Written by EILEEN CONN
Long-term correspondent Eileen Conn sent me the following thoughts with regard to the Society feature ‘Is Racism Natural…?’
So we are all built like that. But we also have the potential capacity for overriding those instant judgements with a few more seconds thought from the more evolved parts of our brain which can assess the risk in a considered way. One of the difficulties in explaining this sequence of ideas is that generally the latter part isn’t heard and the fact that the ‘bad’ instant behaviour is natural is taken as that is all that is possible and is an excuse and justification for the bad behaviour.
I suppose your associating tribal defensive/aggressive behaviour with purple, which I agree with, is also saying that in that condition the more evolved part of the brain are not being employed as the instant limbic brain reactions are allowed to dominate behaviour without further reflection and analysis.
Maybe another challenge is how we can develop ways to help more people make those thoughtful journeys.
I need to add a PS to this:
**I suppose your associating tribal defensive/aggressive behaviour with purple, which I agree with, is also saying that in that condition the more evolved parts of the brain are not being employed as the instant limbic brain reactions are allowed to dominate behaviour without further reflection and analysis.**
Of course in a situation where there are real risks from people who are different then this is still an appropriate response to those Life Conditions. For example in the break up of Bosnia, whatever 20th century identity a Sarajevo urban dweller had, within weeks they had to choose their tribe to survive in the warfare between the tribes of Serbs, or Croats or Muslims. But in our modern societies which are still capable of protecting us collectively then that is where the purple behaviour of instant reaction against people different is no longer an appropriate response to differences
Hi Eileen,
You make some very good points here! And your differentiation between “natural” and “appropriate” is a wonderful addition to Mr. Rice’s great article, and an effective response to questions like, “I think Nick Griffin [British National Party] is only saying what most people think but are too afraid to say.”
Nearly everyone has an instinctive drive to find people like them, and to stay away from people unlike them. But, as you say, we have developed the ability to think past our instincts, and to act in a way that exceeds our prehistoric capacities. However, as you also mention, in times of “fight or flight,” our minds are wired to revert to those earlier stages of development, to when we NEEDED to protect our tribe from the others, and wars are born.
I would venture to say that it’s “natural” to revert in times of crisis. When an investor goes broke, he often finds solace in religion. When 9/11 happened, the USA found solace in nationalism (which it hadn’t felt so strongly since WWII). And, as you posted, when violence erupted in Yugoslavia, people found safety in their own in-groups.
There’s an interesting dynamic going on in France (and many other places) at the moment: under the guise of GREEN egalitarianism, the government is enacting laws that take away PURPLE identity, trying to replace it with BLUE nationalism. However, I would say that this is simply a form of PURPLE that’s saying “If you don’t dress like us, you have to change or leave” (and perhaps BLUE, saying there’s only one true way to be French).
In my view, GREEN would see that burqas and religion are just as valid and useful as lab coats and secularism. Open GREEN doesn’t say “everyone be the same,” but rather “everyone be different, and that’s okay.” But often, GREEN comes about in rebellion, and thus finds no point in PURPLE beliefs (or RED power or BLUE correctness or ORANGE achievement). This “closed” form of GREEN was the inspiration behind Marxism, which failed in the USSR precisely because of what it did not allow (expression, differentiation), rather than what it did.
Does this make sense?
I might go further and venture this hypothesis: there are three “Instinctive” levels of values/needs available to all animals – Survival, Grouping, and Dominance. What makes us human is our ability to break through the “ceiling” and think in the complex ways that allow us to access Purpose, Achievement, and Equality. It may be no coincidence that these are the first values levels that require us to think beyond the immediate future, and to plan for our own futures and those of our children. Perhaps our awareness of death is precisely what allows us to transcend it.
This is the first time I’ve voiced this theory, though I’ve been testing it in my head for many months. I’ve never heard of anyone separating the first three levels from the next three – usually, the only “ceiling” comes after GREEN, when we venture into 2nd-tier, Integral thinking, but we can see Beige, Purple, and Red all in action in packs of wolves, or prides of lions…
Has this been voiced, and I just missed it? Or am I off the mark with this?
Trey Harris, MNLP MTD MHt
Washington, DC
Thanks for this, Trey. You’ve really bought out the sense in Eileen’s post between what’s instinctual and what’s appropriate. I must confess I’d never thought of this particular issue in terms of limbic system (fears and desires) and the so-much slower frontal cortex thinking about it. What comes from the frontal cortex often tends to inhibit limbic intention – but the schemas the frontal cortex works from are a mixture of learning from the external environment (memes) and reasoned thinking.
I’m also intrigued by ‘there are three “Instinctive” levels of values/needs available to all animals – Survival, Grouping, and Dominance. What makes us human is our ability to break through the “ceiling” and think in the complex ways that allow us to access Purpose, Achievement, and Equality.’
I’ve often thought that the higher mammals sometimes seem to display something akin to PURPLE and RED. My cat certainly knows that she belongs to me and that I am hers. She will also try to bully me into giving her titbits off my plate – not because she’s that hungry but because she likes the smell of my food and she wants it. Years ago – she’s rather old now! – I went through a short-lived phase of feeding her titbits – so you could argue Operant Conditioning but the many intervening years I’ve not done that should have long ago made the effect extinct. So positive reward may have been the start of it but it’s something else now.
And, no, Trey, we’re not the only ones going in such a direction! If you read Jerry Coursen’s article ‘A Spiral Perspective of Human Development…?’ – http://www.integratedsociopsychology.net/spiral_human_developpment.html – in his view it’s the development of language that allows us to break that unacknowledged ceiling you talk about.
And, although Graves doesn’t acknowledge such a jump between RED and BLUE – and neither, to my knowledge, do Beck or Cowan – Maslow sort of does. (If you’ve looked at my stuff much, you’ll know I map a lot of Maslow into my understanding of Spiral Dynamics!) In the revised Hierarchy of Needs (1971), Maslow lists Cognitive (which collapses BLUE and ORANGE into one) and Aesthetic (GREEN) as levels beyond Esteem (RED) but before Self-Actualisation (YELLOW). Maslow (1971) terms Cognitive and Aesthetic as ‘Growth Needs’ as against the lower ‘Deficiency Needs’ and the higher (2nd Tier) ‘Being Needs’.
So I think your point about ‘What makes us human is our ability to break through the “ceiling” and think in the complex ways that allow us to access Purpose, Achievement, and Equality’ is potentially incredibly important.
Returning to Eileen’s point about limbic instinctual and cerebral appropriate, Marc Solms (2000), using fMRI scans of dreamers, has linked Freud’s Id (RED?) to the limbic system while the learned inhibitors of the Ego and the Superego (the self-sacrificial/conformist side of the Spiral?) would seem to be in the workings of the frontal cortex. If you’re comfortable mapping elements of SD to Solms’ work on Freud – and I am (in part, at least!) – then it would seem that Eileen may be onto something.
Best
Keith
I know this is a bit of a tangent, but this is the speech that got me started thinking that there might be a marked barrier between RED and BLUE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3oIiH7BLmg
It’s the RSA’s animated take on a lecture by Prof. Philip Zimbardo. Pretty powerful metaprograms.
I’m so glad you wrote that Maslow revised his Hierarchy of Needs – I’ve never seen a pyramid with “Cognitive” and “Aesthetic” included. That helps complete the hierarchy quite a bit. I’d still say there’s something missing in the area of Purpose, and I have a few other issues (especially with the catch-all “Self-Actualization” segment), but that’s for another time!
I too like to tie various theories together as much as possible until disproven. And thus, the separation between the Id/Limbic and the Ego/Frontal Cortex is definitely of interest. I know almost no neurology, but I’d be very interested to learn when our frontal cortex evolved, and how it compares to those of dogs/wolves and big cats, among other animals. Can there be group/tribal behavior without it? If not, then the split between Id & Ego would seem to be the split between Selfishness and Selflessness. But if group behavior CAN happen without a developed frontal cortex, then perhaps the Id covers the lower Needs/vMemes, and the frontal cortex allows us to move on to the more complex issues of human experience!
I’d love to know both of your thoughts on the video as well! I don’t think Future-oriented thinking happens until we transcend our instincts, so this could have a lot to do with transcending Racism (and thus, I return deftly to the original topic!)
Trey Harris, MNLP MTD MHt
Washington, DC
Hi Trey & Keith
i agree with all your comments. A really comforting conversation as it is SO rare. I love the video. Brilliant, and I like the idea of the three time zones. It feels right, and I wil be digesting the idea.
PS I also like relating different models to each other and to see how and where they fit. I think some people frown on such action!
HI Keith & Trey
I offer you one of my favourite songs for a Christmas gift – follow the web link!
Symphony of Science – ‘Our Place in the Cosmos’
Http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vioZf4TjoUI
Also a short video on the human brain from Carl Sagan which is very useful:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SHc67He … re=related
That points out that it is the reptilian brain that has our fight and flight response. The limbic brain which came after that has our feelings and emotions – what we need to be social beings I assume. So it is the reptilian brain which has our natural instinct to react against people who are different not the limbic brain. I imagine it gets transmitted almost instantaneously into the limbic brain where scary feelings from differences will occur, and then the cerebral brain which has the chance to reflect and discover that the difference isn’t a risk after all.
Eileen
Trey, I’m not much of a neuroscientist either. About as far as I’ve got with the frontal cortex stuff you’re talking about is some stuff I ‘borrowed’ from Eric Chudler – see: http://www.integratedsociopsychology.net/brain_size-intelligence.html
It seems to me that dogs and cats do have developed frontal cortexes but nothing like as developed as primates and (very obviously!) humans. But there is no doubt that dogs and wolves do do group/pack behaviour.
On the face of it, the 1973 ‘Triune Brain’ concept of Paul MacLean (referred to by Eileen) offers a such neat and very linear history of brain development that it has become very widely accepted and is known way beyond the neuroscientists’ labs. Only in the past couple of years I’ve come across the likes of Don Beck and Ken Wilber referring to it as though it is established fact. However, later researchers – especially Jospeh LeDoux (1992) – while not necessarily dumping the idea of stages totally – have challenged the Tribune Brain concept as being too simplistic. As said, I’m not a neuroscientist by any stretch of the imagination and am pretty much at the limits of my current understanding here – I refer to this briefly in http://www.integratedsociopsychology.net/dilts_brain_science.html.
We do have to be a little careful about assigning functions exclusively to one brain region. The brain is a learning organism which has some degree of ability to morph according to its circumstances. There’s been a fair amount of research into this in recent years – possibly the most well known is Maguire’s (2000, 2005) research into how the volume of parts of the hippocampus changes in London taxi drivers acquiring the ‘knowledge’ of the city’s streets, businesses, tourist routes, etc. (Rather loosely, this would support Graves’ contention that new neural systems (vMEMES) emerge to deal with changed Life Circumstances.)
Based on LeDoux’s work on the limbic system, Jerry Coursen has postulated that the neural circuitry of the PURPLE and RED systems are centred primarily in the amygdala (the ‘emotional’ centre of the brain). If so, this would not seem to fit with Solms’ postulation that the Ego is in the frontal cortex. Obviously, it’s a bit more complex than simply saying this function is located *here*. The other big question here is: how much do PURPLE and the Ego match as concepts…?
I’ve beginning to hack some thoughts out on these questions but I’m some way off being able to put them down into something that’s comprehensible, logical and might be supported by evidence.
As to the RSA/Zimbardo video, I agree with Eileen about it. There are big issues around communicating with PURPLE/past, RED/hedonistic present and BLUE+/future. Zimbardo’s somewhat confused the issue by talking about types of people (rather than systems in people) but the issues are there. The thing that really got me, though, was the experience of computer games rewiring the brain. Similar direction to Maguire, I guess!