The Blind Spots of Progress
When the Pursuit of Inclusion Creates Its Own Contradictions
Over the course of the 20th century, Western societies underwent profound transformations. The development of democratic institutions, scientific progress, and industrialization made it possible to significantly improve living conditions. The organization of work, education systems, and public administrations became structured around increasingly elaborate rules and clearly defined responsibilities, while the pursuit of performance and innovation accelerated economic and technological development.
These advances brought greater security, prosperity, and comfort, but they also revealed their limits. Economic development went hand in hand with persistent inequalities, organizations often treated employees primarily as resources to be managed for productivity, and many groups remained excluded from rights that were nonetheless presented as universal.
From the 1960s onward, a cultural movement gained momentum, challenging power relations, social norms, and traditional forms of authority. The struggles for civil rights, women’s emancipation, and the recognition of minorities were accompanied by the rise of humanistic psychology, notably with Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, as well as environmental movements. These transformations extended earlier gains, such as women’s right to vote, and helped societies move toward greater equality, inclusion, and recognition of differences. They brought about significant advances, even though discrimination – linked in particular to origin, gender, sexual orientation, or disability – persists today.
These movements have different histories and objectives, but they share an aspiration: to build a society that is not only well organized, prosperous, and high-performing, but that also gives more space to human dignity, the diversity of human experience, and the quality of relationships.
This transformation has profoundly influenced how we live and work. Active listening, empathy, participation, and inclusion have become widely recognized values, even in organizations previously governed by far more hierarchical or competitive approaches.
Yet recent developments in our societies raise a number of questions. Even environments that place the greatest value on openness can develop their own forms of exclusion. Organizations that want to become more human sometimes struggle to reconcile participation and performance. And progress in recognizing differences is accompanied, in several countries, by political reactions seeking to restore norms and forms of authority we thought were gradually becoming obsolete.
To understand these tensions, it can be helpful to look beyond the intentions driving these transformations and examine the mechanisms underpinning them.
Understanding the evolution of value systems
Spiral Dynamics, based on the research of American psychologist Clare W. Graves, offers a framework for understanding the evolution of value systems. According to this model, our ways of thinking, our priorities, and our modes of organization develop in response to the Life Conditions we face. When existing responses no longer make it possible to deal with the problems encountered, new capacities can emerge and give rise to other ways of understanding and organizing the world.
The model distinguishes several value systems, identified by colors. Red prioritizes self-assertion, personal power, and the capacity to act. Blue brings stability, rules, order, and a shared frame of reference. Orange develops autonomy, results orientation, rationality, and innovation. Green, which is of particular interest here, emerges in part as a reaction to the limits of a world dominated by performance and competition. It places greater value on human relationships, equality, inclusion, cooperation, and the pursuit of harmony.
These are value systems, not categories of people or behaviors. A society, an organization, or an individual can draw on different logics depending on the circumstances. Spiral Dynamics does not seek to determine which is morally superior to the others, but to understand the problems each one addresses and the capacities it brings.
For a more complete presentation of the model, you can read our article The Levels of Existence in Spiral Dynamics.
One important feature of development is that the emergence of a new value system does not make the previous ones obsolete. A society that places greater importance on equality still needs strong rules and institutions. An organization that develops cooperation cannot do without efficiency or clearly defined responsibilities. And a person who learns to take others into account must also retain the ability to assert themselves and defend their own needs.
Each stage of development thus brings new possibilities, but it can also lead to rejecting capacities that remain necessary. In trying to move beyond certain limits of the previous way of operating, we sometimes risk losing sight of the needs it was meeting.
This tension is particularly interesting to observe in the expressions of the Green value system. Three situations – at the level of personal relationships, organizations, and society – help us explore its paradoxes.
1. When Kindness Becomes an Expectation
In personal development communities, I have often encountered particularly welcoming environments. People are attentive to one another, feel free to express their emotions, and relationships are built around a sincere desire for mutual understanding. For someone who grew up in an authoritarian, competitive, or emotionally insensitive environment, this experience can be deeply liberating.
Yet the limits of this openness can become apparent as soon as someone approaches things differently.
Someone who expresses disagreement directly may be perceived as aggressive. Another who prefers to keep their emotions to themselves may seem closed off. Asking for explicit rules or wanting to make a decision quickly can be interpreted as a desire to control others. And the importance placed on individual achievement may be seen as a lack of attention to the collective.
No one is necessarily excluded explicitly. The mechanisms are often more subtle: silent disapproval, a suggestion that someone needs to “work on themselves”, or simply the feeling that certain ways of being are less welcome than others.
The environment remains caring, but that care comes with implicit norms. To be fully accepted in the group, you have to share a certain way of communicating, handling tensions, and approaching relationships.
It would be too simple to see this as a contradiction that invalidates these communities’ aspirations. Every group develops norms, and openness does not mean accepting all behaviors. A community is fully entitled to set boundaries around violence, manipulation, or disrespect.
The difficulty arises when we confuse genuinely destructive behaviors with ways of operating that simply do not match our preferences. Self-assertion is not necessarily domination. The need for structure is not necessarily rigidity. A focus on results does not necessarily imply indifference to people. These capacities can become excessive or poorly adapted, but they also respond to legitimate needs.
The paradox is that, in the name of inclusion and respect for differences, Green can reproduce the very patterns of exclusion it seeks to overcome. By treating certain ways of thinking or behaving as less evolved, it establishes a new set of expectations to which everyone is implicitly expected to conform. People who do not identify with it may then feel judged, marginalized, or pushed to leave the group. What initially appeared to be a particularly welcoming environment may ultimately reinforce insularity and diminish the very diversity it claims to embrace.
2. Green in Organizations: Genuine Progress or Just a Facade?
We find a similar tension in organizations. A company may be primarily driven by economic performance while also developing practices attentive to employee well-being, participation, or the quality of relationships. These initiatives are often driven by HR, individual managers, or by teams particularly attuned to the human dimensions of work.
They are sometimes met with skepticism. The company is criticized for talking about cooperation while maintaining a hierarchical organization, for promoting inclusion while leaving important decisions to leadership, or for defending employee well-being only as long as it does not threaten financial results.
These criticisms are sometimes entirely justified. There are organizations in which the language of participation mainly serves to make unchanged practices more acceptable. When teams are invited to speak up without their contributions being able to genuinely influence decisions, the approach may even produce more frustration than trust.
Yet we can also go too far in the opposite direction, assuming that an initiative grounded in human values has little merit unless it transforms the entire organization. Take a company that remains clearly oriented toward performance, innovation, and competitiveness. Its HR department develops feedback practices, encourages better listening within teams, and creates opportunities for dialogue about working conditions. These practices can produce real improvements, even if strategic decisions continue to be driven by economic considerations.
Should we consider this evolution a failure because the performance logic continues to dominate? That would assume that an organization’s development necessarily consists in replacing one value system with another. Yet an economically viable company needs different capacities, and they are not all provided by the same system. A focus on results can coexist with attention to people, clearly defined responsibilities can support participation, and a decision made by someone with the necessary expertise can be more relevant than consistently seeking consensus.
In my work supporting self-organization, I regularly encounter this tension. Teams want to develop autonomy and cooperation, but sometimes associate any form of authority or structure with what they are trying to move beyond. By removing necessary mechanisms without having developed the capacities to replace them, they risk creating uncertainty, tensions, and frustration – ultimately triggering a return to more directive practices.
The paradox is therefore twofold. We can underestimate Green’s real contributions when it remains a secondary influence within an organization dominated by Orange, while also overestimating the benefits of its development when it seeks to replace earlier logics. By rejecting certain forms of authority, structure, or performance in the name of cooperation, Green can weaken the very conditions that would allow its aspirations to take lasting shape.
3. When Progress Sets the Stage for Its Own Rejection
At the societal level, these mechanisms take on a far greater significance. For several decades, progressive movements have helped Western societies move toward greater equality, recognition of minorities, and the questioning of discrimination. These advances, to which Green values have contributed significantly, have enabled previously marginalized populations to gain rights and recognition.
Yet today we are witnessing the rise of nationalist, conservative, and sometimes isolationist movements – of which Donald Trump’s return to power in the United States is a particularly visible illustration. Their rhetoric often involves blaming foreigners, “wokeism,” the European Union, or political elites for society’s problems, while promising a return to an idealized past, grounded in the nation, cultural identity, religion, and traditions. These movements thus fuel the idea that society could regain its stability and greatness by retreating into its historical identities and rejecting influences perceived as threatening.
Spiral Dynamics makes it possible to examine one dimension of this reaction. Part of the population that supports these movements identifies with values associated with Blue: attachment to traditions, religion, order, and a clearly defined collective identity. For some people, the cultural transformations associated with Green are experienced as a direct threat to their values, established beliefs, and identity, as well as to their place in society and the future taking shape. When their convictions are presented as outdated, ignorant, or morally suspect, they may feel that the proposed future is being built without them – or even against them.
Faced with this perceived threat, the need to regain security and stability can encourage support for political leaders who draw on certain Red dynamics: assertion of personal power, confrontation, power struggles, and the promise to restore order through authority. The paradox is striking: in seeking to build a more inclusive society, Green can itself contribute to excluding people who do not share its values. By treating certain traditional convictions as outdated or illegitimate, it risks depriving part of the population of the possibility of recognizing themselves in the proposed future.
We can therefore explore the hypothesis that certain expressions of Green share some responsibility for the backlash they generate, helping create conditions in which movements promising to restore threatened traditions and identities gain support.
This dynamic is obviously not enough to explain the rise of these movements. Economic difficulties, tensions linked to immigration, distrust of institutions, and strategies of political polarization also play a major role. Feelings of exclusion can also be amplified and exploited for political ends. But that should not prevent us from examining Green’s possible contribution to this evolution: in seeking to move beyond earlier value systems without sufficiently recognizing their needs and contributions, some of its expressions may help create the conditions for their own rejection.
We can then ask what an expression of Green might have looked like – one capable of defending minority rights while also allowing populations more centered on Blue to recognize themselves in the proposed future. This would not mean giving up on equality or tolerating discrimination, but recognizing needs for belonging, continuity, and stability without requiring everyone to subscribe to the same values. A truly inclusive society does not assume that its entire population shares the same worldview. It must be able to organize the coexistence of different visions while preserving everyone’s fundamental rights.
Progress Is Not Measured by Our Preferences
These three situations illustrate a fundamental difficulty in how we assess change. We naturally tend to view as positive changes that align with our values: relational environments in which we feel comfortable, organizational practices we advocate, or social transformations that match our convictions. But what seems desirable to us does not necessarily contribute to the functioning of the whole, and what we reject can sometimes serve essential functions.
Even in Spiral Dynamics circles, we frequently speak of “healthy” or “unhealthy” expressions of value systems. This vocabulary risks introducing a moral judgment precisely where we are trying to understand developmental dynamics. Replacing it with “functional” or “dysfunctional” is not enough: functional for whom, to meet which needs, under which Life Conditions, and over what time horizon? An approach can solve certain problems while creating others – sometimes far beyond its initial intentions.
This perspective also invites us to reconsider our conception of progress. We readily imagine development as a sequence of stages in which each new value system should gradually replace the previous one. Yet the capacities developed by earlier systems do not become useless when a new system emerges. In trying to move beyond what seems outdated to us, we risk losing capacities we still depend on.
The paradoxes of Green illustrate this tension. Its aspirations for inclusion, equality, and cooperation are essential contributions, but they can turn against themselves when they lead to rejecting the values, needs, or capacities of other systems. What appears to us as progress can then help create the conditions for its own retreat.
Spiral Dynamics becomes particularly valuable when it helps us move beyond our preferences to understand the functions fulfilled by different value systems, their interactions, and their fit with Life Conditions. This is not about considering all their expressions desirable, nor about expecting each system to already possess the capacities of the next. The challenge is to understand what each value system contributes, which problems it helps address, and what may happen when we seek to transcend it without preserving the capacities on which we still depend.
NAVIGATING COMPLEXITY, VALUES AND CHANGE
Why do we resist change? How can we understand conflicting values and discover new possibilities for growth and transformation?Discover the Level 1 Masterclass in Spiral Dynamics, a powerful framework to:
- Understand yourself – Recognise the value systems shaping your beliefs, reactions and choices.
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I founded Paradigm21 in 2018 to share 3 years of experience in creating and managing a "distributed" organization. I am committed to supporting the transformation of our society and its institutions.
Specialized in the diagnosis and supporting transformation, I combine Spiral Dynamics, Integral Vision with a human and holarchic approach to organizations.
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