Shifting the World
Everyone has a way they look at the world. From the very center of that way, especially if we're also at that time in the center of a culture that looks at the world the way that we do, it's extraordinarily difficult to see that we are looking at the world a certain 'way' and not simply seeing it as it is.
The word 'paradigm' has (as have many other perfectly good words) been co-opted by business where it seems to mean, 'really cool stuff that sounds like I'm important and should get paid a lot of money' but doesn't really change anything.
But paradigm shifts in the original mostly non-business sense are important. They mean, quite literally, seeing the world in an entirely different way. If, say, a hundred years ago, I had grown up taking for granted that black women had no soul, were not like you or me in any way, and then in some cataclysmic or gradual way discovered that they are women who bleed and grieve and sacrifice themselves for love and freedom, then the entire world changes, shifts beneath my feet and becomes quite a different world than the old one.
For me then, two questions arise--what causes a paradigm shift? And how does one explain a paradigm shift to someone else in a way that lets them see the new world too?
In the 1970s in the heyday of women's liberation and civil rights demonstrations and anti-war protests, people held consciousness raising sessions. The idea behind those consciousness raisings was to paint a picture of the world as it was (not necessarily as people saw it) and then to paint another picture of the world as it might be. It was done through question-asking, story-telling, group participation and bonding.
There are so many things I want people to 'see' as I see them: subtle, silent bias, the possibilities beyond production agriculture, the potential that exists in other ways of knowing, what the dogs have taught me, alternatives to large organizations,....