One of my daughters has turned out to be like one of the genuine warriors or true dissenters against pathological Green in our local HS. So interesting. I’ve listened to her complain about it, and talk of her battles against it for awhile. But tonight it really struck me to start talking to her about it in AQAL terms because she expressed that “they’re like, dangerous.” AND specifically brought up that she knew it could not have been like this for me when I was in HS. I affirmed no, it didn’t exist then.
At issue, one of her best friends (someone she apparently actually converted away from the total MGM) just got pretty brutally cancelled (I would say, emotionally, violently cancelled) at what I would also argue, this critically crucial developmental stage in life, by the my-identity-is-total-fragility crowd. Also the, our-fragility-allows-us-violence-(psychoemotionally)-against-other-kids!-because-…our-fagility!
The friend in question, who had totally earned and worked toward a position of leadership might have told them to actually get to work on something collective they were a part of.
Ouchy!! Bad mean person!
I’ll update as things unfold if I have any update but I’m ready to speak to the school myself if this unjustly cancelled student’s parents don’t. Or someone in authority.
Anyway, I found it so interesting because, no, such things did not exist when I was in HS, nor with any of my older kids. But it has arrived.
After long discussion and insight-sharing with my daughter, I concluded with telling her (and myself) that this IS ultimately developmental and there’s plenty of room and time for growth for the narcisensitive-identity-is-fragility crowd.
And thats where it becomes a happy story.
The younger they hit MGM, the sooner more are hitting beyond it a little later.
(Final footnote: I also explained how this was the unhealthy expression of the sensitive self. That it was ultimately a good thing gone crazily wrong in so many ways.)
Tim - could you please define MGM for us. I tried the Urban Dictionary, but there are too many choices. (For me - it’s a movie studio).
I thought I might be dating myself (to the 2000’s).
MGM is Mean Green Meme
Green stage of development gone pathological and potentially very mean.
Thanks. That makes sense.
To understand this, it’s important to recognize that just because it took thousands of years for cultural code like postmodernism to emerge into human discourse. any young person born into today’s world quickly learns the language, but not so quickly the emotional and cognitive development needed to properly wield the language for its intended purpose. The words of great philosophers, visionaries, and peacemakers are typically used by teenagers to do teenaged things.
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This is exactly why I find it so interesting. Is it (some) teenagers simply assuming current cultural trends….the way they, say, might wear an AC/DC T-shirt without knowing a single song by the band, because the t-shirt is trending?
Or, is it actually that teenagers specifically today in the rapid fire multiperspectival world of internet and social media are actually reaching the green stage of development in larger numbers earlier; HS as opposed to college?
I think is definitely both. And difficult to tease apart because of the age/horizontal stage. I personally know I was at green by 17 in the 1980s, with very few others. But there were some…most of them, however, posers. AC/DC t-shirts, unable to name a single song.
I was born in 1970 an in my school experience kids were “cancelled” all the time.
I dont know what planet people think they were living on when they say being cancelled is a new thing.
Our media of the time is full of examples. See “revenge of the nerds” and similar movies of the periods in question.
The only difference today is the groups who were doing the cancelling in decades past now find the cancel culture they created way back in the 1950s has been turned againt them. They feel entitled that everyone except them should be cancelled.
Ironically most of the time when i hear about a person feeling victimized by cancel culture today - they themselves are targeting people to be cancelled. An example is "I am being cancelled because i tried to cancel trans people. Cry a river for me.
Today the conservative movement is all about trying to cancel other groups of people. This has been laid bare as they have gotten bolder and has been becoming increasingly violent. A mass shooter is the ultimate expeession of cancel culture, predominantly perpetrated by a man who has gone too far down the conservative rabbit hole.
The day that i will take any claims seriously of “being cancelled” is the day i am assured that same exact person was not in fact trying to cancel others out of existence.
Using terms like MGM and “patholgical green” to try and gain support againt an opposing tribe do very little to reassure me this isnt the case
After all, pathological green is essentially a reaction to pathological orange and pathological amber. That is how development works. Healthy green develops out of healthy orange and healthy amber.
If we as a society have mgm and pathological green, it is because as a society we continue to foster brutal orange and brutal amber.
In my High School (Class of 88) one was automatically cancelled by lack of designer clothing, not being on a sport team or a cheerleader, or not paying sufficient deference to those who were.
I played on the different sports teams, so i was not really cancelled but all my friends of the same economic level were. This is why we had various outcast social groups in the highschools of the 1980s. Skaters, goths, punks, nerds and a dozen others were “cancelled” teens who grouped together.
Moreso, cancelling in those decades was not just being defriended on social media - it often included physical hazing, violence, insults and degredation. Hazing was accepted back then and teachers just saw it as kids being kids. The n-word was gratuitous as were homosexual slurs not to mention those against the disabled. High School was a brutal cancel environment prior to the 1990s and was the peak of cancel culture.
The only difference now is the playing field is more level and the previouly outcast subcultures have more power to turn the tables on the previously priviledged
This is why this place is ghost town and in all past iterations could never ultimately succeed.
I come on here to “Integral Life,” based on the work of Ken Wilber, to look at and discuss something using the Integral framework and terminology based on the very same, and in the majority of responses I’m told I’m wrong and doing something wrong, not seeing things correctly or have enough insight as the respondents. Not all but most. W in T actual F?
No, actually, ME PERSONALLY, I DO find ideas like an MGM helpful! Incredibly so. Helps tease things apart and clear up confusion and ultimately to operate with more insight and compassion.
Every stage of development has its healthy and unhealthy potentials and expressions. The whole point of my post was that, in my direct experience, for the first time we are seeing one of the higher developmental stages in noticeable numbers that f 16-18yr olds (in America at least), and, in my experience, this is the first time in history that’s been happening.
The only reason I came here to discuss is because there is literally no other place I can potentially discuss in these terms and this framework. But apparently….the very framework and terminology is “not helpful” and I’m not seeing anything worth looking at in 2024 teens. I mean, whatevs. Jesus
@Tim_Melody, I can recommend a few more if you are interested. Working out problems related to DEI (including “cancel culture”) is one of the main things that got me interested in integral and similarly-scoped systems a little over a year ago. I just was not happy with either conservative or progressive diatribe respectively.
At this point I’m feeling pretty clear about these matters on a theoretical level and I’m working on practical implementations through various channels. My basic framework goes like this:
- everyone has life experiences and values that flow from life experiences.
- these experiences and values differ.
- if we can at least agree to communicate respectfully with one another, we can share both those value perspectives and the experiences that informed them.
- through the process of dialog, study, research, testing of perspectives, etc. our horizons can widen.
- when this process is conducted in community context, over time the community itself will grow into shared perspectives and a larger vision.
Given that framework, I’m not here to cast judgement on whether someone’s ideas about this or that integral concept is “correct”. Everyone understands ideas the way they do for reasons. If person A wants to use a word one way and person B wants to use the same word differently, well fine. Just put the underlying reasons out there. I imagine through community-focused dialog we can arrive at common perspectives everyone can live with.
Agreed.
I would also add that a strong emotional reaction is a symptom of a brain resisting facts in favor of bias.
I would also add a perspective: The most emotional reactions and stands against MGM also in my observation operate from the MGM paradigm themselves. In this case, perhaps cursing will establish that one perspective is more valid than another?
The biggest opponents to “cancel culture” in my observation also tend to be the biggest voices to cancel others. The biggest opponents to MGM also tend to operate from that space.
I would be passingly curious to find out what the op’s daughter did that provoked being “violently cancelled” but of course getting an unbiassed account seems unlikely. We are to believe that the visious MGM appeared out of nowhere and just randomly attacked an innocent. Of course this does happen but more frequently a call to cancel comes in response to a conflict already in progress.
Hi Tim, I have so much compassion for what you and your daughter are going through. I have a long history working with this. and I dont think it is MGM. If it were MGM we would have to assume that all these teenagers are already green when they are more likely Amber. (They are not likely at 4th pp they are at 2nd pp 2.5 most likely.) What happens is teens take on the Green memes, but they reinterpret them through the only awareness they have which is Amber (2.5) the result is the same as any teen group that “cancels” or rejects people because they dont fit the NORMS. the teenage fundamentalist norms. On the surface this looks like MGM when it is actually good old fundamentalism. The confusion comes because we conflate content with the actual process of awareness. I would be willing to bet dollars to donuts that these teens can’t process at a green level. I bet they cant even process very well at Orange (a 3erd pp) level yet. They are processing at what we would expect them to process at. 2.5 amber fundamentalistic orientation which is very high on canceling anyone who does not fit their norms. It appears that Your Daughter is one step ahead, being able to look in on these Amber dynamics from a more Orange perspective. We can test this by having them take a test either with Susan or STAGES. But I bet these kids do not process at green. There is nothing in the Current research that indicates they would be able to do so. ( I hope I dont offend anyone, just trying to shed some light on this process) I cover this dynamic in my parenting course. Love to ALL!!!
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I deal with the MGM phenomenon all the time here in Seattle. I’ll have younger people project all kinds of judgments and accusations on to me and they don’t even know me but since I’m a straight white male they assume I’m part of the problem. It used to annoy me but now I just laugh at it. 25 years ago when I first started experiencing it I would get offended and try to defend myself. At that time I thought it was just Seattle because I didn’t experience that in NY or California or even the Southwest.
Kim! Thank you! That is exactly the answer I was looking for and makes so much sense! It’s the content of green at Amber, and in particular, struggling with identity, ….in a culture that now has so many seemingly identity ‘choices.’ I agree about my own daughter (orange) and explains better why she’s been able to influence a few toward a more rational way of thinking. Absolute clarity. Thank you!
Tim! I am so glad this brought clarity to you. Sending abundant love and support, Kim
Yes! So basically the phenomenon is “Green is the new Amber” in a broadly secular culture that is way more open and accepting of all types of possibilities that weren’t acceptable before. I have seen it in the younger kids - ex. the rule is not to be homophobic, transphobic, racist - but obviously not so pronounced. These teens in question in particular are all struggling with identity issues. This is something I’ve been waiting to see how it unfolds for a long time. I actually think we are only at the beginning. Because since the expectations of their identities are not being so squarely pre-defined for them as in the past, there’s all this room to experiment or pick and choose when they haven’t matured enough (to orange) to have a really strong sense of who they, as individuals, are.
Anyhow, I think I’m rambling now. As I said in the beginning though, I just find the whole thing so interesting.
Keeping in mind also - something that doesn’t get talked about enough - adolescence itself was a whole new concept at the turn of the 20th century, and the word “teenager” was not even in use until 1945! Unbelievable to think about today!
I think “green is the new amber” is a catchy phrase. I like it… I think the deeper understanding is that children are being raised in a green culture and they are interpreting it as children do, through amber. I wouldn’t want people to confuse that. But that is not catchy and not many will listen to it. A good catchy phrase wakes people up, as long as they read what it means.
I agree that in a world where identities are not predefined there is a lot of anxiety, confusion, and that makes navigating amber more free and yet more difficult. Void of our guidance of religion (green both embraces all religious while simultaneously rejecting religion itself) The result is our teens are manufacturing their own religions from scratch. and doing a very bad job of it (no blame, they just dont have building materials). The young adults are turning green ideas into fundamentalist religions. And that leads to anti (healthy) Green memes. They take the good of green and make it harmful. They are doing the best they can. but it behooves us to realize that AMBER will create a religion. If we do not provide a healthy one for them that they can outgrow, they will create one without historical success, and generally, so far, are flailing. Your Daughter is a victim of this process. I personally missed this problem as a parent and did not provide religion for my children. Upon reflection, and years, I think I would have served them better by providing a healthy religious upbringing that was open, compassionate, loving and accepting. I did bring them up with open, compassionate, loving and accepting, and that did serve them. but sometimes I think their Amber foundation would have been stronger if I would have provided a little religious support around it. Enough to provide support and little enough that they could transcend it without guilt.
Engaging next with your other point…In a world where my job was the same as my parents job, and their parents job and their parents job, “adolescence” was not necessary. 12 year olds had the basics down and could do them well. I guided my son in skiing until 12. but then he surpassed me and never looked back.
But in a world where we dont even have the jobs that our HS graduates will have when they eventually get to employment (most of the jobs they will have, have not even been invented yet) creating “adolescence” and extending it through age 25 becomes more functional for supporting the next generation to function and succeed. Our mind evolution and our cultural evolution are in play with each other as we navigate this J curve of rapid societal change.
G. Stanley Hall’s original proposition for adolescence was 14-24 which I think is not only just about right but the brain science supports it, even up to 26 (something the car rental companies always got right). I think what happened is obvious: capitalism. Can’t have all these young able bodies just taking time to develop and discover themselves!