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South Africa through the lens of Spiral Dynamics as a developmental state or disintegrating state

South Africa through the lens of Spiral Dynamics as a developmental state or disintegrating state
Nelson Mandela (second from right) and rugby boss Louis Luyt (third from right) during the 1995 Rugby World Cup final between South Africa and New Zealand at Ellis Park on 24 June 1995. (Photo: Wessel Oosthuizen / Gallo Images)
Diane Salters
By Diane Salters
18 Dec 2022
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One of the co-founders of Spiral Dynamics, American Dr Don Beck, worked closely with Kitch Christie and Francois Pienaar as they readied the Springbok squad for the 1995 World Cup finals. We can use the lens of Spiral Dynamics to help us to understand how South Africa is developing and where we are failing.

The ANC has always emphasised the need for South Africa to be a developmental state. In reality, it is now clear we are faced, instead, with the prospect of becoming a disintegrating state. How have we come to this? Raymond Suttner in a recent Daily Maverick article writes:

“The post-apartheid South African state was established on very different norms from that of apartheid. By norms I refer to a set of standards that include but are not encompassed purely by laws, but also include values and practices. Norms refer to standards or patterns of behaviour expected of specific people in particular conditions. Norms, whether in law or established practices, enable us to know what to expect and have certainty in our lives.”


He goes on to lament that those norms collapsed under Jacob Zuma and his supporters. He does not, however, investigate why. What was the wider context of norms and values that made it so easy for them to gain so strong a foothold so rapidly? Nor does he address where we go from here.

Looting on Monty Naicker Road during the July 2021 riots. (Photo: Samora Chapman)



This question of norms is very important and one we have not adequately talked about in South Africa. What norms do we require for a developmental state and what values underlie those norms?

Hurried transition, difficult circumstances


The “standards or patterns of behaviour expected of specific people” can vary in particular circumstances and according to different values or world views. The ANC and the country are facing not simply a collapse of the values and norms that were espoused by our Constitution and still held in some of our institutions, but a more widespread clash of values and world views that is to be expected in a country transitioning hurriedly from rural traditionalism to modernity under very difficult circumstances.

Let us not forget the distorting and damaging effect colonialism and apartheid had on our society, both in disrupting traditional society on the one hand and forcing people to remain within its ethnic confines on the other.

In these difficult circumstances, what does development mean and what is the role of a developmental state?

There are many theories about development — most of them focusing on economic and financial factors and lacking the complexity required for the psychosocial challenges involved as societies adapt their values and norms to suit their new realities.

Spiral Dynamics


One theory which had an impact on our early negotiations and the establishment of our Constitution (and, as an aside, helped our rugby team to victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup) is Spiral Dynamics. I think it may be useful again. I am not going to go into the fullness of this elegant theory of psycho-social development, but anyone wanting details can find them here.

Simply put for now, Spiral Dynamics is a psycho-social concept that posits that human nature is not fixed and that 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.

Furthermore, it tracks these changes historically as societies move from one means of production and survival to another. The trajectory is from simpler to more complex forms in an ever-expanding spiral of development.

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Using the lens of Spiral Dynamics may help us to understand how we are developing and where we are failing. It can clarify what values and norms are prevailing and why. It can also guide us on the path to becoming a truly developmental state where the values, world view and means of survival of all the different stages are recognised, and people are empowered to develop further.

To use the colour coding of the Spiral Dynamics model, the stages of human psychosocial development we are primarily experiencing in South Africa — and in many other parts of the world — are Purple, Red, Blue, Orange, Green and Yellow.

(There are other stages on the spiral, but they are less relevant to South Africa at this time)

Purple denotes the values of a more traditional rural society (not only in Africa but everywhere it has occurred). The individual is less important than the group. Loyalty is to kin, clan and tribe. Ancestors are revered and the old ways are maintained as a core response — sometimes even in the face of changing circumstances.

In such a world it is right and proper to give preference or favour to your own kin when you are in a position to hand out jobs or opportunities for wealth. Not to do so would be wrong. It is also not required of you to take personal responsibility for your own actions as long as you are acting in the interests of your group. Respect is automatically accorded to age or position and does not have to be earned.

This world view, while having many strengths (it can be seen as a local lived ubuntu) does not fit easily with the requirements of a modern industrialised world or a democratic state with a legal framework for how tenders should be awarded. Institutions or political groups dominated by traditions of loyalty to the group will not be willing to enforce something like a “step aside” rule but will always seek to protect their own.

Red denotes the next stage of the evolution of values. Here some individuals become assertive and stand above the group. The world view is that Might is Right. Strong men (historically men and this is still largely true) emerge who are ready to take what they want by any means. People gather around them to pick scraps from their table and to be protected from other strong men.

This stage has energy, drive and expansion, which is needed for individuals to free themselves from some constraints of Purple but, if unhindered, leads to factions, warlords, assassinations and grabbing the spoils of victory for personal benefit — “I didn’t join the struggle to be poor.”

In a developmental state seeking stability and progress, people acting out of the Red stage need containment by the next stage, Blue.

Blue is characterised by rules and order, established by the state, church or judicial courts. There is a clear hierarchy of roles and authority. Life is orderly and the trains run on time. Once again, the group takes precedence over the individual in order to create stability and safety.

Historically, in many countries the police force has been represented as the “thin blue line” holding the boundary between social order and disorder. Today this is simply not the case for most of South Africa and criminal elements hold sway. This is why our judiciary has played such a crucial role, indeed more crucial than it would need to if other institutions were holding that Blue line too.

Of course, the Blue stage can become authoritarian, bureaucratic and non-developmental if stuck in rigid and out-of-date thinking. We had clear evidence of this under apartheid and we have some current evidence of it in the rigid and backward-looking bureaucracy in Home Affairs.

The next stage is Orange. Orange is characterised by a world view that seeks to challenge the old traditions, experiment with new learning, explore science and enterprise. Like Red, it is biased less toward the group and more toward the individual.

In the Western world, Orange has historically been a spur to economic development and many of our young people are struggling for the space in which to develop in this way. Business and science offer the best avenues for them to find and live into this world view. Doing this without resources for education and at the risk of offending Purple family values is challenging for them.

However, Orange, too, has its limitations. Being so strongly individual, it may mean the greater good of wider society or the environment is ignored. So, in reaction to this over-individualism, the spiral of development swings around again towards the more communal values of the next stage, Green.

Green is characterised by a growing awareness of our interdependent relationships with each other and the natural environment. In this, it is similar to Purple but goes much wider, taking all humankind and even all species as its kin.

It was when this stage began to emerge in the world that people first became properly aware that enslaving another human being was profoundly wrong… and were willing to fight not only for their own freedoms, but for the freedoms of others who they did not even know.

We see this world view alive in our wonderful Gift of the Givers, our whistle-blowers, brave journalists and eco-warriors. At its core, the trade union movement expresses Green, where an injury to one is an injury to all, although its actual behaviour has often not reflected this.

The next stage, Yellow, is rapidly emerging, although only a small percentage of the world’s people have fully encompassed it yet. What makes Yellow particularly significant is that, for the first time, people living into the Yellow perspective recognise that all the previous stages are valid in their own way and can be integrated into our new circumstances.

All the previous stages tend to scorn whatever came before them. Red scorns Purple as weak and lacking power. Blue scorns Red as chaotic and undisciplined. Orange scorns Blue as strict and limiting. Green scorns Orange as self-seeking and exploitative.

The Yellow perspective enables us to value, adapt and integrate the traditional values and wisdoms of Purple, the energy and drive of Red, the structure and security of Blue, the exploration and enterprise of Orange and the social care and conscience of Green.

A tall order


This may all seem a tall order, and it is. People’s living conditions need to change, education needs to be geared towards meeting the needs of communities’ circumstances and world view and good leaders who understand the dynamic nature of development need to step up. Without this developmental impetus and under conditions of stress individuals and social groups can regress to earlier levels and we begin to see the loss of those values we need, infrastructure that is essential and social order that keeps us safe.

Fortunately, this spiral seems, like all human growth processes, to have a natural drive of its own. Also, we are a nation that loves sport… back to my mention of the World Cup of 1995.

1995 Rugby World Cup


One of the co-founders of Spiral Dynamics, the American Dr Don Beck, worked closely with Kitch Christie and Francois Pienaar as they readied the Springbok squad for the 1995 Rugby World Cup finals (The Crucible; Forging South Africa’s Future, by Beck and South African journalist Graham Linscott).

south africa development Nelson Mandela (second from right) and rugby boss Louis Luyt (third from right) during the 1995 Rugby World Cup final between South Africa and New Zealand at Ellis Park on 24 June 1995. (Photo: Wessel Oosthuizen / Gallo Images)



Sport itself can be a microcosm of the integration of these stages. We all feel fierce loyalty to our team (Purple), we will cheer our hardest for that team as we also expect each individual member to be heroic (Red), all of this while the referee holds the rules of the game intact and calls to order anyone breaking them (Blue).

The emergence of professionalism, sponsorship and sports science tells us we have moved well into the Orange phase. The recent evidence sportspeople have given of their willingness to bend the knee or otherwise show solidarity for oppressed groups is clear evidence of Green. Yellow is the Spiral Wizard that, like a really good team manager, moves up and down the spiral, stimulating development at all levels — and realises that he or she will in turn be overtaken by the further unfolding of the Spiral.

Political parties


What does this mean for us in our current political context? It may be interesting to look at the hues of the main political parties.

The ANC came into power in 1994 expressing strongly Green values and principles, but is currently dominated by largely Purple or Red elements. The DA is largely Orange with a hint of Green (not enough to make it electable in a developmental state) but with strong underpinning of much needed Blue order and respect for the law.

The EFF is Red in tooth, claw and beret and seeks power at any price. The IFP is Purple (Zulu traditionalism) tending to Red, with aspirations to Orange, but has no means of getting there without first passing through and absorbing the lessons of Blue.

What I have offered is a picture in broad brushstrokes and, of course, individuals within all these parties may show up at different points on the spectrum. Some even stand out as Yellow. If you spot them, support them.

We need more Spiral Wizards to work their magic and give new meaning to our erstwhile aspiration to become a Rainbow Nation aware of the full spectrum of our differences and the need to value and integrate every hue when it manifests in a healthy form. DM

Diane Salters is a psychotherapist, trainer and community development practitioner. She was an ANC local government councillor in the interim structures, 1994-95. She has not been an ANC member for a few years, having resigned on matters of principle.

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