While eating dinner (I make outstanding loin lamb chops!), I happened to be watching the news about what’s going on in Iraq, and suddenly, “Clare Graves” rang out in my brain. How many times have we intervened in other societies, trying to grow them up to be “junior Americans”, replete with democratic principles, then after we’ve left, they revert back to their “normal” ways of life? Apparently, their values — their bio-psycho-social systems– are not compatible with our way of life, but they are compatible with their own and as Graves indicated, you can’t skip steps in the helix. We saw this in Korea… in Vietnam… in Iraq… in Afghanistan. And still we find it necessary to impose our will in these places. Sure, by our value set it’s unconscionable how these “terrorists” murder innocent civilians as well as military people with whom they disagree. And I get that our motivation is likely not exactly based on fairness and altruism as it is on self-interests, of which we have many in the Middle East. Still, to most Americans, it seems senseless that Muslims who worship Allah should be killing each other based on some nuanced differences in the way they worship (Shiite vs. Sunni vs. Kurd, etc.). But it’s their country(s), not ours. And by Graves nomenclature, they are “3/4’s” while we are a firmly-entrenched “6” society. And never the twain shall meet.

Randy