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3:8

(In »The four paradigms in the history of metaphysics«)

Paradigm shifts entail dramatic conflicts, since for obvious reasons the prevailing power structure strives to preserve the status quo at any price for the purpose of defending its own privileges against the new, burgeoning elite. Therefore, with both violence and moralising nostalgia, the old power structure tries to keep the society fixed in the old paradigm for as long as humanly possible. That somebody voluntarily gives up the advantages bestowed on them by virtue of their class is a rare occurrence indeed. But the ice floe in the rapids on which civilisation to date has been standing eventually becomes so small that civilisation must migrate to another ice floe. With this sooner or later inevitable jump, the power structure and its writing of history changes radically, because everything must be hastily adapted to the new conditions for survival that are linked to and built into the new ice floe. Therefore it is always the new and not the old rulers – those who have most to gain and absolutely nothing to lose from the altered prioritisations within the new metaphysics – who are the fastest to change ice floes and adapt to the new rules for survival. The new metaphysics forces the pace, and the leap between the ice floes thus accelerates the rate of the shift of power between the elites of the two paradigms.