an example of a paradigm shift
Let’s consider a current rarely questioned paradigm having to do with employment, work, and “jobs”:
A job is a good thing. One doesn’t want to be without a job. We support politicians who say they will create jobs.
Such is a paradigm ingrained in our culture.
A job provides income. That’s good … necessary. Getting that income involves some sacrifice because a job usually requires a constraining commitment to cog-like routinization re: working most of most days under conditions of specific-tasks-related employment at a position contributing to the production of an institution of some kind (like: a business or non-profit or governmental agency).
Most jobs are less than inherently interesting, but they are part of the fabric of modern life. There is social concern about there being enough jobs, about how much they pay, about stability of employment. Individuals worry about having jobs, losing jobs, etc.
https://mishtalk.com/economics/will-ai-replace-skilled-programmers-when-should-we-tax-robots/
As natural as it all seems within the context of industrial modernity, the paradigm is actually a relatively recent one, if we look at the broad expanse of history.
An alternative paradigm both harks back and looks forward. It involves working for one’s family and community instead of for an institution. That goes along with an alternative paradigm of lifeways: extended family embedded within a stable local community … an alternative to the lifeways of industrial modernity. It’s communitarian rather than institutional. Within that context work is what people do together to simply and directly sustain life together. They collectively see what needs to be done, make decisions about task allocation, and monitor that the necessary work gets done. Then they hang out together and create local culture together. Productivity is low and there’s less stuff. There is little concern about productivity and there is liberation in dealing with less stuff. There is never any unemployment or fear of such. In fact, almost all the issues that are of concern to us these days re: “jobs” is irrelevant.
To get to that better place from where we are now (highly dependent upon the globalized productive megamachine) — to effectuate a paradigm shift — can only be a gradual process, one of devolution, scaling down, and re-localizing. But one thing we can do, as we strive for incremental change, is to keep in mind the fully alternative lifeways paradigm that could get us back to sanity.
Humanity has been wandering around in a cultural haze for a long time. After we traverse our way back to sanity we may or may not feel all so much happier (it’s inherently hard being human), but we will have a sense of things making sense.
