what you get here

This is not a blog which opines on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers to muse about our social endeavours.
So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!

The Bucegi mountains - the range I see from the front balcony of my mountain house - are almost 120 kms from Bucharest and cannot normally be seen from the capital but some extraordinary weather conditions allowed this pic to be taken from the top of the Intercontinental Hotel in late Feb 2020

Sunday, October 9, 2022

Types of Change

When we talk about change, we’re really exploring, firstly, our perception of change and, second, the stories we tell to make sense of it.

Kurt Vonnegut was a great story-teller and this video is his fantastic summary of the basic plots of stories - which we might reduce to the statement that “things go up and down – and roundabout

Applying the same principle to this issue of change, I would suggest that a useful typology could be -


Name

Its theory

Key reference

civilisational cycles

Societies reach a peak and then decline

The Decline of the West Oswald Spengler 1926

A Study of History (12 vols) Arnold Toynbee (1934-61)


generational cycles

Societies have zeitgeists which are generally every 20 years

The Fourth Turning – an american prophecy”; William Strauss and Neil Howe (1997)


critical junctures

When the various levels combine to create an irresistable force

Out of the Belly of Hell; Anthony Barnett (2020)

Literature review of critical junctures (2006)


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