Webmaster: Val Valerian
Books Articles
and Essays Comparative
Charts LinksThe Paradigm Web
Planetary Paradigms, Paradigm Shifting and the Paradigm Conspiracy, and
Why Our Social Systems Violate Human Potential and How We Can Change Them
Last Amended: 30 May 2000
Webmaster: Val Valerian
Books Articles
and Essays Comparative
Charts Links
The Paradigm Web
Planetary Paradigms, Paradigm
Shifting and the Paradigm Conspiracy, and
Why Our Social Systems Violate Human Potential and How We Can Change Them
. . . 1999 
2012
. . .
An overview by Denise Breton and Chris Largent, authors of the books
The
Paradigm Conspiracy, Soul of Economies and Love, Soul
and Freedom
How Are Planetary
Problems Really Being Approached?
What Is The Model of Approach
That Will Really Work?
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Things We'd Like to Share: Before His Time - Ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson 4/20 |
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Perspectives and
Issues Explored on This Site
Paradigm Power
We’re concerned about where the culture is going, and what we can all do to change its course. As we see it, our main power lies with philosophy and the force of paradigm shifts. Shifting our mindset doesn’t cost money, it’s democratic (we can all do it), it goes to the crux of problems, it’s nonviolent, it’s effective, it’s not stoppable from without, and it’s our greatest power, though largely untapped.
The Problem
We see a pervasive mindset of control and domination permeating our cultural institutions, a mindset driven by the fear of anarchy. If someone—some authority or power over us—doesn’t control us, society will fall into chaos, or so we’re to believe.
But who controls the controllers? What kind of order do those in positions of power have in mind? Is power-over an order that works—i.e., that creates social harmony and makes us happy? Or does it create wars, blind obedience, inner deadness, Littleton, Colorado nightmares, injustices, epidemic substance and process addictions, economic exploitation, cynicism, chronic stress, and unhappiness?
It doesn’t make sense, for example, that we control children morning to night with rewards and punishments and then wonder why they grow up selfish manipulators: “What’s in it for me?” or “Just don’t get caught!” That’s how child-rearing and schooling methods trained all of us to think. And if people grow up obsessed with gaining power over others—the chance to be in the one-up position and to control who’s rewarded and who’s punished—where’s the surprise? This is the logical extension of our cultural paradigm.
In other words, is our culture built on a paradigm that’s working for us as well as we need it to? Is our consensus philosophy shaping our institutions to serve us, or are we becoming servants to systems that warp our minds, consume our energies, and turn us into people we never wanted to be? When more and more of us find ourselves asking such core questions, it’s time to start rethinking things from the ground up. It’s time to reclaim our powers.
Naming What’s Wrong Accurately
Philosophy’s first help comes in accurately naming what’s wrong. If we’re just bad people, if the human race is innately selfish, violent and power-obsessed, if reality mandates that we be powder kegs about to explode, then we’re stuck—no options. And it’s amazing that we as a species have lasted this long.
Certainly we have the potential to be selfish, destructive, and cruel, but philosophy says we have other potentials too, and that which potentials get developed depends on our philosophy—the paradigm we use to create ourselves, families, schools, churches, governments, businesses, and culture.
If what’s causing all the trouble is our paradigm, then that’s good news. We can’t change reality or human nature, but we can change our paradigm. And it doesn’t take an army or Congress or money to do it.
Making The Shift
The paradigm shift required is big. It touches all disciplines and the very ways we think and reason. It also involves how we experience ourselves, how we respond to our inner processes and follow our souls’ leadings.
Because the shift is so big, we by no means have all the answers. We do, however, want to start the philosophical discussion. We hope to expand ways for all of us to participate in the planetary dialogue birthing this shift. All sorts of tools are emerging to help. We’re exploring an approach that is:
• holistic, in that all our personal, cultural, and planetary systems are involved;
• system-focused, which sees “parts” as emerging from system dynamics;
• interdisciplinary,
• philosophical,
• healing and recovery oriented,
• and grounded in spiritual wisdom—values of soul, meaning, and inner guidance.
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Having problems realizing the world is a mirror, and think the world is full of people who are out to give you a hard time? Need more focus and concentration? You could really use BRAIN LIGHTING™ |
What's a
Paradigm and Paradigm Shift ?
Paradigm: The word "paradigm" was originally one of those obscure academic terms that has undergone many changes of meaning over the centuries. The classical Greeks used it to refer to an original archetype or ideal. Later it came to refer to a grammatical term. In the early 1960s Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) wrote a ground breaking book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which he showed that science does not progress in an orderly fashion from lesser to greater truth, but rather remains fixated on a particular dogma or explanation - a paradigm - which is only overthrown with great difficulty and a new paradigm established. Thus the Copernican system (the sun at the center of the universe) overthrew the Ptolemaic (the earth at the center) one, and Newtonian physics was replaced by Relativity and Quantum Physics. Science thus consists of periods of conservativism ("Normal" Science) punctuated by periods of "Revolutionary" Science.
Paradigm Shift : When anomalies or inconsistencies arise within a given paradigm and present problems that we are unable to solve within a given paradigm, our view of reality must change, as must the way we perceive, think, and value the world. We must take on new assumptions and expectations that will transform our theories, traditions, rules, and standards of practice. We must create a new paradigm in which we are able to solve the unsolvable problems of the old paradigm.Paradigm Addiction: What occurs when a paradigm and its most ardent supporters are addicted to the paradigm to the point where they lose the realization that they are even in a paradigm at all? Ardent paradigm supporters have equated paradigm survival with their own personal survival, and will manipulate and control a society in order to prevent any social or cultural advancement out of the existing paradigm, ignoring or suppressing public knowledge of anomalies, equating perception of anomalies to "personal abnormality" in order to intimidate populations to remain within the status quo control paradigm. Addiction to a paradigm results in either paradigm death or death of those who maintain the paradigm.
Politics, Plans and Individuality
"The American Indian preserved an understanding of the individual personality as the keystone of society rather than as a function of it. His society is therefore fluid and creative, albeit within limited technical resources. He does not require doctrine in order to develop formal social structures, and the structure he does develop are currently functional rather than frozen." Gene Weltfish, The Lost Universe, 1965
Read more about this example of egalitarian American Indian society
Comparative Methodological Charts
Closed vs. Open Love: The Spectrum of Intimate, Meaningful Love Relationships
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Articles, Essays and Commentaries by the Authors
Escaping Planetary Oppression Mechanisms
Why Bother with History?
Responses
Reflections on the June 6, 1999 PBS Special "Free Speech for Sale"
A Lot of Folks Miss the Inquisition ... it had a lot of kooky charm ...
The Soul of Economies &
Rebuilding Economic Life
With what we have around us, consider the philosophical basis for an economy.
A Modern "Fractured Fairy Tail" : Adam Smith, Dragons, Barons, and Economies
Transformation and Spiritual Paradigms
Sleepwalking is no frame of mind for going on the Spiritual Path
Emotion as a frequently missing component of Spiritual Endeavour
Essayist E.B. White on Atomic Energy
Some Surprises about JFK and the Assassination
An Anonymous Reflection on those with Cranial Implosion Problems
Things We'd Like to Share With You
Sources of American Freedom: Ben Franklin on Native American Government
A fresh new examination of one of the most famous philosophical thought experiments
A clear take on what happens in the transition from Republic to "Empire"
Maybe we ought to take a look at this and see what the Indians knew about people
Sobering thoughts on what we are told is "childhood entertainment
The statement by Lt. Colonel David Grossman before the New York State Legislature
Explorations in Transformational Astrology
Symbols, relationships and transformations: New meaning to Life in a Spacetime Continuum.
An introduction to the premises and paradigm of transformative astrology.
Reflections and Contemplations
Our families aren’t a given. They’re created. Our school systems aren’t a given. They’re created. Our economic and political systems aren’t a given. Our news and entertainment media aren’t a given. Our religions and philosophies aren’t a given.
Our entire culture isn’t a given. It’s all a creation—of ours or someone else’s. If we take it as a given, we stand before our institutions passively, allowing others to create our world. If, on the other hand, we see the culture as our creation, then we accept our role as cultural creators.
Then we don’t allow dominator mentalities—control addicts, bullies, oppressors—to create our culture. We create it. We see, for example, that justice isn’t something that we wait for or expect authorities to deliver. We create justice. Peace isn’t what happens when the powerful take a break from war. We create peace—it’s in our power to demand it. Beauty isn’t what we buy from celebrated artists or designers. We create beauty.
The power structures of the second half of the twentieth century believed that they were in charge of the world and announced their authority through the media like some medieval lord announcing his power to the peasants—and demanding conformity, obedience, and gratitude from us for all their efforts. The twenty-first century will see the end of this contemporary feudalism. It’s dawning on all us us that in everything we do, we create justice, peace, beauty and much more—harmony, love, joy, and wisdom.
On these foundations, we can build our own families, learning centers, governments, economies, and religions—whatever we feel is the best culture for all of us: humans, animals, plants, and the earth as well. It’s in our power to create what we will—if we claim it.
The Purpose and Aim of These Works
For over ten years, we have been writing books (3 in print, 1 in progress) that look at our culture with the aim:
• of uncovering what may not be working, i.e., how our cultural beliefs, philosophies, systems, and institutions may not be serving us as well as they could, (many of these mindsets and patterns being past cultural conventions, which may or may not be healthy or appropriate for us now), and
• of exploring alternatives, all of which begin with a shift of consciousness guided by perennial spiritual wisdom.
Characteristics Common To All Our Books
• We use a philosophical perspective, which means we take seriously the power of our worldview to shape our worlds, for better or for worse. If our problem is our philosophy, that’s good news, because we can change that, which then guides us in changing whatever else needs to shift.
• We write from a driving practical and social concern, which means we’re not interested in abstract theorizing but rather in what makes a difference in our lives personally and collectively.
• We build on the emerging insights from recovery, which we have been engaged in personally for over ten years . This field has much to say about what causes loss of soul and the process of reconnecting, regenerating on soul levels.
• We turn to spiritual teachings to see how they might guide the idea-quest. We are not affiliated with any religion but draw on world spirituality, which, together with philosophy, is our professional background.
• We rely on the ordered structure of various spiritual teachings as the standpoint from which we write. We seek to press these teachings into the service of addressing the core issues of our society. We conceive of our books as efforts to get help from spiritual teachings on shared concerns. It’s their light that cuts the ice of entrenched habits. To date, we have used ordered teachings from the Bible, the Iroquois Peace Confederacy, Sufism (Rumi), and now general teachings from Native American spirituality. Around these teachings, we weave in many other spiritual sources.
• We take a holistic, i.e., multidisciplinary, multidimensional approach to personal and cultural issues. This in fact inspired us to address the need for cultural healing, since reducing ills to exclusively individual problems is not a holistic approach. If we’re manifestations of the larger systems of which we’re a part, then if we’re soul-sick and in pain, the cultural systems can’t be healthy either. Indigenous peoples use this method: if one person is sick, the entire community engages in self-reflection and healing. If there is pain anywhere in a system, the entire system may be out of balance.
• We explore methods of spiritual and philosophical reasoning. We focus on methods, mainly because we don’t know the answers to our cultural problems. We do believe, however, that healing begins with a shift of consciousness, and that this begins with individuals. As consciousness shifts, we all use our creative powers to forge alternatives for ourselves and for society, each in our own ways. We’re interested in exploring methods that support this process.
• The books are written for healing, not just for critique. We always say our books, no matter what cultural issues they take on, have “happy endings,” that is, they offer the hope of healing and affirm each individual’s role in the process. There is no greater power than consciousness, and we all have that.
• Because we believe in free, independent thought, where we’re each guided by our own inner authority, and because we believe the medium can be the message, we conceive of ourselves not as experts or authorities but as fellow seekers, sharing with readers basic concerns about where our culture is going. What we lose in ponderousness we gain in the freedom to have fun with the subject and approach it in non-ordinary ways.
• The books are written as clearly, directly, engagingly, and simply as possible. We want to address the general thinking public without jargon or without assuming any special knowledge or belief-system on the reader’s part. Openness is all we really ask. Mostly we write these books because we want to think through the issues and ideas for ourselves, and writing books gives us the discipline to do it.
The Paradigm Conspiracy |
The Soul of Economies |
Love, Soul and Freedom |
 ISBN 1568382081 , $13.951996,1998
387 pagesBook
Description ContentsReview
Comments ExcerptsHow to Buy This Book |
ISBN 0962623814 , $24.951991 366 pagesBook Description ContentsReview CommentsHow to Buy This Book |
ISBN
1568382073 , $21.951996,1998 387 pagesBook Description ContentsReview CommentsHow to Buy This Book |
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