Why Vegetarians Didn’t Vote for George W. Bush (GWB)

In my recent post, “How Facebook (FB) is Altering Your Mind” we looked at how the social network is affecting mind and personal development. With almost 100,000 views, it has obviously struck a chord with many readers.

So if you liked that, get ready.

What I am about to show you now is something you have probably never seen, yet what it reveals can be seen everywhere: newspaper articles, political viewpoints, religious affiliations, everyday conversations, how we view other people, what shoes we buy, the policies of the Boy Scouts, what we think of art, film, and poetry, the comments we make on Facebook… even our dietary choices.

Once you see this, you will view every aspect of daily life in a dramatically new and useful light. Over the last 10 years of my career as a public speaker, researcher, writer, and coach, this one understanding of how we are as human beings has been one of the most insightful and durable things I have ever encountered.

And it explains why Vegetarians did not – by and large – vote for George W. Bush (GWB), which is fascinating. In fact, it explains a tremendous amount more than that, including the future of political parties, the development of technology, and your own future… we’ll get to that.

Ready?

Political Vegetarianism: An Annoying Question

As a Raw Vegan during the Bush years, a question kept coming up for me that I could not answer:

“Why do I not know any Vegetarians or Vegans who voted for or support George W. Bush in either the 2000 or 2004 election? (Or who voted for John McCain in 2008, or Mitt Romney in 2012, for that matter?) I don’t see vegetarian bloggers for Bush or any pro-vegetarian groups backing him.”

I thought, “Hey, we eat fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Is there something about eating apples and raw almonds that makes people vote other than conservative? Did the Green Smoothies and Tofurky turn us against GWB or make us favor his opponents?

The answer to this line of inquiry would be the result of years of reading about human development, largely thanks to the published work of American philosopher and author Ken Wilber, the genius mind behind books such as Sex, Ecology, Spirituality and A Theory of Everything. The answer surprised me, and helped make deep sense about the dietary path many Americans are on – and how it often corresponds with a shifting of one’s political, religious, social, and cultural center of gravity.

Now before we get to the juice (or meat) of this, a few questions for you, the reader:

If you are Vegetarian, Vegan, or Raw Vegan, did you vote for Bush?
If you did vote for George, would you do it again?
Finally, if you voted for Bush but were not yet eating a plant-based diet, but have since that vote eaten plant-based, or currently eat plant-based, would you vote for him again?
Do you know any vegetarians who did vote for Bush?

I suspect that the predominant number of“no’s” many of you have given as answers to these questions will weed out most of the naysaying on my premise that Vegetarians and Vegans by-and-large don’t vote conservative… if not, let’s take a look at where the vegetarians live in the U.S., and how those regions with a larger vegetarian demographic voted in 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012.

Maps of Vegetarians and Voters in the United States

According to the Vegetarian Times, The United States has approximately 22.8 million Vegetarian-inclined citizens as of October 2012.

Below is a list of the top vegetarian cities in the United States, as determined by the prevalence of vegetarian restaurants in each locale. Let’s assume – based on supply-and-demand in a free market – that more vegetarian restaurants are located where vegetarians are higher in number.

1 Portland, Oregon
2 Seattle, Washington
3 San Francisco, California
4 New York, New York
5 Atlanta, Georgia
6 Washington, D.C.
7 Minneapolis, Minnesota
8 Austin, Texas
9 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
10 Chicago, Illinois

These vegetarian-laden counties ALL voted Democratic in the 2004, 2008, and 2012 Presidential Elections, and only two of these states writ-large – Texas and Georgia, voted Conservative Republican in those years.

Now let’s go to Google Maps and pull up the United States. Below is the search for “Vegetarian Restaurants.”

You will notice that the predominant number of dots on the map correspond to counties that are increasingly Democratic, and not favorable to conservatives. You can do a cursory side-by-side comparison using this county-by county results map from the 2012 Presidential Election provided by The New York Times:

So this is notable from a sociological perspective, but it does not answer my question about the psychology of Vegetarians: Why did I not know anyone personally, professionally, online, or as a group who was vegetarian and backed George W. Bush?

This is where it gets really, really interesting. Whether you are liberal, conservative, independent, or live in your parent’s basement playing with your Wii and posting memegenerator images of talking dinosaurs, listen up, because this will provide fundamental insights on the future of our social and political landscape on a global scale.

Worldviews: Bush and The Vegetarians

Substantial cross-cultural research over the last 50 years, spearheaded by a guy named Clare Graves – has shown that individuals in every culture, at every age, are progressing through stages of worldviews. These stages progress over our lifetimes, and you are not at the same stage now that you were at the age of 5, 12, or 17.

How we see ourselves, our friends, religions, food, politics, movies, life experiences, other cultures… all of these aspects of ours and others’ lives are filtered through our worldviews. Not only that, but these ways of seeing generate ways of being and capabilities that are unique to the level we are at. More on this in just a moment.

The worldview of George W. Bush, and that of your average wheatgrass-drinking, tofu-loving, animal-friendly, eco-Vegetarian are quite different (you may be saying, “Tell me about it.”) But it’s not just different.

One worldview – or set of worldviews – is actually more developed than the other. One has a greater capacity for compassion, care, mutual understanding, co-creativity, and new solutions to complex problems than the other.

**(Hint: the Vegetarians have a more developed worldview set than former President George W. Bush).**

Breathe. Depending on who you are, that last statement may make you feel curious, angry, or self-righteously self-satisfied with all your sprout-eating and that Tofurky you served your extended family last Thanksgiving, along with your sly sermonizing about how if everyone would eat a plant-based diet it would stop all wars, feed everybody, and save the planet.

So how do we know these worldviews are playing out in every individual, and how could anyone be such a pretentious asshole as to suggest that your average Vegetarian could have a more developed and capable worldview set than our former President?

(Oh, and Vegetarian & Vegan advocates – if you think your series of dietary practices and perspectives are the final stop on the developmental spectrum, just wait till the end of this post.)

Let’s unpack all this by taking a tour of worldviews courtesy of Clare Graves, Ken Wilber, Don Beck and Christopher Cowan – all intimately related contributors to this important discussion of development.

From Ego to Eco : How We View the World Over Time

Ken Wilber’s book A Theory of Everything starts with a big bang – but it’s not of the external Carl Sagan Cosmos variety. What Wilber opens with has to do with the interior emergence and development of one’s perspective on the world over the course of a lifetime. The study of this type of development is called Spiral Dynamics.

Don’t let your brain yawn(!) – you are about to use what follows to win arguments, understand your parents better, and predict the future of American politics, nay, global politics, just for starters.

Here is Ken Wilber from A Theory of Everything:

The model is called Spiral Dynamics, based on the pioneering work of Clare Graves. Graves proposed a profound and elegant system of human development, which subsequent research has validated and refined, not refuted.

“Briefly, what I am proposing is that the psychology of the mature human being is an unfolding, emergent, oscillating spiraling process marked by progressive subordination of older, lower-order behavior systems to newer, higher-order systems as an individual’s existential problems change. Each successive wave, or level of existence is a state through which people pass on their way to other states of being. When the human is centralized in one state of existence, he or she has a psychology which is particular to that state. His or her feelings, motivations, ethics and values, biochemistry, degree of neurological activation, learning system, belief systems, conception of mental health, ideas as to what mental illness is and how it should be treated, conceptions of preferences for management, education, economics, and political theory and practice are all appropriate to that state.” (“Summary Statement: The Emergent, Cyclical, Double-Helix Model of the Adult Human Biopsychosocial Systems,” by Clare Graves; Boston, 20 May 1981.)

Graves outlined around eight major “levels or waves of human existence,” as we will see in a moment. But it should be remembered that virtually all of these stage conceptions. . . are based on extensive amounts of research and data. These are not simply conceptual ideas and pet theories, but are grounded at every point in a considerable amount of carefully checked evidence. Many of the stage models, in fact, have been carefully checked in first-, second-, and third-world countries. The same is true with Graves model; to date, it has been tested in more than fifty thousand people from around the world, and there have been no major exceptions found to the general scheme.

So, thanks to Clare Graves we have an understanding of how people view the world – as they develop as human beings – that has been cross-culturally tested among people of all economic strata… This evolutionary interior worldview development occurs in an individual, be they George W. Bush who joined a secret society and thought Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction (they didn’t) or a Vegetarian who likes communes and thinks McDonald’s restaurants are the real WMD (they kind-of are).

Now let’s get on towards what this ACTUAL developmental reality looks like, and see where George W. Bush and The Vegetarians line up. From there, we can have some very interesting conversations about the implications of worldview development in the 21st century as it plays out for YOU, political and religious groups, the media, businesses, and cultures across the globe as we inter-relate and co-create in this new century.

But before we do, a brief but important comment about the title of this section, “From the Ego to the Eco.” We evolve as human beings – our very awareness evolves – from pre-personal to personal to transpersonal, or from ME to WE to ALL OF US. It looks like this:

When we are born, we are not even fully aware of our personhood or able to take care of it yet, being completely reliant on our parents and those who love us to feed us, take care of us when we are sick, wipe our bums and mouths (although not in that order, hopefully), etc. This is the pre-personal stage. ME has not quite arrived on the scene yet.

We quickly begin to realize as young babies that we have a body and thoughts. We begin to connect with, investigate, and take care of them, and we learn this our whole lives. This is the personal stage, also known as Egocentric or ME.

But we live in the world, and their are other people. So, we learn to associate with them at one level or another, and more often than not most human beings only learn to understand and associate with people in their own locale. This is why most people worldwide – even today – practice the religion of their parents, eat the way their local culture ate as they grew up, and see the world the way their peers have socialized them to do. This is the Ethnocentric, or Sociocentric Stage of human awareness, or US.

However, there is a big world out there – lots of cultures, languages, political ideologies, religious practices, cuisines, styles of architecture, modes of expression, ways of communicating, types of perspectives on the meaning of life, and so on. Some of us are not content to be limited to just the associations, perspectives, practices, and delicious burdens and pathologies of our own society – we want heaven, hell, hilarity, and co-creativity on a larger scale in which we recognize that we inter-are with a greater population of souls with concerns that are not so unlike our own. Our awareness expands again to take on the care and concern of “other” people – no matter how different – and here we reach the Worldcentric Stage of human development, or ALL OF US.

And sometimes that level of Worldcentrism extends to what we in Integral circles (Ken Wilber) call Kosmocentrism, or a care and concern FOR ALL BEINGS.

Hence, we move from the EGO (me) to the ECO (all beings), if we develop far enough in our awareness and capacities for responsibility, care, compassion, co-creativity, and so forth.

Perhaps you can already see where we are going with this. But do keep in mind these important major stages that you – and everyone – are developing through. You will see them playing out in the worldview development model called Spiral Dynamics, which we will now investigate.

Spiral Dynamics: The Worldview Terrain of Bush, The Vegetarians, and Everybody

Here we go. As in other articles, I am not going to re-invent the wheel, so here is a pretty full treatment of Spiral Dynamics by Ken Wilber in his excellent and short must-read book, A Theory of Everything. First, the chart of the Spiral Dynamics worldview stages (click it to make it bigger), and then a great excerpt from Wilber’s book that will give you an excellent felt-sense of each of these distinct levels of awareness.

After you review and reflect on Spiral Dynamics, we will talk about Bush, The Vegetarians, and the implications…

Here’s the Spiral Dynamics chart:

**And now, Ken Wilber from A Theory of Everything:**

These studies, in fact, appear to be a crucial part of any genuine Theory of Everything. If we are going to include the physical, biological, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of existence, then this important research offers us a more generous overview of the many possibilities of the psychological dimension.

In a sense, this research is the psychological correlate of the Human Genome Project, which involves the scientific mapping of all the genes in human DNA.
. . .

We return, then, to Clare Grave’s work, which has been carried forward and refined by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan in an approach they call Spiral Dynamics. Far from being mere armchair analysts, Beck and Cowan were participants in the discussions that led to the end of apartheid in South Africa. The principles of Spiral Dynamics have been fruitfully used to reorganize businesses, revitalize townships, overhaul education systems, and defuse inner-city tensions.

Spiral Dynamics sees human development as proceeding through eight general stages, which are also called memes.

“Meme” is a word that is used a lot nowadays, with many different and conflicting meanings–and many critics say the word has no meaning at all. But for Spiral Dynamics, a meme is simply a basic stage of development that can be expressed in any activity (we will see many examples as we proceed). Beck and Cowan affirm that memes (or stages) are not rigid levels but flowing waves, with much overlap and interweaving, resulting in a meshwork or dynamic spiral of consciousness unfolding. As Beck puts it, “The Spiral is messy, not symmetrical, with multiple admixtures rather than pure types. These are mosaics, meshes, and blends.”

Beck and Cowan use various names and colors to refer to these different memes or waves of existence. The use of colors almost always puts people off, at first. But Beck and Cowan often work in racially charged areas, and they have found that it helps to take peoples’ minds off skin color and focus on “the color of the meme” instead of the “color of the skin.” Moreover, as much research has continued to confirm, each and every individual has all these memes potentially available to them. And therefore the lines of social tension are completely redrawn: not based on skin color, economic class, or political clout, but on the type of meme a person is operating from. In a particular situation it is no longer “black versus white,” but perhaps blue versus purple, or orange versus green, and so on; and while skin color cannot be changed, consciousness can. As Beck puts it, “The focus is not on types of people, but types in people.”

The first six levels are “subsistence levels” marked by “first-tier thinking.” Then there occurs a revolutionary shift in consciousness: the emergence of “being levels” and “second-tier thinking,” of which there are two major waves. Here is a brief description of all eight waves, the percentage of the world population at each wave, and the percentage of social power held by each.

1. Beige: Archaic-Instinctual. The level of basic survival; food, water, warmth, sex, and safety have priority. Uses habits and instincts just to survive. Distinct self is barely awakened or sustained. Forms into survival bands to perpetuate life.

Where seen: First human societies, newborn infants, senile elderly, late-stage Alzheimer’s victims, mentally ill street people, starving masses, shell shock. Approximately 0.1% of the adult population, 0% power.

2. Purple: Magical-Animistic. Thinking is animistic; magical spirits, good and bad, swarm the earth leaving blessings, curses, and spells which determine events. Forms into ethnic tribes. The spirits exist in ancestors and bond the tribe. Kinship and lineage establish political links. Sounds “holistic” but is actually atomistic: “there is a name for each bend in the river but no name for the river.”

Where seen: Belief in voodoo-like curses, blood oaths, ancient grudges, good luck charms, family rituals, magical ethnic beliefs and superstitions; strong in Third-World settings, gangs, athletic teams, and corporate “tribes.” 10% of the population, 1% of the power.

3. Red: Power Gods. First emergence of a self distinct from the tribe; powerful, impulsive, egocentric, heroic. Magical-mythic spirits, dragons, beasts, and powerful people. Archetypal gods and goddesses, powerful beings, forces to be reckoned with, both good and bad. Feudal lords protect underlings in exchange for obedience and labor. The basis of feudal empires–power and glory. The world is a jungle full of threats and predators. Conquers, out-foxes, and dominates; enjoys self to the fullest without regret or remorse; be here now.

Where seen: The “terrible twos,” rebellious youth, frontier mentalities, feudal kingdoms, epic heroes, James Bond villains, gang leaders, soldiers of fortune, New-Age narcissism, wild rock stars, Atilla the Hun, Lord of the Flies. 20% of the population, 5% of the power.

4. Blue: Mythic Order. Life has meaning, direction, and purpose, with outcomes determined by an all-powerful Other or Order. This righteous Order enforces a code of conduct based on absolutist and unvarying principles of “right” and “wrong.” Violating the code or rules has severe, perhaps everlasting repercussions. Following the code yields rewards for the faithful. Basis of ancient nations. Rigid social hierarchies; paternalistic; one right way and only one right way to think about everything. Law and order; impulsivity controlled through guilt; concrete-literal and fundamentalist belief; obedience to the rule of Order; strongly conventional and conformist. Often “religious” or “mythic” [in the mythic-membership sense; Graves and Beck refer to it as the "saintly/absolutistic" level], but can be secular or atheistic Order or Mission.

Where seen: Puritan America, Confucian China, Dickensian England, Singapore discipline, totalitarianism, codes of chivalry and honor, charitable good deeds, religious fundamentalism (e.g., Christian and Islamic), Boy and Girl Scouts, “moral majority,” patriotism. 40% of the population, 30% of the power.

5. Orange: Scientific Achievement. At this wave, the self “escapes” from the “herd mentality” of blue, and seeks truth and meaning in individualistic terms–hypothetico-deductive, experimental, objective, mechanistic, operational–”scientific” in the typical sense. The world is a rational and well-oiled machine with natural laws that can be learned, mastered, and manipulated for one’s own purposes. Highly achievement oriented, especially (in America) toward materialistic gains. The laws of science rule politics, the economy, and human events. The world is a chess-board on which games are played as winners gain pre-eminence and perks over losers. Marketplace alliances; manipulate earth’s resources for one’s strategic gains. Basis of corporate states.

Where seen: The Enlightenment, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged , Wall Street, emerging middle classes around the world, cosmetics industry, trophy hunting, colonialism, the Cold War, fashion industry, materialism, secular humanism, liberal self-interest. 30% of the population, 50% of the power.

6. Green: The Sensitive Self. Communitarian, human bonding, ecological sensitivity, networking. The human spirit must be freed from greed, dogma, and divisiveness; feelings and caring supersede cold rationality; cherishing of the earth, Gaia, life. Against hierarchy; establishes lateral bonding and linking. Permeable self, relational self, group intermeshing. Emphasis on dialogue, relationships. Basis of value communities (i.e., freely chosen affiliations based on shared sentiments). Reaches decisions through reconciliation and consensus (downside: interminable “processing” and incapacity to reach decisions). Refresh spirituality, bring harmony, enrich human potential. Strongly egalitarian, anti-hierarchy, pluralistic values, social construction of reality, diversity, multiculturalism, relativistic value systems; this worldview is often called pluralistic relativism. Subjective, nonlinear thinking; shows a greater degree of affective warmth, sensitivity, and caring, for earth and all its inhabitants.

Where seen: Deep ecology, postmodernism, Netherlands idealism, Rogerian counseling, Canadian health care, humanistic psychology, liberation theology, cooperative inquiry, World Council of Churches, Greenpeace, animal rights, ecofeminism, post-colonialism, Foucault/Derrida, politically correct, diversity movements, human rights issues, ecopsychology. 10% of the population, 15% of the power. [Note: this is 10% of the world population. Don Beck estimates that around 20-25% of the American population is green.]

With the completion of the green meme, human consciousness is poised for a quantum jump into “second-tier thinking.” Clare Graves referred to this as a “momentous leap,” where “a chasm of unbelievable depth of meaning is crossed.” In essence, with second-tier consciousness, one can think both vertically and horizontally, using both hierarchies and heterarchies (both ranking and linking). One can therefore, for the first time, vividly grasp the entire spectrum of interior development, and thus see that each level, each meme, each wave is crucially important for the health of the overall Spiral.

As I would word it, each wave is “transcend and include.” That is, each wave goes beyond (or transcends) its predecessor, and yet it includes or embraces it in its own makeup. For example, a cell transcends but includes molecules, which transcend but include atoms. To say that a molecule goes beyond an atom is not to say that molecules hate atoms, but that they love them: they embrace them in their own makeup; they include them, they don’t marginalize them. Just so, each wave of existence is a fundamental ingredient of all subsequent waves, and thus each is to be cherished and embraced.

Moreover, each wave can itself be activated or reactivated as life circumstances warrant. In emergency situations, we can activate red power drives; in response to chaos, we might need to activate blue order; in looking for a new job, we might need orange achievement drives; in marriage and with friends, close green bonding. All of these memes have something important to contribute.

(end of Ken Wilber excerpt)

With New Eyes, Let’s Take a Look

We get to do some very interesting things now.

First, where is George W. Bush’s Center of Gravity in terms of his worldview? By Center of Gravity (COG), we mean where his answers, responses, perspectives, and activities are mainly going to operate from. Of course, sometimes he will respond “below” his COG, and sometimes above it. But, most of the time, what do you think?

I would say George W. Bush’s COG is at Blue Mythic Order. Take a look:

Bush: My country right or wrong. The Boy Scouts. You are either with US or the terrorists (unvarying right and wrong). Pro-big business at almost every turn (which is more of a Blue-Orange melange). Ethnocentric enough to go to war in Iraq with depleted uranium munitions and wage a conflict that would take the lives of between 110,000 and 1,000,000 people depending on who you ask – just between 2003 and 2007 (you can follow up here on those stats). And that war was supposed to be to grant “Freedom” and “Democracy” to the people of Iraq – but most of us know it was to protect our own oil interests (ethnocentric Red/Blue behavior, with Orange polkadots all over).

But there were some who disagreed with George W. Bush’s war in Iraq waaaay back in 2002-03. Who were those people?

Enter the Vegetarians. Where is their Center of Gravity? I would say it is Green: The Sensitive Self. Take a look:

And Don Beck is about right. 20-25% of the American population is Green, which means that about 80% would have gone with the President at that time, if what I am suggesting is true.

In May 2003, “A Gallup poll made on behalf of CNN and USA Today concluded that 79% of Americans thought the Iraq War was justified, with or without conclusive evidence of illegal weapons.” Thanks, Wikipedia. There you go. Only folks at Green (which would include The Vegetarians) and higher were against the War, for the most part.

In the last few years American society has evolved its thinking. The great majority of Americans and U.S. politicians see the war as a mistake politically, morally, strategically… men, women, and children on all sides deserved better due diligence, diplomacy, and Worldcentrism.

So you can see from the above description that Vegetarians are very well-suited to a COG of Green. Ecological sensitivity, against hierarchy, reaching decisions through consensus (which made the Bush Administration’s push for war drive the Veggies crazy), multiculturalism, etc… The 2008 Vegetarian Times study showed that, “over half (53 percent) of current vegetarians eat a vegetarian diet to improve their overall health. Environmental concerns were cited by 47 percent ; 39 percent cited “ natural approaches to wellness” ; 31 percent cited food-safety concerns; 54 percent cited animal welfare; 25 percent cited weight loss; and 24 percent weight maintenance.”

Those rationales for Vegetarianism push strongly past Blue/Conventional foods and ways of being (Blue does what everyone else does… its about conformity) to ecological sensitivity and responsibility, animal rights, and ways of eating and encouraging food production which are decidedly post-conventional and very Green. The Green worldview (think Sensitive Self) is a stance of care and concern for ME, US, and ALL OF US that is reflected in Vegetarian dietetics and culture. It moves beyond Ethnocentrism to Worldcentrism.

THIS IS WHY VEGETARIANS DID NOT VOTE FOR BUSH.
Seeing that Spiral Dynamics is a true growth hierarchy, this is why I am saying that Vegetarians are more evolved in their worldview than George W. Bush.

Phew. Long road, eh? But unforgettable and really important.

Why is This Important?

Well, this is the topic of two excellent books: Spiral Dynamics by Beck and Cowan, and A Theory of Everything by Ken Wilber. I suggest strongly you read Wilber first. It is one of my top 5 books out of 3,500 I have read in the last 20 years. I recommend it to everyone – even high school students.

This is important for many reasons, the first being that everyone is moving through these stages. That means that you are going to see these worldviews playing out everywhere: media, facebook posts/comments, conversations, products, politics, religions, relationships of all kinds, and yourself.

And what everyone is doing together are meshing and weaving these worldviews…. well, when they aren’t absolutely clashing up against each other. And that happens a lot.

You may have noticed that we did not talk about all the worldview levels yet. What has been presented so far are what we call “First-Tier” worldviews, and they have one similar flavor: each worldview thinks the others are off their rocker. It creates what Don Beck of Spiral Dynamics calls a “Global Autoimmune Disease” because the global body is often fighting itself…

**So, let’s now let Ken Wilber finish this show and I will have a few closing words. From A Theory of Everything:**

But what none of the first-tier memes can do, on their own, is fully appreciate the existence of the other memes. Each of the first-tier memes thinks that its worldview is the correct or best perspective. It reacts negatively if challenged; it lashes out, using its own tools, whenever it is threatened. Blue order is very uncomfortable with both red impulsiveness and orange individualism. Orange individualism thinks blue order is for suckers and green egalitarianism is weak and woo-woo. Green egalitarianism cannot easily abide excellence and value rankings, big pictures, hierarchies, or anything that appears authoritarian, and thus green reacts strongly to blue, orange, and anything post-green.

All of that begins to change with second-tier thinking. Because second-tier consciousness is fully aware of the interior stages of development–even if it cannot articulate them in a technical fashion—it steps back and grasps the big picture, and thus second-tier thinking appreciates the necessary role that all of the various memes play. Second-tier awareness thinks in terms of the overall spiral of existence, and not merely in the terms of any one level.

Where the green meme begins to grasp the numerous different systems and pluralistic contexts that exist in different cultures (which is why it is indeed the sensitive self, i.e., sensitive to the marginalization of others), second-tier thinking goes one step further. It looks for the rich contexts that link and join these pluralistic systems, and thus it takes these separate systems and begins to embrace, include, and integrate them into holistic spirals and integral meshworks. Second-tier thinking, in other words, is instrumental in moving from relativism to holism, or from pluralism to integralism.

The extensive research of Graves, Beck, and Cowan indicates that there are at least two major waves to this second-tier integral consciousness:

7. Yellow: Integrative. Life is a kaleidoscope of natural hierarchies [holarchies], systems, and forms. Flexibility, spontaneity, and functionality have the highest priority. Differences and pluralities can be integrated into interdependent, natural flows. Egalitarianism is complemented with natural degrees of ranking and excellence. Knowledge and competency should supersede power, status, or group sensitivity. The prevailing world order is the result of the existence of different levels of reality (memes) and the inevitable patterns of movement up and down the dynamic spiral. Good governance facilitates the emergence of entities through the levels of increasing complexity (nested hierarchy). 1% of the population, 5% of the power.

8. Turquoise: Holistic. Universal holistic system, holons/waves of integrative energies; unites feeling with knowledge; multiple levels interwoven into one conscious system. Universal order, but in a living, conscious fashion, not based on external rules (blue) or group bonds (green). A “grand unification” [a "theory of everything" or T.O.E.] is possible, in theory and in actuality. Sometimes involves the emergence of a new spirituality as a meshwork of all existence. Turquoise thinking uses the entire Spiral; sees multiple levels of interaction; detects harmonics, the mystical forces, and the pervasive flow-states that permeate any organization. 0.1% of the population, 1% of the power.

With less than 2 percent of the population at second-tier thinking (and only 0.1 percent at turquoise), second-tier consciousness is relatively rare because it is now the “leading-edge” of collective human evolution. As examples, Beck and Cowan mention items that include Teilhard de Chardin’s noosphere, chaos and complexity theories, universal systems thinking, integral-holistic theories, Gandhi’s and Mandela’s pluralistic integration, with increases in frequency definitely on the way, and even higher memes still in the offing….

**[end of excerpt from A Theory of Everything]**

We have been fighting each other over these worldviews – and yet we all have to develop through them.

EVERYONE starts and square-1 and moves forward, hopefully far enough to be a happy and fulfilled person. If we are to survive as a species, we are going to have to grease the wheels of development and help people keep moving forward. Part of that approach is to be aware that these worldviews are playing out, and to see the value and legitimacy of each and every one for human development. The worldviews that are particularly skilled at doing just that are Yellow-Integrative and Turquoise-Holistic. More on that in a future post.

As a bombshell aside – Republican Party! You guys are wondering why the Grand Old Party is dying? It’s not because of some moral decay that is happening to American society, it’s actually because of the evolution of worldview development among the U.S. populace. You are being outgrown, developmentally speaking. The Center of Gravity of the average voter has moved beyond you. If you want the Republican Party to survive, you will have to figure out what Green meme (and higher) Republicanism looks like, or you will have to shift to another political party affiliation.

Finally, Vegetarians (Vegans and Raw/Live Vegans)! Remember earlier in the post I said:

(Oh, and Vegetarian & Vegan advocates – if you think your series of dietary practices and perspectives are the final stop on the developmental spectrum, just wait till the end of this post.)

Well, here we are. Green ain’t the final answer, as it turns out. And neither is Vegetarianism, Veganism, or Raw/Live Veganism. What’s next?

Wait for my book on the subject. But as a hint: it’s a higher, wider, deeper, and more capable dietetic on all levels than any of these dietary approaches – and Vegetarianism, Vegan, and Raw/Live Vegan are very, very important. But they aren’t the last developmental stage, dietarily speaking.

A quote with words of wisdom for us all: Michal Eastcott said, “The law of evolution governs life on earth. No form of life can remain unchanged for long without crystallizing and disappearing.”

We’ve got to keep moving… not just moving, but developing, because whether it be a political or dietary ideology, if we’re not busy evolving…

Are You Entertained? Are You Not Entertained?

I hope you are somewhere between curious and thunderstruck by this post emotionally, intellectually, and in terms of what you can do with this information.

What I have just presented to you has been one of the more impactful understandings of human life and culture that I have ever encountered.

It has been a great pleasure writing this post today, and I sincerely hope that what you have just considered will improve your life – and your expression of your life’s Unique Self Purpose.

Thank you for all your comments. I am open to every viewpoint in our continuing conversation together.

Most sincerely,

David Rainoshek

P.S. A Few Pieces of My Work You Might Check Out Today

If you liked this post and eat a plant-based diet, check out my free B12 Exposed Presentation. The topic is really important. Even if you’re not eating Veg, its crucial information, and free.

Thinking about doing a cleanse? Check out my 92-Day Juice Feasting Nutrition Program, which has been done successfully by hundreds of thousands worldwide.

Finally, if you read to here, you’re a big-time learner. I wrote a 12-week Course on my approach to learning called HyperLearning. You can view my free 90-minute webinar presentation on HyperLearning here.

Thanks for coming by. I love the great comments and conversation.

See you again soon,

David

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