“The Paradigm is the Medium”

I’m completely enthralled by system thinking. I was creating paradigms before I realized it, but as soon as I knew it, I wanted to invent and build more.  Then, I began to notice them everywhere – nature, art, business, religion.  I am fascinated with the role that both intentional and incidental paradigms play in our existences, and I get excited thinking about the powerful potential of a well-built paradigm.

 ’Paradigms’ are…

…the medium that composes the machinery of our realities.

…another way of saying ‘the way things are’. A ‘dominant paradigm’ is usually something that we accept as a constant reality until a new paradigm becomes dominant via a ‘paradigm shift’. Sometimes, one can choose which paradigms to engage within, including the choice of constructing a new, custom paradigm.

…conceptual constructs/mechanisms/infrastructures comprising a network of ideas/concepts/tenets connecting materials/resources/other-paradigms.

…the intelligent solutions used to disrupt and/or subvert dominant paradigms.

…inventions to design our existence

To contextualize, here are some examples of paradigms:

…Dadaism (and most other art movements). When artists in the beginning of the 20th century decided to use their art to challenge the ‘logic’ of the bourgeoisie, they created a new paradigm that rejected and redefined aesthetics. Most art-movements are just conceptual reactions to the dominant paradigms.

…American football (and all other sports). As a conceptual mechanism, the sport of football is defined by a collection of ideas: the ultimate goal (to have more points then your opponent), the set of rules, the mandate of specific equipment and physical space, etc. It exists as a familiar paradigm now only because, first, some people conceived and dictated its parameters, and second, it propagated.

…’Masters From Their Day‘. This was the first paradigm that I realized I built.  It is a collaborative social-media project with multiple objectives: to assess the relationship between a recording, it’s creators, and the ‘moment’ in which it was created; to reprise the work-flow methodology from the seminal days of music production; to create a living document of the creative personnel and technology driving contemporary music production; to create an episodic series about ‘flash-creating’ sonic art. This is an example of using existing paradigms (flash-creation, collaboration, internet video series) to build a new paradigm with it’s own objectives and parameters.

…satyagraha (and other strategies created by Mohandas Gandhi).   Gandhi developed and deployed several strategic paradigms to force the ruling parties to adapt more civil rights for the Indian and South African people.  One of the core tenets of Gandhi’s paradigms was non-violence, using civil disobedience to disrupt the dominant paradigms.

…The internet. The paradigm shift is now obvious, but it’s interesting to consider all the nested paradigms that the internet enables. Wikipedia and Amazon each completely overtook the paradigms that were previously dominant (encyclopedias and brick-and-morter stores, respectively). Keep in mind that the paradigm and the technology are not synonymous. The paradigm is the ‘conceptual infrastructure’ built using the technology.

…Marxism (and all other forms of government and social ordering). Although there were permutations of communism before Marxism, Karl Marx created a customized, refined paradigm, which was fully articulated in the ‘Communist Manifesto’. This purpose-built conceptual mechanism has been co-opted and employed by various groups of people (with mixed results).

…Collectives, endowments, special-interest groups, flash-mobs, unions, religions, insurance, business models (cooperative, corporate, non-profit), etc., are all examples of invented paradigms.

Here’s a recipe for inventing paradigms:

…establish the objective – why are you building a paradigm.

…look at your surroundings: especially relevant paradigms, especially the dominant paradigms, especially their mechanics and results

…assess your medium(s); include any resources available

…invent your paradigm to comprise your mediums, in the context of your surroundings, to achieve the objective

…add dimensions and/or grow support by serving sympathetic paradigms