Postmodern Consciouesness (providing love)
At last, being an adult feels ‘free’, and this motivation and enthusiasm are meant to be channeled into a desirable, joyful, and promising future, in order to live one's ‘own dream’ and find one's ‘own place in society’. Fundamental decisions await in terms of career, love, marriage, and family, values, and social engagement, leading to commitments into which much personal investment is made over many years.
The willingness and ability to engage in concrete bonds and partnerships, to exchange intimacy, love, and compassion, and to temporarily set aside one's own personality and identity in order to connect with that of another, grows. According to the German-American psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, it is the inner, moral compass that begins to develop and ‘is the hallmark of adulthood’. The purely rational-scientific worldview opens up to a more holistic perspective on life, in which ‘felt insights’ (intuition and esotericism), the protection of life, and co-operation as partners become relevant and valuable.
The groundbreaking shift that initiated the transition to the green realm was the exploration of the inner world: psychoanalysis! Around 1896, Sigmund Freud and later Alfred Adler were the first to systematically research the subconscious, the psyche, which strongly influences human behavior. What ‘lurks beneath the surface’ of everyday consciousness appears dark, mysterious, unfathomable, and frightening – much like everything ‘feminine’ appeared incomprehensible in the millennia-old patriarchy. People did not know what lay within, as the focus had previously been solely on the masculine principle: the ‘sun-like, bright, visible, outward-facing daytime consciousness’. But now the ‘dark, nocturnal, lunar, dreamlike, invisible, unknown, and the inner depth’ comes into awareness: the feminine principle. And with it, feelings and compassion, care and growth/development, communication and collaboration, body awareness, and natural rhythms are increasingly emphasized. This new focus on the inner life gradually strengthens the self-empowerment of women in politics, science, and society. And with this, the dissolution of patriarchy, which began around 10,000 years ago with the red realm, when humans became sedentary (Neolithic Revolution[1]) began.
Another step toward bringing together previously separated aspects – such as the outer and inner worlds, body and mind, everyday life and dream realms, the coarse and the subtle – was achieved through the analytical psychology of C.G. Jung. Among other things, he explored the collective unconscious and individuation, i.e., the personality development/self-becoming of the individual, dream interpretation, complexes, and the concepts of Animus/Anima, which suggest that every person carries both the masculine and feminine principles within themselves. This connection was soon supported by insights from brain research, which emphasizes the importance of both hemispheres of the brain. – Through this interconnectedness, the view of the wholeness of the human being and its unity with all living things grows.
Anyone who begins to seriously engage with the inner world realizes that they no longer easily fit into the superficial, loud, and schematic world. The result is a painful mental and emotional upheaval. If this leads to a fundamental shift in worldview in adulthood, the connection with oneself and nature continues to grow, and personal responsibility increases. The commitment to caring for others and taking on social and ecological responsibility for nature and the world as a whole also expands. This is evident, for example, in the efforts to protect the Amazon rainforest, safeguard marine mammals as guardians of the oceans, and defend the rights of minorities, marginalized groups, and the disadvantaged: for LGBTIQ+ people, for drug addicts, for those affected by poverty, for foreigners, for travelers, for the homeless, and for people with disabilities. All of them should be accepted, respected, loved, and integrated into society, as diversity is seen as an enrichment. The modern term for this sense of community is inclusion. How easily are all these people forgotten by our performance-driven society? And could the resources of nature and society be shared with all? – The goal becomes a balance of life on our planet, a balance that has been endangered by the individualistic and materialistic focus of the ‘Modern Consciousness’. Sustainability thus takes on great importance.
While technological and scientific progress is flourishing – such as Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity in 1916 or the sound film from 1927, which would change the world – various holistic concepts began to emerge as early as the 1920s. These included ideas in reform pedagogy (Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner...), complementary medicine (homeopathy, Ayurvedic medicine...), complementary therapies (kinesiology, polarity therapy, shiatsu, yoga...), and dance (Martha Graham, Mary Wigman...). The importance of social relationships in the workplace was demonstrated by the Hawthorne studies from 1924 to 1933, which paved the way for the human relations movement, aiming to improve interpersonal relationships in businesses.
This shift in values and the search for connectedness are increasingly moving the collective pendulum towards community, conscious ecology, and self-awareness. Environmental organizations (e.g., WWF, Greenpeace) and intentional living communities are emerging, with central elements such as a connection to nature, psychology, art, and dance.
After the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), another milestone in social transformation emerged: the 68ers. "All you need is Love," sang the Beatles – many women and men wanted to stand side by side as equals. For the emancipation of women, the development of the pill in 1968 and the legalization of abortion in the mid-1970s (Jane Collective) were crucial. It gave women, for the first time, a means of power to make autonomous decisions about their own bodies and con(tra)ception. This opened up new possibilities for freer forms of love, sex, and partnership.
Under the slogan ‘Make love, not war’, primarily young people protested for new ways of life, for the legalization of drugs, for the abolition of racial segregation in the US (their icon, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, was shot in Memphis on 4 April 1968), and against hunger, against global injustice caused by imperialism, and against the Vietnam War. This is the time of the legendary Woodstock Festival ‘3 Days of Peace & Music’ (15-18 August 1969) and the first moon landing (20 July 1969).
As a result of this radical shift in values, the realization emerges that there is no ONE objective reality or ONE truth as Plato's allegory of the cave suggests, but that everything is relative. This is exemplified by the wave-particle duality in quantum physics which states that objects must be attributed both the properties of waves and particles, meaning that the previously held separation between mind and matter is no longer valid. There are quantum fields that constantly change.
In relativism, there is no fixed ‘place’ from which judgments and assessments can be made with certainty, and not all answers can be found purely through rational means. It is no longer about seeing everything as either right or wrong, or verifiable or unverifiable, in order to live by it. Or as Rumi put it: ‘There is a place beyond right and wrong. There we can meet’. Everything is constructed, or in another image: all people view the world through a lens colored by their experiences, perceptions, actions, emotions, and belief systems.
The community-oriented person sees themselves as a citizen of the world, free from dogmas, advocates for multicultural, peaceful coexistence, and feels at home in networks, groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and foundations that promote the common good, education, and inner development. In these groups, everyone is given space to express themselves and their opinions. Decisions are made by consensus, and collaboration is encouraged – also on an international level, e.g. Amnesty International or Doctors Without Borders.
+ Beneficial are: o Transdisciplinary collaboration/cooperation instead of competition – consensus instead of conflict o process-oriented instead of goal-oriented action o BEEING and feeling instead of primarily ‘doing’ o a stronger focus on the here and now o Travel becomes increasingly easier and more affordable in view of technological progress, which promotes direct contact with other cultures and the previously ‘foreign’, thereby reducing fears and further opening consciousness o feminism o reconciliationprocesses, such as Willy Brandt’s kneeling in 1970 as a plea for forgiveness or after the Northern Ireland conflict (1969–1998) or after Apartheid (ca. 1900-1990) in Southafrica
- Hindering are: o the rejection of all traditional role identities in society o a clear departure from the exclusively rational nature of the orange realm o at times, the ability to let others be as they are and allow them to do what they want (laissez-faire) is taken to an extreme
Transition Green to Yellow (from the 68s onwards)
What follows now is not just another transition. A ‘great leap in consciousness’ into the Integral is taking place! – The first six realms of existence describe different ways of what one must have to survive – and they compete with each other: what was, was fought by the new, and the new was fought by the old.
By no longer identifying with one or a few specific value systems that conflict with others on the now following integral realms, everything that has come before can be integrated, as its name suggests!
The cause of this longer transformation phase is a deep crisis of meaning and existence, which leads to a radical turnaround – a return to the essential, the holistic, the origin of life, and BEING. Blocked emotions and constraining thought patterns are dissolved, and one bids farewell to all unreflected ‘adult games’ such as blaming, power struggles, projections onto enemy images, passive aggression, victim roles, emotional abuse, and selfish manipulations. There is no longer any reason for anger to find a victim as it once did. As a result, inner peace becomes increasingly palpable, even without external ‘securities’. The heaviness of the material, the attachment, and the identifications decreases.
In this transition period, a liberation begins from the dominance of the material (physical), from constraining beliefs (mental), fears (emotional), the feeling of disconnection (spiritual), and limitations in one's own development (creative). These are signs of a long process, an ‘inner journey’, on which a person begins to revolutionize and transform in all five core capacities.
After leaving the 6th realm of existence behind, an increasingly stronger inner peace and a growing sense of wholeness lead to the acceptance of all previous realms and the ability to use each realm appropriately according to the situation.
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Urban
Spiral Dynamics – Postmodern Consciousness – as pdf
