The box we call home

And isn’t it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are (Plato, Republic).  Our reality, or our truth, is what our environment, and the constituents therein, presents to us as reality and truth. As a fetus our reality and our truth is the uterus: the fluid filled bubble that is our home for some nine-months. Sounds are muffled, light is barely perceived, and the world is inches wide. When born the world becomes bigger and we are no longer encased and held captive in a bubble, but, eyes shut and crying, have we escaped the limited reality of our former home? I would argue that we have not escaped a limited reality and I think that Thomas Kuhn and Plato agree with me.

Kuhn is famous for the idea of paradigms or “the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques and so on shared by members of a given community”(quoted on page 10 of our text). My understanding and definition of paradigms is a universal boxed in way of thinking that incases all individuals in a community and limits their reality and their ability to discover truth. Kuhn’s paradigms can be directly paralleled to my literature class in which we have been studying paradigms. In this class, I have learned that history is marked with different paradigms that box in the inhabitants of that time period. Without exception the paradigms of large communities deal, to some extent, with the mystical or the rational. For example, in the 14th century the paradigm was virtually all on the mystical side of the scale. If you were born blind it was because you sinned somehow: a mystical explanation for a biological malady. Paradigms are not incapable of change, however, or the box does not always remain the same shape. When a considerable amount of negative events occur the paradigm no longer works, the box no longer fits, so it changes. Continuing with the example of the 14th century, the 14th century was filled with negative events: two of the major ones being the 100 Years War between France and England and the Black Death. These events brought the mystical paradigm into question. For instance, it did not make sense that Priests, who were supposed to be holy, at most churches had to be replaced weekly because they were dying so rapidly from the Black Death. Beating after beating of the mystical paradigm box caused it to change shape and the paradigm became extremely rational in the 18th century. In modern time our paradigm is found somewhere in the middle of the mystical and rational. After hurricane Katrina or the earth quake in Haiti, for example, both paradigms explanations could be seen (see the attached links). The point is that, like it or not, we are incased in a paradigm box that we think and function inside.

Plato, similar to Kuhn’s belief that communities and scientists function within the paradigm of their time, illustrated his believe that we live in a limited reality through the allegory of the cave. A man is chained in a cave, he is incapable of moving his head, he experiences only the shadows on the wall, and he is captive to that reality. Then he is “…let loose, and suddenly compelled to stand up and turn his head and look…” (Plato, 380BC). Once the man is loosed and he “looks” his reality is drastically changed and, in effect, his paradigm changed or his way of seeing the world changed.
In light of Kuhn’s paradigms and Plato’s cave, I am worried that perhaps (unless we experience another Black Death) it is hopeless to see reality and truth. Indeed, it would be nice if we could all be “let loose” from the paradigm box, or cave, that is our home and venture to see reality and truth. As Christians, however, we profess confidently that we know the truth. Keeping with the allegory of the cave, however, we believe that we did not venture out of our cave to discover the truth. But the truth came into the cave and revealed itself to us in the form of Jesus Christ: who proclaims himself to be “the truth” (John 14:6). Therefore, we do know the truth if we know Jesus and we do know the reality that is His kingdom, but, knowing this, let us still be conscious of the fact that we live in the world which puts us in a box and it is only when we have left this world that “…[we] shall see fully…” and we will be free of the box (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Video: Mystical Paradigm Explanation of Haiti Earthquake

Video:Rational Paradigm Explanation of Haiti Earthquake