This is something which has been discussed a lot by people in integral, but I’m really interested in people’s own personal perspectives around this. I think it might be helpful to discuss.
Maybe it would also be helpful to think of aspects of this stage people like in themselves.
Great question Julia. Couple of perhaps not so clearly formed thoughts but I’ll give it a go.
It might be more with the “Integral Movement” if you will than green pluralism specifically. Couple of things that I (think I) see are:
On to the Green pluralistic stage question. I think it’s more the Integral community wondering “why hasn’t Integral Theory taken over the world”, when in reality green pluralism is in fact happening. It’s just not Integralists getting “credit” or “cashing in on” the growth.
Let’s look at the Gaia - One World - One People - Global Community “transformation” that we have been experiencing throughout human history. It’s actually marching forward to a steady drum beat, with occasional course corrections. The UK exiting the EU is a perfect example of a people opting out of a globalization effort that didn’t serve those pesky non-Integral “low altituders” living in a Democracy. “the people” decided that yet another layer of “we know best Elite” in Brussels making decisions counter to their best interests was “bad for the future of their children”. Are the green pluralists actually all that pluralistically green or just more of the same elite cashing in?
In my assessment, Integralists by and large do a miserable job of “Include/Subsume” unless it’s cool and exotic. No Include -> No Transformation.
Hi FermentedAgave. Thanks for your reply. Really interesting thoughts on the UK - if you look in more detail though there are very few people at the green altitude who voted for Brexit - that was people at amber and red driven by orange (leaving the EU means far less fewer regulations around workers rights, animal rights, tax regulations…) - it means people can unscrupulously make more money, and a lot of people voted for it partly because they just wanted a change, which, interestingly, was in part because of the green elite not taking their views into account and looking down on them - I’d say in a similar way to why a lot of people on the US voted for Trump.
I feel like your points about people at green often disliking the familiar, Western ideals are definitely reasons to want to have an integral view rather than a green one (including all views and not being biased against certain ones simply because they’re the norm). But also there’s so much brilliance in that compared to what came before - bringing in what is seen as unique and different (in comparison to amber) and embracing more individual and meaningful things about different cultures (in comparison to orange which might focus more on money and achieving around different cultures). Although ignoring what is familar and ‘normal’, and even seeing it as less than can be a problem with this, as well as seeing those things as okay to disparage - for example how it has sometimes been okay to speak unkindly about Christianity, while other religions were protected. But those positives are huge.
I see what you mean about simplifying Buddhism and Hinduism into being all positive. I wonder if this is a green thing though - maybe more an amber absolutist thing? This has annoyed me as well. But then again I feel I definitely value the positives of these religions. I think it would be really hard to like anything if I tossed something out because there was something wrong with it (which I think is a green deconstructing nihilistic habit actually). But yes I understand how it can be annoying when people don’t see or ignore the nuances, and think of things as all good or all bad.
Thanks for the discussion. If the green elite are disconnected from say 50% of the voting population, how green can they really be? 
Or in the current “culture war”, if the green elite is actually repulsive to 50% of the voting population, are they really exhibiting any level of healthy Integral altitude? Or are they actually very intelligent Ambers that articulate using Orange, Green, Teal cliches in order to “get their way”?
I think by definition they are failing horribly at Integral by bypassing the fundamental “include” phase, yet bemoan the shocking “ignorance of the masses”. Is it really any more complex than ignoring a vast portion of the population?
I found this Ken/Corey discussion very relevant for this discussion:
On a personal level, what is interesting for me is that I generally prefer to be around Green, Pluralistic people - but only up to a point, lol.
I think a lot of times it just goes too far.
Political Correctness and cancel culture are easy targets.
Deeper we as a culture no longer have good positive role models either on the masculine or feminine side of the spectrum. Postmodernism alienates people who display strong masculine behavior while at the same time it has not yet developed a model of healthy feminine behavior. Postmodernism wants to keep a lid on both wild men and wild women.
From the outside looking in, pluralism hates both men and women unless they tread a very narrow path.
If people are so strongly forbidden from accessing such deep identities in a healthy way - all kind of negative things can result and things get toxic really fast.
From inside progressivism looking in, here’s one example:
I was sitting in a group with 4 other men and all of them had problems with their female partners. They are all progressives. When it came my turn to give some input I asked one man “Have you considered just telling her 'No is a complete sentence. No means no and you don’t have to explain no.” It was as if I had revealed some esoteric wisdom. One man asked “Where did you learn this ability to say no to women?”
Yeah, that really happened.
There are a lot of double standards in progressivism, and the ability for women to just say no and men not to is a HUGE problem in progressive relationships. Show me 10 progressive relationships and I bet 9 will have this dynamic.
Having said all that - I think Green pluralism and progressivism is “the best we’ve got” and the alternative offered in the US by the Trump Republican Party is a brutal authoritarian cleptocracy at this point.
But by definition green isn’t at the integral/teal/autonomous stage, it’s at the green stage, so it wouldn’t be integral. Green doesn’t see that other people are at prior stages of development, but just as a ‘less good version version of me’. That isn’t really going to win many people round, and the left does often struggle to win people round. This is an article from a while ago which I think puts this well - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/01/outrage-makes-you-feel-good-but-doesnt-change-minds?CMP=fb_gu&fbclid=IwAR1ZUJWXn5HYpFrKPHen8H7O-Q6aN98y6CUTOw-tsaJ7dprDvkhVVy2NOK4.
That’s a good discussion, thanks for sharing. This is something actually which I for a long time had a problem with orange about - these rights of fairness in terms of not discriminating against people based on race or sex or creed are beautiful values and have made the world a much better place. But that isn’t the end of it. There are so many other things which people can’t help. E.g. with example given of low IQs - you can’t help that - it’s determined by genetics, how well you were cared for, the school you were sent to, your diet growing up etc.
I feel like things should be made safe for everybody. I’m glad that people at integral believe in this too - I think it was discussed in this episode by Corey and Ryan the support for a universal basic income https://integrallife.com/inhabit-your-wokeness/, and trials for this are happening all around the world. This is something I’ve been wanting to happen for ages and it’s so good to finally see so many people talking about it. And also Ken is thinking of writing a book on integral marxism. So I think integral is moving towards a greater integration of green values.
@Julia248
Ah. I had missed the distinction on green, but still would have thought healthy green would be more inclusive than say orange or amber.
I also have a different view of orange than the racist, sexist, religion narrative. If we assume, as example, the US is mostly orange, what’s actually happened here simply doesn’t back up the Woke narrative. Its actually extremely difficult to find a more diverse in any way, class mobility offering, safe culture to live, work, raise a family, or share ideas in major economy on the planet at any time ever in human history. Russia? China? India? Indonesia? Pakistan? Japan? Egypt? Turkey? Western civilization looks like the avant gard in human development if we compare against major economies. Unless someone had family or a specific business reason, literally no one would move to any other major economy/nation. And this is independent of their race, religion, gender, or any other intersectional classification. The West is where people want to be.
And why is this? It’s the democratic free enterprise model with balanced religion and secular systems that we enjoy. This is uniquely Western civilization. Marxism is a tough pill to swallow. Great theory on paper, but an absolutely horrible historical track record.
@FermentedAgave
You’ve misunderstood what I said, it seems - rambling writing. I said orange is the stage where people do not discriminate based on race, sex, or creed. Orange isn’t racist or sexist etc. And this is a huge step.
A really positive Marxist idea is that people can be more free, they can have more leisure time - because we now have machines to do all the work we used to do by hand. But it hasn’t turned out this way - it’s instead been that groups of people monetised on these new technologies (which is understandable, and orange), and there are instead greater wealth inequalities than there used to be.
It’s about integrating orange and green. So it’s not the case that everyone has exactly the same, but that everyone can have freedom and security and be able to enjoy life - so eg providing UBI means everyone has their basic needs of shelter, warmth, and food met. But also everyone is then free to compete and have more than their basic needs met. So it isn’t everyone gets the same - which also never even happened in Russia or China, as you mentioned. It’s the common theme of history in which a popular idea gets adapted by red dictators in order to control.
Sure, there are problems with green, but it’s a big step-up from orange. There’s far more freedom for many people to be themselves.
I know youve already said you see positives of green though.
In terms of men being unable to say no to women - that’s interesting. I don’t think that’s a green aspect though. It’s not really something I know much about - the only thing I can relate it to is the culture of men feeling they need to keep their wives/girlfiriends happy to stop them from bothering them, which would be more amber. Maybe you’re meaning something else though.
Green is about supporting the previously and currently oppressed though over the oppressors, and so women are protected more than men. But green is also about everyone being equal and seeing no difference between men and women - so men are protected too on account of that.
I was on the tiny cell phone but did find a way to launch into a nice soliloquy. Lol
Oh, I meant my rambling writing 
. I need to work on being more clear.
Perhaps tangential, but I think I’ve seen author David Dieda mentioned here on IL. His writing I would say addresses man/woman and man/world interaction from a “what works well” communication styles approach. My wife is much happier (which makes me happier) when I reread his Way of the Superior Man.
Physiologically we are different and differing communication styles work better for each of us. Not sure if KW covered this in SES decades back but probably could find linkages.
You were clear after I reread. Lol.
On your UBI topic. We essentially already have something similar with our existing welfare programs, just under a different guise. Have to admit that I’m “on the other side” when it comes to disincentivizing people from expressing themselves through work.
I will circle back to your IQ / cognitive divide mention tomorrow. Along with EQ, these are in my opinion the root cause for most outcome disparity.
Yeah, it’s something else.
It’s very rare for men to even look at the shadow and even rarer for the woman to question it.
The problem is Green as a theory vs Postmodernism as a reality.
For example, feminism in reality hasn’t been about equality and diversity since the 1970’s, but about hegemony. Rather than accepting both masculinity and femininity as equal and diverse, both are seen as negative and attacked.
If we stick to theoretical Green - we can say that people don’t like Green because they so rarely see it. People most often see Green tokenism or Green corrupted to serve other motives.
Okay. Do you want to give some examples of what men at the pluralistic stage find it hard to say no to?
Sure, I get what you mean about both masculinity and femininity being seen as negative, or actually more often I think it being positive only if a woman is masculine and if men are feminine. But then this is also a stage of accepting the other side within oneself, and it can go a bit far in negating the previous norm.
With you saying it isn’t about equality, I’d say it’s also about the other side of protecting the oppressed, and also the fact that women and men are not the same. Men have had more power for millenia, and women have been victims of this. It’s the fact that men have been physically stronger and that’s what’s created the historical path we’ve gone down. I think the novel ‘The Power’ by Naomi Alderman puts this really well.
At the green stage there is an aspect of people wanting to see women and men as exactly the same, and this is a conflict, because they are not the same and women have been oppressed by men. Men have been oppressed in ways too like needing to be the ones to go out to work, but then this has also given them more freedom when women are financially dependent on men.
I would say green actually isn’t unhealthy. It’s fighting against the injustice in the world, but hasn’t fully integrated the conflicts within itself yet. When it does integrate these conflicts that leads it to the autonomous stage.
Just off the top of my head:
Commitment
Exclusivity - not just sexually.
The willingness of men to say no is only half the equation - there is the other half that is the unwillingness of many / most women to accept no.
Here’s a light hearted personal example - I personally say no to valentines day, anniversaries and birthdays. No, I’m not going to remember them or buy commercialized crap. I tell that straight up right from the beginning for partners not to expect me to behave according to cultural norms that I disagree with. We can negotiate something, but I say no to the standard cultural expectations.
Actually I personally say no to any cultural expectation that I haven’t agreed to, lol. So from the beginning - No to marriage, no to co-mingling finances, no to ending friendships with any of my exes, and so on.
With oppression - yes, I’d agree. But that is the problem with “turning the tables”, which is what I think is happening. Rather than empowering femininity, feminism has adopted an unhealthy masculinity - or worse tried to reject 90% of humanity’s core identity. Very very few people are naturally androgynous. Most people have some kind of balance, but also extremes. To try and ideologically change each person’s core identity to an artificial one is just begging for disaster, which is one of the major reasons why we see vitriol against Green.
Now we have men being physically, financially and sexually abused and exploited. Really, this is the case in 2021 in many postmodern relationships. While women in some communities at present or universally in the past were financially dependent on men, the tables are turning and now men in Green communities are increasingly being disempowered, marginalized and even abused and financially exploited. Yes - in many places women are still being gang raped and set on fire or mutilated, and there is still a lot of work to do in much of the world. But in the areas where Green is firmly established, we have kind of reached a point of diminishing returns and now it’s going the other way.
Historically - men have not just had to go out to work - but they also had the freedom to go out and experience the atrocities of war and the penalty of being maimed physically and emotionally in both war and a lesser extent work (depending on the job). One of the most disgusting things in my opinion is unhealthy shadows causing both mothers and fathers to send their sons out to die in terrible ways and in unimaginable pain or be maimed and live the rest of their lives with physical and emotional scars to remind them every day of the horrors they experienced. Then his wife feels that she is worse off than him because she is financially dependent on him. The problem with Green that I see is they don’t look down deep enough at the root causes, but just react to the surface.
I agree. But I would also say that Orange isn’t unhealthy either. We do need laws and rules and regulations to live by. Rationality and reason are also not unhealthy and also I’d argue that a feeling of community and pride in one’s nation or culture are not unhealthy. We could even go so far as to say a bit of healthy competition and a good aggressive participation in semi-violent sports like boxing or football isn’t unhealthy.
The problem becomes when it all of these get too extreme or twisted into the worst versions of themselves. The bureaucracy of Kafka. Orange zoning laws that prevent gardens in yards. Reason looking only at theory or backward reasoning (taking the goal first and then finding only evidence that proves it). When pride in identity turns into dislike of other identities.
I agree that what is termed femininity should be embraced more - it can be seen as a negative for a woman to be feminine. But also very few women are on the extreme side of what we term femininity. Most people have both feminine and masculine traits and these should be honoured - people should be accepted wherever they are on the spectrum, irrespective of their gender - and this is what green does to an extent. However, as i said, it can go a bit far in negating the previous norm. A very healthy green would integrate all previous stages and be inclusive of everybody, but then I’m not sure it would be green anymore and would be a later stage.
Okay, but what exactly is it women are refusing - is it that they don’t want to be in a relationship ship with someone who doesn’t want commitment and doesn’t want to remember their birthday? If so, that seems fair enough lol - everyone is entitled to want what they want. If it’s rather that they are attacking you for it and trying to force you to be in a relationship with them than of course that would be a problem. If men are in relationships they don’t want to be in, that seems like those men need to integrate their independent side more?
I dont think we are seeing lots of men being physically, financially and sexually abused and exploited. Of course this happens to some men. I expect more men are financially exploited, but this can also happen to women. And it is definitely the case that far more women than men are physically and sexually abused and exploited. All these issues aren’t a problem with green or feminism but would be a problem with red.
Yes, war is another way in which men have been oppressed and war is incredibly cruel and often unnecessary. It is green though which aims to put an end to war.
And yes, of course all stages have healthy and unhealthy versions. The aim is to be healthy in all the stages, and to include all those that have come prior.
To me, Green is kind of like communism - sounds like a Good idea in theory but I’ve never seen it in its pure form and it’s just so easy to corrupt it into a sham of what it should be.
I guess that’s my answer to the original question: Why I dislike Green.
But with the caveat that I myself still prefer the dysfunctional Green to dysfunctional Orange, Amber or Red.
You see - this is the problem. If I decide something for my life and decide that to I do not want to participate in different things, what women think on the subject is irrelevant.
That’s what no means. No isn’t a doorway to negotiations. Who I might or might not be allowed to get into an unhealthy relationship with is irrelevant if I can’t say no and people in my life do not honor no.
It isn’t just in relationships with women - I don’t do Mother’s day, either, lol. Though my daughter did get an exception and for 18 years and I made sure to remember her birthday.
Yes - various people can opt out of interacting with me if I don’t remember their birthday or whatever. If those are their priorities, then those are their priorities.
The reason Donald Trump has a fanatical following of 30% of the USA is because these issues are a problem in Green. Green ignores it at Green’s peril. Donald Trump, FOX news and all the rest are able to take a very deep emotion of anger and spin it to their cause.
But they didn’t cause the Anger - they just found it and harness it to their cause.
Please note I detest Donald Trump, FOX News and all the rest who are exploiting this anger for their own profit and power.
But I’m looking beyond all that at your question “Why do people dislike Green?”
And I think the answer is quite simply - Green isn’t working for them. Essentially, they’ve said “NO” to Green.
Now, if the answer of Green is the same as they way you think women will answer when I say No to Birthdays and Valentine’s Days and Green isn’t willing to work with people who say no to Cancel Culture and Political Correctness (for example) - then we will continue to see an increasing gap.
Saying it another way more plainly:
A asks B: Why don’t you join our group.
B answers “Because I don’t like x,y, and z”.
A then answers “Those reasons are invalid.”
B …
It’s not easy to understand B because the surface argument is the “spin” that manipulates the person and the deeper reasons are hidden even from the person who has them - and honestly it is a big mess. By and large, men are a complete mess, (and so are women, but I’ll let someone else answer why women follow Trump because that completely baffles me). But I think I am able to peek into the mind of a large portion of men, and in my opinion the #1 reason they are messed up is they don’t know how to say No in a healthy way and have no concept of being in integrity with themselves. From there it’s easy for liberalism or capitalism or Trumpism or whatever else to spin their lack of self integrity to a “Greater” cause.
@raybennett
Your discussion on corrupted green vs corrupted orange etc got me to thinking that the corruption effects just could be a greater determinant on uptake than the ideal of an altitude.
As an example Green corrupted might be more negative for more people than say orange corrupted. Are the higher altitudes more progressively more difficult to implement in a healthy fashion. It seems to make sense given the amount of broad scale opt in and work necessary as stages increase.