Every once in a while you come across an idea that is so full of possibilities, your imagination runs wild, unleashed. When you share your thoughts with others, you might indulge in fantasizing together about how the future might unfold; or you might debate the merits and obstacles in seeing some version of the future realized; or your conversation partner might reject this new idea outright, a rejection often based on emotional reaction, because this disruptive idea perhaps lies beyond the comfort zone of your interlocutor’s existing frameworks.
When philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn wrote that paradigm shifts occur as revolutions rather than through incremental additions to existing knowledge, he pointed to the need for our imaginations to break free from our current constructs for real change to happen—divergent thinking is imagination. Kuhn contended that crises ensue when communities realize that their existing paradigms hold an increasing number of “anomalies” (that is, events that happen that don’t fit the dominant narrative). Revolutions occur when these communities shift their thinking and actions and accept the new paradigm, which eventually becomes commonly accepted, as the old one is rejected.
Not all ideas have the same value, but no idea should be…
