My New Word

I have a secret. Before Harvard, I never had the courage to hurtle my true confessions at a reader. But my Kennedy School education has fortified me with this new word which forever onward will become my sword and shield as I strive to meet the challenges of the post-Harvard world: PARADIME. Did I spell it right? If not, it's only because my new word has not been broken in. In fact, I (gulp) never had a paradigm of my own. That's right--I was a man without a paradigm, suspended in a twilight zone of disbelief--until I reached the Kennedy School.

Now that I've graduated, I promise to keep my new set of paradigms spic'n'-span and right on target. Because of their awesome power, I will use them only for the good of humanity and never take unfair advantage of those poor souls who have not yet awakened to their paradigms. Indeed I shudder to imagine how this crazy world managed to survive, if not succeed, in the pre-paradigm era.

The face of human events might have smiled upon history's losers had they only discovered their paradigm in time. Poor Pharaoh Ramses--he really believed in his absolute invincibility and proceeded to lead his army after the Israelites, expecting the Red Sea to part for him as it had for Moses. Alas, his paradigm wasn't waterproof. And from that I learn a valuable lesson: never, ever go swimming with my paradigms. Although I think they are superficially water-resistant, they surely are not impervious to tumultuous oceans hellbent on devouring them.

Oops! I just realized. I'm sinking into the paradigmatic paradigm of Biblical constructivism. (Sounds impressive, huh?) I merely wanted to show you that misleading paradigms can spin off a clever catch-phrase. I have no idea what "Biblical constructivism" is. I just made it up to illustrate the hidden danger of long-worded paradigms. Remember, I promised never, ever to use my paradigms for manipulation. If I do, my everlasting soul will be banished to Dante's eighth circle, which awaits all those who betrayed their paradigms for evil rather than good. But that's another paradigm.

Shakespeare, in his prescient wisdom, foresaw the discovery of the late twentieth century Harvard paradigm. What is Macbeth if not the tragic embodiment of acute paradigm dysfunction? He fell victim to a bunch of lunatics who shoved their own illusory paradigms up his paradigm vacuum. He had to be told what paradigms to adopt. His fatal paradigm encompassed the plausibility of entire forests moving by themselves. Since Macbeth was the classic tragic hero, he could be cleansed of his false paradigms only in death. We muse that, at the final moment of truth, he ascends to paradigm purification.

If you want to witness the visual dynamics of paradigm confusion in a Shakespearean comedy, see Kenneth Branagh's "Much Ado About Nothing" now available on video. If you didn't believe in the romantic potential of paradigms before you see this film, you surely will afterwards. For me, it was a stunning display of paradigm interplay.

If Shakespeare artfully conveyed the drama of the paradigm, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle brought it to life in the character of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes's paradigms were broad, deep, convincing. They forged fiction into reality for thousands of believers who will tell you that the great sleuth lives on at 223B Baker Street, puffing on his paradigms. Why not? It only goes to show that one person's paradigm is another's world.

There comes a time when all good paradigms must come to an end, and so ends this essay. Before the next paradigm overtakes me, I want to leave you with my thanks for bearing through these 634 words of unbridled enthusiasm by one who has been awakened to the power and the glory of paradigms at Harvard.

Joseph V. Impara, Jr. received on M.P.A. from the Kennedy School in 1994.