Trust

In Denmark as well as in the other Nordic countries there are exceptionally high levels of societal trust. In the last decade or so there has been a growing interest internationally to understand the background for this Nordic trust exceptionalism and what it means in terms of the well-developed Nordic welfare states. Many have speculated whether this exceptionalism has been a permanent feature of the Nordic societies, an enduring cultural trait, or whether it has primarily been shaped by more contemporaneous experiential forces. A recent published paper, “Danish Exceptionalism: Explaining the Unique Increase in Social Trust over the Past 30 Years” showed that in Denmark trust has increased remarkably between 1979 and 2009.

The results contradict the cultural perspective, and instead vindicate the experiential perspective on trust. The data in this research indicate that the increase in trust in Denmark can be attributed to generational replacement, increasing levels of education, the improved quality of state institutions, and an increase in citizens’ trust in these institutions. In other words, education at many different levels, not simply acquired knowledge but training in general formation, is crucial for the development and level of trust in any given society. It might be time for new interventions.

In a special report “The Secret of their Success,” published by The Economist in February 2013, it was claimed that the Nordic countries were probably the best-governed in the world. The report explains that the Nordic countries have not only largely escaped the economic problems that are convulsing the Mediterranean world, “they have also largely escaped the social ills that plague America.” On any measure of the health of a society, from economic indicators like productivity and innovation to social ones like inequality and crime, the Nordic countries are gathered near the top (see overall ranking in Table 7.1).

The report continues by asking the question: why has this remote, thinly populated region, with its freezing winters and expanses of wilderness, proved so successful? Some of the answers, the report claims, are that in addition to comprehensive transparency the Nordics have added pragmatism and tough-mindedness. It is a grave error to mistake Nordic niceness for soft headedness. Pragmatism, as philosophy, explains why the new consensus has quickly replaced the old one. Pragmatism also explains why the Nordics are continuing to upgrade their model. They still have plenty of problems. Their governments remain too big and their private sectors too small.

So at the end of the report it is concluded that trust, in many ways, holds the Nordic societies together. The question is whether the Nordic societies have more to lose through reduced social trust than other countries; not simply because the Nordic societies have the highest levels of trust, but because the social model, or rather the social contract as such, is largely based on high levels of social trust.

Finally, at the end of the report an interesting “manual” on how a state can act to build trust is being put forward; and from a “Spiral Dynamics in Action” point of view this “manual” could easily function as a checklist for other societies/states/countries to build and nurture trust, provided, of course, that it is accepted that the general trust level in the population could be one of the key determining factors for a “surge” on the Spiral:

• Act with openness and transparency, manage tax revenues with respect and tackle all signs of corruption, however negligible they seem.
• Create a general welfare state that prevents lesser classes from developing in society.
• Support associations, not least financially. It is generally favorable if the state can have an open attitude to associations.
• Raise the level of education in the population. Because of the importance of retaining relative economic homogeneity in the population, it is particularly important to focus on those with, or at risk of, low and/or incomplete education.
• Counteract unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment. This particularly implies efficient integration of refugees and immigrants in the labor market.

It is my intention over the next three to five years to use this checklist as a platform for continuing to observe, study, analyze and describe the Nordic countries and the importance of trust as a prerequisite for the potential emergence of a Second-Tier consciousness. A more detailed description about trust can be found at www.spiraldynamicsglobal.com.

Happiness

Another important dimension to mention in order to understand Denmark's advanced position on the Spiral is happiness. In the recently published World Happiness Report 2017 Norwegians are supposedly the happiest people in the world. Norway has jumped from 4th place in 2016 to 1st place this year, followed by Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland in a tightly-packed bunch. The top four countries rank highly on all the main factors found to support happiness: caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income and good governance. Their averages are so close that small changes can re-order the rankings from year to year.

To read more about Denmark, the Nordics and happiness please go to www.spiraldynamicsglobal.com.

Human Capital

When it comes to human capital the 2015 World Economic Forum ranks Finland 1, Norway 2, Sweden 5 and Denmark 7. All the Nordic countries are in the top ten. On that same list Germany is ranked 11, France 17, United Kingdom 19, United States 24, Russian Federation 28 and Italy 34, to mention just a few. The Human Capital Index quantifies how countries are developing and deploying their human capital and tracks progress over time. The Index serves as a mechanism to capture the complexity of education, employment and workforce dynamics in order to influence stakeholder decision-making. It seeks to serve as a tool for capturing the complexity of education, employment and workforce dynamics so that various stakeholders can make better-informed decisions. In other words, the Human Capital Index is a useful indicator of how prosperous, wealthy and affluent a given country is, such as how well the healthy versions of the BLUE and ORANGE ^VMEMEs play in harmony.

Values

The World Values Survey (WVS) is a global network of social scientists studying changing values and their impact on social and political life. The organization that carries out the research uses the Inglehart–Welzel Cultural Map Analysis of WVS data undertaken by political scientists Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel. They assert that there are two major dimensions of cross-cultural variation in the world: traditional values versus secular–rational values and survival values versus self-expression values. Moving upward on the Spiral reflects the shift from traditional values to secular–rational and moving rightward reflects the shift from survival values to self-expression values. Traditional values emphasize the importance of religion, parent–child ties, deference to authority and traditional family values. People who embrace these values also reject divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide. These societies have high levels of national pride and a nationalistic outlook. Secular–rational values have the opposite preferences to traditional values. These societies place less emphasis on religion, traditional family values and authority. Divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide are seen as relatively acceptable. Survival values place emphasis on economic and physical security. This is linked with a relatively ethnocentric outlook and low levels of trust and tolerance. Self-expression values give high priority to environmental protection, gender equality and rising demands for participation in decision-making in economic and political life.

For a trained Spiral Dynamics practitioner it is easy to match the map with the characteristics of the six First-Tier levels on the Spiral.

A more detailed review of values can be found on the www.spiraldynamicsglobal.com homepage.

Corruption

The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), is an index that attempts to free the world of corruptions and seeks to give voice to the victims and witnesses of corruption (see Table 7.2). The Berlin-based group's CPI is the most widely used gauge of corruption by governments, police, court systems, political parties and bureaucracies, measuring the perception of corruption in 175 countries. The movement works together with governments, businesses and citizens to stop the abuse of power, bribery and secret deals.

Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index 2016 was published just five days after Donald Trump's inauguration as US President. It expressed the view that there was a need to look at the links between populism, socio-economic malaise and the anti-corruption agenda. Trump, and many other so-called populist leaders, regularly make a connection between a “corrupt elite” interested only in enriching themselves and their (rich) supporters and the marginalization of “working people.” Is there evidence to back this up? Yes. Corruption and social inequality are indeed closely related, and provide a source for popular discontent. Yet, the track record of populist leaders in tackling this problem is dismal; they use the corruption–inequality message to drum up support, but few have the intention of tackling the problem seriously.

The characteristics shared by top performers on this index are “high levels of press freedom; access to budget information so the public knows where money comes from and how it is spent; high levels of integrity among people in power; and judiciaries that don't differentiate between rich and poor.”

According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, “a circular economy is one that is restorative and regenerative by design, and which aims to keep products, components and materials at their highest utility and value at all times, distinguishing between technical and biological cycles.”

Danish companies are already moving towards adaptation of more circular business models, because it has proven to be a sound business strategy that facilitates access to new markets, drives innovative solutions and saves production costs, underlining the fact that circular economies are highly business-driven. Throughout the white paper, specific company examples are used to exemplify and show how new, innovative business models can benefit the environment, climate and economy.

On June 7, 2017, an advisory committee to the Danish Minister of Environment and the Danish Minister of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs, respectively, presented a total of 27 recommendations regarding the Circular Economy and Green Transition under the heading: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle and Rethink. The Chairman of the Committee, Flemming Besenbacher, who is also the Chairman of the Board of the Danish brewery, Carlsberg, stated at the presentation: “It is time for action and rethinking of our business models and welfare state following these recipes: Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Rethink.”

The number one recommendation is “Make circular economy the growth engine for Danish companies.” A select other few of the 27 recommendations include: “Establish Danish municipalities based on circular economy,” and “Integrate the principles of circular economy in all kinds of public education” or “Promote circular economy through procurement processes in private companies and governmental institutions.”

Ease of Doing Business

Finally, Forbes’ 2017 list of “Best Countries for Business” has Sweden as No 1, Denmark as 6, Finland 7 and Norway 8, out of 139 countries. This is the 11th successive year Forbes has gauged the world's economies which are the most inviting for capital investment. Each country was graded on 11 factors: property rights, innovation, taxes, technology, corruption, freedom (personal, trade and monetary), red tape, investor protection and stock market performance. The data is based on published reports from Freedom House, Heritage Foundation, Property Rights Alliance, Transparency International, World Bank Group and World Economic Forum. As a footnote, it should be mentioned that in the 2017 publication, the United States has fallen one spot to 23rd place, continuing a decade-long slide from its No 1 ranking in 2006. Falling scores on trade and monetary freedom, along with rising levels of red tape and bureaucracy, are behind the decline for the world's largest economy.

Sweden moved up four spots towards the top of the charts for the first time (Sweden ranked No 17 in 2006). Over the past two decades the country has undergone a transformation built on deregulation and budget self-restraint with cuts to Sweden's welfare state.

Expressions belonging to some of the more “unhealthy” versions of the GREEN ^VMEME could have been highlighted. There are dysfunctional characteristics, such as slow decision-making due to over adherence to consensus seeking, pressure to be supportive of collective decisions and actions, vulnerability to collective guilt, blindness to the rest of the Spiral, pronounced narcissism, compromised quality-of-life including stress and burn-outs due to neglected discipline, authority and norms. These expressions are definitely seen in Denmark as well.

Some of the first questions exemplifying the emergence of a Second-Tier consciousness (7th code) will be about the cost of all the caring, in terms of both economics and human energy. In organizations, profitability and productivity might drop while costs unexpectedly increase. Societies in exiting GREEN begin to realize how expensive it is to provide for everyone without requiring some kind of contribution other than being “present” for the handout. This really becomes apparent when huge and easy immigration challenges the existing “order” (such as during the immigration/refugee crisis that Denmark and the EU have gone through over the last three or four years).

It would be fair to state that Denmark and the other Nordic countries developmentally are trying to find their way in this transition phase from GREEN to emerging YELLOW. It remains to be seen, however, whether the five countries will face up to Second-Tier complexity and problems, or will try to handle regressions into greedy ORANGE, hard-nosed BLUE and tumultuous RED. It is a time when the collective process of GREEN does not match up to the contemporary 7th code life conditions and issues because it consumes too much time and energy. The price of keeping everybody happy is very high; and the cost of harmony sometimes becomes too steep. If the person or the “society” stepping out of First Tier sees too much, from too many new angles, to accept simplicity we should be reminded of the famous quotation from Albert Einstein: “Make things as simple as possible but not simpler.”

Beck and Cowen (1996) state:

Like everything around us, we are in a state of constant motion. We are shaped by the code of the spiral. In short, we can change our own psychology. The brain can rewire itself. Society is not static. Today's problems are yesterday's solutions. Evaluation and revolution are part of our future. We are on perpetual treks of the mind. Many believe we are passing now through such a momentous transformation, a major turning point, a history-making sea change. A new and entirely different pattern of thought is beginning to emerge worldwide and in various fields of human activity.

Graves, in Roemischer (2002, p. 125), continued: “The present moment finds our society attempting to negotiate the most difficult, but at the same time the most exciting transition the human race has faced to date. It is not merely a transition to a new level of existence, but the start of a new movement in the symphony of human identity.”

The six conditions for ^VMEME change and the Five Change States should be considered when we study the possibility of a momentous leap from GREEN to YELLOW. Let us remind ourselves at this point what Graves said (1974, p. 85): “I am not certain how people learn at the GT level.” By implication, he suggested that the life conditions to trigger the change in human adaptation are not yet out there for us to navigate through. A leap from the First Tier of the Spiral to the Second Tier of the Spiral thus asks individuals/societies to let go of what was, so that Delta and New Alpha be established.

Graves claimed that different education systems are needed, and that educators, coaches and trainers must develop separate learning systems for people at different levels of existence and being. For instance, for people at the FS level, knowledge exists in specific settings. The settings differ, and so do those who know. Several interpretations of any phenomenon are always legitimate, depending on the person, his or her point of view and purpose. For people or students at the GT level, a teacher's job is to pose problems, help provide ways to see them, but leave to each person the decision of which answers to accept. The way that Graves envisioned the future of education very much reminds us of today's discipline of “coaching,” meaning a form of development in which a person called a coach supports a person or a group in achieving specific personal or professional goals by providing training, advice and guidance.

In summary, enough of the requirements of the six conditions for a ^VMEME change to take place seem to be present in Denmark and the Nordic countries in order for these countries to begin the ascendance on the Spiral and see the emergence of the true 7th code of consciousness, and with it the appearance of new structures in organizations, new ways of collaborating and new ways of thinking.

At the time when Graves wrote the 1974 article he had no chance of predicting the complexity and nature of today's complicated life conditions requiring Second-Tier consciousness in order to handle these issues. So what are we up against? What is the nature of our problems/issues?

Let us again recall the title of Graves's 1974 article “Human Nature Prepares for a Momentous Leap.” The title indicates that people have to get ready for a major evolutionary and cognitive leap or jump if they are to deal with the contemporary complex life conditions or “wicked” problems.¹ Secondly, Graves (1974, p. 274) stated: “The Green system must break down in order to free energy for the jump into the GT (YELLOW) state, the first level of being.” That is exactly what we see today in many post-modern societies around the globe – a peaking and fading 6th code (GREEN ^VMEME). We have to prepare for the next jump, or alternatively, face a potentially brutal and painful regression. The frustrations, confusions and the general discontent following the election of Trump as President in the US, Brexit in the EU, the fast-growing nationalism and polarization in many countries, protectionism, populism, racism and the like are symptoms of a political/emotional energy build-up that ultimately could lead to an explosion. The current situation in many places around the world certainly contains true revolutionary potential; maybe not a revolution with guns and bullets but involving some other tools and potentially nasty outcomes. At the same time, however, these symptoms can be seen as small signs and indicators of exactly that level of dissonance that will precede a surge from the fading GREEN ^VMEME to an emerging Second-Tier, YELLOW ^VMEME. This is an invitation to humanity to step up, lead and prepare for “take-off.”

This momentous leap that Graves predicted can be perfectly related to Hegel's quantity and quality theory in which it was said that when we speak about growth or destruction we always imagine a gradual growth or disappearance; however, in many cases the alteration of existence can just as well involve a transition by a sudden leap into a qualitatively different thing; an interruption of a gradual process, differing qualitatively from the preceding, former state.

For a moment, let us also not forget what the authors of the previously mentioned Danish e-book (Gade et al., Nyt Europa 2017) talked about, namely three potential outcomes of the current political turmoil and unresolved political processes in the EU: Implosion, explosion or evolution. Add to this the dangerous polarization we have recently experienced in, for instance, the US between Democrats and Republicans; the “leave” and “remain” groups in the UK; the tense situation in Putin's Russia prior to the next election; the growing dissatisfaction among the youth in the Southern European countries with unemployment rates up to 50% among the young generations; the terrorist attacks in Europe, etc. What about the gradual build-up of the precariat all over? Or the political situation in Poland and Hungary? What about the recent developments in Turkey or North Korea and Iran? Syria? Or the famine in South Sudan? The turbulence in Venezuela? Tremendous energy is building up in different ^VMEMES of the Spiral.

It is global turmoil which emanates from a mixture of people/sources/initiatives/politics coming out of different (First-Tier) ^VMEMEtic gravity centers (PURPLE, RED, BLUE, ORANGE, GREEN) and with very different consequences and implications dependent on the time, place and circumstances from which and where it arises. In parts of the post-modern Western world the GREEN ^VMEME has peaked and is gradually fading, leaving behind a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world. The many people who move or are being pushed/forced through this field of real and/or perceived chaos, which includes a potential societal collapse, experience the situation as very unpleasant and painful. However, the majority of the world's population are simultaneously passing through lower levels of the First Tier with different problems but with many of the same symptoms. It is what Beck would call “A beautiful noise.” Let us turn to the potential surge from the GREEN to the YELLOW ^VMEME.

According to Graves the good news is that the purpose of the GT (YELLOW ^VMEME) code is to bring the planet back to equilibrium so that life upon it can survive, and this involves learning to act within the limits inherent in the balance of life. Furthermore, Graves predicted that the future society (world) almost certainly would be a society in which renewable resources would play a far greater role than they did in 1974: wood, wind and tide may be used for energy; cotton and wool for clothing and possibly even bicycles and horses for short trips. Yet while more naturalistic than the world we know today, at the same time the GT world will be unimaginably more advanced technologically; for unlike FS people (GREEN), GT people will have no fear of technology and will understand its consequences. They will truly know when to use it and when not to use it, rather than being bent on using it whenever possible, as ER (ORANGE) people have done.

Given today's focus on, and huge investments in, renewable energy as well as the incredible technological innovation and progress we have experienced over the last three to four decades (computers, the internet, AI, robots, social media and genetics) it is with great admiration that one reads Graves's breathtaking predictions when one considers that they were written back in 1974.

Graves (1974, p. 78) also emphasized that “Man, the species, must fully realize each level of existence if he is to rise to the next higher level, because only by pursuing his values to their limits can he recognize the higher-order existential problem that these particular values do not apply to.” He knew that to make a surge or move upwards on the Spiral would require outliving a certain amount or quantity of the qualities characteristic of the actual ^VMEME on which people already existed.

The topic of quantity versus quality illustrates the complexity that we are dealing with as humanity and highlights characteristics of “wicked” problems, especially in terms of social and cultural evolution. Hegel's law about the transition from quantity to quality was noted by Karl Marx who mentioned in Das Kapital the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel that merely quantitative differences beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes.

If we accept the dynamics of Hegel's law we can begin asking: What size or kind of numerical increase can most readily bring about qualitative transformations in social and cultural settings? The answer could very well be: population … or information, insight and education. Or a combination. When an increase in the sheer number of persons in a given nation, village, society, organization or corporation reaches and exceeds a certain threshold, it quite often requires and results in new forms of organization. The increase in the number of people (and their mindsets) has this embedded potential to change the “quality” of that organization, that system, these processes, these nations, these companies and this traffic. The same goes for the amount of new information, insight and education. When information and insight increase in any given group, society or nation, a potential shift in the quality of thinking often takes place. That is precisely what happened in Denmark and the Nordic countries during the development of the popular movements in the nineteenth century (the folk high school, the cooperative movement, the trade unions and the women's movement).

The risk of not educating the “people” or listening to them can easily create a very dynamic and dangerous gap. Good advice will therefore be, like in the subways in England: “mind the gap.” This is the gap between those who know and those who don't know; those who have and those who don't have; those who can and those who can't; those who thrive and those who don't thrive; those who are running and those who are left behind. The size of the gap between any of these constellations is unbelievably dynamic and dangerous.

As such, the impact that the sheer numerical size of a given group of people can have on the memetic development of the society to which the group belongs can be huge. The caveat, however, is to “mind the gap,” as previously pointed out. One key question remains to be answered and addressed, though: Is there sufficient cognitive capacity present in Denmark and the Nordic countries (enough adaptive intelligence available) to prevent a fixation at the GREEN ^VMEME or to avoid an unpleasant regression to lower levels on the Spiral?