Chinese Checkers : A Reorientation of the Order-Chaos Continuum and the False Equivalence Between Trauma-Sensitivity and True Empathy
Introduction
This paper re-orients the conventional left–right political spectrum by rotating it ninety degrees, transforming a horizontal binary (Order vs Chaos, Thinking vs Feeling) into a vertical pyramid. The apex represents precise, evidence-based, dispassionate rationality; the broad base represents undifferentiated emotional chaos driven by unprocessed grievance. Most human psychological and political life occurs in the unstable gradients between these poles.
Core themes and topics:
The conflation of trauma-conditioned hyper-sensitivity with genuine empathy.
Evidence-Intuition (EI) versus Grievance-Intuition (GI) as more accurate descriptors than Jungian or MBTI categories.
The pyramid model: needle-like precision at the apex, dissolving complexity toward chaotic grievance at the base.
The spiral (not circular) nature of historical and psychological cycles.
Numerical-hermetic symbolism of the 3/8 (stability/chaos) ratio and its relation to cosmic harmonics.
The Overton Window mapped onto the vertical pyramid rather than a horizontal line, explaining why extremist positions are always minority positions yet disproportionately influential in moments of crisis.
The political consequence: democratic centrism as the long-term statistical average, periodically disrupted by minority grievance waves.
Pathways toward the apex: distinguishing true intuition (holistic harmony) from selective GI, and cultivating post-traumatic growth rather than post-traumatic rigidity.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a diagnostic and navigational map that explains why contemporary culture repeatedly mistakes raw wounds for moral superiority, why political discourse has become hysterionic, and how individuals and societies can re-orient toward genuine empathy and evidence-based clarity without denying the reality of suffering.
Section 1 – Trauma-Sensitivity Masquerading as Empathy
Gabor Maté (2022) observes that “trauma is not what happens to you, it’s what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.” The unhealed wound creates a permanent state of physiological hyper-arousal (Porges, 2011). This state heightens detection of micro-cues but interprets them through the lens of prior betrayal. The result is what this paper describes as “grievance-intuition” (GI): an affective forecasting system calibrated to threat, not to accurate theory-of-mind. Bessel van der Kolk’s dictum “the body keeps the score” is frequently misquoted to sanctify this hyper-vigilance rather than to heal it.
Section 2 – Evidence-Intuition (EI) vs Grievance-Intuition (GI)
True intuition, as described in Jung’s original typology and later validated by Epstein’s Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory (1994), is a rapid integrative process that draws on embodied pattern recognition across vast data. GI is not integrative; it is a trauma-triggered pattern-matching that selectively amplifies confirming evidence and suppresses disconfirmation. Research on motivated reasoning (Kunda, 1990; Lord, Ross & Lepper, 1979) and on moral grandstanding (Tosi & Warmke, 2020) demonstrates that GI dominates public discourse when personal identity is fused with victimhood status.
Section 3 – The Pyramid Model and the 90-Degree Reorientation
By rotating the horizontal Order–Chaos axis vertically, we immediately see why “both sides” rhetoric is false equivalence: the apex (EI-dominated cognition) is inherently rarer, more effortful, and less reproductively fit in traumatic environments than the base (GI-dominated reactivity). This maps directly onto McGilchrist’s hemispheric hypothesis in The Master and His Emissary (2009): the left hemisphere seeks precision and manipulation of parts; the right hemisphere contextual wholeness and emotional gestalt. In traumatic cultures the right-hemisphere alarm system hijacks the left-hemisphere tools, producing rigid ideological systems that feel emotionally alive but are epistemically brittle.
Section 4 – Spiral Dynamics and the 3/8 Hermetic Ratio
The pyramid structure reference 3/8 echoes the Hermetic-Qabalistic tradition (Regardie, 1937–40) and Cotterell’s sun-spot/magnetic-reversal cycles (1989–1998). In both systems, 3 represents the minimum stable triangle (thesis–antithesis–synthesis), while 8 represents infinity on its side—the oceanic chaos. The spiral (not circle) is critical: each turn through apparent political cycles moves humanity slightly higher or lower on the pyramid depending on whether integration or regression dominates.
Section 5 – The Overton Pyramid and Political Mechanics
When the Overton Window is overlaid on the vertical pyramid, the “acceptable” range is revealed to be a narrow band near the unstable middle. Extreme positions are minority by definition, yet they drag the window upward (toward precision) or downward (toward chaos) during crises. Martin Gurri’s The Revolt of the Public (2014) documents how information abundance collapses trust in elite apex positions, causing mass regression toward the grievance base and temporary victories for demagogues.
Section 6 – Escaping the Base: From GI to EI and True Empathy
Clinical pathways:
Internal Family Systems therapy (Schwartz & Sweezy, 2020) to separate the protective “manager” parts that weaponise grievance from the exiled wounded parts that need witness.
Deliberate practice in probabilistic thinking and pre-mortems (Tetlock & Gardner, 2015).
Contemplative practices that cultivate witness consciousness (vipassanā, centering prayer) to dis-identify from both EI arrogance and GI reactivity.
Reclaiming the original meaning of empathy as described by Edith Stein (1917): an act of conscious perspective-taking, not involuntary contagion.
Conclusion
The razor pyramid is not a moral judgment; it is a cartographic fact. Most of humanity, most of the time, lives closer to the chaotic base than to the precise apex because survival once demanded it. Modern conditions of safety and information now permit—indeed require—movement upward. Mistaking the raw wound for empathy is the single greatest obstacle. Until that conflation is named and dissolved, political hysteria will continue to masquerade as compassion, and genuine intuition will remain drowned out by the louder chorus of unhealed pain.
Index of Works Cited (title – author – year)
When the Body Says No – Gabor Maté – 2022
The Polyvagal Theory – Stephen Porges – 2011
The Body Keeps the Score – Bessel van der Kolk – 2014
Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory – Seymour Epstein – 1994
Motivated Reasoning – Ziva Kunda – 1990
Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization – Lord, Ross & Lepper – 1979
Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk – Justin Tosi & Brandon Warmke – 2020
The Master and His Emissary – Iain McGilchrist – 2009
The Golden Dawn – Israel Regardie – 1937–1940
The Mayan Prophecies – Maurice Cotterell & Adrian Gilbert – 1995
The Revolt of the Public – Martin Gurri – 2014
Internal Family Systems Therapy (2nd ed.) – Richard Schwartz & Martha Sweezy – 2020
Superforecasting – Philip Tetlock & Dan Gardner – 2015
On the Problem of Empathy – Edith Stein – 1917 (trans. 1989)
Spiral Dynamics – Don Beck & Christopher Cowan – 1996
The Passion of the Western Mind – Richard Tarnas – 1991
The intention of the original text is diagnostic and liberatory: to expose the widespread conflation of trauma-reactivity with moral virtue, to offer a more accurate geometric and symbolic model of human cognition and politics, and ultimately to chart a path toward the apex where true empathy and clear perception become possible.
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