The Seeing-Being Trap
“The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of eternal youth, lies not in seeking new lands but in having new eyes” — Marcel Proust
If we’re closed to new ways of seeing, we trap ourselves in old ways of being.
If we allow these seeing-being traps
to continue unchallenged, they lock us into prevailing orthodoxies, condemning us to repeat the mistakes, misunderstandings and missed opportunities of the past.In the 1860’s, the prevailing orthodoxy of spontaneous generation perpetuated the belief that food simply went off and wounds simply went septic.
But where others saw spontaneous generation, Louis Pasteur saw germs.
Pasteur did not originate germ theory but his experimental demonstrations provided the supporting evidence needed to establish it as the new orthodoxy.
His legacy?
Not just his familiar name enshrined in pasteurised milk but he developed early treatments for rabies, fowl cholera and anthrax.
Subsequently, the Pasteur Institute discovered treatments for plague, TB and tetanus, as well as isolating the HIV/AIDS virus.
Pasteur succeeded where others failed.
Losing three of his five children to typhoid no doubt spurred him on, but more importantly he saw beyond an orthodoxy that went back to the time of Aristotle.
In doing so, his work fundamentally transformed both food production and medicine.
It revolutionised the treatment of infectious diseases and its unprecedented success established germ theory as the new orthodoxy.
Unfortunately, this meant that when it came to the search for a cure for scurvy - a debilitating disease affecting sailors on long journeys - the pattern repeated itself, with most researchers trapped in the orthodoxy and searching for the germs responsible.
Once again, it took new eyes, this time belonging to Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, to see that scurvy was not caused by the presence of germs but the absence of vitamin C.
Like Pasteur, Szent-Gyorgyi was fully familiar with the prevailing orthodoxy but not constrained by it.
He could put it to one side and see what others, trapped by the past, could not yet see.
Szent-Gyorgyi was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1937 and subsequently described the secret of his success:
“Discovery is seeing what others have seen but thinking what no one else has thought”.
Thomas Kuhn’s seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) showed that this is a repeating pattern in the history of human progress:
Someone emerges who sees what others do not yet see, challenging the current orthodoxy.
This feels threatening to those whose sense of self is heavily invested in that orthodoxy.
The 'old guard' initially ridicule and then strongly oppose the new way of seeing that challenge the status quo, and specifically their status within it.
Eventually the weight of evidence supporting the new way of seeing prevails and becomes the new orthodoxy.
Only when we escape our outdated paradigms, axioms, and ideologies can the new insights, ideas and innovations emerge that have the potential to change our world.
“À la recherche du temps perdu” Volume V “La Prisonnière” (1923)
This 7 minute video explains why Seeing-Being Traps are the #1 personal barrier to creating a future-fit culture of innovation and agility.
Donella Meadows identified the second most powerful leverage point for systemic change as the mindset or paradigm out of which the system arises and the most powerful leverage point as the ability to transcend paradigms.