Brilliant! Sometimes.

The Orange [ER] vMEME…

A brief review for any new readers joining today. Previously in this space, I’ve enumerated some values attending the Orange vMEME system:

Orange [ER] vMEME: ‘merit‘ values.—e.g., world-aware, nation-state, rational, individualistic, scientific, ‘formal operational reasoning,’ democratic, innovative, capitalistic, free market, competition, prosperity, modern, Enlightenment values.

The values attending the fifth values system emerged en masse in the West through The Enlightenment. Arguably, Orange values have done more than any other values system to raise the standard of living and bring the benefits of progress to more human beings around the globe. The entrepreneurial/capitalistic aspiration of ‘making a dollar’ is a very powerful motivation to action and expansion. ‘Prosperity’ is an intentionally desired aim/outcome of ER values. We find the ‘prosperity gospel’ is an unintended consequence (shadow appropriation) that sometimes occurs when Blue [DQ] churches/leaders meet Orange values.

 

The Bible and other ancient texts indicate prosperity was enjoyed by some people even back in antiquity. Seemingly the question has always been, ‘who gets to benefit from prosperity, and at what price?’

As ever, a lack of self-awareness (shadow/blindness) may attend any given vMEMEtic expression and the Orange [ER] vMEME is no exception. The notion of ‘privilege’ is native to the question of prosperity anywhere it is found. As brilliant as Orange can be in what its values create (e.,g., man on moon!), in matters of simple human decency, ER often has absolutely no clue at all. This brief video journals the wake-up call offered by U.S. Representative Katie Porter to financial executive Jamie Dimon regarding his shadow-laden Orange values: 

 

Thanks to congresswoman Porter for her preparation and tenaciousness!

I’m not trying to argue that Orange [ER] values have not created many benefits, clearly they have. However, I am arguing that Orange can be clueless regarding decency. Last week I wondered if (ER) capitalistic values are best in every instance:

 

 

This week perhaps we need to extend this concern. What if we change the focus of the above question from human healthcare to environmental health?

 

If archetypal to the Orange [ER] vMEME is the idea of merit, then any culture, e.g., social/political/economic system, that equates money with merit will tend to discount the above, and other important questions, and dismiss them as outside the Overton window of that system’s values. I recently asked a couple rather provocative questions in some of my conversation contexts: 

Is there money in Heaven?

Does the Church work to eliminate the institution of money?

Crickets.

If we pray “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven,” then we need to know: is money G-d’s will? (article)

Orange is driven to innovate. However, eternally ‘growing the pie’ isn’t sustainable and soon comes into conflict with the interests of the environment and eventually even the interests of the very human beings economies are meant to serve.

 

 

In his 2016 eBook, The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our World, author and co-founder of Wired magazine, Kevin Kelly, writes:

Most of the important technologies that will dominate life 30 years from now have not yet been invented.

I’ve not read the book, I saw the quote on Dr. Leonard Sweet’s Facebook page. I’m planning to really begin tackling the chief shadow that operates upon the Orange vMEME next week, however, Kelly’s grand assertion is an opening to ER shadows.

My reaction to Kelly’s assertion was visceral. I wondered if the arrogance and hubris evident in Mr. Kelly’s prediction stopped for even one second to consider if individual humans and society can even stand the strain of the continued onslaught of that kind of change. Some early indicators say our impromptu human experiment with social media technology is producing some dour unintended consequences in our society/world, especially in young people (article).

 

Further, we are well into what the techies call the fourth industrial revolution. This time Orange innovation is creating wholesale human displacement. I’ve shared this Pope Francis quote before in another context, it fits here, too: 

Our economy is investing in the means to simply cut humans out of the employment loop. Not just factory jobs: the delivery truck driver, your Uber driver, retail clerk, banker, lawyer, accountant, even your doctor or minster may soon be a machine (article). Of course, the poor and most vulnerable are always hit first/hardest (article).

 

Your thoughts?

I never know what I’ve said till I hear the response. What did you hear me say?

Note: This blog has outlined Spiral Dynamics, a complex developmental anthropology. I  used a serial-approach, introduction (June 30), first in series (July 1).

Bonus video

Lawrence O’Donnell and Rep. Porter talk on The Last Word about what Dimon missed: