New Perspective
State if a new perspective is involved
If you propose a new perspective to an essentially conservative academia then good luck! Expect a tough ride. Taking a new perspective is like walking round an object to view it from another position - it changes everything! e.g. seeing the Earth as going around the Sun rather than the Sun going around the Earth was a new perspective, and Galileo was prosecuted for this competency destroying innovation (Hovav, 2008). As Kuhn explains, such "paradigm shifts" cause scientific revolutions, so don't expect a welcome mat. After all, how do those rooted in the current perspective know that you are not just making it up for profit? Indeed, if you don't actually have a stable view position, then you probably are. Like Archimedes who said give me a fulcrum and a lever and I can move the world, new perspectives need a solid base. Of the many who claim innovative perspectives most just imagine it. Yet it is true that viewer location defines what is seen, as in the story of blind men describing an elephant: One grabbed its tail and declared it like a rope and bendy, another took a leg and said it was like a pillar and fixed, a third felt an ear and found it like a rug and floppy, while yet another held the trunk and said it was like pipe and very strong indeed [Sanai, 1968]. Understanding varied with the viewpoint, while to see the elephant one needed to walk around it eyes open. A proposed new perspective cannot be assessed by someone rooted in the old perspective it challenges, just as a fish cannot assess how a bird flies. Equally, those who attempt a new perspective are usually shaky, as when the first fish came onto the land. Hence if you propose a new perspective clearly state how this is so, that this can be recognized by readers and reviewers.
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