Pack Up Your Paradigm

Just about since the first time I heard the word Paradigm related to a future shift in humankind it has been connected with the idea that one can pick and choose that which will be shifted and changed. It seemed that people felt that this would be a serve yourself revolution, something like a salad bar, and one's most cherished aspsects of the current paradigm would remain untouched as perfect, enduring, and eternal. Like packing ones bags including favored ideas, myths, religious beliefs, and notions of life and the universe in preparation to board a train bound for The New Paradigm, it would not be necessary to change much or sacrifice basic ideas. It would just be a new and improved version of now.

A new Paradigm, in the view of the particular viewer, would then leave their specific religion and worldview untouch for the most part and maybe just be about the rest of the world "coming around" to their way of seeing. In a way, some folks I've spoken with seem to feel something like "If there ain't gonna be no Big Bang (or fill in this with a religion, political party, lifestyle, or habit such as cigarettes) there I'm just not going to go".

Over the years when I've been around talk of this big future revolution, Paradigm Shift, global transformation, etc., eyebrows raise, jaws drop, and steam comes out of ears when I suggest that this will mark the virtual end to some of the old ways of thinking and seeing, such as The Big Bang Theory (which has actually died many times over only to be revamped and rebuilt) and the idea of everyone coming together, in John Lennon fashion, without any one belief system taking over...well, it's just preposterous.

The word apocalypse is defined as revelation, among other things, and the coming global shift or transformation could be a Paradigm Shift in which change is fundamental all across the board, or not. It is just interesting to me that so many people seem inclined to see their beliefs as untouchable or permanent. History shows that this cannot be true.

Comment

You need to be a member of WorldShift 2012 to add comments!

Join WorldShift 2012

Comment by Matthew Jesse Montez Watts on April 5, 2011 at 2:38pm: This is amazing - "...an innocence won and willfully acted upon through the knowledge of experience and hard-won truth..." - and I will have to read this again and again to fully take it in.

Thank you very much.

Comment by Matthew Jesse Montez Watts on April 5, 2011 at 2:34pm: Part of the whole Nuclear power debate goes back to Ronald Reagan era thinking that the danger and long life of nuclear and toxic waste does not matter in the long run because "the good lord is coming this generation of next" and people will be leaving Earth for some better place, etc.. The Earth is disposable so we are free to do whatever it takes to make things "work" just for now, etc.

Regarding the evolution of social systems, we are born and raised inside a social order allowing us to feel free and with freedom of choice even though this is a manufactured illusion...we are free to believe whatever they tell us to believe, in some ways, and we have the freedom of choice, between Coke and Pepsi ("free" Democratic elections choosing between DNC or GOP) and social change happens over longer periods with supply and demand shifting over time. The Green movement is slowly changing which products are offered, such as Oatmeal now being served by McDonalds, and more and more people are coming to realize where the power really lies....with individuals making up groups constituting the masses.

The energy issue will, I hope, come down to people being willing to use less and live more simply, as some have put so well on this site, and with electronic products that use less power, etc.. Instead of making more power, we can use less. I once suggested to a Lawrence Livermore Lab physicist that instead of making more power for street lighting that he invent glow in the dark trees...he laughed but thought that seeking alternatives was a bright idea.

Comment by David Woolfson on April 5, 2011 at 2:19pm: Experiencing life on a personal level and analyzing patterns of societal change over human history are two very different approaches of course. We build our societies out from our collective belief systems/worldviews which are always sacred and unquestioned within the society's mainstream. Those belief systems are based on shared values and memes which do evolve as knowledge, interconnectivity and complexity increase. We learn by how well our belief systems - what we know is right - match reality. The major global effect of the Fukushima plant disaster may be not only that it wasn't safe enough but that nuclear power itself can never be safe enough. That can drive the urgent implementation of alternate energy systems.

Comment by Matthew Jesse Montez Watts on April 5, 2011 at 2:03pm: Ah...wake up and smell thyself...interesting thoughts. Individual and personal, collective and communal, thought and paradigm, putting it in perspective, the forest and the trees, easy to forget the small system, eyes to brain, I'm seeing from, within to without, love playing with words to get beyond words.

Just wondering this morning if the ends of civilizations relate or equate to the end of their gods. Was the unwillingness to transform, evolve and change so much to ask or too big a task that the whole shabang was lost? Is that too big a cost to change one's mind?

Comment by Matthew Jesse Montez Watts on April 5, 2011 at 12:55pm: Brilliant comments, thanks. Leading to the unimaginable...that is outstanding. There may be a tendency to merely revamp what has previously been imagined for the future instead of welcoming and even celebrating the unknown. Like the picture of the rose, rehashing thoughts, rather than having the real, thinking original thoughts, or something like this.

Fear of the unknown is so powerful a force. Shall we give up humanity or let go of the gods? Too many would rather see their own children die in fire than even consider rethinking their belief in an all powerful superhuman creator diety. It's just too terrible a thought to entertain, like a vicious circle of mental patterns or a Catch 22 wired into illogical process?

A dance between self interest and communal interest...with corporate interest versus the banking industry with oil producers chiming in and auto makers and drug companies and let's not forget the Neilsen Ratings...

Comment by David Woolfson on April 5, 2011 at 9:34am: I view such large-scale societal shifts as being fundamentally about collective values shifting and the dynamic interplay between self (ego) and communal (altruism) interest. The Spiral Dynamic framework sets these elements out very well adding the evolutionary aspect of the development of societal values from initial societies to more complex ones.

Comment by David Woolfson on April 5, 2011 at 7:34am: I see such societal shifts as more fundamentally about value shifts which underpin worldviews and the core dynamic an ongoing dance between self (ego) and communal (altruism) interest. The Spiral Dynamics framework sets this out very well in the context of an evolutionary societal spiral where higher values evolve amidst the ongoing self/community dynamic.