Beware of the green meme!

The green meme (as referenced in spiral dynamics) is the meme characterized with the pluralistic world view, individualistic self-identity, human bonding, ecological sensitivity, and community values. The green meme represents the highest order of the post-conventional consciousness, and only about 10% of the world population are considered in the green meme level at this point.

The Spiral of Development.

 

Much of the discussion and effort around sustainability, technology in sustainability(tics), renewable energy, green integration, and social ventures is championed by green meme level of consciousness and type thinking.

Yet the green meme as amazing as it may seem, suffers from some serious drawbacks, which you may have surmised from the title of the post. The greatest fault for the green meme is its desire to discredit all the other memes, making them not only invalid, but also at a great fault. The green meme in its desire to integrate all previous levels in a pluralistic world view, deems all previous level as at fault, and rushes to dismantle and invalidate the development of other memes. This is ironic as the other memes, in particular the blue meme with its conformist views (similar to the republican party), and the orange meme with its liberal and scientific orientation, are mainly responsible for the development of the green meme. The green meme requires blue and orange type memes to develop and increase its base. Such invalidation of these memes is in forms a cannibalization of the green memes efforts to spread and gain power.

How is all of this relevant to technology, innovation, and creativity in sustainability? As mentioned before, the green meme is the sole meme pursuing TICS today. The efforts of the green meme will be hampered by its attitude towards other memes. To ensure success for TICS, we may need to embrace higher levels of consciousness where we include and integrate all memes. Such an approach would yield much better results. Until then, it is important to be aware and beware of the green meme’s limitations.