Paradigms of Gender…

The nature of reality.(53 slides)

Creatively compiled by dr. michael farnworth

Adam Smith: The Power of the Mind, page 19

“The paradigm is a shared set of assumptions. It is the way we perceive the world; water to the fish. The paradigm explains the world to us and helps us predict it’s behavior. When we are in the middle of a paradigm, it is hard to imagine any other paradigm.”

The power of naming

• That which goes unnamed may victimize and exert considerable influence over us; Because we have no words for it, we can not address it or deal with it directly.

• Only by naming, can we reclaim our reality and power.

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.

4 purposes of cultural paradigms:

• 1. Provides a world picture and set of stories to explain why things are the way they are.

• 2. Provides a unifying and bonding of the people , via the stories.

• 3. Provides sanctification of the social order.• 4. Provides individuals with a map of life’s paths

and goals.

To learn some things may necessitate unlearning some other things... like the traditions and philosophies of men mingled with scriptures.

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...

“That New Kid on the Block” by Jack Prelustsky

• There’s a new kid on the block, and boy, that kid is tough, that new kid punches hard, that new kid plays real rough, that new kid’s big and strong, with muscles everywhere, that new kid tweaked my arm, that new kid pulled my hair

• That new kid likes to fight, and picks on all the guys, that new kid scares me some, (that new kids twice my size), that new kid stomped my toes, that new kid swiped my ball, that new kid’s really bad, I don’t care for her at all.

Listen to 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.”

• “It is the theory that decides what we can observe.”

Albert Einstein

A paradigm story... A boy and his father go rock climbing together and both take a serious fall requiring immediate medical surgery.

The boy is prepped quickly, being the most seriously injured, but when the surgeon

walks into the operating room and looks at the boy and says, “I can’t operate on this

boy, he’s my son!”... How can that be?

If you have never heard this story then the answer is that the surgeon was the boy’s

mother.

When I first heard the story I couldn’t come up with the answer it was a matter of gender bias that I had been stumped by the

obvious answer.

Paradigm pioneers

• People who create new paradigms are often outsiders who have little invested in the status quo.

• It takes courage and faith to change to a new paradigm early in the game.

What sense can you make of the next fragmented picture ?

Now view the complete picture and see if that helps...

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.

Fragmented versus wholeness...

• A lot of our current paradigms are based on fragmented and distorted pictures of reality that contain some truth but not all of it. People like you and I had better have a sensitivity to how little we really know and understand.

The nest two slides are visual examples of familiar pictures that help demonstrate paradigm perceptions...

Follow the arrows...

“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 ThompsonEvil And World Order

The paradigm effect

• A paradigm acts as an information filter enlightening us on the one hand and blinding us on the other.

• A paradigm is like a two edge sword...It can help us and it can hurt us.

• “People can fail to see what is in front of their eyes unless it fits into their theoretical frame of reference.”

M. Bowen

Paradigm shift

• A paradigm shift occurs when turbulence triggers changes within the existing paradigm. The old rules are not working... new rules are needed to accommodate the changing “game.”

Paradigm resistance

• A paradigm shift creates fear, anxiety and discomfort.

• People usually resist the change wanting rather to stay with the old established ways and patterns.

Resistance and risk

• “New paradigms put everyone practicing the old paradigm at great risk. The higher one’s position in the old paradigm the greater the risk!

Back to zero rule

• When ever paradigms change, the status quo is dramatically diminished in it’s potency and influence.

• The old guard often fights any change in paradigms because of this potential loss of power.

Poisonous paradigms

• Some paradigms wreak havoc in our most important intimate relationships such as our children and spouses. Many of these paradigms have rules hundreds of years old and need to be updated...”If it was good enough for my parents it good enough for me syndrome”...

The six blind men from Indostan

• It was six blind men of Indostan to learning much inclined, who went to see the elephant (though all of them were blind); That each by observation might satisfy his mind.

• The first approached the elephant, and happening to fall against his broad and sturdy side, at once began to bawl: “god bless me! But the elephant is very like a wall.”

• The second, feeling of the tusk, cried “ho! What have we here, so very round and smooth and sharp? To me ‘tis very clear this wonder of an elephant is very like a spear!”

• The third approached the animal and, happening to take the squirming trunk within his hands, then boldly up he spake: “I see,” quoth he, “ the elephant is very like a snake!”

• The fourth reached out an eager hand and felt about the knee. “What most this wondrous beast is like, is oh so plain,” quoth he, “‘tis clear enough the elephant is very like a tree!”

• The fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, said, “even the blindest man can tell what this resembles most. Deny the fact who can, this marvel of an elephant is very like a fan!”

• The sixth no sooner had begun about the beast to grope, than, seizing on the swinging tail that fell within his scope, “I see,” quoth he, “The elephant is very like a rope!”

• These six blind men of indostan disputed loud and long, each in his own opinion exceeding stiff and strong. Though each was right in how he thought, they all were partly wrong.

The moral?

• And all who try to use their mind on tasks both large and small, would best themselves and others too, if they would but recall:

• “One view of things can help the mind, but will not give it all.”

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

The greatest wisdom...

• The greatest wisdom may be in realizing that we cannot know truth until we manifest it completely in our lives...

• To know truth is to know God...• Until then we need a little more humility and faith

and hope and charity...

The goal of understanding paradigms does not reside in looking for the ultimate paradigm but rather in

understanding the nature of paradigms and how we are stuck in them, during Life.

• The only real escape from the prison of paradigms does not reside in exchanging one paradigm for another, but rather in understanding the nature of paradigms themselves.

“The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes.’’

Marcel Proust

It’s 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 all your life.

You will either have to hatch, or go rotten.

You’ve come of age.

This hatching can be likened to waking up and growing up from the cultural trance; Seeing with new eyes, hearing with new ears and

understanding with a new heart.

the end