| Spiral Dynamics | 2002-05-30 03:22 3 comments |
 by Flemming FunchLast weekend I was listening to Don Beck speak at the Twilight Club's conference in Washington D.C. Don Beck and Chris Cowan are the two authors of the book Spiral Dynamics. Both are extremely inspiring speakers. Anyway, I just wanted to call the subject of Spiral Dynamics to the attention of anybody who doesn't know what it is. Essentially it is a systems view of human culture, and one that actually provides answers for how to deal with some of the problems in the world. In short, it models how groups of people might live within very different world views, and it provides tools for relating them to each other, and for projecting the stages things will move through. For example, concerned environmentalists having a conference about the destruction of the rainforest are living within a very different paradigm than the local people in Brazil who're cutting it down. One group has the luxury of thinking about the planet, where the other is thinking about surviving or about doing well in business. Fanatical Muslim fundamentalists are living within a very different paradigm than the government of the United States. It is not as simple as somebody being the bad guys and somebody else being the good guys. Anyway, it is a little too complex to summarize quickly. But it is one of the few intelligent tools available that might help facilitate better decision making in matters where cultures collide. |