The Power of the Paradigm The structure of reality (29 slides) creatively compiled by dr. michael farnworth

A paradigm quiz 1. Do they have a 4th of July in England? 2. Why can’t a man living in Winston Salem, N.C., be buried west of the Mississippi? 3. Some months have 30 days, some 31. How many have 28 days? 4. A farmer had 17 sheep. All but nine died. How many did he have left? 5. How many birthdays does the average person have?

Fill in the proverbs... The pen is mightier than the... A penny saved... A miss is as good as a... Two’s company, three’s... Children should be seen and not... When the blind leads the blind... Better be safe than... Don’t bite the hand that... You can’t teach an old dog new...

Our paradigms predispose us to see things in a certain way. In essence, we are programmed by past experience and learning. We see things the way we have been taught to see them.

Cultural paradigms Paradigms are the cultural DNA that governs the way we see reality. It’s why, Christians eat hamburgers while Hindus view cows as sacred. It’s why, in China roast dog is a delicacy and in America it’s an outrage.

“The mind is such that it deals only with ideas. It is not possible for the mind to relate to anything other than ideas. Therefore, it is not correct to think that the mind actually can ponder reality. All that the mind can ponder is its ideas about reality. Therefore, whether or not something is true is not a matter of how closely it corresponds to the absolute truth, but of how consistent it is with our experience.” Gary Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters

Paradigms can help us make sense out of seemingly random bits of information. We plug them into our paradigms and the paradigms give them sense.

The 4 purposes of cultural paradigms 1. They provide a world picture and set of stories to explain why things are the way they are. 2. They provide a unifying and bonding of the people, via the stories. 3. They provide sanctification of the social order. (it’s how God wants things) 4. They provide individuals with a map of life’s paths and goals.

“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truths if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.” Tolstoy

A quote by anthropologist Franz Boaz How can we realize the shackles placed on us by tradition? For if we can recognize them, then we can break them.

Paradigms are the cultural filters that we use to interpret the world we live in. These paradigms make up the cultural trance we all participate in, to some degree.

“In Japan for an international conference on religion, Campbell overheard another American delegate, a social philosopher from New York, say to a Shinto priest, “ We’ve been now to a good many ceremonies and have seen quite a few shrines. But I don’t get your ideology. I don’t get your theology.” The Japanese paused as though in deep thought and then slowly shook his head. “ I think we don’t have ideology,” he said. “We don’t have theology. We dance.”

The power of paradigms They only let us see what is consistent with our already established views and biases. They make the rest of reality invisible so that we can’t see it. It is the paradigm that determines what we can see.

We do not live in reality: we live in our paradigms, our habituated perceptions, our illusions we share through culture we call reality. William Irwin Thompson, Evil and World Order

The very real dilemma We can fail to see what is in front of our own eyes, unless it fits into our frame of reference. The job before us is to begin to see with “new eyes”... That's the real act of discovery.

This is a C.S. Lewis poem about how you can’t be an egg all your life... Its hard for a bird to learn to fly. It’s a jolly lot harder for an egg to learn how. You can’t be an egg for all your life. You either have to hatch or go rotten. You’ve come of age.

It is so much easier to go through life being told what to think and to do and believe that the adult authority figure knows best whether we are 4 or 44. It takes courage in growing up and awakening to the structure of the culture’s reality.

This hatching can be likened to waking up from the cultural trance, seeing with new eyes, hearing with new ears and understanding with a new heart.

The goal of understanding paradigms does not reside in looking for the ultimate paradigm (there isn’t one) but rather in understanding the nature of paradigms and how we are stuck in them depending on what we choose to believe and see.

Knowing in part may make a fine tale, but wisdom comes from seeing the whole.

Socially constructed truth... On some level, we need to wake up to the fact that our culture creates the paradigm we call truth. We cannot escape the realities of our limited perceptions of truth.

To learn some things may necessitate unlearning some other things

“Nothing is easier than to identify one’s own favorite political, economic, historical, and moral convictions with the truth. That gives one a neat, convenient, but altogether too easy advantage over one’s fellow. If my ideas are the true ones– and I certainly will not entertain them if I suspect for a moment that they are false!– then, all truth being one, they are also the good news, and to oppose them is to play the role of Satan. This is simply insisting that our way is God’s way and therefore, the only way. It is the height of impertinence.” H. Nibley: Beyond Politics, page 24

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