes of people whose views and needs may not have been considered and whose resources have not been stewarded well. The creation of arcane and highly leveraged financial instruments out of people’s mortgages, retirement funds, and other investments is an example. Therefore, it is important to be inclusive of a wide range of voices in policy considerations to insure respect for and participation of all parties.
  
  
• Some connections are broken, as between parties to violent physical or highly adversarial verbal conflict. Wherever there is extreme polarization – political, ethnic, racial, ideological, or otherwise-based, as, for example, the relationship between the Israelis and Palestinians or between the extreme wings of the pro-life and pro-choice continuum – the parties have de-humanized and made their adversaries the ‘other’. Therefore, it is important to re-humanize the ‘other’ and rebuild trust that leads to healing.
  
  
• Some connections are separated by time and space, or by differences of culture, or narrowness of perspective. Some decisions are made for short-term effect, without attention to the impact on other parts of the system, or on the future. For example, the choice to invest heavily in ethanol production, thereby taking massive amounts of corn out of production, has profound consequences for those peoples for whom corn is a basic daily survival food. Other decisions are unconsciously ethnocentric, without realizing the impact on people with other cultures, such as some of the behavior of the U.S. military in Iraq, or the historical actions of colonial powers in arbitrarily drawing national boundaries based on their own conceptions of power and resources, rather than on the tribal realities of the people who live in those places. Therefore it is important to build bridges of recognition and communication between disparate parts of the system.
  
  
• Some connections are under-utilized because either we take them for granted or fail to act on them. The failure of the Bush administration to act in true collaboration with other countries on issues of Iraq, global warming, the World Court, and others, is an example. A study of living systems shows that all life supports other life. Therefore it is important to build partnerships, networks, coalitions, and alliances, and generally find myriad avenues of cooperation for mutual benefit.

When we are conscious of looking for and strengthening connections across all appearances of division, whether in time or space, we are working in alignment with the natural laws of all living systems and participating in what is called in Judaism Tikkun Olam, the healing and repair of the world.

A Spiral View of Terrorism, by Dr. Don Beck
© 1996 National Values Center, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.

A Memetic Analysis and Plan for Action

Introduction
The diversity and complexity of views expressed over the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and its aftermath have now reached Tower of Babel-like proportions. Even with the conviction of Timothy McVeigh and the upcoming trial of his accused accomplice, Terry Nichols, there is great confusion over how people can find reasons for such seemingly illogical acts. A suspect in the bombing of the US barracks in Saudi Arabia has been located and a man suspected of the shootings near CIA headquarters is in custody. There has at least been some resolution of the World Trade Center incident. In light of these highly publicized events, many Americans are quite willing to surrender individual rights and be searched, screened, and scrutinized on the promise of greater security against a perceived terrorist threat. Others perceive a government over-reaching its authority and justify their well-armed paranoia on the grounds of black helicopters and intrusive one-worlders.

It seems that all of our respective -ism's, ideologies, grudges, and guilt have surfaced around the terrorism issue. Charges of political opportunism and inflammatory hate-talk fill the airwaves. Individuals and groups are stereotyped with broad brushstrokes across the political landscape. "Us" versus "Them" polarities deepen and pull further apart. Amateur psychologists have a field day assigning blame and projecting motives. The murderous OKC blast continues to send its toxic shock waves through our fragile and vulnerable society. They resonate off other incidents equally terrible for those involved. Certainly the matter of terrorism has stripped away the surface to allow us to examine some of the deeper cultural forces that have been building since the end of the Cold War and the breakdown of the simpler bipolar world it represented.

A Search for Patterns
Let us suppose we could collect and assemble everything that has been thought, written, or said on these horrible events. We would then enter every bit, byte, and scene into a super powerful computer, one that could track dynamic perceptual processes and detect deep, underlying mindset-motives. What might we actually find in this computer search? Is there any order to be found in this chaos? Is there a pathway through the carnage?

This brief analysis will open windows onto two such patterns. The first is horizontal in that it examines the lens through which we are trying to make sense out of this tragedy. It reflects the manner in which different positions on the traditional political "left" versus "right," “liberal versus conservative," spectrum interact with each other. This will explain the repositioning of people and ideas into new alliances and enemy-making as they form! and reform along the sliding continuum. This assimilation-contrast effect, as it is called in academic circles, becomes dangerous when it keeps us from focusing like a laser beam on serious conditions. The same principles apply to thinking about any ego-involving thing, whether politics, religion, lifestyle choices, abortion, territory, or family values.

The other window opens a vertical slice through five psycho-social levels in the human strata. Just as the Federal Building housed different functions on different floors, we will uncover worlds of diverse thinking below the terrorism breeding grounds and scan a range of motives and behaviors that operate at each level in societal emergence. Anti-terrorism campaigns designed for one level will be ineffective against the "viruses" that are multiplying on other levels. Counter- measures which defuse one threat will, if not carefully managed, actually nourish another which lives in a different stratum.

The kind of analysis summarized here could well form the foundation for the crafting of a "full-court press" strategy to deal with this growing and deadly menace. It is vital to begin dealing with both the horizontal and the less recognized vertical aspects of this multidimensional problem, now.

Push-Pull Dynamics on the Horizontal Continuum
President Clinton's attack on "hate talk" right after the bombing triggered a feeding frenzy among what are called "conservative" talk show hosts and political interests. This blinding media-enhanced thunderstorm diverted us from the real issues regarding terrorism, just as our focus has shifted to side-issues on almost every other problem we are trying to solve, from youth gangs to welfare reform. There are horizontal forces at work.

Think of a political spectrum with nine hypothetical positions:

Radical Principled Pragmatic Tilted Middle Tilted Pragmatic Principled Radical
_________________________________________________________________________
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

left wing moderate neutral moderate right wing

Because of their different horizontal windows, not every person on this continuum will be able to separate out the different shades, gradations, or degrees. Two kinds of distortions occur. First, if a position on the 1-9 scale is close to "my own" on the same scale, I may deny the differences and assimilate it as equivalent to my own. Thus, we have the formation of political alliances that deny differences among the various wings of a party as they attempt to unite and speak with one voice. One could see that today in the Republican Party as it tried to rally behind (and then abandoned) the Contract with America or in the briefly “civil” Congress after the Hershey civility summit. Often, these entities make for strange bedfellows while the differences are ignored and they pull together in common cause.

ME/US 1 => 2-3-4-5-6 --------------------------------------------------- 7-8-9 THEM

Second, under other conditions, a person will push the other position away from his or her own, thus shoving it further into the camp of the enemy. "You" may think we are singing from the same page, but "I" conclude that you are one of "them" because we sing slightly different notes. This is known as the contrast effect. For example, someone at position one sees ...

ME/US => ----------------- 2 ----------------- 3 ----------------- 4-5-6-7-8-9 THEM

... or, from the other pole, someone at position nine sees ...

THEM 1-2-3-4-5-6 ----------------- 7 ----------------- 8 -----------------<= 1 ME/US

In the former case, the "extreme" left-wing position was unable to recognize the positions within its own wing but, instead, will displace or contrast them into the camp of the enemy. The person will be unable to "see" any differences among positions 4 through 9. Thus it is that "Uncle Toms" have sold out and former friends become traitors as the "either you are FOR me or you are AGAlNST me" sentiment sets in.

In the second illustration, this same process works in the opposite direction as extreme right-wing positions push the more "moderate" right-wing positions across the neutral line into left-wing persuasions. Extreme positions on both wings, as a result, are unable to differentiate ideas and projects, but will continue to define them as part and parcel of extreme thinking on the other side.

Thus, President Clinton will be seen as a "flaming liberal" in the minds of right-wing positions 8 and 9 since they will be unable to see the differences among positions I through 6. Rush Limbaugh will be seen as a "fire-breathing reactionary" by positions 1 and 2 who will bunch 5 through 9 into a single rejected group. (Interestingly enough, Limbaugh was accused of supporting "one world government" by extreme positions 8-9, thus pushing him across the neutral line into the "left wing" with the President.) Clearly, Mr. Clinton's "hate talk" condemnation, apparently targeted at extreme 9 position rhetoric, was interpreted to be "a broad brush" that also tarred 6 and 7. From a research standpoint, how a person defines all the positions on the continuum will reveal that person's own position on the same scale.

Our point, here, is that it has become difficult to develop "non-partisan" solutions to complex problems because every proposal has to run the gauntlet through this distorting assimilation-contrast effect. This has been the case in many Palestinian/Israeli conflicts (as well as recent splits within Israel) and a historic pattern in Northern Ireland. This is certainly the case when it comes to understanding the motives of the terrorists, the influence of the anti-government militia movements, and the role of more "conservative" talk radio hosts in encouraging, giving aid to, or creating the atmosphere for the entire right-wing spectrum to flourish. (The same comment could have been made about the so-called "Ieft-wing" during the anti-war polarization in the midst of the Vietnam war protests of the 1960s and 1970s.) “To lower the rhetoric” on explosive, inflammatory issues should mean "moderate the assimilation-contrast effect." Only then can we begin to see the whole and act for the greater good.

Mindsets of Terrorism: The Vertical Logic
Whether an act of terrorism is "senseless" or not resides in the eye of the beholder. While one person sees a terrorist, the other sees a freedom-fighter We inhabit diverse conceptual worlds with conflicting sets of ethics, right-and-wrong, and good-and-bad. Think of these as layers or zones in a stratified structure, levels on a spiral, or stages in a developmental stack. Each will produce its own expression or strain of "terrorism."

We call the underlying process Spiral Dynamics. By that we mean that value systems, world views, belief structures. and mindsets in people, organizations, and societies are not frozen in time. We are not permanent types with universal, locked-in traits. Rather, there are systems within us that form in response to life conditions and can then ebb and flow as life conditions get better or worse. These systems within are invisible, but shape thoughts and actions that are then seen in surface-level behaviors. Think of them as deep tides that are in constant motion.

The model describes a vertical continuum of increasingly complex thinking systems. Each builds on those that came before and adds new elements. Five of these may produce terrorists. These fundamental core patterns, although expressed in different ways in various cultures and subcultures, are common themes across all humanity, all over the planet. Their evolutionary awakenings are akin to the growth rings on a tree.

GREEN: "Eco/lnfo-Terrorism" – attack the environment, infrastructure, and information systems to stop exploitation and free the human spirit

ORANGE: "Strategic Terrorism" – seek political and economic advantage by assault through the media and incitement of lower-level activities; sell technologies and build niches

BLUE: "Dogmatic Terrorism" – ongoing fight against evil forces in the name of a political system, religion, or other all-powerful "Truth;" sacrifice self/others in the name of a cause

RED: "Predatory Terrorism" – personal grudges, retribution, vendettas, and acts of vengeance to eliminate enemies and enhance power; energized by the danger and action

PURPLE: "Tribal Terrorism" – ethnic assaults and folk-on-folk purges which seek to preserve a group, honor the ancestors, and spread its "seed;" often based in historic grudges and territory

[A note of warning: If you are a "Flatlander" in your thinking, you will be unable to recognize these vertical differences. Rather, you will put everybody through the same car wash, paint only with broad horizontal brush strokes, and project your own motives, fears, and feelings into others. See the enclosed supporting documents for a fuller explanation of some other Spiral Dynamics concepts, though our focus, here, is on the forms of terrorist behaviors that flow out of five general psycho-social strata.]

If you take the ends of the "left-wing" and "right-wing" horizontal political spectrum above and bend them down into a tight horseshoe shape, you can begin to see why extremists of both wings appear to act in the same ways, even though their ideas and beliefs at first seem worlds apart. In a vertical sense, they are folded in the same place. In fact, it is not at all unusual for a person to leap across the mid-ranges of the continuum and stay equally radical but become a rigid, True Believer ideologue on the other wing. Fundamentalist dogmatism is a vertical dynamic; absolutism about WHAT is believed is the horizontal question.

Spiral Dynamics, then, offers a powerful insight into the political, economic, religious, and social behavior of people all along the continuum. We believe it provides the key to (1) understanding the range of deeper motives that result in terrorist acts and (2) how to best counter those threats. [See the matrix below, Vertical Dynamics of Terrorism, for some trademarks of the various expressions and their logical streams.]

Note these other principles from Spiral Dynamics:
1. Terrorism occurs first in the mind before it is displayed in destructive behavior. In this sense, WHY people do things is of more importance than WHAT they actually say or do. We have discovered five basic mindset themes that may take a terrorist turn.

2. The minds behind terrorist acts, either sponsors or willing beneficiaries, may be at different levels of complexity with quite different motives than the actual perpetrators of the deeds; i.e., they will be functioning at different levels in the vertical psycho-social strata. All potential levels must be considered in analysis of the event and prevention of future acts.

3. While we have mentioned five basic mindset themes, these are not fixed positions or simple categories, but they are clearly-defined zones that contain particular kinds of mixtures, seams, and in-between stages. The breeding ground for most terrorist behaviors will be in the crevices, cusps, and transition stages where energy is highest.

4. In most cases, terrorist behaviors are the result of frustrations, the need to attack and overcome barriers, or retrieve something that has been lost. They appear when the human organism is in the throes of chaotic change and transformation and are symptoms of such instability. Terrorist acts increase as more people and groups feel like misfits or believe they are being left behind in their rapidly changing world.

5. Each system will target, perceive, and feel about its victims in a different way. The nature and content of its belief structure will determine how it justifies its acts, regardless what others may think or feel. Knowing which mindsets are activated helps predict motives for and forms of terrorism.

A Strategy for Dealing with Domestic Terrorism
In responding to terrorism, we must consider these critical factors:

1. It is imperative that we, as a nation, understand both the horizontal and vertical forces that are at work within our society because they will continue to generate toxic environments and explosive acts well into the next century. Dealing with the perception of widening gaps – the have/have-not, can/can-not, and know/know-not – is essential for internal stability Because of many psycho-social transitions underway simultaneously around the world, the threat from outside is also increased.

2, Both surface-level law enforcement/criminal justice responses and deep-level preventive measures must occur simultaneously for the short and long term. The President's anti-terrorism act will not be enough since it focuses primarily on horizontal factors and will trigger assimilation-contrast responses. The feelings of fear, alienation from authorities, and having been passed by socially must be addressed directly from the vertical perspective. as well.

3. The entire federal law enforcement function, including FBI, ATF, DEA and even IRS, must be "transformed" to help remove the threat they are perceived to represent by many Americans. To some extent and in spite of their best efforts, these agencies may, in fact, be the "thesis" that is creating the "antithesis." The more power, resources, permission, and access they are given through increased funding and reduced restrictions, may make things worse, not better, unless the assimilation-contrast forces are taken into account. In transformational change, every segment has to change at once and respond to both horizontal and vertical dynamics.

4. It is imperative that the US military, including the National Guard, remain apart from this issue. Any inference that Department of Defense assets are preparing to operate domestically will only escalate the contrast-based polarities Instead, a series of strategic alliances among American citizens, both military and civilian personnel, must begin to rebuild common ground.

5. The President himself must take the lead in moving to the positive by shaping a national dialogue on these trouble zones. Part of the strategy is the creation of superordinate goals for the whole society The vertical strata that are most susceptible to arguments for domestic violence are also most open to assertive leadership; they crave stability, order, and a sense of purpose. President Clinton has an opportunity to take an assertive stance to open this national wound so that it can begin to heal from deep within rather than continue to fester and polarize.

The Vertical Dynamics of Terrorism

Psycho-Social
Strata Motivational
Flow Emotional
Loading Examples
and Illustrations

LEVEL 5

GREEN

ECO-INFO

“We react on behalf of living things”

* Act on higher purpose for broader justice

* Greater good for natural systems liberation of oppressed (others as victims)

* Stop crimes against nature and humanity

* Defense of freedom for living entities

* Self-appointed “Robin Hood” syndrome

* Rearrange power ratios for consensus

* Interfere with greed and exploitation

* Self-sacrifice for good of life, not necessarily human life, while rationalizing deep guilt

* Situational, contextual ethics

* Group affiliations may be important or not

* Rescuer of victims from evils

* Serving greater cause and higher calling

* Prepared for “pay the price”

* Concern for own group’s health and community

* Self-satisfied and often rather arrogant

* Smug convictions

* Eco-terrorism: green extremist groups; deep-ecology fringe and pro-industry, pro-environmentalist movements

* Info-terrorism: computer-hacking, disruption of information, destruction of databases

* Infra-terrorism: attacks on infra-structure components – energy, transport, air, biosphere

* Violent animal rights activism

* “Peace” attacks on military, police and legal installations

* Use of high tech against itself to protest “elitism” and “inequality”

LEVEL 4

ORANGE

STRATEGIC

“I manipulate the system to fix it.”

* Conflicts with imposed authority

* Leverage fear to “buy”

* Niche competition for political control

* Media attention and notoriety

* Recognition as a significant “player”

* Marketing products, services

* Anti-establishment “wake-up” calls

* Redistribution of economic spoils rules

* Competitive for recognition

* Excitement in the hunt

* Win:lose games with pawns

* Pragmatic, strategic plays, game-like

* Quiet, coldly guiltlessness

* Forms principles to fit desires

* Ruthlessness in frustration

* Pretensions of being superior

* Judgmental of other authority

* Air of superiority
* Strategic use of chemical/biological agents for “theatrical effect”

* Sponsors terrorism – state, national, international

* Techno-terror (Japanese nerve gas attack) and mass-casualty goals

* Attacks on newspapers/media – yet also depend on media

* “Business” reprisals by drug cartels and syndicates

* Arms dealing, arms supply and illicit wares to clients

* Econo-terrorism: financial centers as base, mass destruction

* Liberationist movements freeing prisoners from systems

* Sophisticated militia backers and financial sponsors, suppliers of terror

Psycho-Social
Strata
Motivational
Flow

Emotional
Loading
Examples
and Illustrations

LEVEL 3

BLUE

DOGMATIC

"We defend and extend the one True Way against its enemies"
* Just retribution and punishment

* Agents of Divine will on Earth

* Righteous defense of sacred Truth
* Cleanse evil ways and smite evil doers

* Impose guilt and seek apologies

* Force conversions to believe the "right"

* Missionary, self-sacrificial zeal

* Fights "wrong" authority to the death

* Demands obedience, loyalty, "honor"

* Evolutionary ideology/guerrilla faction
* Deal with guilt as necessary

* Split of "good" and "bad" people

* Obedience to proper authority

• Patiently fulfilling a grand destiny

• Need law, order, and stability

• Noble virtues of self-sacrifice

• Focus on a version of higher good/purpose

• Arrogance of blind faith

• Committed to prevail and finish at all costs

• Disciplined and duty-bound

• Ultimate reward yet to come
* Atrocities of ethnic cleansing - Yugoslavia, Holocaust, Chechnya; based on -isms

* Racist, separatist and supremacist

* State-sponsored (Iran, Libya, Iraq)

* Absolutist religious fundamental theocrats - Jihadin, etc.

* Skinheads, Aryan Nations, KKK, IRA, Contras, Broederbond, Shin, Inquisitions, Munich, World Trade Center, Contras, Branch Davidians, militia

* Extremist militias and out-of-control bureaucracies

* Abortion clinic violence, Oklahoma City

* Theocratic states dedicated to establish "One True Way," regardless

* Holy Warriors of all sects

LEVEL 2

RED

PREDATORY

"I fight as I must to destroy enemies"
* Revenge, retribution, and payback

* Personal glory and heroic reputation

* Eye-for-an-eye personal vengeance

* Dominance over turf and prizes

* Show disrespect and put-downs to enemy

* Kill or be killed with a big bang

* Glorious martyrdom for vague cause

* Live long in legend, if not in fact

* Punish evil doers and evil thinkers

* Rip down restrictive establishment

* Angry without guilt

* Short-term hedonistic payoff

* Saving face regardless

* Vengeful desperation

* Cruelty while "earning spurs"

* Taking pain feels good

* Self-righteous arrogance

* Unconcerned with consequences

* Life has little value

* Paranoid defensiveness

* Proving own worth through attachment to cause

* Loves the tools of violence

* Gangland massacres and drive-by violence

* War crimes incidents in Vietnam, WWII, Korea

* Scalping raids, Custer's Last Stand

* Pol Pot regime's Killing Fields

* Red Brigades of Mao's Cultural Revolution

* Survivalist fringe and environment

* Religion-based fanatical militant groups

* Mercenary "Soldiers of Fortune"

* Anarchists and fear-mongers with doctrine

* West Bank incidents, excessive "wilding"

Psycho-Social Strata

Motivational
Flow
Emotional
Loading
Examples
and Illustrations

LEVEL 1

PURPLE

TRIBAL

"We protect our kind"
* Preserve sacred lands, defend relics

* Protect tribal honor and sacred ways

* Honor ancestors' spirits

* Continue trans-generational feuds

* Drive enemy groups away

* Ensure continuity of own kind

* Implant own "seed" for future

* Serve the folk as warriors
* Fear begets anger

* Self-sacrificing obligations to family

* Obedience to "chiefs"

* The self is the group

* Signs/omens dictate actions

* Challenged for survival

* Spirit driven

* “Us" versus the non-persons

* Crosses generations

* Defense of ability to exist as a people

* Absolute self-sacrifice for leader's desires

* Ethnicity conflicts and tribal war;
Bosnia, Rwanda, Liberia, Basques, etc.

* Rape to impact gene pool and create one's own kind

* Inner-city ethnic and gang wars,
African-American, Aryan, Chinese, Puerto Rican, Jamaican, etc.

* Idi Amin Dada's Uganda

* Undercurrents of racial prejudice, anti-Semitism, etc.

* Historic massacres of indigenous niche battles

* Cult members obedient to a god-like elder

* Kill off rivals for food and territory

______________________________________________________________________
Dr. Don Beck, The Spiral Dynamics Group, PO Box 797, Denton, TX 76202, USA
DrBeck@attglobal.net 940.383.1209 info@spiraldynamics.net
www.spiraldynamics.net www.globalvaluesnetwork.com www.coche.dk