Can somebody explain the gist of spiral dynamics to me?

Answer 1

its basically, to me, saying that humans interact with their environment and others, and create a value system to suit the condition they are in, and their needs, this changes over time, and they create or add to their value system, and pass this from one to another, sometimes acting with a "group mentality", there are set stages, overlapping , that societies go threw

for instance, smoking, in the past was accepted, now its considered bad, and you wont see anyone holding an infant while smoking in a hospital emergency room (trust me, in the past i saw this!) in fact, smoking around others, especially infants, is viewed as horrible now. so our values concerning that have changed , slowly, so that now those who would find that acceptable are not the majority of our society

http://www.vmacgill.net/spiraldynamics.html

this site is a good one, for explaining the stages and the color scheme used in the theory

Answer 2

Spiral Dynamics argues that human nature is not fixed: humans are able, when forced by circumstances, to adapt to their environment by constructing new, more complex, conceptual models of the world that allow them to handle the new problems. Each new model includes and transcends all previous models.

Spiral Dynamics is not a linear or hierarchical model. There are infinite stages of progress and regression over time dependent upon the life circumstances of the person/culture, which are constantly in-flux. Similarly, attaining higher stages of development is not synonymous with attaining a 'better' or 'more correct' values system, although second-tier achievement is desirable. Each stage can (co)-exist in both healthy and unhealthy states, whereby any stage of development can lead to undesirable outcomes with respect to the health of the human and social environment.