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Why use this Wiki

Page history last edited by Brian G. Dowling 7 years, 3 months ago

This wiki is designed to help people redefine and redesign the local communities in which they live without constraint from existing institutions of governing powers or city hall.  It is intended to go beyond the ping-pong game of local politics into changing the basic patterns of community governance and through that community building and economic development, it seeks new community paradigms.

 

It is part of an experiment in creating an online learning and collaboration platform to define what is being termed  "community paradigms" and how best to create them. A new community paradigm calls for a transformational change brought about by members of that community. The why or purpose of this wiki is to provide others with resources found on the Internet that can be used to bring about meaningful change in the communities in which they live.  

 

The World Wide Web offers seemingly countless online resources from across the globe and an enhanced ability to communicate and collaborate with others. This has been its own paradigm shiftWhat is being gathered here are direct online resources with explanations as to how to best use them to achieve new community paradigms. This site's primary mission is to provide resources and help others in defining a new and hopefully better future for themselves by exploring and seeking to help to establish new paradigms for their communities that can be chosen rather than imposed.  It means going beyond gathering technical online applications to working out how to apply them to challenges by integrating technology and democracy.  More importantly, this means going beyond being merely passive consumers of government output and actively participating both in the defining of the political body and establishing policies that will impact their community.

 

Paradigms, according to the first definition of the Free Merriam-Webster are patterns, especially: an outstandingly clear or typical example or archetype. Patterns, however, are usually thought of as static and a dynamic definition is sought here. Patterns can also be considered superficial while paradigms, particularly when understood to have shifted,  bring about deep and long lasting changes. The concept of paradigm shifts has been applied to science, politics, finance and other sectors.  Paradigms can shift through their own evolution and are often missed by the component individuals (scientists for example) making up the entity itself (science) until after they have taken place.


In this effort, the concept of paradigm is being purposely added to the concept of community.  

 

Community according to Dictionary.com has it origin: 1325–75; based on the Latin commūnitās, equivalent to commūni ( s) common + -ty suffix occurring in nouns of Latin origin, denoting quality, state, etc.: unity; enmity.

 

Community Paradigms are therefore deep patterns making up the basic DNA of what defines and holds a community together.  A basic premise of this effort is that these paradigms making up a community can be purposely shifted, recognizing at the same time that this will be a major challenge.  

 

Combining the word community with the word paradigm, however, means that the paradigms this blog is seeking to create must be made through that very process of creating their definition or they will not start out clear and distinct. This has always proven true when paradigms shifted from an old one to a new one, the difference being that in the past changing paradigms independently redefined the reality and people either adapted or fell back.  This effort is meant to be built up through multiple sources and voices and endeavors to reach, if not a common definition, at least one that proves useful in helping others in defining their own community paradigms. 


A more pragmatic perspective to creating paradigms for one's self or one's community can be found in the synopsis of a University of Arizona course on methods and approaches for studying the future which sees paradigms from the following social perspective.

"Paradigms can be thought of as the framework that has unwritten rules but directs actions. There are several definitions below and some links to varying perspectives or applications of paradigms. When one paradigm looses influence and another takes over, there is a paradigm shift. Knowing in advance how a paradigm shift might occur gives you an advantage over others."

 

The Pathways to New Community Paradigms blog and Wiki, are designed to help individuals who want to redefine their role in the governance of their local communities as active participants in producing a more direct democratic form of government.

 

 

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