Homo Insciens, Part 4

I realize now that the term ‘homo insciens’ (‘unaware man’) applies to everybody, regardless of what quality of consciousness they have attained. After all even the most spiritual human being is aware of reality (or awake) to a certain degree only. The same is true for the more common designation ‘homo sapiens’ (‘knowing man’, which probably should read ‘self-aware man’).

What is more important, though, are the implications of the simultaneous existence of groups of people with a more or less encompassing awareness (or a more or less differentiated perception and interpretation of reality) in human society, as postulated by the theory of Spiral Dynamics (see picture for an overview). This situation should not, of course, lead to a qualitative hierarchisation, i.e. the definition of levels of development categorizing human beings. However, it may help to explain a disturbing and disillusioning fact: namely, that individuals with different qualities of awareness cannot understand one another, like radioes receiving and emitting at different frequencies. They use the same words or symbols, but not the same meanings. They are incapable of ‘getting across’ to each other any ‘message’ relating to values; instead, they prefer to confirm and strengthen their outlook on reality by communicating only with members of their own group. In fact, individuals sharing the same or a similar awareness tend to stay among themselves even physically. ‘Birds of a feather flock together.’

If we follow Grave’s Spiral Dynamics qualification, it is highly probable that most members of the Gaia Community  partake of the green or yellow ^vMEME code (maybe a few have gone beyond to turquoise). People whose core intelligence follows a red, blue, or orange code will neither feel attracted to nor share Gaia’s values; they will not understand what it’s all about, because they literally live in different worlds and pursue other interests. Their consciousness cannot perceive and believe in causes such as unity in diversity or ecological empathy. And even though a human with a more encompassing quality of awareness (say, yellow) ought to have integrated and be able to actualize simpler worldviews such as orange, this is often not the case in real life, as former paradigms tend to be forgotten and ‘covered’ by new ones.

No wonder, then, that issues like human rights, climate change, or biodiversity are not true priorities on the international political agenda -- the majority of the world’s population simply does not perceive them as such.

It is to be foreseen, for instance, that despite major campaigning on behalf of NGOs, the climate talks in Copenhagen in December will fail, since the ‘realities of existence’ are not yet incongruent enough with most people’s ‘form of being’ to force the quality of their consciousness to change.

Another example is the situation in Afghanistan, where every effort to create a democratic state will be doomed to fail because people’s quality of awareness is not at the appropriate stage. As Don Beck explains: ‘"Democracy" … comes in many different variations, hues, and levels of complexity. Beware of imposing the form that fits a specific stage or zone on the Spiral onto other strata. This is an invitation to cultural disaster.’

picture and quote: http://www.integralworld.net/beck2.html