Preliminary note: I wrote the introduction, just below, on August 4th, 2002, and put in the titles the next day, on August 5th.

and remind the reader to, like everything else in science and in life, check for consistency with their own experience and accumulated knowledge, before drawing conclusions.




College Life, The Red Army, And The Class/Member Distinction






Introduction: On Volatility, Academia, and Wild Cards


Academia

I've spent a lot of time reading in local cafes around the bay area over the last fifteen years, and sometimes I wander onto one or another of the many nearby college campuses, to attend a public lecture, browse the bookstore or library, or just read in the campus cafe. Sometimes, all three, and more, as in the below example.

On this particular day, I'd traveled to one campus or another to hear a lecture delivered by an American diplomat who'd recently returned from China, and was reporting about the current state of the Red Army, or the legacy of it anyway, several of whose generals he had recently interviewed.

The, Sort of, Red Army

It was kind of an interesting lecture actually. He talked about the personalities of some of the members of the high command and their relationships with Chinese cabinet level officials, and I remember that he said that he'd gotten the very strong impression that the army was under full civilian control, and not an independent power in China - fascinating, I thought at the time.

Casualties

I remember asking, from my seat in the back of the room, if the Chinese had taken note of the extremely low number of causalities on all sides that Mr. Clinton had managed to arrange in the Kosovo conflict, compared to all other violent conflicts in recent decades, and if they had felt that there was anything in that regard to emulate.

I remember he seemed extremely startled by the question, which somehow left everyone staring at me like maybe I was a crazy person (I'm used to it of course, well, maybe, I never really get used to it . . .) but anyway, after a long pause, he finally responded by discussing something about the politics of 'high-tech' military technology transfer. Oh well. He was a diplomat, after all . . .

Joan and Leonardo

Anyway, after the lecture, I made my way over to the school bookstore, which I've always found to be one of the most helpful in the Bay Area, for my purposes anyway. Looking over the notes on my old disks for that period, that must've been the day that one of the bookstore salespersons introduced me to Stephen Jay Gould's "Leonardo's Mountain of Clams", which was the first of his that I read, and which did turn out to be an excellent book, quite a find. I think I also must have been reading, at about that time, "Joan's Story", about Joan of Arc, which I probably had brought with me.

The Sovereign State Of Turkey

I do remember that after leaving the bookstore, I ran across an open-air general talk being given by a couple of professors on some west-Asian matters about 'development' or something, and I sat down on a chair at the back to listen in a little. Seemed ok at the time . . . a warm, California afternoon . . .

Of Screams and Dreams

At one point, the professor, in response to a question, mentioned that "the IMF has never engaged in political influence", and of course, what immediately flashed across my mind was Richard Nixon's famous order to the IMF regarding Allende's Chile, to "Make The Economy Scream!", which they gleefully did, followed directly by the murder, by the most unspeakable torture imaginable, of 50,000 of the best and the brightest students and teachers of the Western Hemisphere.

I mean the comment, "Make the economy scream", was so famous; it was in all the headlines at the time - judging from his age, the professor must have been maybe in his thirties at the time, and he couldn't have missed it. I didn't say anything about it, honest I didn't, I mean, I'm not a troublemaker, not 'a bull in a China shop', really I'm not, maybe 'a wild card' sometimes, but that's about it, and I act as a guest, always trying super-hard to be respectful, but, well, I couldn't help it, I more or less shot him a look . . . I mean, what else does the IMF do anyway?, besides throw the politics of whatever they get involved with . . . I mean, what other job do they have . . .?

Oh well, I suppose that "teaching" (anti-teaching) wildly absurd fantasy, and calling it "social sciences" (in that case, social anti-science, of course), is how they keep the campuses quiet these days . . . Little wonder that people think there are no real solutions to social problems . . . if you start out with absurdities, you end up with absurdities . . . et voila . . .

Poker

Anyway, I guess I have one of those faces where whatever I'm thinking is written all over my face, always deliberately clean-shaven, short hair . . . I like being accurately 'read' actually . . . I mean, I'm a little too thick to be able to read anyone else's mind very well, well, in the moment that is, but everyone else seems to be able to read mine pretty good . . . I should probably never play poker, I'd lose my shorts in about two seconds flat . . .

Anyway, he must have, in turn, also flashed on what I was thinking, flashed on Nixon's famous remark to the IMF, and it's grotesque result, for after a few more minutes, he more or less dismissed the class, which seemed to be just about over anyway.

Anyway, as best I can recall, I chatted amiably for a few minutes with a couple of the students, and then wandered away, and sat down at the café tables outside the student center, to read for a couple of hours before heading back to the city, but almost immediately wound up striking up a conversation with a couple of young bio-technicians from Texas, who were up on vacation and visiting their old alma mater.

Biotech

They kindly answered some questions I had about genetics, as they did seem pretty well informed as I recall, and naturally, I told them something about my paradigm. 'Biological meta-homeostasis' and all that, I mean, it is a college campus, so I figured you're sort of allowed to use big words . . . a little different from regular city cafés, where I try to cut down on the syllables a little in casual conversation .. .

Flying

Anyway, as I was, during that month, formulating my "Flying Blind: Mao and Al" paper, our conversation naturally turned to the politics of science, in Texas and California. As I recall, it was a pretty animated conversation and afterwards, my mind was just flying, and I had just too much energy to sit still and read.

I just kinda wandered around for a little while, got into a very brief, amiable conversation with a visiting professor, from Scotland as I recall, about some then current events in Washington - I think that somewhere he noted that 'Lewinsky was a hero . . .', or something like that, and I remember thinking to myself, 'oh yeah, sure, caught in an ugly media setup, like princess di . . .', but I held my tongue of course, as I often do under such very brief circumstances . . .

Storming

. . . and I then noticed that one of the general access computers in their copy center seemed to be free, and I guess I just sort of, casually eased down in front of it, and over the next couple of hours, just belted out the following paper, non-stop, in a kind of 'stream of consciousness' storm, leaving the original on their computer, and purchased, from the student behind the desk in the center, a floppy disk to take a copy home. (The disk turned out to have a nasty virus on it, which, fortunately, my Norton program caught without damage, and even saved the file for me - well, college kids . . .) When I first read it over, it seems like it required almost no editing at all.

I guess by the time I'd starting writing, I must've been 'in a mood . . .' or something . . .

The Southern Pacific And The Sante Fe

There was actually substantially more to the story of that particular day's excursion, and I must've left behind four or five of my business cards that day, the plainer ones with my name and the website on it (it was about a year before I'd come up with the 'the sky buckle' ones at the top of the home page), but anyway, that's some of the context for how the paper got written.

It sort of got lost among all the many files of notes for the "Flying Blind" paper, which I completed and posted here about two weeks later, back in May of '00, and I'd immediately forgotten all about it at the time, until I ran across it on some old disks last week, two years later.

Old News

It's sort of "old news", as my ideas on the subject expressed have advanced enormously in the 28 months since - I know a hellofalot more about the subject now than I did then, and it now seems to me almost quaint.

There's nothing in it about consistency and the neurology of memory, or the 'mental instability' manipulation, or the smokescreen hoaxes, or the astoundingly rigid social counter-synchronicity that paradigmisists may encounter, or a few other matters of central relevance to the subject . . .

Still and all, in reading it over, it does seem to give a little more context regarding the state of this project, and as I haven't posted anything substantial on this web-site for about a year, and as my quarter-million words of notes for my 2002 paper are still in a kind of spaghetti mess, and, ugh, still growing by leaps and bounds, I'm sort of scratching around for some unposted, finished things to put up . . .

I guess just before putting it up, I did salt in some new lines, attempting to include some just a teeny bit of recent material, and adding the titles as well . . . It is about ninety-five percent intact though . . .

And Now, For My Next Number . . .

So, here it is, direct from the collegiate environs of river city . . .



On The Volatility Of New, Paradimic Understandings

by Neil Robert Miller imaginenine

neil@imaginenine.com
http://imaginenine.com

Written on a local college campus
Copyright (c) April 17, 2000
4,868 words



Stability and Volatility

Much has been written about the difficulty involved in presenting a new paradigm.

The most famous example of such volatility came in the case of the new Copernican paradigm, which discerned that the earth moved about the sun, in the context of the solar system as we now know it, rather than the sun revolving about the earth.


Poland and Italy

For this, Copernicus was quite nearly put to the stake, and even a century later, in most liberal Italy, Gallieo too was shown the rack for even thinking about it (less famous others were in fact burned outright in Rome at about that time, for just such an offence).


Science History

While reaction to the Copernican illumination is the most famous example of the general reaction to overall paradigm change, there are numerous other examples of reaction-to-scientific-advancement from throughout the history of science; other examples including the difficulties that Darwin and other evolutionists encountered, the reaction to the germ theory of medicine, the enormous life and death pressures on Freud to suppress (and ultimately to deceitfully "spike") his work, and many more. Lavoisier, Mendel, Fermat, along with countless others, all had their epic, and sometimes fatal tales to tell . . .

As the reader may realize, these matters are not merely an academic matter for myself, in that I too have come up with a new paradigm of overarching importance.

The problem of the general volatility of new paradigms, as I have discovered, is not what it has been reported to be, even by such distinguished and helpful science historians as Thomas Kuhn and others.


I. Rocket Science It's Not

Generally speaking, the problem has often been presented as a problem of intellectual limitation - that is, the difficulty that, it is claimed, an ordinary person has in grasping an entirely new, larger, higher logical level of understanding.

But actually, I don't believe this to be such a big problem, as it turns out.

It really is not that difficult for an ordinary person to grasp a 'higher' logical level of understanding regarding this thing or that thing, as people do that, albeit perhaps without realizing it, in ordinary life every day.

Every time we go from looking at some small thing to looking at something much larger, of which that smaller thing is part, which is many times a day, we are making exactly this shift.

Every time you look at a road map, noting the right freeway exit, then look for portents or signs of it on the ground, then back at the map, you're going up and down the logical levels in your mind.

Every time you adjust an ingredient for a recipe, then imagine how it will come off when taking a spoonful of the finished dish, then imagine again how that will fit in with the whole meal, you're going up and down the logical levels in your mind.

Every time you get out and check for tread-wear on a tire, then step back to see if anything else is wrong, then decide all is fit, and get in and drive away, you're going up and down and back up and back down, and up again, the logical levels in your mind.

Every time you adjust a little stitch, then pull back and look at how the whole seam looks, then imagine the whole shirt, then back down to the stitch, zip zip zip, up and down the logical levels. It's called "human intelligence".


Everyday Stuff

Everyday stuff; everyone does it all the time. Doesn't take a rocket scientist, and in fact, as it turns out, because of their employment/employer conditions, rocket scientists are a little less good at it than the rest of us.

Sure, the new understanding presented by a new, more advanced paradigm in general, and by this paradigm that I'm presenting in particular, is a much larger understanding than the disassociated thoughts that it encompasses and replaces.

But the intellectual processes for understanding that new higher level, the physical, mental equipment required, is present and used all the time by ordinary people. The (alleged) "leap" across that big intellectual "gap", that is required for understanding the new higher level, is not really all that big of a deal, as it turns out.

I'll concede that one has to be, perhaps seven or eight years old before the required neuronal equipment is fully grown in, ok.

But once a person outgrows the elementary school age, and leaving teenagers aside, well, certainly adults do not get to plead stupidity on this one.

I just don't believe it. Sorry. As a teacher, I would have to say, we need a better excuse . . .


II. Casper the Friendly Ghost

A second problem that is oft stated is that people tend to be a bit superstitious - certainly this has been mentioned in regard to the difficulties of medieval Europe. People, it is claimed, simply cling to old beliefs because that's all they know.

They find, it is said, new ideas that contradict the general tracks that they steer by, just too spooky. This was exabberated by the essentially unfathomable nature of the usual religion in the Europe of those days (not to mention in modern America), a religion which is itself the ultimate in spookyness.

Anything unfamiliar, in that frame of mind, is seen to be "evil" in some way, and unfathomably 'evil' at that, unpredictable, not fitting with known ideas of what one is supposed to do, likely to get you in trouble in perhaps inarticulatable ways.


III. Pride

A third problem regarding understanding new paradigms, is said to be some sort of academic or professional "pride". That is: if a scientist or scholar is quite familiar with thinking and calculating in the old ways, he or she will feel that a lifetime of work may be now seen to be all wrong.


False Alarm

For the professional scientist, the main system of calculation, the one that the scholar is so expert at, is now, falsely, feared to be seen as useless - all that work, and training, a lifetime, down the tubes, so to speak, or so it would (falsely) seem, not to mention his or her credibility, with benefactors, as well as students, peers, and others - the fear of a life-sustaining credibility perhaps shattered forever. A quite literally life-threatening fear, for sure.

Think of the poor physician, faced with the forest women of 15th century Europe. Here he is applying leaches, and proscribing isolation for the ill - and he has a reputation as a learned, caring man, all his life.


Opps

And along comes someone who might reveal the fact that, in fact, leaches and isolation kills, and has been killing his patients, adults and children alike for decades, while soup and affection, which a learned god-fearing physician wouldn't be caught dead with, and which he has always denounced, is actually what heals.

So, picture your modern day doctor or other professional in that 15th century situation. Do you suppose he'd say:


Terrific! (?)

"Hey, this is great. We've discovered that what I've been doing all these years (leeches) has been torturing everyone to death; lucky we found that out, because now that we know that the approach that I've been destroying all these years, is actually the healing approach (affection), we can apply it and be better at making people healthy. Give that person a prize."

Do you think that's what he'd say? I mean, a modern-day psychologist, professor, business executive, publisher, and the like? Put in that 15th century position? "Lucky everyone found out my methods are killing, because now that we know that, we can do the other thing, the thing I always hated and killed, and now, we can actually make everyone healthy". Is that what you think they'd say? I mean, the professionals that are around now? If they were in that situation?


Maybe Not

For myself, I don't think they'd say that. I mean, I could be wrong, but I think they'd say: "BURN THAT ------- WITCH AT THE STAKE!!!" Myself, I think they'd repeat more than once. Given what I've seen of professionals that we have around today, indeed, what the very term "professionalism" means, that's what I think they'd do in that situation. In fact, I presume they teach you that in medical school; part of the Inc. group of courses. I mean, you could get sued . . .

And of course, back in those days, dropping the offending (healing) parties 'out-of-the-loop', so to speak, in the cases mentioned above, via burning at the stake, is exactly what they did do, and why.


Fear of Cognition

So, anyway, from all this, the reader can see that this sort of thing - fear of exposure on the part of powerful people - might present at least a teensy weensy problem for helpful paradigm formation, a problem which we'll somewhat wryly identify for the moment as "professional 'pride'".

Leeches-and-isolation vs. soup-and-affection and thousands live or die every day, one way or the other - the problem (it is said), is that the "leeches-and-isolation" folks (aka modern-day professionals) have too much professional "pride", to allow themselves to be identified as having been highly toxic, criminally deranged sociopaths all these years, even if such characterizations are both accurate and helpful. The 'pride factor', so to speak.


IV. Invisibility

A fourth problem regarding the uncovering of new paradigms is said to be what Kuhn called "the invisibility of paradigms", namely that people who are totally used to operating within a paradigm, throughout their lives, do not even know that they are operating within a particular paradigm, but figure that that's just the way things are.


Just The Way Things Are

The way people usually think about things, well, "It's not a paradigm; it's just what is." That seems to be what they sometimes think, anyway.

Thus, when they are presented with a new paradigm, they don't even recognize it as different from the way they are used to looking at things.

They just dismiss it as different from what they (and everybody) knows, without being able to evaluate it as a whole paradigm.

They just see it as another contradictory low level idea, just another disassociated idea among many, which contradicts, common, universally accepted things.


V. Specialized Expertise

Yet a fifth problem is said to be a general lack of professional information and technical detail in the field that the new paradigm addresses. It is (falsely) claimed that only the paradigmist - and a few persons in related fields can really understand it.


There's A Bit More To It

While all these problems do in fact exist to some degree, for a paradigmist attempting to present a new paradigm, Intellectual Aclarity, Superstition, Professional 'Pride', Invisibility, Specialized Technical Expertise, and more, while all these problems do in fact come up to some degree in presenting a new paradigm, none, nor even the combination of all, account for the enormous hostility that has often greeted new paradigms in general, and that has greeted mine in particular.

Particularly regarding the case at hand, especially, all those well-known difficulties do not account for the difficulties that I have encountered in presenting (or more accurately in failing to present) Paradigm from California.

In fact the real problem is much more serious and difficult to "crack" than any of the above listed difficulties refer to.

Just for reference, perhaps I can give an analogy from the Copernican paradigm.


Seems Less Stable, But Is More Stable

Supposing you are a ship's captain, and you are approached by Copernicus (a non-famous Copernicus, of course), who explains that cross-ocean navigation will be far more predictable and less dangerous by adopting this new "sun-centered" system that he has discovered.


Great!

So here you are, a ship's captain, given a tool that makes it much more likely that your ship will return safely and will not crack up on the rocks on some god-forsaken, unseen shore, and sink, drowning oneself and all one's men.

Sounds great. Vastly advanced navigational facilities.

BUT. There's another side of it.


But, Ummm . . .

Given the reaction of others in the society, especially more powerful persons, to the idea of a mobile earth, if you were to start walking around with this new understanding in your head, in the absence of general acceptance, indeed, in the presence of this new understanding being seen as the "work of the devil", an understanding that it is, in effect, literally a capital crime to hold, you then are faced with a nightmarish choice.

Think of the heavenly bodies in the old way and run a much higher risk of the ship cracking up and everyone (including oneself of course) drowning,

OR, develop this new understanding, safer navigation, and run the risk of being burned at the stake as a witch!

I ask the reader to imagine which they would choose. Science, and History, has got you coming and going here.


Allegedly Heroic

Either risk, A. Going down to the sea in ships, a great hero captain, lost at sea,


Allegedly Heroic

OR, rather, in a safer frame of mind for sea-going navigation, but, BUT, risk B. Being burned as a witch for heresy.

It's a rough choice.


Bad News Bears

I'm guessing that the captain thinks of his family, his reputation, what sort of memories he leaves behind for others, and decides that the risk of shipwreck, a dignified, and heroic captain's death, is far far far preferable, than the risk of being burnt at the stake as a heretic - with all it's shame, impoverishment, isolation, and horror, for family and children, and general legacy.

Thus, it's easy, for me anyway, to imagine that the captain, with all his extreme concern for the welfare of his men and himself, to, DESPITE THAT CONCERN, still and all, reject this new understanding, on the grounds that the risk of a noble death - shipwreck - is a far better risk to take, than the risk of a disgraced one - death by being burned as a devil/heretic.

Again, the problem is NOT lack of intellectual aclarity, or superstition, or professional 'pride', or the invisibility of paradigms, or needing specialized technical expertise, or anything like that - smokescreens all. No no. The real problem is purely political. Just politics, through and through. Then, and, more to the point, now as well. What's new?


Of Rockefeller, Harvard, And The New York Mimes

(This is a theme Kuhn only most delicately touched on, but never never developed - indeed, if he had, it would have been the punch line of his entire work, but, then again, his publishers never would have published it, and Rockefeller would never have let him set foot in a university again . . . of course - again, what's new?).

Based upon what I've seen in current 21st century America, I would expect that the 16th century ship's captain might well decide to crack up on the rocks, drowning himself and all his men, rather than give the slightest credence to this obviously (to him) more accurate, and ship's-safety-providing understanding.

He'd rather take what he KNEW FULL WELL to be the death-dealing, suicidal, crackpot approach, rather than risk being personally discredited - or burned - as a witch. The bourgeoisie persuasion is without question, the most toxic pathogen in all of science, not to mention in society at large.

(There are a few, extremely rare, brave souls, who do take the risk . . . it does happen . . . the President for example, in his August ['98] deposition, but, my god, the price, in what would seem to be even the mildest of cases, can be extreme . . . as we've all seen. In fact, most people who take that risk of extraordinary honesty in the face of extreme and rabid institutional terror, don't survive it . . . he's just superman, a special case . . . but I digress . . .)


Another Kind Of Time

At any rate, as can be seen, and of course, this is the point, such problems - of terror at ruffling the feathers of an itself terrified establishment - are not merely confined to some medieval, superstitious society. The dynamic is most decisively present right here in river city, in the most allegedly non-conformist, allegedly learned, allegedly open-minded, allegedly intellectually advanced society the world has ever seen.

Indeed, the problem is FAR MORE present in modern America that was the case in Copernicus' Poland, or Galileo's Italy.


Paradigm From California

The details in the present case, circa 2000 AD., are as follows:

Under the old paradigm, the old (psuedo) 'structure' contains elements such as -


Gospel

Those are among the sacred "givens" under the present "paradigm" ( I call it a "psuedo-paradigm", but I'll call it the "old paradigm" here, just for short).

Sort of the present-day equalivants of "the-earth-is-flat", "cure-with-leaches", immobile terra, space is ether, women as inherently diseased, and all the rest of it . . .

Anti-science, crackpot, and often even deadly stuff, taken as gospel . . .


On The Other Hand

Within the paradigm I've discovered, as it turns out, all of those things are not the case, and in fact, their converse is indeed the case. That is:


So Then

So. Then. Thinking about the ship's captain in Copernicus' time, and his choice between a much better, safer, sailing method while risking being burned at the stake, or stick to the old, with its much higher risk of going down at sea, and taking all his men down with him . . .

And here. Think of the person who is suddenly going to be walking around with this new understanding that I've discovered.


Consider, Checking For Five-Senses Consistency Over Time

I mean, let's say, that a person seriously considers this new paradigm, and it seems to add up to them as accurate and relevant. If it's right, if the new paradigm is accurate, and the old one is inaccurate, what is the risk to them of associating this new paradigm in their mind? What could be the problem????

Ah ha. As it turns out, a paradigm, and certainly this paradigm, is not really just an intellectual understanding. In fact, it holds the place in a person's mind that a governing system holds, not only for thoughts, but for behavior.


The Whole Guidance System, Not Just The Ingredients, Or The Tread, Or The Stitches

As it turns out, a person's overall understanding be it the "old paradigm" or the "new paradigm", whichever, is indeed THE overall guidance for how they deal with the world around - and particularly how they deal with the people around them.


Of Love And Work

It's also guidance for all sorts of subtle things, like attitudes towards their work, their social conversations, their intimate relations, and just about everything else high and low.

Thus, a change in paradigm like this exposes a person to all sorts of fears that may be quite nightmarish.


Tenure

Think, first of all, of the teacher, the psychiatrist, the attorney, the supervisor, the parent, the best friend, the lover or partner, the politician, the physician.

All of these people - ALL THEIR LIVES - have been advising those who look to them along the lines of the old "It-is-inevitable-that-things-will-work-out-poorly-for-some" 'paradigm'.

All have been attempting (or alleging to attempt) to be helpful, by repeating the ideas of the old 'paradigm' like a mantra.


Fear and Habit

If the person suddenly comes to understand that all that, and plenty more like it, is NOT true, if it is exposed that all that is not the way things work at all, and their converse is indeed the way life works, that change in understanding comes off to the person as a life-threatening attack on not just them, but on so much of what their life has long been all about.

And I do mean "Life-Threatening". When a person defends against a new paradigm, such as this one, to that person, while they may claim (with that famous hollow laugh) that it's all just a philosophical matter, of no real importance, in fact, underneath, it feels to them like they're FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIFE!


The Nut

After all, if it turns out that the professional, or parent, or administrator, or teacher, or spouse, or friend, or whatever, has been advising his or her supervised persons to "grow out of" their childish ideas about solving everything, or "grow out of" thinking that those untimely losses were unnecessary, or "accept people as they are" because, it is alleged, they're "just" 'set', or, 'don't try to outguess what another person is thinking', or reconcile to an ultimately competitive, "hostile" world, or understand that things are just too complex to really understand, or that there is no same-for-everyone-truth, really -

And, as it turns out, those ideas are all wrong, inaccurate, untrue (which they are), then, the person thinks back on all those they have imposed that (inaccurate) "advice" on. Indeed, sometimes fatally inaccurate, and worse . . .


'Getting Along' - In The World As It Stands

Sure, perhaps some persons, who one advised that way, then got along better in the world, in the moment, but, what about those suicides, what about all that Ritalin, and Prozac, what about all that depression, those careless (don't care) type 'accidents' that people fell prey to, that sense of helplessness papered over by ever more layers of crackpot, and really, in fact, deadly "advice" . . .

"Take it from me" says the attachment figure, an apparently wise person that someone depends on.


Take What?

Well, if all those things, while conforming to society's norms, are shown to bear NO RELATION WHATSOEVER to actual bioecosystemic and basic human behavioral patterns,

and BEAR NO RELATION WHATSOEVER to what people need to operate on to be healthy and helpful, then, in that case, the professional (or friend, or guidance person, or whatever), might suddenly see themselves as a destructive person, in a lifetime destructive pattern. It can be like suddenly seeing oneself as a deranged killer, whereas one previously thought of themself as just this really nice sweet person.

Worse still, the person might fear that their whole support system is endangered, and when one's external support system starts to crumble, the famous 'mental stability' starts to feel shaken. Shiver . . .


Not Far-Fetched At All

It might seem far fetched, but in fact, it is my conclusion, that it is not far fetched at all.

In fact, from what I've figured out, that is the number ONE reason that this paradigm has failed to emerge 'lo these past TEN THOUSAND YEARS. And that's pretty tight . . .


Success In A Destroying Society As It Stands, Or Personal Risk In Promoting Helpfulness

Everyone, Everyone's terrified of being seen, by themselves or others, as a harmful person, not only in the moment, but, perhaps more important, for their whole up-till-then life.

Furthermore, after living this long, and becoming expert at getting along within this particular system, they are being asked to chuck some of their most cherished mantras, the ones that have brought them success in a destroying society, as it stands, and instead, to adopt a new system that they have no expertise in, and that they have been fighting, and even killing all their life.

But even worse. Since we live in a winner/loser society, everyone's constantly afraid of becoming a loser, and everyone's goal seems to be to be a winner and not a loser.


But, But, Everyone's In It Together, All At Once

It feels to the person like if they become aware of this new set of understandings as accurate, and it becomes commonly known that this new paradigm is accurate, then they feel they will be personally open to the charge, from all those that look to them, of being a destructive idiot, instead of a helpful and wise person.


Fear Of 'Mental Instability' Upon Losing Protection

I don't know if you can imagine just how violent someone will become in order to fight off the possibility of going from being seen as a wise and helpful person, to being seen as an idiotic and destructive person.

It's sort of like the ship's captain. He's faced with safe-ship/burn-as-a-heretic (new paradigm), OR sunken-ship/die-as-a-hero (old paradigm).

Quite similar, but even scarier in the current society.


Falling Out Of The Loop - Shiver . . .

Be-helpful/Fall-out-of-the-loop/Fail,

OR

Be-harmful/be-seen-as-helpful/succeed.


It's Unclear Just How Much About All This People Actually Do Understand

Many many persons, of all political and professional stripes, claim overtly, that they would choose the latter.

In fact, it would seem that they do choose the latter, but it's unclear to me just how much about this that they actually understand.


Success In Society As It Stands, Sinks The Planet

I have, in fact, put this question, in clear and emphatic terms to high level persons at the high levels of establishment politics, to persons in Progressive organizations, to high level professionals involved in life and death decision-making, in medicine, in law, in education, and in a variety of other fields, and the answer has always, so far without exception, come up the same.

"If you're not offering a way to be personally successful, in society AS IT STANDS, then you're not offering anything". There will be no risks taken for anything except increased success in society AS IT STANDS!


How To Put This . . . ??? !!!

But as it turns out, everything one does has a vast helpful-or-harmful effect on society at large. This are not all just a question of "personal, private understandings". Rather, one's overall understanding powerfully affect how the world around one goes.

If the "work-out-poorly-for-some" (psuedo) paradigm is NOT correct, and the "work-out-well-for-everyone" paradigm IS correct, singularly accurate, then, one who operates within the "work-out-poorly" frame of reference is being UNNECESSARILY harmful.

But, assimilating the "work-out-well-all-around" paradigm will place them at high risk for falling out of the loop in personally dangerous ways.


Thus, the problems I've had, presenting Paradigm from California, do not derive from any difficulty of comprehension, or inaccuracies, or superstitions, or aversion to change, or ignorance of technical matters, or low intelligence, or time or place to consider it, or anything like that.

The problems that I've had about presenting it is the same fundamental problem that all paradigmists have had, except in this case, multiplied manifold, due to the overarching social/political/professional nature of it.

People feel, when they contemplate it, that they personally stand to lose their position, lose the respect of others, lose their credibility, lose their relationships, lose their sanity, indeed, perhaps, lose their life. Quite literally.

It's really not an "academic", or "intellectual", or "philosophical" matter at all. Not at all not at all.

Rather, it's life and death, up and down the line - it feels like life-threatening for the individual, if they seriously consider it, and it will spell death of the planet if they don't.

Most people (all I've encountered), have come to the conclusion that they'd personally rather do ok while watching the world perish, rather than risk falling out of the loop, attempting to arrange a planet-saving solution.

"Getting along in the system", as the expression goes, at this time, involves not merely paying "lip-service" to a bunch of crackpot notions ("inevitably-of-work-out-poorly-for-some-etc.), but in fact, you can't really get along, unless you adopt - and live - the entire system (albeit partly unconsciously), and therein find an awareness of the solution system, absolutely life-threatening.

Again, this goes for philosopher, teacher, psychiatrist, attorney, parent, professor, administrator, artist, musician, political activist, and all the rest.

In fact, this is not only the reason that I've had such a difficult time coming up with and presenting this paradigm these last forty years, and especially these last twenty, ten, and five, but, perhaps more to the point, why it's taken ten thousand years to come up with it at all, and, if this planet does unnecessarily perish, why that SO UNNECESSARILY happened.

It's not that Paradigm from California is wrong, not that it's too complicated, not that it's too specialized, nor anything like that . . . the problem is that, a commitment to success in society AS IT STANDS renders this sort of change to feel like a life threatening possibility, one which one has been trained to avoid at all costs.

It is for this reason, that I have always felt that this paradigm can only be presented in the context of a public presentation.

From what I can tell, no one, especially no one in a position to be helpful, feels like they can hold it alone, and survive.

Therefore.

PUBLIC presentation --- as I've remarked again and again throughout these pages, it's the only way!