What's a Paradigm Shift?

In 1962, Thomas Kuhn wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which he coined the phrase "paradigm shift." He argued that all major scientific revolutions result from significant changes in perception of the universe. His most prominent example was the "Copernican Revolution," in which astronomers reinterpreted already-accepted information and rebuilt their models of the universe. The major breakthrough, Kuhn said, was not the discovery of new facts, but a radically new understanding of them; prior to the revolution, people tried to shoe-horn information into increasingly complicated and unsatisfactory version of the standard earth-centered concept of the universe. Once Copernicus convinced people to see a heliocentric model -- the new paradigm -- scientists could explain their information more easily and then could even pursue new lines of investigation.

Fifteen years later, William G. McLoughlin wrote Revivals, Awakenings and Reform, which essentially applied Kuhn's concept to social change. McLoughlin argued that religious "awakenings" crop up when old paradigms begin to fail; that is, when the "conventional wisdom" no longer serves to explain the facts of our lives well enough. This failure, he wrote, creates extreme anxiety and often results in irrational -- or, at least, anti-rational -- behavior. Like the scientists in Kuhn's book, ordinary people try to jam new facts into an old model. The result, according to McLoughlin, is a reconfiguration of religious concepts that takes the form of intense spiritual practice -- the awakening.

I have believed for some time now that we are in the midst of a major paradigm shift. Our understanding of the relationship between humans and the rest of the universe faces serious questions with new information about global warming. Our view of what makes good government is strained by the growth of institutions many order of magnitude larger than national governments. Our basic concept of the economy is challenged by globalization. All of these factors result in anxiety and bizarre behavior.

All of my commentary on the Republican Party, for example, stems from this basic assumption. In future posts, I will apply the concept to specific events and trends.