change

• not always for the better

68:4.7The sur­vival of a so­ci­ety de­pends chiefly on the pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion of its mores. The pro­cess of cus­tom evo­lu­tion grows out of the de­sire for ex­per­i­men­ta­tion; new ideas are put for­ward—com­pe­ti­tion en­sues. A pro­gress­ing civ­i­liza­tion em­braces the pro­gres­sive idea and en­dures; time and cir­cum­stance fi­nally se­lect the fit­ter group for sur­vival. But this does not mean that each sep­a­rate and iso­lated change in the com­po­si­tion of hu­man so­ci­ety has been for the bet­ter. No! in­deed no! for there have been many, many ret­ro­gres­sions in the long for­ward strug­gle of Uran­tia civ­i­liza­tion.

• do not attempt great social or economic c. suddenly

71:1.22The great weak­ness in Ro­man civ­i­liza­tion, and a fac­tor in the ul­ti­mate col­lapse of the em­pire, was the sup­posed lib­eral and ad­vanced pro­vi­sion for the eman­ci­pa­tion of the boy at twenty-one and the un­con­di­tional re­lease of the girl so that she was at lib­erty to marry a man of her own choos­ing or to go abroad in the land to be­come im­moral. The harm to so­ci­ety con­sisted not in these re­forms them­selves but rather in the sud­den and ex­ten­sive man­ner of their adop­tion. The col­lapse of Rome in­di­cates what may be ex­pected when a state un­der­goes too rapid ex­ten­sion as­so­ci­ated with in­ter­nal de­gen­er­a­tion.

• leaders must keep pace with scientific developments

81:6.3914. So­cial changes. So­ci­ety is not a di­vine in­sti­tu­tion; it is a phe­nom­e­non of pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion; and ad­vanc­ing civ­i­liza­tion is al­ways de­layed when its lead­ers are slow in mak­ing those changes in the so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion which are es­sen­tial to keep­ing pace with the sci­en­tific de­vel­op­ments of the age. For all that, things must not be de­spised just be­cause they are old, nei­ther should an idea be un­con­di­tion­ally em­braced just be­cause it is novel and new.

• do not attempt great social or economic c. suddenly

81:6.40Man should be un­afraid to ex­per­i­ment with the mech­a­nisms of so­ci­ety. But al­ways should these ad­ven­tures in cul­tural ad­just­ment be con­trolled by those who are fully con­ver­sant with the his­tory of so­cial evo­lu­tion; and al­ways should these in­no­va­tors be coun­seled by the wis­dom of those who have had prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence in the do­mains of con­tem­plated so­cial or eco­nomic ex­per­i­ment. No great so­cial or eco­nomic change should be at­tempted sud­denly. Time is es­sen­tial to all types of hu­man ad­just­ment—phys­i­cal, so­cial, or eco­nomic. Only moral and spir­i­tual ad­just­ments can be made on the spur of the mo­ment, and even these re­quire the pass­ing of time for the full out­work­ing of their ma­te­rial and so­cial reper­cus­sions. The ide­als of the race are the chief sup­port and as­sur­ance dur­ing the crit­i­cal times when civ­i­liza­tion is in tran­sit from one level to an­other.

• more readjustment in 1 generation than in 2000 years

92:7.14Mod­ern man is con­fronted with the task of mak­ing more read­just­ments of hu­man val­ues in one gen­er­a­tion than have been made in two thou­sand years. And this all in­flu­ences the so­cial at­ti­tude to­ward re­li­gion, for re­li­gion is a way of liv­ing as well as a tech­nique of think­ing.

• human life is endless c.

99:1.1Me­chan­i­cal in­ven­tions and the dis­sem­i­na­tion of knowl­edge are mod­i­fy­ing civ­i­liza­tion; cer­tain eco­nomic ad­just­ments and so­cial changes are im­per­a­tive if cul­tural dis­as­ter is to be avoided. This new and on­com­ing so­cial or­der will not set­tle down com­pla­cently for a mil­len­nium. The hu­man race must be­come rec­on­ciled to a pro­ces­sion of changes, ad­just­ments, and read­just­ments. Man­kind is on the march to­ward a new and un­re­vealed plan­e­tary des­tiny.

• without growth is potential evil

100:3.5Val­ues can never be static; re­al­ity sig­ni­fies change, growth. Change with­out growth, ex­pan­sion of mean­ing and ex­al­ta­tion of value, is val­ue­less—is po­ten­tial evil. The greater the qual­ity of cos­mic adap­ta­tion, the more of mean­ing any ex­pe­ri­ence pos­sesses. Val­ues are not con­cep­tual il­lu­sions; they are real, but al­ways they de­pend on the fact of re­la­tion­ships. Val­ues are al­ways both ac­tual and po­ten­tial—not what was, but what is and is to be.

• human life is endless c.

112:5.20The fact of reper­son­al­iza­tion con­sists in the seizure of the en­cir­cuited mor­ontia phase of the newly seg­re­gated cos­mic mind by the awak­en­ing hu­man self. The phe­nom­e­non of per­son­al­ity is de­pen­dent on the per­sis­tence of the iden­tity of self­hood re­ac­tion to uni­verse en­vi­ron­ment; and this can only be ef­fected through the medium of mind. Self­hood per­sists in spite of a con­tin­u­ous change in all the fac­tor com­po­nents of self; in the phys­i­cal life the change is grad­ual; at death and upon reper­son­al­iza­tion the change is sud­den. The true re­al­ity of all self­hood (per­son­al­ity) is able to func­tion re­spon­sively to uni­verse con­di­tions by virtue of the un­ceas­ing chang­ing of its con­stituent parts; stag­na­tion ter­mi­nates in in­ev­i­ta­ble death. Hu­man life is an end­less change of the fac­tors of life uni­fied by the sta­bil­ity of the un­chang­ing per­son­al­ity.