Paradigm shift - an end and a new beginning

A new paradigm may occur - opening the eyes of crowds of people - by revolutions and other freedom movements. After years of struggle they often, but not always, lead to constitutional rights. If a majority of people agrees, and the military allows it, the society will develop as a democracy. Sometimes revolutions are followed up by dictatorships.  

In democratic societies there are still power struggles. Different groups fight for better working and housing conditions. Some times they are up against privileges of the ruling class. Labour conflicts eventually lead to collective agreements, involving resistance from the rulers, the conservative parties and the police. 

At an individual level philosophers discuss whether humans have got a free will, and the discussions are sometimes cynical. Philosophers ask: How is our role in the universe? And they answer on behalf of everyone, as if there is no society, no nature, and nothing divine: 'there is no human nature, because there is no God. Man is nothing else, than what it creates itself!' Only an inveterate citizen, smoking lots of cigarettes, will be able to reflect like that. 

A paradigm involves invisible, but powerful social norms. Nora leaves her husband in ”Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen, but without answering the question: where? Society is based on a monogamy family structure where adult life is well-defined beginning at a wedding and ending at a funeral...

Leisure-time ... a learning process

To use time in a proper way demands exercise, because anyone will be liable to seek well-known patterns. It is as demanding to make good use of one's time as it is to learn to cultivate the earth and to establish material. Free times means liberty, which is frightening to a lot of people...

Human rights do not exist worldwide

There are still people around the world who are exposed to inhuman treatment. In the West constitutions to a certain extent protect all sections of the populations. But in many parts of the world cynical politicians in power neglect what we in the West regard as evident human rights. Sometimes the behaviour of the rulers is far beyond decency...