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When Theodore Roosevelt became President around the turn of the 20th century, he called in architect Charles McKim to remodel the White House. What McKim did, in effect, was to tear the 19th century out of the mansion, knock down the heavy Victorian screens and airless brocaded atmospherics, and let in light -- a clean weightless look that at the time seemed stunning. History is filled with regenerations, with new beginnings, new models. Vatican II did such work upon centuries of the Roman Catholic Church, Ataturk upon the dying remnants of Ottoman Turkey.
Regeneration is always cleansing and usually dangerous. The First Law of Wing Walking cautions, "Never let go of what you've got until you've got hold of something else." But sometimes getting to the New Paradigm involves spending a certain amount of terrifying time in midair. And so we are pinwheeling now in black space, trying to figure out whether apocalypse is very Old Paradigm or very New Paradigm.