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 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?
A paradigm story...
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 Thompson
Evil 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