Why New School vs. Old School Debates are pointless

by Sean Peters 

I've been reading RPGamer's editorials for a long time, and one topic I see over and over again, without fail, is that of New School vs. Old School. I always thought of that debate as being pointless, but it wasn't until recently when I figured out why. It all has to do with that one magic word I saw in Mr. Alma's editorial: paradigm.

One of the most influential people in modern scientific philosophy is Thomas Kuhn, and I have just finished reading his fine book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn basically, for all intents and purposes, invented the word paradigm. One of the main points in his book are that paradigms are incommensurable, that is to say, there are no neutral set of standards from which to judge a paradigm.

This falls from common sense. One of the things that a paradigm contains are the standards for theory choice, or, how we will judge whether something is "good" or not. However, there is no such standard when comparing two competing paradigms, they are simply not comparable. It is not even possible to judge paradigms simply on how successful they have been, because some paradigms regard different things as successes.

For these reasons, there is no real way to have a debate between the New School and Old School view, they are simply competing paradigms, and there is no way to independently judge them. I hope this helped some raging debaters to look a little more carefully at what they are saying, and piqued the curiousities and minds of others. If this interested you at all, or if you have anything to say for or against my points, feel free to email me at bj656@scn.org. Just please, keep it intelligent, and remember to back up all your points. Also, if I didn't explain anything with enough clarity, I would be more than happy to reply.