The Fractal of 7 (Principles 1-3)
A sequence of universal architypes
Most of my work consists of bringing people to recognize clarity in the middle of pain. The gift of pain is its urgency: it requires you to respond, preferably quickly. Pain has another fundamental characteristic that you ignore only at your peril: it is a signal that some type of reality is being violated. Dull the pain, and the problem will come back, and usually far worse than it was the first time. From the very first itch, it is critical that you quickly identify the underlying issue and do something about it that fixes it. Every step of non-reality only extends the pain, and adds a layer of complexity that makes the solution harder to find. If you have the right perspective, the pain is usually easy to understand and the remedy becomes simple. That doesn’t always make the solution easy, but it does make it clear.
For instance, when faced with the problem of why people drive like they do, we had to dig down several layers to get to the underlying reasons for those behaviors. Once they were found, the solutions were obvious and had a wide range of applications. Viewed as a behavior, the pattern was complex and indecipherable. Once the right principle was identified, the rest of was easy to grasp.
We all have our favorite tools. Some tools are very specific: finely tuned to a unique task. Others are multifunctional: like Swiss army knives. My favorite multitasker is a series of conceptual fractals. A fractal is a self-repeating pattern that manifests similarly at multiple scales. Creation loves to hit Ctrl-C, and Ctrl-V over and over, and some patterns pop up all over the place. When you understand the snippet that is getting copied, then the pattern becomes recognizable, no matter how it is manifesting. I’ve teased the fractal of 7 a few times and it’s time to build it out. It has huge implications for city design and the ways that we approach change in each place.
A sequence and a set
I stumbled onto the Fractal of 7 around 2019. I didn’t discover it. I haven’t been the best one to build it out. Bill Gothard and Arthur Burk rightly deserve those honors—and they did so within their faith-based analysis. I’ll dig deeper into how they found them and their spiritual ramifications next Monday on my other blog but if you Google “Redemptive Gifts” you could probably find a million pages on it.
The Fractal of 7 contains a sequence of unique archetypes that I have found to be particularly helpful in categorizing and understanding cooperative dynamics. In terms of systems, it’s hard to have more than 7 components that still work together cooperatively (check out this interesting mathematical analysis on it). Once you start into 8, 9, or 10 items in a sequence, your mind can’t keep track of the jump in the order of magnitude from one to eight. Even our typical memory capacity tops out for most people around 7—if it gets that far. We Gen X’rs remember memorizing 7 digit phone numbers in our childhood (or at least the local 3 + 4 numbers). That’s why all those infuriating 2FA number sets are only 6 digits. It’s as high as they can go and still have it work for nearly everyone, no matter how bad their memory is.
The fractal of 7 also catalogs the most predictive personality typing I’ve ever seen—by far—and that typing extends to every level of organization from organ systems in the body to continents (and probably farther). Most personality indexes will help you put yourself in a box. This one explains why that box works for you—and why a different box works for someone else, along with why you’re both necessary to each other.
There’s more to it though. It isn’t the elements alone: the order in the sequence matters. It can be used to map historical periods, developmental patterns, and a bunch else—I haven’t found much that doesn’t fit pretty well in the sequence.
It is particularly good for categorizing cities and countries, which is really important when you’re trying to design them. Most planners have the same prescription for every city. They’ll repackage the architectural details to match the local materials, but it’s about the same strategy everywhere. There are absolutes in good city planning, but those absolutes get expressed in different ways in every place. There’s little thought as to the fundamental nature of the city itself—its goals, its context in the wider region, or its history. If you understand the critical question that is being asked and answered by that place, you will have a much better chance of understanding how they will respond to different strategies. Their development patterns and regulatory choices flow from their key questions. Disregard them at your own peril.
The Archetypes:
There’s no way I can do justice to all of them in a single blog post, but I can at least give you the list and go through a quick description of the first three (we’ll do the rest next week). The original labels come from the list of spiritual gifts in Romans 2:6-8. The labels for each are typically taken from the King James for that passage, but I’m not sure those words capture what we would think of today for each role. The second column is my attempt to reframe it in more modern terms.
Prophet and Mercy are bookends. Prophet wants to understand them all. Mercy embodies them all. The inner 5 build the depth of the relational possibilities from individual to teams.
So here goes…the first three:
1st Chair: Prophet, the principle of design
The key principle for the prophet position is design. They are constantly asking, “What is the key underlying principle here and how does it apply universally?” This is the toddler’s ‘put everything in your mouth to taste it,’ phase. They are fearlessly incorrigible innovators and experimenters, but they can fall into perfectionism traps. They are great at forecasting because they can see where things are naturally going to go based on what is happening now. They are idealistic in theory and often don’t live up to that idealism in practice.
The US and Germany are both prophet countries—but with very different manifestations. America embodies the experimental “move fast and break things” aspect. Germany embodies the perfectionistic “do it right or don’t do it at all” aspect. Both are grounded in the desire to understand the nature of the universe and then use that information creatively. Both are off the charts innovative. Neither are great at implementation—they need someone else to do that. Boston and Seattle are prophet cities: innovation hubs with long memories and a history of idealistic thinking that often doesn’t make it all the way into practice.
2nd Chair: Servant, the principle of authority
The key principle for the servant is authority. In toddler terms, they have moved past exploring others to relating to them, and that means that some people are in charge and will care for you, while others are under you and need you to take care of them. Look up the hierarchy for direction and provision. Look down and you are responsible to provide the same for them. That makes them loyal to a fault. If you want to make a servant mad, hurt their people: you will find Momma grizzly.
Servant organizations, institutions, or cities are often discounted and stigmatized. That’s sad because they provide a level of hospitality and nurture that is uncommon. Agriculture is often a strong suit. This nurturing ability makes them a magnet for both victims needing that support and the predators that will victimize them. These communities need strong leadership but often get petty dictators instead, which breeds a deep distrust. Governmental systems are often fragmented and dysfunctional. Although Disney itself is in Orlando, most of the support structures and many of the hotels are across the line in Kissimmee—a town no one notices that has amazing hospitality, deeply loyal Hispanic communities, and lots of service employees. I can’t tell you how often their governmental systems have imploded.
Chair 3: Teacher, the principle of responsibility
The fundamental principle for the teacher is responsibility. That sounds a lot like authority, but the difference is that the teacher cares who is in the chain of command. They will salute the expert, not the office. This is ultimately grounded in hero-worship. In terms of toddlers, this is the stage where the child throws a fit when they are left with anyone other than mama.
Teachers have long bibliographies. They will name drop to prove their points and confirm their legitimacy. History matters—our past was built by our heroes. Medical, religious, institutional, parks, and military support systems are usually much larger than the place warrants—they are all land use types grounded in hero worship.
The I-4 corridor is a teacher corridor with two very different teacher cities. Tampa is the older of the two with roots in commercial expertise—first in cattle and later in cigars—very wild west. They are now home to the US military’s Central Command. Medical insurance was basically invented in Ybor City, the old Cuban district, run by the fathers of the Cuban community. Orlando grew up around an old fort, placed there to watch the main military meeting tree for the Seminoles during the war: a respected place to rest, repair, and strategize. Even before Disney came, it was a place for tin can tourists to visit the sunny south. Today, hero worship is off the charts in the tourist area.
Next week: Chairs 4-7
That’s enough to get you started. I’ll build out the next four next week, then we can do a deep dive on each one individually. I’m hoping I can give you a strategy for thinking through the design and retrofit of the community based on the place type. In the meantime, I’ll also have to build out the fractals of 2 and 3 because it puts an interesting twist on how each of the fractal of 7 manifests. There’s a reason that the US and Germany are so different, even though they have the same archetype.