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How Lazy New Agers Brought Back That Dreaded Term "Paradigm Shift"

John C. Dvorak

PC Computing, March 1992 issue

I heard the phrase "paradigm shift" used at least 20 times the last time I visited Compaq.
-Ed Bott, Editor of PC /Computing

No kidding, John. It's a genuine paradigm shift!
-Martin Mazner, PowerUp Software

According to Working Woman magazine, the business buzzword for 1992 is paradigm shift. It's exemplified by the IBM-Apple alliance, say proponents of the term. I first heard paradigm shift used in 1979, when it was the byword of the year for unreconstructed hippie initiates of the New Age movement. You know, the people who have lost faith in the scientific method, and who eschew research in favor of the advice of a bald-headed shaman named Ekododo, who wears antelope horns, crystals, and shark-tooth necklaces and refuses to eat red meat or wear leather shoes. Ekododo was formerly Abe Lipshitz of Brooklyn.

Every year, these voodoo worshippers and cultists dream up some new term so they can identify one another when they bump into each other at the Gruel Bowl vegetarian restaurant. Suddenly, after terms like empower, holistic, self-actualization, and human potential have come and gone, paradigm shift has returned. Only this time it's some sort of fake business term. Make no mistake about it, paradigm shift is as meaningless as ever.

Professor Thomas Kuhn used the word in a 1962 book entitled "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions". The book, which was panned in its early years, has since been revived as a tome of the New Agers. Simply stated, Kuhn says that the establishment is hopelessly bound by old rules (paradigms) and can't produce breakthroughs in scientific thought. Others have reworded this to say that a paradigm shift is needed for a breakthrough to take place. Ironically, the increasingly New Age Scientific American, which now extols Kuhn, was the magazine that panned his book in 1964.

The most active promoter of the paradigm shift as explanation for all progress (or lack of progress) is a fellow named Joel Barker. President of a consulting, firm called Infinity Limited, he pushes a concept called strategic exploration. (Don't ask.)

Listen to Barker if you want to hear top-notch New Age trash: "Changes in paradigms are what trigger the megatrends that define an era. Understanding those paradigms is key to understanding and being a player in, not a victim of, the future." Can we get more obtuse?

Yes, we can. All we have to do is read Industry Week magazine, where apparently the term paradigm shift is in the style guide. I've found so many references to this concept in Industry Week that I suspect starry-eyed New Age herbal-colonic aficionados have taken over the editorial department. Dig this gibberish from the October 21, 1991, issue: "But his broader goal for the plant is to lead a paradigm shift from mass production to 'lean manufacturing', a new, more flexible way to run a manufacturing plant -- any plant. The term, coined by MIT's International Motor Vehicle Program, is a new concept only in as much as it combines the best-of-craft-production with the best-of-mass-production techniques in a low-cost, highly flexible way." Yeah, lean manufacturing, another meaningless term coined by MIT to confuse things. (MIT, by the way, comes up a lot in discussions of New Age weirdness.)

Months earlier, the same magazine printed this: "Today, many manufacturers are undergoing a paradigm shift in thinking -- moving from the Cost World to the Throughput World ... thus, the proliferation of programs to improve quality, reduce inventories, shorten manufacturing cycle times, and improve response to the marketplace." As if nobody used to care about quality, cycle times, market response, and reduced inventories. Get real. Throughput World indeed.

Let's face it, all this mumbo jumbo and New Age rubbish is an excuse to maintain a neo-1960s antiestablishment, personal philosophy so you can have someone to blame for the fact that you've done nothing with your life. In fact, nobody in this crowd ever says anything about the concept of hard work when explaining paradigm shifts, breakthroughs, or productivity boosts. Never. Find someone who reveres all this crapola and you'll find a subscriber to the basic "Work, moi? No way!" New Age philosophy.

Contrary to New Age preachings, the bulk of scientific knowledge has been accumulated recently and within the framework of the scientific community, not by some nutball living in a mud hut. Furthermore, the mass of knowledge has not come from a series of herky-jerky paradigm shifts. A continuum of change accounts for progress. Lazy New Agers would like to convince us that the way we do things is wrong. Scratch deeper and you'll find a plea for money so they can prove their ideas. The method of proof usually requires the services of the shaman Ekododo or some other crackpot.

So stay alert. The word "paradigm" means "model" and "paradigm shift" means "change". The usage of paradigm shift, in particular, is still code that comes equipped with a nudge nudge-wink-wink message.

My advice: Keep track of your wallet when dealing with this crowd.