Initial Impresssions from SDi UK Summit 26-27 June 2009 with Don Beck

This post was written in response to the summary of the UK Summit event posted by Keith Rice on his blog

Keith as you have done the 'fill in' so well on the facts I shall not blog my own summary!!

This leaves me with the luxury of just adding a few qualitative background comments to your informative structure.

I was struck to begin with how Don adapted his teaching style to be more inclusive of the group and how he initially surfaced everyone’s thoughts on the current LIFE conditions in the UK. Then how he followed this by highlighting the PRIORITY Codes of each meme system and finally focused on the common BELIEFS and Worldviews of each system over the passage of the two days

His use of Chariots of Fire film and particularly the scene in the Scottish Church hit me with a tsunami of overwhelming BLUE. When I first watched this film many years ago I would have enjoyed the propriety and Britishness of the characters but would have been glad not to been present for the stultifying suffocation of that age.

What was shocking was that despite how many conventional ritualistic and bureaucratic structures still being present in our social and other institutions, yet the rigour of these blue values has almost been entirely erased from the social and personal culture sphere(including mine!)

Over the two days I found the feedback from non UK nationals very refreshing and the objectivity of their reflection on the positivity of UK or British culture was both useful and uplifting. Because of the peculiar lack of value, I personally place on these positive characteristics, I found I appreciated the foreign perspective more highly than the Brits!!

On day two I was hugely affected by the statement from the MP read aloud by Lynn Sedgemore. This conveyed so utterly positively, our unique nationalistic qualities and history. The relationship to British identity was resoundingly unequivocal and at the same balanced informed and resolutely as well as pointedly anti extremist. Interestingly the writer’s sense of self was so fused with responsibility and appreciation for British identity that it also contained a clarion call for the need for all Brits to move forward together. I was therefore completely gobsmacked that the piece was written by a British Asian former MP and Justice Minister Shahid Malik. The appreciation of British values was so accurate and unambiguous it made me think that this is the direction from where the reconstruction of British identity might arrive!!

More to be posted here on the two day summit.

Don Beck:Dancing the Integral Vision

A day workshop with Don Beck in on March 14th 2009

The whole event was phenomenally successful as over 100 people attended, which were far more than the forty we had initially envisaged.The participation was of a very high calibre and we were very happy to host so many delegates at the EnlightenNext London centre.

I thought though that I would write about two of the interludes during the workshop might were of greatest interest to me.

The most electric part of the day was after Don Beck played the video (below) titled `I am a Reborn American' Afterward he canvassed the audience to feedback their experience of the video whilst it was playing. Apparently the Norman Lear media people, in the wake of Obama are seeking to unite the country and leave the divisive Bush legacy behind. The videos producers have approached Don and asked him about how to improve the video and widen it's appeal.

This video was a masterly way to surface the implicit assumptions and values held within our cultures' memetic structures. The video provoked some strong reactions as well as bringing to light many of the darker shades of pluralistic (green) from Europeans and an occasional an American alike!

To my mind the most negative responses highlighted the inadequacies of a global worldview.When you watch the video below at the bottom of the blog you might be interested to monitor your own responses. I deliberately have not explained too much because the it provokes and evokes a wide range of responses.Post your responses on this blog!

The other aspect of the workshop that was most fascinating to me was Don's intention to reawaken the healthy aspects of British Identity; that impulse that travelled explored and civilized the world as well as the innovation and creativity for which our nation is noted. In fact he titled his presentation `From Rule Britannia to Cool Britannia to Integral Britannia.'

I think Don was trying to elicit a sense of responsibility for the world/spiral and encourage us Brits to take global problems on using the knowledge that Spiral Dynamics contains.You might be amused to know that most of us Brits drew a bit of blank here!

Partly the postmodern deconstruction, of the British colonial and imperial legacy has left a vacuum in our identity, which combined with British reserve uptightness and cynicism means a healthy British identity seems a long way off!! I questioned the panel at the end on this subject and only found one of the responses remotely inspiring.

I believe that Don was also encouraging this because our British tolerance of extremism and inertia around a positive sense of British identity would actually allow those radicals with greater convictions to fill the ideological/political vacuum and ensure that they thrive in the absence of a robust opposition.

Though very worthy, obviously a healthy nationalism would preserve numerous vital forms and structures here; it still feels retrogressive to reconstruct a nationalist identity given that global consciousness leaves that behind. But a healthier Brit identity could be helpful given the challenges we might face. Perhaps the Kosmic consciousness could help figure this conundrum out!!