I look forward to your writing, Ernesto. So wonderful and transformational!
"If paradigms grow the way living things grow, then they grow through the daily tending of ordinary people in ordinary places, or they do not grow at all. There turns out to be no one else. There is only the soil in front of each of us, and what we are willing to do with it.”
With all the attention lately on “The Odyssey,” I’m wondering if the hero/savior/leader mythology and beliefs from Homer through today — that someone will save us, lead us, show us the way is a great barrier to the tending of “ordinary people in ordinary places.” With this mindset/paradigm, all one has to do is follow.
Loved this, because it's so resonant in what we're doing in our little valley:
"Every paradigm that has ever existed began as a small handful of relationships capable of imagining reality otherwise, and so did every civilization; and ours, it may be, already has begun." 💥
The tending of soil is a wonderful analogy for life in general and not least for the education of our children. Katie Purviance's latest on the psychological effects of our standard education systems shows vividly how our mechanistic approach to education is counterproductive and harmful.
The concept of a paradigm is, of course, just that. A concept. A human construction to freeze a dynamic process in time in order to describe it and then organise life around it. As Iain McGilchrist admits, this left hemisphere trait has its uses but needs to be fed back into the more fluid and broader-seeing right hemisphere to accommodate the information and place it in context. I wonder if in leaving this mechanistic paradigm behind we shall also leave behind the urge to hold on the next one as tightly.
Wonderful piece. I loved the analogy to tending the soil instead of forcing the change, but isn't the seed's germination process a forcing function that produces growth? So both the natural tending and the obstinate growth behavior are needed in different ways at different moments for the paradigm shift to occur?
Thank you Ernesto. I really appreciate this idea of tending the conditions for change rather than trying to force the outcome. A powerful way to think about how transformation actually happens.
Fascinating and well-written. Language is critical here. I got the definition I use for paradigm from Thomas Kuhn, who was really talking about shifts in scientific theory, primarily physics, but you can see it in other areas. He did not explore outside the scientific discipline that stands on the scientific method. Thus his idea of anomaly driving the need to develop an alternative understanding. A rigid paradigm could not see easily the complicated nature of its attempts to explain phenomena that land outside its own boundaries. Because of this I tend not to use paradigm - the word - as the world view descriptor. The alternative was supplied, quite beautifully and elegantly, by Donella Meadows. She uses mindset as the highest set of bordered thought. I think this overlaps nearly completely with your use of paradigm. It serves then as the highest leverage point of system change, and also the hardest to move. We get locked in and cannot see beyond those boundaries. Instead of recognizing the required shift to a worldview dominated by ecological limits, mutualistic actions, and relationships, we are caught in a world seeking oil (energy) and economic gain. I am afraid that this shift of mindset (or paradigm) happens too slowly to activate the required response, as you do with reference to "Don't look up". We will be able to satirize our present dilemma if we use only the energy available to us when operating in an ecologically wise mindset? Will we have computer systems that allow us to interact this way if we truly recognize and act to solve the anomalies that our present extractive economic paradigm throws at us? That is my dilemma, knowing how to live with one foot in the world developed by "science and economics" and the other foot standing on healthy, biologically diverse and rich soil.
Brilliant “Excuse me. Are we not being clear? What we’re telling you…” In my leadership career, I cannot begin to imagine the number of times I felt this and experienced this. I work internationally- new country, new school, new issue. And in fairness to these places, they also have this experience with me. I also experience such paradigms, in spite of their invisibility, to have structure. Taking the time, knowing where its edges are, and figuring out what matters here to support a new more compatible paradigm (never the same) is where I spend oh so much time. Some paradigms take weeks- others, years- the strength of that architecture seems to matter (which also explains what matters). This piece is one I’ll continue to unpack- that said, beginning here: “[New paradigms] tend to begin at the edges, in the places and among the people for whom the old coherence was already failing to account for a lived and undeniable experience.”
I have a view that I think complements this nicely. Language is the superpower that has enabled us to conquer the world. It starts with words for things we can point to, like tree, run, sky. These words were reused as metaphors to explain the world, and new words were coined for categories like fruit, color, and time. This process continued and created ideas that we cannot see directly—ideas like God, gravity, or negative numbers. In this way, we have constructed a house of understanding whose foundation rests on the ground of experience and whose bricks are ideas stacked one on top of another and held in place by the mortar of logic. Think of words as nodes and logic as struts.
That was my original concept of language as being a model of the world, but I am in the process of refining my view. There are primary words and secondary words. The secondary words are explanations about the world, and sometimes use unassailable logic. For example, heliocentricity vs. the appearance of the sun moving. But the struts of this house (belief framework) are sometimes emotional as much as rational, and different people can construct different frameworks.
I’m still working on this idea. Consider two different models: a theistic view and a scientific view. Both offer explanations for causality, and both exhibit your internal coherence. Any one node (word or concept) is justified by the struts that support it. Somewhere in these two models, the struts (reasons) have varied, leading to two different worldviews.
Like I say, this is a recent revision to my view of language, and I’m still working on it. The left and right political frameworks fit this idea, but that’ll drift too far off topic.
Excellent.
I hope, not in the “edges”
Of this burning world too long.
A favorite quote:
“Finite players play within boundaries.
Infinite players play with boundaries.”
James Carse
Well said. Reframe the meaning of the goal--wealth
I look forward to your writing, Ernesto. So wonderful and transformational!
"If paradigms grow the way living things grow, then they grow through the daily tending of ordinary people in ordinary places, or they do not grow at all. There turns out to be no one else. There is only the soil in front of each of us, and what we are willing to do with it.”
With all the attention lately on “The Odyssey,” I’m wondering if the hero/savior/leader mythology and beliefs from Homer through today — that someone will save us, lead us, show us the way is a great barrier to the tending of “ordinary people in ordinary places.” With this mindset/paradigm, all one has to do is follow.
And a few more thoughts: https://glendaturner180689.substack.com/p/we-dont-need-a-hero?r=6j99g&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Those considered insane, are the most likely bringers of change.
Robert M Persig would , probably, attest.
Great piece.
Beautifully executed.
Another powerful essay, Ernesto, muchas gracias.
Loved this, because it's so resonant in what we're doing in our little valley:
"Every paradigm that has ever existed began as a small handful of relationships capable of imagining reality otherwise, and so did every civilization; and ours, it may be, already has begun." 💥
The tending of soil is a wonderful analogy for life in general and not least for the education of our children. Katie Purviance's latest on the psychological effects of our standard education systems shows vividly how our mechanistic approach to education is counterproductive and harmful.
The concept of a paradigm is, of course, just that. A concept. A human construction to freeze a dynamic process in time in order to describe it and then organise life around it. As Iain McGilchrist admits, this left hemisphere trait has its uses but needs to be fed back into the more fluid and broader-seeing right hemisphere to accommodate the information and place it in context. I wonder if in leaving this mechanistic paradigm behind we shall also leave behind the urge to hold on the next one as tightly.
Wonderful piece. I loved the analogy to tending the soil instead of forcing the change, but isn't the seed's germination process a forcing function that produces growth? So both the natural tending and the obstinate growth behavior are needed in different ways at different moments for the paradigm shift to occur?
Thank you Ernesto. I really appreciate this idea of tending the conditions for change rather than trying to force the outcome. A powerful way to think about how transformation actually happens.
Fascinating and well-written. Language is critical here. I got the definition I use for paradigm from Thomas Kuhn, who was really talking about shifts in scientific theory, primarily physics, but you can see it in other areas. He did not explore outside the scientific discipline that stands on the scientific method. Thus his idea of anomaly driving the need to develop an alternative understanding. A rigid paradigm could not see easily the complicated nature of its attempts to explain phenomena that land outside its own boundaries. Because of this I tend not to use paradigm - the word - as the world view descriptor. The alternative was supplied, quite beautifully and elegantly, by Donella Meadows. She uses mindset as the highest set of bordered thought. I think this overlaps nearly completely with your use of paradigm. It serves then as the highest leverage point of system change, and also the hardest to move. We get locked in and cannot see beyond those boundaries. Instead of recognizing the required shift to a worldview dominated by ecological limits, mutualistic actions, and relationships, we are caught in a world seeking oil (energy) and economic gain. I am afraid that this shift of mindset (or paradigm) happens too slowly to activate the required response, as you do with reference to "Don't look up". We will be able to satirize our present dilemma if we use only the energy available to us when operating in an ecologically wise mindset? Will we have computer systems that allow us to interact this way if we truly recognize and act to solve the anomalies that our present extractive economic paradigm throws at us? That is my dilemma, knowing how to live with one foot in the world developed by "science and economics" and the other foot standing on healthy, biologically diverse and rich soil.
Brilliant “Excuse me. Are we not being clear? What we’re telling you…” In my leadership career, I cannot begin to imagine the number of times I felt this and experienced this. I work internationally- new country, new school, new issue. And in fairness to these places, they also have this experience with me. I also experience such paradigms, in spite of their invisibility, to have structure. Taking the time, knowing where its edges are, and figuring out what matters here to support a new more compatible paradigm (never the same) is where I spend oh so much time. Some paradigms take weeks- others, years- the strength of that architecture seems to matter (which also explains what matters). This piece is one I’ll continue to unpack- that said, beginning here: “[New paradigms] tend to begin at the edges, in the places and among the people for whom the old coherence was already failing to account for a lived and undeniable experience.”
I have a view that I think complements this nicely. Language is the superpower that has enabled us to conquer the world. It starts with words for things we can point to, like tree, run, sky. These words were reused as metaphors to explain the world, and new words were coined for categories like fruit, color, and time. This process continued and created ideas that we cannot see directly—ideas like God, gravity, or negative numbers. In this way, we have constructed a house of understanding whose foundation rests on the ground of experience and whose bricks are ideas stacked one on top of another and held in place by the mortar of logic. Think of words as nodes and logic as struts.
That was my original concept of language as being a model of the world, but I am in the process of refining my view. There are primary words and secondary words. The secondary words are explanations about the world, and sometimes use unassailable logic. For example, heliocentricity vs. the appearance of the sun moving. But the struts of this house (belief framework) are sometimes emotional as much as rational, and different people can construct different frameworks.
I’m still working on this idea. Consider two different models: a theistic view and a scientific view. Both offer explanations for causality, and both exhibit your internal coherence. Any one node (word or concept) is justified by the struts that support it. Somewhere in these two models, the struts (reasons) have varied, leading to two different worldviews.
Like I say, this is a recent revision to my view of language, and I’m still working on it. The left and right political frameworks fit this idea, but that’ll drift too far off topic.