Step & Strand 3: Developing Guiding Ideas & Transformative Storylines


(Step & Strand: A specific step that  becomes part of the supportive context (a strand) of the next and all later steps)

Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
explains paradigms and paradigm shifts. Progress happens in science not only from finding something new, like a new planet or a new star, but also from organizing patiently gathered observational data into new patterns of meaning, using new, over-arching ideas.

 

Roger Schank, Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence
explores the role of story-making in human thought processes. Human beings understand their life experiences through stories and their underlying themes, but modern societies organize themselves with ideas, abstractions and equations, often disparaging stories as only for children or the less intelligent, mere entertainment. But there are drastic social costs for ignoring people’s need for meaning and connection, expressed as the desire to include oneself as a participant in a meaningful story.

 

Riane Eisler and Douglas P. Fry, Nurturing Our Humanity:
How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future.
The evolution of human societies from domination to cooperation can be
understood as a META-STORY, an over-arching story about human life that
can organize all other human stories into a meaningful pattern.

 

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