The Paradigm Conspiracy: Why Our Social Systems Violate Human Potential-And How We Can Change Them

by Denise Breton, Christopher Largent

Drawing from the success and wisdom of the Iroquois Peace Confederacy, Twelve Step recovery programs, and the poetry of Rumi, The Paradigm Conspiracy provides an analytical framework of our current social systems and presents suggestions for change that can ultimately result in an entire paradigm shift. The Paradigm Conspiracy offers a unification of systems theory that can be applied to both personal and social problems. Based on the idea that individuals cannot be fully healthy in a society filled with dysfunctional systems, the authors concentrate on those behavioral models that successfully help individuals to change (i.e., the recovery model, the Twelve Circles of the Iroquois Nation) and how these models can then be applied to unhealthy social structures. "Without question, the addictive paradigms that bind us to society (and often to each other) also hinder our growth as free-thinking individuals. This deeply researched book not only exposes these addictive systems, but provides a new vision of recovery by insisting that we change the lenses through which we see our world. It then becomes the compass rather than the rigid road map by which we lead our lives -- thus enabling us to break with the traditionally binding patterns of today."
--Steven Covey, founder and chairman of the Covey Leadership Center and author of the number one best-seller, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. "This is an excellent and eminently readable book. The metaphoric comparison between addiction and cultural belief systems is powerful. The book raises the critical question for our Can you have healthy persons in an unhealthy system -- a system based on an essentially unhealthy paradigm? It argues, successfully, that the paradigm which creates addiction can't also heal it; in other words, there is no solution for our social ills short of fundamental whole-system change. The first step is to face our taboos and our toxic patterns with honesty and integrity. The book is a powerful wake-up call."
--Willis Harman, former president, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Sausalito, California "This book is a must-read for anyone who values family and freedom."
--Russell Means, activist, actor, and co-author of Where White Men Fear to Tread.  

Genres: Philosophy

408 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1996

Reviews

[Raleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wouldn't generally give a new-agy book four stars, but I also wouldn't exactly call this book strictly New-Age. The Paradigm Conspiracy did an excellent job of showing how changing society begins by change from within. The book was a conglomerate of holistic philosophy, existentialism, dynamic psychology, spirituality, indigenous sociology, and anthropology with an attempt to show the reader the different soul-depleting paradigms they are trapped in and how we can overcome them through dialogue, connecting with others, mutuality, community, and change from within. I really appreciated the Eastern and Indigenous views of earth and our connectivity with each other as well as all of the biosphere.