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Burning Desire to Change the World - Part II
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Sunday, September 03, 2006The most interesting part of wanting to change the world may be the realization that all change begins from within ... in the instant you get that the entire world in fact becomes different ...
Afternoon All,
Yesterday I said I'd be picking up where I'd left off ... somewhere after Graves Five transiting to Graves Six on the way to Graves Seven.
In yesterday's blog post Burning Desire to Change the World - Part I I put up a few short descriptions of what you might expect of someone operating out of Graves Four, Five and Six value sets positions. These are values associated with each of the positions that Dr. Graves described.
The value set that could be associated with a Graves Seven position would be thinking about the world and the events in it in terms of the "system". At this level the individual begins to transcend the limitations of the duality of "this and that" or "self and other" as examples. Instead the individual begins to perceive themselves in relation to the "system" and the dynamic that exists where the individual emerges from the system and the system simultaneously emerges from the individuals that comprise it. The Graves Seven position holds the distinction in the Graves Model of being the first level where duality drops away and gets replaced by an Integrated Systems View.
The Graves Seven position remains unique in that it constitutes this movement from "duality" to "integration" as I've indicated above. However, beyond that while the Graves Seven position shares in common an individual and external point of view, this is mediated by the simultaneity at this level of the group and internal view remaining present at all times to someone holding this postion. This simultaneity of views generates a fuller representation than would be held by more dualistic views of the world and the events in it.
Due to this fuller representation someone holding a Graves Seven position will tend less to perceive the world and the events in it in "us vs. them" terms. Instead I'd expect to see that someone operating from a Graves Seven position to be freer to allow others their point of view without a desire to make it different, or to have it match their own. This of course allows for a greater willingness to allow people to hold opposing positions without perceiving them as threatening or wrong ... just different.
In fact what I'd expect from someone operating out of a Graves Seven level position would be that they would abstain from significant judgment in terms of "right" or "wrong" ... and make their judgments in regard to the effect and impact in the system-at-large. While they want the world to be they way they want the world to be, they are willing to allow others to retain their own distinct positions within this world they perceive themselves to be co-creators in and of ... to the extent that it doesn't put the system-at-large at threat.
In the case where someone holding a Graves Seven position would perceive the system-at-large to be threatened they would become willing to do what it takes to preserve it, so that the place they have established for themselves within it remains intact so they too can choose "to be"
NOTE: These descriptions of the positions in the Graves Model are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of others who work with this model. While I give full credit to these other Graves Model scholars, I took most of my information about the model directly from the collected papers of Dr. Clare W. Graves himself and my own years of observations based on my own work with this model.
Any errors in these descriptions or disagreements with those of other scholars are completely of my own construction.
Now understanding something about the Graves Seven position it may be clearer how it stands apart from the six levels that come before it. The transition to a Graves Seven position demands a letting go of ... and maybe even a taking apart of ... the values sets that have come before it for the individual who begins to move towards holding this position for themselves. From the point of view of someone holding a position at a level in the Graves Model between Graves One and Graves Six might see someone who holds a Graves Seven position as being a bit anarchistic.
While someone operating out of a Graves Six or lower value set might see the behaviors of someone operating out of a Graves Seven value set as destructive ... possibly perceiving them as operating from a Graves Three position ... the person holding the Graves Seven position might consider themselves engaged in a form of "creative destruction" - clearing out the old to make room for the new.
This will be difficult for anyone not yet able to access and hold the value set of Graves Seven because they are committed to the world as they know and want it to be.
The person holding a Graves Seven position also wants the world to be the way they want it to be ... AND THEY ARE WILLING TO FULLY ACCEPT THIS AS ONLY ONE POSSIBLE REPRESENTATION OF THE WAY THE WORLD COULD BE - NOT by any necessity the one that represents THE WAY THE WORLD "SHOULD BE" - they are willing to make room for other representations to co-exist as equal to their own representation of it.
From my point of view a great example of a Graves Six in transition to Graves Seven would be the Burning Man Festival that occurs annually on the playa of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. This festival began in 1986 when Larry Harvey and Jerry James (along with a few others) conceived of this project.
Now once a year for a week a temporary city emerges on the playa populated only by participants who are expected to actively participate in the event ... NO SPECTATORS ... being one of the ideas behind the Burning Man Festival. A list of "Ten Principals" guide the Burning Man Festival.
This movement continues to be dynamic and to grow over the years that the festival has been running. The principal of "Leaving No Trace" amazes me ... both in concept and in execution.
Leaving No Trace - Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace or our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.
Volunteers clean up this site ... where a temporary city has been erected and populated for a week ... such that not a single article remains as evidence of their having been there. This kind of commitment to an ideal speaks to the value set of the Graves Seven position.
An example of taking the "ideal" further can be seen in this year's "Cooling Man" effort. A group has committed themselves to calculating the Global Warming Impact of the "burners" at the festival and are encouraging participating artists and others to offset this impact through "green" energy purchases.
The ideal that the collective of the "Ten Principals" of the Burning Man Festival represent a group of folks moving to the cusp of the Graves Six/Seven position. While many folks in the outside world consider the Burning Man Festival to be a collective of anarchists coming together for a week each year to build and destroy a city, those who "get it" from within this collective consider this to be an exemplary way to come together in "Radical Self-Expression" and living at least for a week at the edge of the evolution of the culture.
BTW ... Burning Man 2006 begins tomorrow ... take a look at the guide prepared for first-timers, the Event Survival Guide.
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ
PS - I devoted the entire current edition of the UncoventionalAdvice Audio Newsletter to the application of the Graves Model ... overviewing it from the point of view of the biological basis, neurological development, behaviors expressed, personal development, relationships and applications in business.
And ... you can still subscribe to the UncoventionalAdvice Audio Newsletter RISK FREE for 90 DAYS! Go to the UncoventionalAdvice overview page, read the complete description and take me up on my 90 DAY - RISK FREE SUBSCRIPTION. Even if you choose to take advantage of my NO QUESTIONS ASKED GUARANTEE - YOU GET TO KEEP THE THREE MONTHS OF CDs YOU WILL HAVE RECEIVED ... ABSOLUTELY FREE!
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Watching the MDS telethon this weekend.......How would Jerry Lewis be rated on this Graves Model?
