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Peace Ambassador Training™ “Peace Work and Whole-Systems Shift” with Don Beck

June 11, 2014 [0:00:00] Philip: Hello everyone and welcome back to the Peace Ambassador Training Program.

This is Philip Hellmich, the Director of Peace with The Shift Network. Tonight, we are going to start the fourth pillar of mastering systems change. We have a session here with peace work and whole systems shift with a powerful recording of Don Beck.

First, let's start with a meditation. Let me see if there's anyone online who would

be gracious enough to lead us tonight. If you would like to, just hit 1 on your phone. I'm going to see if Robin is there or if anyone would like to lead a meditation, just press 1 on your phone and just a brief drop in.

All right, no volunteers yet so I'll go ahead and lead this one. If you're in a safe place and inclined to do so, just go ahead and close your eyes

and then let's take a deep breath in and hold it and tense all the muscles in the body gently and then exhale and relax. Again, inhale and tense, exhale and relax.

Now allow your breath just to come in and out on its own we're just doing all the

time. Just allow it to come in and out as you witness the breath. Have your eyes slightly turned upward even though the eyes are closed. It just helps us to drop into a higher state of consciousness. As the breath comes in and out and you're simply witnessing it, letting go of all thoughts, just letting thoughts rise and pass away, become aware of the intricacy of your own being.

Breath is coming in and out. The heart is beating, lungs, brain in fresh air which

goes into the circulatory system, picked up by billions and billions of blood cells. Now this then moves around the body delivering nourishment to cells, picking up waste. Become aware that there are trillions of cells in your body, all of them are seamlessly doing their functions without you having to think of anything. It's happening constantly.

The heart working, liver, stomach, intestines, brain -- all of these is happening

throughout your entire life, all of this massive system, incredible system is working, guided by an intelligence that's far beyond what our minds can comprehend. In this system, our bodies, our cells, everything, guided by this intelligence, is influenced by the sun, by the moon, by the stars; influenced by

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the energies around us all interconnected and it's all happening. When we drop into the witness, we start to tap into that intelligence that's guiding everything.

Our bodies, in this case, are incredible system. The earth is an amazing living

system that our bodies come out of and that we're connected to energetically; bed from the earth, water from the earth, the air. The earth is in here long before us, will be here long after us. The earth is part of a solar system, part of a galaxy. Again, these systems, they're always there. We're part of them. These systems are living and breathing through us, expressing through us.

[0:05:01] We don’t have to figure out anything to make them happen and yet we can live

in ways where our body is healthier. We can live in ways where we contribute to healthier dynamics between people and the earth. We can live in rhythms, in harmony. That is where our mind and our heart come in, and that is where we can draw upon the lessons of ancient traditions, modern science and peacebuilders and many other innovators.

When you're ready, I invite you to just take another deep breath in and hold it

and then exhale and relax and open your eyes as we begin this next session, this next chapter in the Peace Ambassador Training.

Again, if you would like to lead a meditation or read an inspirational piece at the

start of class, please contact me. That's philip@theshiftnetwork.com. And if you have any technical difficulties from the call, please hit 5 on your keypad. Either I will be there or a colleague, Carol Anne Robinson, former Peace Ambassador, who is now helping The Shift Network. She will be there to help you also.

With that, James, my friend, I'd like to pass it over to you to bridge the last class

with this class. James: Oh, thank you, Philip, and thank you for a beautiful meditation. You really hit the

spot. I guess we should alert people that the Summer of Peace is beginning on Friday.

Friday the 13th, we have our opening call with 100 days of activities leading up to the International Day of Peace. Maybe after this conversation, you can give people more information. We really encourage you to contact your networks and get the word out. Help us organize the largest International Summer of Peace ever.

So last week we had Bill Ury, this great global teacher. He talked about the

transformation of conflict, the shift from vertical conflict resolution to horizontal

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work moving out of pyramids of power into networks and really hammering home again and again the concept that there is always, always, always a third side. Things get polarized into this and that; this side versus that side. But when we really look closely what is the context, where is the community, who is observing, and we called in to help rebalance and re-contextualize conflicts.

So he talked about context reframing, then his famous analogy of going to the

balcony, really looking from a different place, reframing and coming back, listening with respect, having the power not to react and into that wonderful math at the end about the camel. I hope you got that math, Philip. We need to go over it with me because it was really good.

Tonight we're starting into the pillar on systemic change and we have a master,

master teacher, Don Beck. Some of the concepts go a little fast for people during this conversation. So one of the things that I wanted to do is to just help you. I'm going to walk you through some of the structure in the codes so that when you listen to the conversation, you will be a little bit more familiar.

Basically, the theory is called "Spiral Dynamics" and it's based on societal

contextual coding and then how those codes evolved through time and space and what structures and systems they create. So first, let's just review and there's a color system with them so sometimes we hear people talk about the red code or the blue code.

[0:10:19] So let's just go through them and then we'll look at the structural relationships

between the central memes. A meme is really a viral particle of meaning and these memes collect, concentrate together and create a worldview or a meaning system.

So what is referred to as the first tier of our development as a species is signified

by the color beige. We really as human beings sort of dominated by our instincts and that instinctual reality is an incredible achievement of evolutionary process. With each of these codes as we go through them, we do what we talk about in evolutionary theory, we transcend and we include. That was that period and we've left that behind and it's of no value to us. So these instincts are tremendous achievement. They help us survive. They help us vitalize our connection to nature, to participate in it constructively.

And then the second code is purple. That's really where we have the joining

together, that sense of coming together, of mysterious and an almost frightening nature of reality itself that brings us together to create culture and develop a kind of animistic connection to other forms of life. Again, we transcend and

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include, come to the red code and the red code is really that fight to survive in spite of others. When we look at the organizational structure, it's much more organized than tribal connections.

And then the blue code is the beginning of the understandings of or our way of

organizing, let's put it, around doing what is right; right versus wrong, might is right, the power of being right. This is where we get our fundamentalist codes from everything is divinely controlled. We obey authority. We have a sense of guilt and shame that can be relieved when we do right and follow the just and true order.

And then we transcend and include and come to the orange code that is about

options. We've got options. We're not just tied to one authority system. We can test our options for the greatest success. Of course, this is where you see capitalism and things like that.

And then the next code up is called the green meme and that's about shared

habitat of all humanity, community as expressed locally and globally. In the green meme, in order to get to that global local connection, sometimes referred to these days as glocal -- combining the words global and local, glocal -- and we have to grow personally. So there's an emphasis on personal development and on being networked.

And then we transcend and include, come to the yellow meme which is in the

second tier of consciousness. So there's a whole theory, a dominant green meme has to make a leap. We talk about the great turning. Jean Houston talks about jump time, this great evolutionary leap to explore ways of being responsibly free; collective responsibility for all that is.

[0:15:05] And then finally the turquoise is that experience of the power, almost divine

power in people to reorder chaos, to meet, have systems really match all the way through their values systems.

So if we go back and we look at each of these memes or codes, we look at how

they're structured and organized systemically. The first is that's kind of survival instinct, as we said. The second, the purple, is the beginning of really complex tribal systems where values are shared in the tribal community. There's a sense of taking care of each other or relating to other forms of nature, of safety and security together, of kindred spirits.

Remember what I said at the beginning, these are not when we abandon one to

get to the other but we take the best of each of our structures and systems of

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development. As our social order becomes more complex, we transcend and include. So that's a very, very important concept. Otherwise, it becomes hierarchical racist dominating, "We're better than the others." That's not what Spiral Dynamics is about.

The systems that begin to emerge beyond the tribal are the emergence of

empire, aren’t they? It's power and action and creating larger contextual units under empire. So it can, of course, be antagonistic towards tribe and so your allegiance is to the greater whole of empire. It can be egocentric and exploitative. But it can also show how we can really organize together but it's a militaristic might is right.

As we said, each structuring code has the positive side and the shadow side. The

positive side is the red meme, is that we're here to protect; we're here to create the common good. It's the warrior's code at its best, willing to sacrifice on behalf of the whole. And then, of course, the shadow side is that militarism, dictatorship, ruthless control and power.

We still see the harsh remnants of military dominated, dictatorial approach in

certain civilizations on the planet. We transcend and include them to the blue meme which is organized around truth and righteousness and absolutist value and intends to gravitate towards that "My God is the true god. I have the way. Follow me. I know how to do it. This is how you should behave. This is what morality is. That is what immorality is."

So it creates inclusions and terrible painful exclusions. It's the organization of

often these codes get mixed together. So when you have that red code mixed with the blue code, you have a really toxic mix. You can't have a toxic mix of dictatorship and religious fundamentalism.

And then moving on, that orange meme, the next one; and that's really the

emergence of individuality, of materialism, of achievement, of striving, of driving, of competing, of individual autonomy. It's highly individualized. It says, "I can do it. I can get what I need during this life. I can succeed. I can do anything I want." It creates tremendous opportunities but, of course, as we've seen in the shadow side of that particular structure, the capitalist system can then compete so hard that it destroys planetary resources. It creates inequities.

[0:20:07] I hope you're beginning to see each side has its positive and then the shadow

side. And then what is now referred to as kind of the emerging structural meme, the green meme, about the human bond. It's about our connection. Lynne

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McTaggart wrote a book called The Bond. It's about community and harmony and equality and it's sociocentric and it's not so hierarchical.

It says you can succeed, you can have individual power but you have to think of

the group and you have to think of earth and earth values and ecological values. Socially networked and ecologically centered is the core of the green meme. I think you begin to recognize where we are in terms of when you start to look back and you see what those other structures are that have their positive and negative values and where we are in terms of the emergence of the green meme.

Then as we said, there's this jump, this leap, this cliff, as Jean Houston said, when

you meet the evolutionary edge the only way forward is to jump. We know from evolutionary theory that evolutionary theory does not progress in a linear fashion. It goes in leaps and bounds.

So we leap from socially networked, ecologically centered to really mastering

qualities of being, responsibilities of being where networks come together and they really begin to integrate systemically. They're deeply flexible and about flow and qualities of higher qualities of being that we begin to manifest and actualize, to really meet our challenges and our responsibilities.

That final meme, the turquoise one, that global synthesis completely holistic in

its process, in its reality, it is finally achieved, a global system based on a culture of peace.

Wow! Those are the codes and those are the social constructs. This is all based

on systems theory which began really contemporary systems theory, began from really studying weather and seeing how in weather patterns very small changes in weather can affect a system in a nonlinear way. It's called nonlinear dynamics. So the positive wind becomes the hurricane. We look at how those nonlinear patterns can affect change.

One thing for you to be clear is there's real difference between closed linear

systems, like your motor car. The engine of your car is a linear system and it's a closed system. You turn the ignition and it performs in certain ways. What we're talking about in terms of peace and the transformation of the social order is nonlinear, open systems. I hope as we progressed through this work together, you will see the difference between the two and the fact that in nonlinear, open systems, any of the actors can influence the transformation of the whole. So you're a player in an open system in a way that you're not in the closed system.

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I felt we needed that background, Philip, tonight because this is a complex conversation. But with that, I'll hand it back to you to see if we can have at least even a short check-in with the community.

Philip: Sure, James. Thank you for that. I'll find a web link with a diagram of Spiral

Dynamics. We'll include them in the email tomorrow. [0:24:57] So if anyone is on the phone and would like to share or on the webcast like to

share anything also, please go ahead and write something in. We do have a report from [Participant] in Melbourne. [Participant], it's such a delight to have this report from you there in Australia.

[Participant] said, "I'm expecting the homework this week even though it was on

topic for our homework assignment. I was speaking to an American long-term friend, my beloved Nina, during the week and he raised this subject of the latest shooting. Knowing from mutual friends that his politics were a little to the right of Genghis Khan, I hesitated but asked him his thoughts on the event and similar over recent months.

"It gave me another opportunity to see firsthand how two individuals can look at

the same external event yet literally see two different scenarios and solutions. My acquaintance had his way, everyone over the age of five would be to use the term 'carrying' such as carrying a gun. Given that we both have military background he had assumed that we would immediately grill on the issue. It was interesting to know that even though he became quite heated when such was not the case, I was able to step back and actually understand his conditioning in his stance without being drawn into the web of a pointless argument and we have the same culture.

"How much more challenging it is when the protagonists come from completely

different cultures and worldview and have to bridge what seems to be a formidable, socially constructed barrier that many would argue as simply unbridgeable but as emerging Peace Ambassadors, that is precisely the task ahead of us and we are worthy of that task."

Wow, [Participant]. James? James: Great comment. Yes. A lot of insights there. I really applaud. Philip: Yay! [Participant], thank you so much. I love these updates. Okay, anyone else on

the phone or the webcast? All right, nothing yet, James. Shall we dive in to the recording then?

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James: This is a quiet group that's going to burst at the end. Philip: Yes, that seems to be the case. I would call on Robin but I don’t see Robin on the

phone so let's go ahead with the webcast. Give me just a second here to get that teed up.

James: Don has been developing and implementing and teaching the evolutionary

theory of Spiral Dynamics for three decades. He has elaborated on the work of his mentor, Clare Graves, to develop really the most important I think evolutionary theory of multidimensional model of transformation of human values and cultures. He's co-founder of the National Values Center in Denton, Texas; CEO of the Spiral Dynamics Group.

Beck is employing the Spiral Dynamics model to large scale systems change. He's

the author of Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change, written with Christopher Cowen in 1976. It's absolutely a must book. It needs sometimes for you to go and sit with the master, sit with Don and his teachers. It's a thick but it's essential reading in our time if you want to step into systems thinking and transformation.

He works with people from 10 Downing Street to the South Side of Chicago, to

the World Bank on the future of Afghanistan, to major boards and companies around the world. He had 63 trips to South Africa between '81 and '88. His experience there has been very pivotal in the transformation of apartheid. He actually wrote a book called The Crucible: Forging South Africa’s Future. He's also part of the Evolutionary Leaders group.

So with that, Don, I think it would be wonderful if you -- because some people on

the phone will be somewhat familiar with Spiral Dynamics. Other people will have to be hearing it from you for the first time. So I think, first of all, just an intro to the theory and each of the levels of the spiral so we can get a grounded picture of the essential map of Spiral Dynamics and then whatever else is on your mind that you want to share with us this evening.

[0:30:05] Don: James? James: Uh-huh? Don: We miss you in New York. James: Thank you, Don.

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Don: You provide such an element in our group that you are noticeable when you're

not there. I just want you to know that, that you are greatly missed. Spiral Dynamics is officially called the emergent, cyclical double-helix model of

bio-psycho-social systems development. That's why we call it Spiral Dynamics. Based on the work of Professor Clare W. Graves, he and Maslow were contemporaries and good friends. Graves' research, which is field research, simply attempted to track why they are different theories of psychology. When he was teaching graduate psychology after each of the units -- Sigmund Freud, Watson-Skinner behaviorism, and Carl Roger's humanism and so forth -- the students would say, "Well, is that it, Dr. Graves?" He said, "No, there's another one."

So by the time he finished his course, he had been through five or six different

psychological theories. The students would say, "Well, fine, Dr. Graves. Which one is right?" Well, he had no answer because he thinks that there was a dynamic at work that produced different theories. So rather than simply try to describe the next one, he went much further and deeper by trying to figure out what is it that makes a system a theory of human behavior? And why is it that different theories emerge in different times with different people?

So that's what made his work so unique that rather than simply taking A theory,

he said, "I want to understand the dynamics that produce different theories." Based on his research of thousands of people, he didn’t have a predetermined test about the theory. He went in open-minded using a series of statements by people in terms of thousands of people who what they think healthy people are.

As he began to catalog those conceptions, he began to see patterns. So he went

back into the data and then started to use all these psychological indices of the day. There's a whole plethora of use and testing systems in order to see if there are patterns in them that he was recognizing in his research.

So it became a massive attempt to identify the whole universe of theories of

human behavior without trying to decide which ones are right and which ones are wrong but why are there different ones and why do we find ourselves at times when we begin to discard an earlier point of view as we begin to embrace another on? So the focus was on the change in dynamics that we're working.

I first met him in 1974. I had read an article on the Futurist publication of World

Future Society, "Human Nature Prepares for a Momentous leap," and that really got my attention because I was very frustrated teaching at the University of North Texas finding myself with students that kept asking me, why are there different theories?

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So just quickly, and you can find this in all of our writings of books and

presentations, he identified eight of those with the ninth went on the horizon. So no final stage, no omega point. Each theory is a prelude to the next like climbing mountains and suddenly you come over a peak and there's another mountain and then there's another mountain. Or like Russian dolls, doll within the doll within the doll.

So that idea of evolutionary systems that are created by a combination of factors

from the live conditions necessary to survive and prosper to the capacities of people in order to embrace and do thinking. So it moves beyond the strict behaviorist point of view that the brain is empty and it can be easily changed by carrots in sticks to a greater sensitivity as our friend, Bruce Lipton, talks about the co-evolution of our genetics and dispositional features with memetics or our values system or the environment.

[0:35:21] So rather than genetic determinism, he began to see how all of these things

interact to form a gestalt; that is coping system, levels of psychological development which in turn produced approaches to education, healthcare, religion, politics, criminal justice, sport, et cetera. That's why we often speak of the master code, not from a dominant and arrogant perspective at all but separate in the fact that we are adapting systems to life conditions.

So based on that we move into a conflict that we want to look at the landscape

and we use vital signs monitors even before we learned about the controversial nature of that. We had pencil and paper research and a number of other things like our friends did Iceland right after the financial crisis in order to identify who are Icelanders and what systems are they beginning to embrace.

So we always do a diagnostic piece. Today those are called analytics, to know the

lay of the land, to try to find out if there's a major conflict at what level in terms of the eight levels that we use. What level is the conflict? In just a moment, I'll rule out those eight systems for you or the conflicts between or among levels.

So rather than a superficial definition, we try to go deeper into what you will call

the deep interests of people, their bottom lines. What matters most to them? And those range from survival instinct which is the first level, making it to the day, making it to the night and then the second, a very powerful identity in terms of the tribal system with blood and soil.

That's still a major factor today particularly in the Middle East and most certainly

in Africa and I can tell you, not very far from where I am in Texas. At the

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University of North Texas, I can take you to parts of the city where you can still find that system alive and well. And out of the tribal system ultimately emerged the egocentric. When safety and security needs were met, that released people to explore the world because their basic survival and safety needs were met. So that's what produced the changed into the egocentric, the gangs, for example; the fuselage, for example.

So there was a sequence as to why that particular worldview has emerged and

we've done some work with US Army Special Forces in Afghanistan in order to figure out the warlords and why there are warlords and what to do about it. Or the inner city Chicago, schools where I worked for years where we encounter sometimes very vicious gangs and try to make the point it's not about black, it's not about African; it's about the third level system that you find in whites and Hispanics and just all over the place.

The point is that when we identify a side view for sure, the values systems, we

transcend racial stigmas and stereotypes, ethnic categories and move into a whole universal flow of value systems. And then we strip away the surface manifestations and go into these deep codes and sense where is the conflict because until we know that, we can't even begin to talk about forms of conflict resolution.

So out of the egocentric warlords emerge the great living world religions, the

sudden appearance of rationality and belief in a single God and a single system or a single Buddhist or a single Quran.

[0:39:59] So that shift out of the egocentric into the absolutistic that we saw in Cuba, that

we see in various parts of the world today that my good friend and colleague, Elza Maalouf, and I encountered in Palestine when we ran the Summit on the Future Palestine. We asked Palestinians, "What systems are next for you?" And I said, "Well, your fourth level system, an ism," a reason to sacrifice because we are very tribal here and we are very egocentric. There's lots of testosterone flowing in our veins.

Now we are learning that at some point we have to get our act together. We

have to get our children under some control. We have to design systems and extensive justice and a rule of law that until those pieces are in place, then what we know as modern entity, our fifth level system cannot emerge. So most of our work in South Africa is still about that transformation and it's not an easy step but if we expect there to be modern entity with the so-called first world standards, then that is the major value system transformation.

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It's a dangerous one because that's when we embrace the ism and sometimes when we do that we go to the extreme with the belief it is the one and only and we're willing to die for the cause and impose it on others whether they like it or not. But that fourth system though by its very nature is essential in civilization in any kind of decent order but like all the others, it can be excessive. And like the holy wars between Sunni and Shia, both are in that same fourth level but they are fighting for dominance within that fourth level.

So sometimes holy wars or even conflicts in churches occur within a system. In

other cases, when we look at the fifth level system, then we can understand what has been happening in Turkey. Here we have a standard one right way, Sharia Law, versus the kids who want a secular modern entity. It is therefore a conflict between the fourth level and the fifth level and it can get vicious.

We have a chance to impact the recently deposed president of Egypt because we

had good friends of some of his people. We tried to warn him that what he is now about to engage is not a simple kind in position of Egyptian brotherhood and Sharia Law. If you think that's going to contain these kids are connected on the internet and Facebook, then you're in for a huge surprise.

Unfortunately, for him -- he's not a bad man. He was not able to contain it

because we find a sense of freedom and liberty is awakened and that's going to be a major revolution in the making. If there are attempts to block it and not channel it and not facilitate it, then it's going to create a kind of crisis that we see in the so-called Arab Spring.

Getting rid of what we don’t want is not the same thing as getting what we do

want. We find a lot of well-meaning people who tell you what they oppose. Who are the devils? Who are the mad people? Depose them from power. Then who's going to come in in their place? Well, we haven’t thought about it. So that's why being so impulsive is without a map to understand how to decide what to be, what form of democracy is appropriate for people and which of these levels of development rather than a single one person, one vote model which may turn out to be a destructive choice.

So out of the modern entity of success-driven materialism, the kind of multi-

party democracy that we celebrate in this country, out of that ultimately has come on the system, in this case, rejecting the norms and values of a material world and embracing the values of a spiritual world.

[0:45:12] So bottom lines come from profit to looking at people. We've seen this flourish

in our own lifetime and we see it primarily in Scandinavian countries. In this

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country, there's a lot of more on both of the coasts, this is the sixth level, egalitarian humanistic redistribution point of view that wants to equalize in order for all to share in the benefit. It's a major step forward yet if one simply embraces that progressive youth and attacks the traditionalist, then there's going to be major conflict.

That's what's happened here in this country when President Obama first came to

office. I sent a note asking him to join the Tea Party. I know that sounds bizarre now but if he's to be president of the whole country, he could be president of a Tea Party as well as a Starbucks party and that's when we get to solutions then we'll come back to that point. Then out of that egocentric, absolutistic, materialistic and then egalitarian flow of human systems all of which are right without the others being wrong, it's a question of what are the stages of development of people rather than to impose any of those as it may fit everybody.

So when I started working South Africa I had no idea what I was going to

encounter. I was invited to speak. Andrew Cohen had a presentation in New York and I was the opening act and then a couple from Israel called me and that got me into that Israeli thing and my introduction into South Africa came in 1981 when I spoke at the Society of Value Engineering here in Dallas. That's when I made my first of 63 trips and really got hooked on the place.

When I go to these places, particularly South Africa, I didn’t expect to see what I

saw. I thought it was a civil rights issue. It turns out it was something much deeper than that. So I became a Zulu and I started a major project to inform South Africans of the different value systems. I even used the color code to replace skin pigmentation.

So my second level of system tribal, I called purple. My third level egocentric

para-god system I called red. My absolutistic, one-right-way-driven point of view I called blue. And my entrepreneurial market-driven, success-driven, high-status system I called orange. And characteristically, my humanistic orientation I called green.

So I found that South Africa was a unique blend of these systems and in one

sense a microcosm of the planet. That's why I was so intrigued because as they were wrestling with apartheid, what I began to see was the issues there were not about race. Just like in the Middle East, the issues are not about religion. Well, what are they about? They're about these value system codes.

So what we do when we work into an environment, we quickly change the whole

debate and the whole conversation from the surface level stigmas and

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stereotypes to the deep level value structures. And when we get people to see those, all of a sudden, new options open that they had never thought of before.

So now, let's go to the seventh level system which is systemic. It's the first of the

systems that recognizes that there are billions of people passing through the earlier ones from a tribe to an empire, to empire to the holy orders, from the holy orders to a modern state, from a modern state to a humanistic kind of enclave and then from that into this next one. And more and more people that we're finding today are beginning to sense that the real task at hand is how to facilitate the movement of billions of people along this trajectory because when they get held up and blocked, it's called the gamma trap, that becomes a seedbed for violent responses and terrorism.

[0:50:30] So now we have a map. We have a way to look at the complex culture. We have

tools to diffuse conflict at various stages in this model. We have real-life experiences of doing that. So imagine ourselves coming from Jupiter or living on Mount Olympus or in the balcony that James talks about as we overlook societies that are passing through these stages, engaging conflicts based on the population centers, searching for and this becomes the ten conditions for large-scale system changes, searching for the particular patterns that are occurring.

So we can talk to the major in city council. We just got invitation to the White

House to talk with some key people because the Middle East thing has really got them disturbed because they don’t know which way to turn about Syria. So that makes a long story short, a short version of what is a very complex body of knowledge. But if it weren’t complex, it wouldn’t be realistic.

So we are equipping thousands of people in our workshops and presentations to

go into these very complex environments and be able to sense what can be done, of what people living where. And after we have diagnosed the conflict and begin to show people how to think within these categories, then it's been quite surprising to us the kind of positive feedback that we'd get.

Yet we're very humble about it because we know that, as my friend Clare Graves

said, you can't change people. You can change their conditions and wait and see who comes to the party. You simply must learn how to relate what you are doing to their natural motivational flow and time after time when we would talk with Palestinians and Israelis and we'd diagnose for them the basis of their belief structures. It's amazing to see how cooperation can occur.

So that's the story and of course I'd be glad to answer any questions about it

other than my final point.

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We think in terms of peace by design. If, for example, we create an artificial

European boundary around two African tribes, a majority and minority, and if a minority runs the trains on time, it's a great complexity than the majority. But power goes to one person, one vote to the majority and it kicks out the minority, then we have a conflict. But what caused the design of entrapping those systems?

So that's the first point that we're trying to make. Places like Botswana and I

think there are probably two or three others in Africa that are single tribe to nation. But once again, so much of the violence in Africa has come from the mixture of tribes and the tribal warfare like in Kenya that continues to haunt us.

James: Well, thank you, Don. That was wonderful and exceptionally clear and precise. Let me start with a question around -- I think Saddam Hussein, when I was in

Amnesty International, when I was director there in Washington, we were always pushing on the torture and the terrible things he did to the Kurdish people and their children. And yet, the removal of Saddam has led to a thousand times more bloodshed and abuse than he was responsible for.

[0:54:59] The parallel is that it's kind of similar with Assad. Assad's father killed, cast to

death 10,000 people in Hama and so the family had a tradition like a very bloody red meme grip on the country. And yet, the same is true that ousting Assad is bringing in convulsions of violence that are not well understood in the west.

I reminded our last week or the week before that the majority of people in

Turkey do not agree with their government that Assad should be ousted. They say better the dictator you know and there has to be a better way to kind of shift the dictatorship than this onslaught of violence.

Could you help us think through those situations? Don: Yeah. I'll make two comments on it. The extent to which the world

communicates, speaking about the United Nations and NATO and the various regional alliances to develop a better understanding of the full dynamics in a culture and through a series of sometimes nudge change or what programs are supported financially or a host of other things, one can prepare a culture. But that's a wide-angle lens from a long point of view.

In other cases, unfortunately, what's going to happen here is they're going to

fight it out if we have a major peacekeeping force which we don’t have and

June 11, 2014 | p. 16

America is exhausted and there's no way for us and Obama can put boots on the ground in Syria. So sometimes we have to just back off and let nature take its pathway. I know that sounds cruel but I see no other way other than to get ourselves involved in it. And we've seen in Iraq and Afghanistan how we get in and can't get out because we thought we could change people into the modern entity. Cultures have to pass through different developmental stages.

So it takes a combination of forces working on the outside and inside. We

haven’t had those maps available in our state department. I hope with this visit that we're going to have in Washington we can begin to offer people the insights that we observed over the years. It's going to take a long time for that to occur but the problem is when the red egocentric system accesses the weapons of a more complex orange modern entity system without the intervening blue guilt to contain its use, then we're all at risk. That's why the world is so dangerous.

So we made an attempt to make contact with President Obama when he first

came after his 2004 speech at the convention. We were all very encouraged. I go, you know, this is the person that we've been waiting for but it wasn’t sustainable. I just wonder if he would like to start over again. We're going back to South Africa in September with the topic "Back to the Future." South Africa reinvents itself for the 21st century.

We're taking a leadership group back to 1994, the day after Mandela was

inaugurated there in Pretoria. But now, with 20 years of history, what happened in 20 years? Now, what would you have done in 1994 if you knew what had happened from that perspective of 2013? I mean that's a whole point of view. So it's back to the future. We hope to begin to use that model in other countries and we're doing a fascinating project in New Orleans to make it a new global historical celebration place to preserve New Orleans. I got some people who play for the New Orleans Saints. I work a lot in sports. If you've seen the movie Invictus, you saw how we impacted Mandela around rugby.

[1:00:11] So I just wish I had more insights into Syria. I'm afraid it's going to break up in

some form. It's the kind of change that is an example to have enough violence now so the big violence will happen later. That's the way it is.

James: Somehow the US Army, the Al Qaeda groups were mixed up with the other

groups in Syria is just adding fuel to the fire. I agree with you that it sounds hideous to let internal civil strike work its way through but adding more arms put deeper confusion in terms of the social progress.

June 11, 2014 | p. 17

That leads me to this question and you beautifully articulate complexity and yet the complexity has gone wild. I mean I lived in Turkey so I know Turkey very well. There's a mixture of, as you say, the blue meme, divinely controlled and let's go back to religious authority and yet also very aggressive orange entrepreneurial, very successful. The opposition is both orange and green communitarian. The protest started in Taksim Square with young people after they pulled out the trees for a development project and planting trees.

How does your system manage this kind of conflictual flow across memes? Don: Well, one of our very good friends, Said, who is Elza's husband, I've just written a

-- and I'll send you a copy -- a book on the next economic system which is he showed that we got in trouble here because our blue regulatory principled, responsible control system was diffused and the orange only make money in terms of profit was accelerated. And Greenpeace came in when a decision was made that everybody should own a home and the bank was guaranteed that if they finance those homes, the government will stand by them.

So we created a monster between the fourth, fifth and sixth level systems. What

he has done is show all the integration of those systems using a seventh level integration way to show that when those systems get out of balance, that’s when we have trouble.

So that model then when we think in terms of Turkey, if Turkey leadership, the

current president, who had been aware of these systems, just like energy flows, then there are ways to accommodate them, to blend them, to bend them together into a synergy, into a counterbalance. And that's what we've been trying to teach is how these systems which would be the absolutistic Sharia Law system, the modern entity of entrepreneurs and money-making but then with the sensitivity of the kids to the environment and human values, if those are just turned loose, they'll fight each other. If they are facilitated, they will synergize with each other.

Now, we've had some experience doing that in South Africa when most people

thought there's going to be a revolution, a civil war. After about my 50th trip, I began to sense how the whole system could be put together and that's in the book The Crucible: Forging South Africa's Future. That's why we're going back because they've created some problems when all of a sudden the power shifted to the purple-red system. The architecture, the transformation with Mandela were aged, died off, forgot what happened and consequently they need a second course of it. That's why they've asked us back.

[1:05:02]

June 11, 2014 | p. 18

James: You know, I've been doing some consulting and advising to some people who are working on child rape in South Africa which has hit the roof as these men go for sex with younger people thinking they won't get AIDS or even in some of the Zulu mythology that if they are very, very young and very, very pure, they will counter the AIDS in the older men.

Don: Yeah, that's right. See, that was a -- James: Those memes by simply being -- coming from the green communitarian let's all

live together and love each other. Don: Yeah. And certainly from the red exploitation and then, as you say, with -- I've

got some Zulu friends who tell me, they say, "Dr. Beck, if you know someone who has HIV, we know how to cure it." I said, "Well, tell me." "So have sex with a virgin."

James: Yeah. There you are. Don: Yeah. I mean they really believed it. So we've concocted, when I was there, a

number of counter proposals. One I used in Soweto was keep the African blood pure, which is a heavy purple system. I've got jumped on by some human rights people out of a green system who said, "You shouldn’t be reinforcing that." I said, "Why not?" "Well, because that's nationalism." I mean that's pure -- I just get livid sometimes.

I mean all these people mean well and all this scenario came. I got people

together and I attended a session or two and then I warned them because what you've done is invite people to have a seat around the table but the ones we got are representatives of the depressed, oppressed majority. What they did was enrich themselves. That's why I was very critical.

James: It's a fascinating time as we think about Egypt, Turkey, Brazil. I mean there's

definitely a strong green meme there, humanistic, anti-corruption let's do more for house care and social welfare. And yet it has to learn how to dialogue with these other systems of meaning.

So that's what I want our class to really fully understand from your work. It's so

hardcore realistic and pragmatic that says there is a way through but it isn’t simply from being idealistic and thinking of the most advanced solutions. It's really hard to talk and dialogue with people where they are.

I'll ask a final question, Philip, and then we'll go to you if you have any questions

and then we'll share with our community. I love the concept, as you know, that

June 11, 2014 | p. 19

you've expressed written about the book that you revised and revised is still Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change. Is that correct?

Don: Yes. I think in it's 12th printing or something like that. James: It's a master work. I really advise members of the class to get it. You talk about

the Spiral Wizard and I think that's a very intriguing concept of saying you can be at a very advanced level of consciousness but you can literally go along through the spiral and find people where they are and speak to them and talk to them in terms of their meaning and value systems and context. Is that correct?

Don: Yeah, because there are system wizards up and down the spiral. So one looks for

those like if I'm -- Zig Ziglar. You remember Zig Ziglar or Donald Trump who are on the fifth level; Billy Graham at the fourth level; former President Jimmy Carter, splendid example of the sixth level system. So there are wizards up and down. So a Spiral Wizard is one who finds some and works through them, holds up their hands, encourages, becomes a cheerleader, suggests options.

[1:09:52] There are multiple strategies is what I'm trying to say of conflict prevention. This

is where my work at the University of Oklahoma with Muzafer Sherif years ago on the assimilation contrast effect because we were studying ego involvement or partisanship, antipathy that ultimately can produce violence. So we were able to measure on a spectrum from extreme positions on both wings through moderate, conservative middle positions.

What is there in the anatomy of a conflict that causes the shift of the energy to

the extreme positions? As you know it, in my PhD dissertation on Abraham Lincoln, in that I was tracking ten years before the war how attitudes shifted and polarized into two camps. That's when you begin to see the kinds of massive violence that occurs when both believe they're acting in the name of their god.

That's why often George W. Bush was seen by left wing as a fascist and our

friend Bill Clinton was seen by right wing as a communist because from their viewing position on the wings, they can't see moderate positions. They literally can't see them and so the middle disappears. And when you see that happening, we got trouble ahead and that's what's going on in this country right now and it's alarming to some of us who see the extent of the polarity. Well, it's got to be dealt with now.

What we did in South Africa because I missed my chance to go visit Abraham

Lincoln, so what we did in South Africa is reproduce that pattern. South Africans did it. So when the time came for an election we had already diffused the

June 11, 2014 | p. 20

extreme positions. It was done by moderate positions on both wings. So I worked with Dick Clark and the National Party, at the same time with Buthelezi and elements of the ANC that I could reach. When the breakthrough occurred, then the moderates on both sides would alienate or was firewall their radicals. They had blocked them. But it came from moderates on the same side as the radicals.

I mean it was a massive scheme and I'm just now starting to talk about it. It's

become the reincarnation of -- what's his name, the famous manipulator? James: Houdini? Don: What's that? James: Houdini? Don: Yeah. Machiavelli I guess is the word I'm thinking about. Sometimes spiral

wizardry takes that form. When I find people, you don’t see authoritarianism or bragging or elitism, you don’t because otherwise they wouldn’t be thinking in that zone. I'm simply trying communities like here in Dallas to very quickly begin to form think tanks in order to find leadership that can diagnose the city's conflicts with a whole set of practical tools in terms of what to do. They drain all the energy or refocus the energy and create in a city the intelligences which become distributed into various leadership groups.

So the mayor is an orchestra director of the positive elements set in motion with

the localized understanding of the pathway. That's doable. We're seeing more and more cases of it at the local city community level then certainly nation state. But I'm hopeful, naively hopeful because thus far society has been able to navigate some very treacherous conflicts because after all this we're still here.

So it's just extraordinary what humans are capable of doing. That's why Clare

Graves used to say you can't guarantee anything because things could fall apart quickly. Yet, he said, it's uncanny what we have in our genetics, in our memetics as humans, a capacity to recreate our world and to keep moving to the next, to the next, to the next.

[1:15:13] But what has to happen today is we have to learn how to manage all the

previous systems because there are billions of people just exercising a tribal order or passing through the first raw sense of power like teenagers, or many of them are moving out of archaic regimes searching for truth system. Well, we can kind of change, give encouragement to what kinds of ism they embrace. Like I

June 11, 2014 | p. 21

said to the Palestinian people, if your truth system is anti-Israel, then you got a holy war forever.

So the ways in developmental psychology to tilt systems so that what they

embrace in terms of their content is not antithetical and destructive to the whole human system. And someday I hope we'll find schools teaching this. We just try to get a new branch of academic psychology at the APA, a psychology of the large scale. We're the first group to represent that new branch of psychology.

So many of the kids used to tell me, "I’m tired chasing rats. I'm tired just doing

one-on-one laboratory clinical." All very important roles. They said, "We want to change the world. How can you help us?" Well, quite frankly, this academic psychology that's available doesn’t measure up to the challenges that we've got. But you try to change academics as you know, James. I mean that's about the last group.

I'm hopeful and I say the hockey stick metaphor happening right now because

when we map out the forces that create change and at what stage the change is and how to recognize it so you know when to hold and when to fold them. So I'm proactive in terms of shaping systems.

James: You know, I saw a quote the other day that reminds me of you. It says, "A ship

can be very safe in its harbor but that's not what it was designed for. It was designed for the high seas." I think of you and you don’t stay in the safe harbors. You get out and take that ship of yours out on the high seas. I think it's a tremendous contribution.

Philip: Ah, James, this is -- James: Great master, master teacher. Philip: Yes, big time, big, big time. James: It's so good to feel that big picture and all the, when we look at this place or that

place, the chaos that we experience. And then you step back and you have a map like this and it tells you maybe there is more hope than we can see when we're analyzing any particular conflict.

Philip: Yes. I just marvel how Don has dedicated his whole life to developing this model

and then had the practical applications with it. James: Any voices out there from our community reflecting on this wisdom?

June 11, 2014 | p. 22

Philip: Well, let's see. Anyone who is on the phone and would like to share questions or comments, please just go ahead and hit 1. And if you’re on the webcast, please go ahead and type in. Here's one from [Participant]. She says, "Let's develop a course in Spiral Dynamics that is required for all people running for office here in the United States." We should probably go around the world on that one.

James: Yes, amen to that. Wow, what an impact that could have. Philip: Amen. [Participant] shared a good Spiral Dynamics website. But just thinking, if

everyone took courses like that, the courses in that and practice connect, nonviolent communication and HeartMath technology, it would be a much different world.

James: It's coming. [1:20:08] Philip: All right. I don’t see anyone yet. Just hit 1. Oh, here we go. Now we're getting

them. I see, [Participant], I see you have a 4. If you wanted to share, please go ahead and hit 1 just to make sure. Meanwhile, we'll start with -- oh, it is [Participant]. So [Participant], go ahead.

James: Hi. Good evening. That was excellent. I mean that explains so many things to me.

That explains so many things. For example, I've been saying I didn’t understand exactly what was going on in the Middle East, what the problem was, but I knew the value system within there, someplace, and for him to come in there and talk about that. And then I have had some interfacing with some of the things going on in South Africa through some friends that I have there and for him to identify that.

And for James, for you to lay that out for us to begin with, I think that's what

made this so much easier to understand when Don came on and talked about it. So here's my question. Can we take this down a little bit more to a micro level?

And how does the Spiral Dynamics, how can that be applied to family conflicts? Does that make sense?

James: It makes sense. It's a good question. It's really to see where people are in terms

of those values systems. What can happen is you come with that green meme of "Let's all connect. Let's experience ourselves as a network." And one voice says, "Well, do you believe in God? You never believed in God. You have to believe in God." So you begin to see all these lazy people in the world. Unemployed people just get off their asses and work; that strive, drive orange meme.

June 11, 2014 | p. 23

So family arguments can really represent family members in different places. I love the concept of the Spiral Wizard that says go to any place in a values system and find the positive. In terms of the belief in God, that's a great thing. It shouldn’t be imposed on other people. There's always that place where those two perspectives. Those different places on the spiral can really dialogue with each other. Thank you, [Participant].

Participant: Thank you. Philip: Thank you, [Participant]. Thank you, James. [Participant]. All right, [Participant]. Participant: Hi there. This is amazing. One thing I just want to say that came up involving all

three of you that have you heard of or experienced so far that the National Council of Mayors have talked about compassionate cities? When I first heard about it, there were only two: Lexington, Kentucky and I guess that's the mayor who is leading the charge in Seattle.

And then the other thing I would just share is there's two people from Boise both

of whom left this last month for South Africa for just amazing things. They've both been there before and shared. One is a gal. She's a lawyer and she's got a couple that go with her. And the other is from Tanzania originally. He's been back once before and this time he and his grandpa are working on four orphanages. There's a whole bunch in Boise now that is supporting him. It's just fascinating.

[1:25:10] James: Well, maybe, [Participant], Philip can tell us a little bit about the compassionate

cities and the Compassion Games. Philip: Yeah. Thank you, James. And also, James, thank you for mentioning the Summer

of Peace earlier. Compassion Games is a wonderful initiative, Jon Ramer, who is based out in

Seattle. And Emily Hine, who you heard earlier, had worked on the Seeds of Compassion event in Seattle. Out of the Seeds of Compassion event, the mayor of Louisville said that Louisville was the most compassionate city in the world until proven otherwise. And then Seattle said, "Game is on."

So they have a contest to see between September 11th and 21st which city

around the world is the most compassionate. So if you go to Compassion Games, it's just fun and you can enter in different activities that you're doing. It's such a

June 11, 2014 | p. 24

delight. So that's the Compassion Games and there's Charter for Compassion, Compassionate Cities and there's curriculums that go along with it. It's just a beautiful, beautiful initiative.

Another initiative along that line is with International Cities of Peace and they

collaborate with compassionate cities and we'll see in the Catalyst, the ezine from The Shift Network, a couple of weeks ago we announced a goal for 2020 to have a thousand cities of peace. Several Peace Ambassadors have been involved in helping their town or village or city become part of the Cities of Peace. We're approaching a hundred now around the world. They can have sister cities.

So The Shift Network is going to get really behind with Fred Arment at

International Cities of Peace so they can reach that goal with the intention that it's really starting to shine a light on what is already emerging in all these different sectors of society and that by naming these cities of peace and creating networks that can share best practices, we can actually start highlighting and reinforcing and celebrating infrastructures of peace across the world that strengthens basically the conditions for national cities of peace or national departments of peace to emerge out of.

So the Compassion Games, compassionate cities, International Cities of Peace

are just wonderful ways that individuals, Peace Ambassadors and other can get involved where you are and contribute to a bigger picture that's emerging that's also reinforcing infrastructures that bring about system changes.

So James, thanks for asking on that. James: Thank you. Any final before we wrap up here? Philip: Yeah, we have our friend [Participant] in Canada. [Participant]. Participant: Philip, thanks very much for answering my intervention. I happen to be in New

York at this time and my wife and I are both participating; she on the computer and me on my phone. Tomorrow I am participating in a meeting of the NGO which is all about. Peace is going to be such a [audio glitch] and the [audio glitch] International Day of Peace NGO. I'm not here for that but coincidentally in my serendipitous life some of the [audio glitch] they found out I was in New York and I've been invited to that [audio glitch]. [Audio glitch] teaching are most valuable and timely.

I did want to say that from Winnipeg, Canada through the work of many people

of diverse faiths and non-faiths but humanitarians by focusing on advancing understanding, goodwill, peace and compassionate action. We have done I believe a beginning towards the kind of integration of the balancing and the

June 11, 2014 | p. 25

facilitation of synergies amongst diversity in our multi-cultural, multi-faith little city of Winnipeg.

[1:30:16] Curiously, tonight Louisville, Kentucky and its mayor and it's Louisville and

Seattle, Winnipeg has had two delegations including our chief of police, our head of the United Way, religious leaders, humanitarians and my wife, Brenda, and I and others from Rotary and Peace Days to Louisville to experience what they're doing in terms of creating cities of compassion. It's all a work. It's a progression. It's a commitment. It is something that we have created peace days for every year. We're going on our fifth year in Winnipeg as a grassroots movement. We do it every year because we sow seeds, we facilitate, we encourage practices, we inspire, and then we know we have to do it again a year later because we're human.

So we are working very consciously in Winnipeg. Rotary has been a uniting factor

in it because it simply unites under the banner of service. And because of that commitment and the purpose I described, advancing understanding, goodwill, peace and compassionate action, it's brought everybody together.

So what we're focusing on this year, the year the Canadian Museum for Human

Rights opens on September 20th between the day of democracy on September 15 and the International Day of Peace on September 21st, we have all kinds of dialogues of diverse organizations. Now we have also this year integrated in our public school system through our Ministry of Education a process inviting young kids and older kids within the school system to contribute to what kind of changes do they think they can make to improve the world?

James: Yes, very impressive, [Participant]. Thank you for that sharing. You really gave

this wonderful insight into the networking you're doing and all the things that are so generally unseen that we have to call them forth for each other and lift them up so we can see, my God, there's so much creative, positive peacemaking happening in the world. So thank you.

Now that we're a little overtime, let me just remind you the homework

assignment. We don’t hear too much in community sharing about your homework. I hope people will share more on that front.

As we begin our pillar on systems and peacebuilding, use the Spiral Dynamics

model discussed in class to analyze the nature of your own peace work and how to optimize it. Which codes are you operating from and which codes are you directing your attention towards in terms of dialogue and value systems

June 11, 2014 | p. 26

conversation? So as always, we'll send that homework along in the next few days.

Thank you for all that all of you are doing and together we shall make a

difference. Please, please do spread the news about the Summer of Peace. It's an international gathering for a hundred days of -- we call it peace worship, Philip.

Philip: Wonderful, James. Thank you. Yes, the Summer of Peace, oh, my God --

Desmond Tutu, Eckhart Tolle, Amy Goodman, James -- we've got such a lineup this year, a couple of amazing women peacebuilders from Afghanistan, a woman from Nigeria. It is just phenomenal. It has been so much fun to work in partnership with groups pulling together.

Chief Arvol Looking Horse is going to have a special message also. It's just

beautiful. So it's summerofpeace.net. [1:35:08] All right, my friends, well, it's that time for breakout groups. So if you like to be

on a breakout group and you're on the phone, Maestro system, please just stay on the phone. And if you would like to join and you're on the webcast, go ahead and call in on the number that was emailed to you or you can call this general number, 1-310-409-2027; and the PIN number is 563009.

Again, the purpose of this so you can talk about either the class tonight or the

homework that you've been doing. We'll give folks just another second here and I'll get the groups ready.

All right. So again, go to summerofpeace.net, register and enjoy. And then

wherever you are in the world, whether it's morning, afternoon, evening or night, have a peaceful rest of your time. All right, bye-bye.

[1:36:26] End of Audio © 2014 The Shift Network. All rights reserved.