Of memes and conflicts
- From: "Lance" <lachenicht@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 26 Aug 2005 04:10:41 -0700
Problem solver seeks to help on grand and humble scale
Don Beck's theory of Spiral Dynamics outlines a new way of
solving cultural conflict.
By Seth Glick
(August 25, 2005)
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The key to defusing global and regional
disputes is identifying the cultural codes that underlie the
conflicts, according to political adviser Don Beck.
In a recent two-hour lecture, Beck presented spiral dynamics, a
theory he developed to identify and negotiate the issues that
lead to swift and lasting cultural agreements. According to
Beck, every country, person and conflict is informed by its
culture. Spiral dynamics works to isolate and address these
cultural issues as pieces of an overall puzzle.
Beck's audiences have included global leaders, such as former
President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Tony Blair and former
South African President Nelson Mandela, as well as people
looking to make changes in their own lives and communities.
Beck developed his theory in apartheid South Africa. He
presented it to former president F.W. de Klerk's government and
challenged the government to look beyond the conflict simply as
one of skin color.
"I was trying to replace the categories based on race and skin
pigmentation with the recognition of what the real differences
are," he said.
Building on the work of his mentor, the late psychology
professor Clare Graves, and author Richard Dawkins, Beck placed
these deeper cultural differences into eight ideological
categories, or memes. Dawkins, a British zoologist and
evolutionary biologist, introduced the idea of memes in his 1976
book The Selfish Gene. Dawkins defined memes as units of
cultural transmission.
Beck agreed with Dawkins that memes are cultural units adapted
and developed much like human genes. According to Beck, just as
genes are the tools of biological evolution, memes are the
structural bases of cultural evolution.
In spiral dynamics, Beck assigned colored titles to each of the
eight memes to classify each one and its characteristics.
For example, the blue meme includes issues associated with
absolutism, authoritarianism and regulation. Beck designated the
Crusades, religious fundamentalism and the current Islamic
jihads as blue meme problems.
"What I'm describing is a whole new understanding of human
development that arises in response to life conditions. So,
rather than defining people into typical categories, we take a
side view and begin to look at how different meme codes in our
cultural DNA have developed," he said.
Beck added that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not between
the religions of Jews and Arabs. "We get beyond those categories
when we're able to see the real differences, an understanding of
the deeper cultural codes," he said.
Beck said he believes that these cultural codes are the key to
understanding why groups of people clash. "What underpins
religion is something deeper. And what is deeper are these
belief structures," he said in a later interview. "Religion is
not a single thing. It's a surface manifestation of these deeper
memetic codes. The clash within religion and between religions
is about these deep codes, not about religion."
Another key to understanding how religion can play a part in
these deeper codes is to identify how a religion has developed
in a cultural sense.
Beck explained that geographic conditions, one factor of
culture, might influence how a religion is practiced. A group of
rural Arabs living in the desert under the rule of sheiks and
warlords will have different religious outlooks than Arabs
living under the control of other national governments.
Beck used the context of cultural evolution to explain why many
conflicts are diagnosed as polarized issues. As human nature
pushes us to form identities and groups, he said, we tend to
encounter rigid boundaries that quickly generate into
us-versus-them disputes.
When counseling world leaders, Beck said he has always promoted
understanding and working with another group's culture, as
opposed to imposing a new one.
"I've become interested in how these different groups have
developed and why they persist. And what might be a way to move
beyond conflict resolution, into difference reconciliation," he
said.
Beck warned scientists against becoming so wrapped up in their
own theories that they fail to consider others. Beck stressed
that scientists must keep open minds and realize that science
cannot explain the whole world in a "very linear quantification,
reductionist cause-and-effect model."
Beck is currently working on a program in the Netherlands to
calm unrest between the native Dutch and immigrant Muslim
communities.
Seth Glick is an editorial intern at Science & Theology News.
http://www.stnews.org/articles.php?article_id=1569&category=rlr
.
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