How to Save the World: How Learning to Use the Bureaucratic Paradigm and Its Three Conditions Can Solve, A Personal Problem and Lead to the Solution of Intractable Social Problems

Abstract: The existence of paradigms, defined as society’s and its individuals’ most fundamental assumptions concerning the structure of both the physical and social world, lie behind people’s personal issues, as well as society’s most troubling problems. Such problems range from nuclear terror to racism. Invisibly lurking behind these problems, supporting them and making them difficult to solve, are our paradigms. One paradigm in particular, the bureaucratic paradigm with its rigid hierarchy, division of labor and knowledge, and strict conformity of its managers and workers, is the origin of the aggression that causes all of our intractable social problems. This essay shows that attacking these problems by attempting to change the structure of bureaucracies cannot succeed, since nearly everyone who lives in a bureaucratic modern society has been taught to think bureaucratically; therefore, we are unable to envision less bureaucratic institutions that can foster the creativity required to solve social problems. Alternatively, however, by learning to see how the bureaucratic paradigm and three of its concomitant conditions can be used to solve our individual problems, we can become more capable of solving worldwide social problems. Once we begin to change our individual bureaucratic paradigm, we will then be able to make our organizations less dependent on the bureaucratic paradigm so that we can make progress in solving our most threatening social problems.