I was having a rather intense exchange of viewpoints in January 01 with John Lester on the subject of the ARC triangle. This article is based on those conversations.

One of the things John have been instrumental in helping me with has been the fundamental nature of a basic triangle. Without his point of view I might not have seen the fact that a triangle represents a process. Sure, there's some info to that effect came from LRH, especially when he talks about START - CHANGE - STOP, but it was John's enneagram discussions which really brought it home for me. Here is some of John's work with the enneagram.

This is what I see at this time:

Communication operates on the ARC triangle. Affinity is expressed as a willingness to be there as a communication terminal, and communication itself leads to changes in "reality". And there's the rub! It is this simple: for most people "reality" is AGREEMENT. I can't stress that point enough. Their reality is agreement. So in communicating to them, one must be careful to make the comm agree with them, or they will ARC break! This is very mechanical, automatic and reactive. There are a few of us who know (like Max Sandor for instance) is that "reality" doesn't have to include agreeing! It can be disagreement plus duplication for instance. If you say something which I would never say, I can still duplicate your point of view and ADD it to my reality. What most of these people are doing is the opposite. When you say something outside of their reality, they misduplicate it and REJECT it from their reality, which is an ARC break. It pretty much comes down to the normal "reality" being a sort of service fac held by a single viewpoint.

The ARC triangle is not often viewed as a process, a movement, or changes, by scios.
The first leg of the triangle is AFFINITY, which is the start point.
The second leg is COMMUNICATION, which is the process itself, equivalent to CHANGE.
The third and end-of-process leg is REALITY.

Any triangle is formed atop a dichotomy, in this case AFFINITY vs AVERSION (or DISAFFINITY or HATE... insert favorite opposite word here!). The transformation of any dichotomy into a triangle shifts the dichotomy into the third leg, in this case REALITY. This makes the process part (COMMUNICATION) of the triangle critical, determining whether the REALITY  mirrors affinity or disaffinity as either DUPLICATION or AGREEMENT.

DUPLICATION is perfect (not "optimum"! ;-) ha ha!) affinity because to truly duplicate one must become what is duplicated. That's the main trick to as-isness, to BE something perfectly. This could also be called perfect acceptance.

AGREEMENT is non-duplicated acceptance. Or perhaps it might be better to say, enforced acceptance, which is not acceptance at all! :) In LRH terms, AGREEMENT is other-determinism where the viewpoint or intention of another is taken in without being duplicated, without making it one's own.

One of the biggest barriers we face in communication is the fact that most people automatically reject anything to which they have not agreed. And they do so in spite of the fact that the more they agree, the more they drop in tone!

I've begun to be able to observe the difference between duplication and agreement in my conversations with people. In practical terms when communicating to others face to face or over the telephone I've found that if the person nods and uh-huhs seriously, then they have agreed (reluctantly usually!), but if they brighten up and say "Yeah!" then they have duplicated. Duplication in conversation is therefore equivalent to cognition in session, and will have the same good indicators.

John said to me:
>  Already I realised that at step one of using the ARCGPMKRC enneagram as an
>  auditing process the affinity to be described would have to include loves
>  and hates, the communication step would have to communicate regarding both
>  loves and hates and now it is obvious that the reality must also include both
>  loved and hated aspects. Agreement doesn't really come into it at all,
>  except to muddy the waters of truth.

To which I replied:
That's an excellent point! You're talking about viewing both ends of the dichotomy all through the ARC process! You realize (I bet you do) that you are turning everyday life into a continuous auditing session? :)

John:
>  We could develop a process which allowed people to swap forced agreements
>  for optional disagreement and correspondingy increased understanding.

Me:
Interesting... yeah, do that! 4 flows of course...

John:
>  Agreement is the biggest stupid maker of all time.

Me:
To accept something into oneself with duplicating it? Yeah, that is stupidity, practically by definition -- in fact that should become the new definition, ha ha! :)))))))

Ouran