One problem I see with so many discussions about politics,
culture, the economy and other areas is the refusal of people on all
sides of the issues to accept the reality of change. Whether it's
liberals or conservatives, materialists or followers of religions, they
tend to blame the "other side" for the situation and seem intent on
returning to a time when things were supposedly better.
The
terms "old paradigm" and "new paradigm" get thrown around quite a bit,
and they can mean many things. A paradigm, however, generally refers to
something significant and fundamental rather than just a minor or
secondary aspect of something. So let's look at some areas where the old
paradigm is simply not going to return no matter what anybody does, no
matter who gets elected and no matter how much we try to deny it:
*** The Economy -jobs that were created for the industrial age are fading fast.
*** The Environment - regardless of the cause, the climate appears to be changing.
*** Culture -the "nuclear family," a world of distinct and separate nations and races; these are already anachronistic concepts.
*** Dogma -politics, economics, nationalism & religion are increasingly irrelevant.
None
of the above are exactly revelations. Everyone sees this occurring
right before our eyes, but the problem is that hardly anyone accepts
that it's really happening and that it's irreversible. I propose that,
rather than see such things as problems, we take them as axioms for the
times we're living in and look for ways to make the best of them. If we
explore these phenomena in more detail, we can see that this isn't so
hard to do. In fact, when we really look at it, we should be glad all of
this is happening!
As I write this, there are spreading protests in the U.S., called Occupy Wall Street.
As
thousands protest economic inequality and hardship, conservatives
condemn the protestors as socialists, anarchists or just lazy hippies
(this is from reading actual message boards!). At the same time, we're
approaching an extremely divisive presidential election where Democrats
and Republicans hurl accusations and insults back and forth.
Both
sides talk about the economy as though it was either possible or
desirable to go back in time -specifically to the post-World War ll era
where the industrial economy was expanding and the United States was the
dominant power. The fact is, these days are gone forever, and, more
importantly, why should we even mourn them?
Both corporate
capitalism and socialism are based on an industrial age model that is
less and less relevant. Rather than asking whether we should trust Big
Business or Big Government to solve our problems, is it not time to come
up with viable, grassroots alternatives? In fact, the very idea of
economics in the traditional sense, or a monolithic abstraction known as
"The Economy" should perhaps be abandoned.
Granted, when people
are facing difficult economic times, unemployment is a frightening
prospect -or reality. Yet, let's be honest. How many people really want
to work in a factory or in an office cubicle? Yet these are the
archetypal jobs that were created in the industrial age. Regardless of
the reigning political ideology, the structure of employment is based on
hierarchy, mass production,centralization and conformity.
The
same, of course, is true for modern education, whether public or
private. Education is simply preparation for a job in the industrial age
economy. The prevailing, widespread cynicism regarding modern
institutions may be largely due to an underlying, mostly unconscious
realization that none of these institutions really belongs here anymore.
The
apparent mindlessness and narcissism of contemporary popular culture is
easy to dismiss as either a symptom of a culture in decline, or perhaps
as a conspiracy on the part of the power elite to divert people from
what's really happening. Yet, another way to look at it is as a reaction
and escape from the even more mindless prison of bureaucracy,
irrational laws and norms, corporate "culture" and a world where few
actually believe in the outmoded habits they are compelled to repeat day
after day.
When it comes to energy and the environment, it's
largely a matter of making use of emerging technologies that replace the
oil based paradigm. This may or may not leave room for the personal
automobile as the dominant form of transportation. At the very least, it
would seem that this mode of getting around will have to be sharply
curtailed -not by the big government so dreaded by conservatives and
libertarians (with some justification), but by the reality of
diminishing supplies of oil and rapidly expanding populations.
Global
warming or, more accurately, climate change, appears to be a reality,
whether or not it's primarily caused by humans (this is still highly
debatable, even though it's heresy to say this in many circles). Here's
another area where a paradigm shift in perception is necessary. Rather
than denying the reality of climate change (i.e. conservatives) or
pretending it's still possible to reverse it (i.e. liberals, many
environmentalists), why not start accepting it and looking for ways to
minimize the harm and, in some cases, actually benefit from it?
I am no scientist, but common sense dictates that an overall increase in the average temperature can't be all
bad. And those aspects of climate change that clearly do have harmful
effects -e.g. unstable weather patterns, increased hurricanes,
earthquakes, etc.- must be dealt with, and resources must be allocated
to prepare for such events.
The realms of culture and dogma are
closely related, and it's clear that the ideologies, categories and
belief systems of previous centuries are not going to be able to guide
us much further into this millennium. Defining oneself based on race,
religion or country of origin is becoming increasingly untenable in a
world where conversations -as well as business transactions- can be
conducted instantly via smart phone, Skype or Twitter messages.
The
emerging global culture is hard to define, but it will have to be some
kind of smorgasbord -an even bigger melting pot than the one America was
supposed to embody. As people travel and emigrate more and more
(whether legally or illegally), intermarry with people of other races
and religions, and people with wildly different and often opposing
beliefs are forced to live in close proximity to one another, the idea
of a single, dominant ideology or dogma becomes impossible.
It's
now time to stop trying to prop up aspects of the old paradigm that
cannot be revived -and that no longer serve us anyway. It's time to
question many of the sacred cows of modern society, including the
corporation, education as an institution, the modern medical model, the
nation state, and even that most sacred of modern cows, money. Not that
these institutions will be abolished in some kind of Marxist-style
revolution. They are, rather, in the process of either dying a natural
death or morphing into new and more appropriate (for this time) forms.
There
was a time in the not so distant past when none of these things existed
in anything resembling their present form. Most likely, whether we like
it or not, none of them will exist in their present forms in the not
very distant future. Rather than seeing this as something to dread,
portending the end of the world, why not see it as the end of an
outdated paradigm?
