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In May of this year, our community lost one of its founding pillars, my friend and mentor Don Edward Beck, the genius who brought forth the work of Clare Graves that made all this possible. Don’s work in applying Spiral Dynamics and the Gravesian framework to issues of geopolitics, global inequality, and climate change are unmatched among his peers. It is the passion with which he approached these issues that have made me a believer in the possibility that Spiral Dynamics and Graves’ seminal work can change the world. This entry is dedicated to Don’s memory and the gift he gave the world which keeps on giving.
I haven’ t had the time this year to write my full end-of-year Gravesian assessment of macroeconomic and geopolitical issues. As I take a break from working on my next book, I wanted to share some of the topics I’m writing about which make for an executive summary of the year in review. Most of these pressing issues have been with us for a while, and seem to have either gotten worse in 2022, or have reached an inflection point from which there seems to be no return to the old normal. Most of these matters are existential in nature and we will continue to face them well into 2023 and beyond.
To me 2022, was a toss-up between these five major existential forces that behave like complex systems and are moving at different speeds and in different forms with different content that will continue to threaten our future for years to come:
- The continued decline of the virtues of democracy around the world and the rise of autocratic leadership.
2. The continued realignment of the global economy based on value system congruence and compatibility as we experience more stress with supply chain issues, recession, inflation, sovereign debt defaults, asset devaluation and untenable levels of debt in Western economies.
3. The acceleration of planetary destruction due to the effects of climate change that continue unabated.
4. Putin’s war with Ukraine that now seems to be at an inflection point that could involve NATO and a wider engagement as the US and Europe commit to providing the Ukrainians with more sophisticated weaponry.
5. This one is a bit more detailed due to its ubiquitous and stealthy nature. The digital world that seems to be the largest technological catalyst of the Green system, continues to disrupt the non-digital world in a stealthy way and at an exponential rate. It is removing the filters and the editorial scrutiny that was housed in the hierarchal structures of the non-digital world. It continues to be a catalyst that spreads misinformation and radicalization with utter indifference to institutions and the rule of law.
Meanwhile the creators of Green technologies in Silicon Valley have shown no sign of letting up in their contempt towards the non-digital world as they continue their march to fully disrupt it. As they do that, they continue to line their pockets by selling our personal data, allowing hate speech and misinformation to go unchecked while thumbing their noses at our clueless regulators and our weak and obsolescent institutions.
My call for a Smart Government, one that is designed from the Second Tier of values has not changed in over a decade of writing these assessments. Only Yellow systemic intelligence can address these issues, but sadly these calls continue to fall on deaf ears.
Geopolitics on the Spiral – Six Years Later
I wrote this piece before Donald Trump took office six years ago as the 2016 end-of-year assessment of geopolitics. It offers a Spiral Dynamics analysis of the value systems that were present in our geopolitical alliances and institutions and the people who led them. While I overestimated Trump’s Red stamina and his competence for full Alpha Red leadership, Putin has proven to be exactly the Red Alpha leader I describe in the piece.Â