This has been spurred by the bruhaha around immigration. As someone with an extra pages passport filled with stamps, I personally have never even considered trying to bypass a counties border control. It’s a “conversation” that I feel the country I am visiting controls, not something I can influence.
When going through the border control checks, what is clear is that just through the questions asked each country is communicating what seems to be most important to them - how long are you staying, where are you going in country, what is the purpose of your visit, are you carrying lots of cash (transactions that we might not be able to tax/illegal activity), are you a felon in your country of residence, etc etc…
So while my initial paragraphs could easily be seen as Orange (obey the laws), they actually don’t feel Orange to me at all. I see the country I am conversing with as actually being compassionate to their people, while also compassionately trying to accommodate my desire to visit. And if if through our conversation, we mutually decide to continue the conversation, then by agreement we get to have have deeper conversations - vacation, visit religious sites, be influenced by their culture, do business together, have amazing (magenta, red, amber, orange, green, teal, turquoise, indigo) conversations with people from completely different worlds.
I consider, as an example, the border control conversation as the most basic conversation which then opens up all the really good conversations we can have. If we can’t agree at the Red/Orange level then chances of having beneficial Orange, Green or higher stage conversations would be untenable.
Thoughts, Perspectives, Critiques?
Interesting. Never thought of it like that.
I might analogously think of a country as a family in a way when thinking about laws as conversations. Yeah, the “teenage son” might have one dialogue about what is allowed in the “house”, while the “father” might have another, lol.
In some countries the official government conversation is completely different from that of the general population. We see this in a lot of EU countries, for example.
In the case of the USA we have the official government policy, and then two opposing sides that are at opposite ends of the conversation spectrum. Even within the same individual we might have a person who is in favor of locking up immigrants but also has friends who are violating immigration laws.
Teasing out the “teenager” / “parent” in a household discussing is a really good example.
Do you have a teenager make long term decisions? Likely not, but you do want them to understand say refinancing your home, retire plans, etc. But the “teenager” is likely in a more guided or managed relationship with the adults.
The more I look at this, the more I like the example. While you definitely want to guide and teach, it sometimes might be necessary to directly manage the minors. And the minors know this - if they stay out too late too often they lose the car keys. If they don’t make grades, they get more management.
On your citizens and EU example specifically on immigration, that’s a very interesting topic (at least in my view). While most everyone agrees that Democratic government types are “good”, effectively many of the voters in the EU feel that decisions are made that directly impact their lives. From taxes, trade to large scale immigration these decisions are so far removed from their conversation (vote) that they have to resort to voting to leave the EU.
Citizen, national democracy, regional government, world government - this structure maps perfectly to Integral for both good (growth hierarchies) and bad (dominator hierarchies).
It would be fun to turn the parent / teenager analogy “upside down”.
The culture and people of a country being much older and the “adult”, who created the “child” (government) and can kick them out if push comes to shove.
I don’t like the other way, where the government is the “adult” and has authority over the “child”.
But also at some point adult children might live with their parents and are almost co-equal in many such cases. I think that is the best case.
It could also just be a very limited analogy, lol.
For myself, the conversation with a country’s government and it’s people gets interesting when the citizens acting as government agents deliberately chose to ignore or turn a blind eye to strict enforcement, and under which circumstances they choose to do it.
A large portion of US society seems to have shifted paradigms from as Lincoln said, “…Of the people, by the people, for the people” to the Eastern model of Ruler/Subject, Parent/Child, Patron/Client model.
That’s the power of our election “conversations” that happen near term (Rep, State, County elections every 2 years), medium term (4 year cycles on Pres), long term (6 year cycle on Senators) and then guru-esque lifetime “apolitical” Supreme Court.
I think part of this may come from enamorment of Eastern religions (very strong with the most visible Integralists) and failing to distinguish if actual rubber hits the road manifesting in the physical world for citizens with basic measures like Human Development Index vs a small class of enlightened elite. If the “high altitude” stuff doesn’t eventually permeate throughout all levels of society and governmental systems then how would it ever manifest physically as those forgotten things like clean drinking water & sanitation, education availability, freedom from human trafficing/slavery and ultimately human expression (productivity?). A lot of folks would trade a semi truck load of enlightenment for a good job and promise of a better opportunity for their children.
Could we infer that Western Civilization actually provides that most comprehensive multi-altitude conversation background that world as seen to date? Would the USA be the pinnacle of this human empowerment in all history of mankind? If not, where else has both the mystical spiritualists (integralists?) that have also manifested for the vast majority of their society?