. . . What, exactly, is shifting in this paradigm ?

Four Theatres of Perspectival Change  

Number TWO :

Insights from systems-analysis and social epistemology show how certain mutually reinforcing aspects of human social organization thwart change, even when change would be beneficial. Human existence is structured into interlocking social systems, a system of systems, which can absorb and neutralize new information without being essentially altered by it. This inertial nature of systems can trap human societies into maladaptive and self-destructive trajectories.

Diego Rivera   "The Contradictions Between the Rich and the Poor"  no. 01  1923-1928
http://www.uic.edu/depts/ahaa/classes/ah111/imagebank.html

Rianne Eisler, for example, has offered from a secular perspective one such analysis which may be familiar to general readership.    

The "Christly" vs. "worldly" power draws from her "actualizer" or "partnership," as opposed to "dominator," model of human social organization, with their respective definitions of power.

When human beings make deliberate choices for such structural change, the possibilities are opened for systemic change. What such analyses suggest is that: where goal, method and presuppositions are being questioned in similar ways in different but interdependent fields such as industry and commerce, politics, education and ecology, then the conditions are present for a paradigm shift in the meta-system of human social systems.

A revolution in human social systems struggles forward to combine insights, largely along the lines of a new vision of power. Of interest to The Alethia Foundation, and to many others, is this:  the emerging notions of power, those which also match a Christ-inspired ideal of power, as opposed to the world’s ideal of power, can be shown to be theologically consonant with a biblical, Trinitarian faith which can unify such vision.    This vision

• presumes abundance through trust in God
  
• emphasizes a web of human relationships imaged in the divine co-equal persons of the Trinity, over a hierarchical order of relationships
  
• redefines, sometimes reversing, "resource" and "liability"
  
• prefers cooperative creativity and invention to subservient conformity
  
• values self-fulfillment in voluntary service and empowerment as opposed to domination and enforced dependency
  
• applies to all aspects of life (including for instance economics, education, ecology, business management).

Mat weaver, participant in microcredit program of the Grameen Bank, Bangladesh.   The Grameen Bank provides collateral-free loans in a structured, cooperative community-organizing program, giving the poor access to capital, and a method for building a productive livelihood.   http://www.grameen-info.org/