Robin Lincoln Wood

During the 1960’s and 1970’s there was a growing awareness amongst political, cultural, business and scientific leaders around the globe that the spread of nuclear weapons and our excessive exploitation of the earth’s precious resources might spell the end of humanity as we know it. As Albert Einstein had put it a few decades earlier:

“The world we have made, as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far, creates problems we cannot …

J. Kim Wright and Luemara Wagner (with special thanks to Don Beck)

Kim:  I was a speaker at the Spiral Dynamics Summit on the Future in Dallas in April and was asked to write an article on the subject covered in my presentation: Legal Wizardry: What will the legal system look like from the values of the Second Tier.  Speaking to a predominantly non-legal audience, the presentation hit some high spots and introduced some …

Bjarni S. Jonsson

Collective Wisdom

The Iceland National Assembly Social Experiment

Following the financial crisis, the Icelandic nation was in a state of shock, anger and despair. While it was a difficult period, it proved to be a very fertile ground to organize a dialogue event involving a large number of people to discuss honestly and sincerely the future of the Nation. The event, which was held in November 2009, involved about 1200 individuals chosen randomly from the National Register …

Said Dawlabani

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future”

Yogi Berra, American baseball philosopher

Welcome to the Age of Disruption

Over the last few years, I have been obsessed with finding answers to the myriad of questions that address the nature of change. More specifically, I’ve wanted to know why so many futurists and management gurus got so many things wrong about the future in such a short period of time. It is the Age of Disruption they …

Michiel Doorn

This paper explores whether inventions and technologies can be “civilized” such that their embedding in our social, biological & economic fabric leads to the flourishing of all life on our planet in ethical, thriveable ways. The paper also explores the power of “story” to disseminate the wisdom that Spiral Dynamics can offer and thus assist the unfolding of consciousness.

The Past – The Story of Easter Island

It was mid-morning and adjunct professor Patrick Snyder was engaged in …

Keith Rice

The Spiral Dynamics Summit on the Future (Dallas, 20-22 April 2018) was a fairly awesome event. A gathering of leading Gravesian practitioners (both on the stage and in the audience), partly to honour Spiral Dynamics co-developer Don Beck and partly to focus on how the Gravesian approach can be used to tackle the current malaises afflicting the world. (Many of the presentations are reflected in the articles comprising this special edition of ILR.)

Speaker after speaker gave …

Rica Viljoen

In his 2006 book, The Crucible – Forging South Africa’s Future, Don Beck[1] described that thinking systems are deep-core intelligences that form as a coping response to changing life conditions. He promised Clare Graves[2] that he would always work theoretically purely, and over the years highlighted the following assumptions:

• Human nature is not static; it changes as it adapts to new systems. Yet, the old systems must be integrated and transcended, or the

Nicholas Beecroft

 For the first time in human history, a global civilization is emerging. It was initiated by the European empires which first connected together the whole world with trade and has been super-catalyzed by the technologies of the airplane, television and internet.

In the West, Governments are becoming increasingly authoritarian, invading our privacy and suppressing freedom of speech. Our pensions, welfare and health care are unsustainable. Inequality is rising. The American Dream is out of reach for many. We’re …