Our World in Transition.

Book Review.
O’Murchu, Diarmuid. Our World in Transition. Making sense of a changing world. The Crossroad Publishing Company. 2000
D.O.- a priest and social psychologist currently based in London. Lecturer and author on new paradigms from a multi-disciplinary point of view.
Comment. Henry.
In my retirement I have attempted to be a learner. Reading is an important part of that commitment. Learning environments often come with some level of frustration. That was my experience with this book. It reminded me of my first experience with my friend and his abstract art display. I had an appreciation but it was sadly lacking in depth. The author has identified twelve transitions that are part of our changing world. They are ongoing. This would be an exclusive list. By now there may be new transitions happening. This is a very non-religious book written by a ‘man of the cloth’.
The transitions (paradigm shifts) identified in this resource belong to the century spanning the last half of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. One such shift was from” the whole being equal to the some of its parts to the whole being greater than the sum of its parts”. (15) The quantum theory was a product of this shift. A transition that is still quite evident is the transition from “a mechanistic to a wholistic understanding of our world”. (21) From indepence we have moved to interdependence.
Creativity comes out of chaos. Institutions, marked by authoritarian leadership where, “control was the leading metaphor; balance, the supreme virtue and conflict the great vice” (79), are transitioning to networking structures. At some levels traditional institutions are still valid. Networks function well globally. Thought patterns have transitioned from linear to lateral. Lateral actions pose a threat to firmly established institutions, e.g. education. The shift from masculine to feminine authority goes beyond the male/female concept to the kind of leadership characteristics, masculine and feminine, that are found in both male and female. Some interesting forces have been active in transitioning from production to process marketing. Work is being humanized, moving beyond the ‘job-for-money’ stage. The shift from church theology to kingdom theology may not be seen by many as a paradigm shift. The transition from physical evolution to psychic evolution is the final shift presented. All change is impacted by evolution.
In all these changes there is a “polarisation” (137) of responses. Three groups of change- agents are involved in these transitions and their strategies are “dialogue, resistance and drift”. (140) Six “cultural nerve-points “(146) resulting from these transitions are:
1. The integration of chaos.
2. The polarity of light and darkness.
3. The rediscovery of the feminine.
4. Cosmology as the primary revelation.
5. The call to outgrow anthropocentrism.
6. Learning to perceive laterally.