Transformations

Abstract

In this chapter, I turn to the central question of social change. Robert Nisbet (1972, p. 1) conceptualizes social change as “a succession of differences in time in a persisting identity”. This is not the clearest definition ever erected, but the components are all there: the notion of clearly identifiable differences of conditions or appearance; the idea that these differences are successive in time; and the insistence that this change must be “in or of a persisting identity” (Nisbet, 1972, p. 1). One line of response, here, would be that, in fact, change is constant, and Nisbet quite rightly insists that we separate social change from the obviously incessant reality of interaction, motion, mobility, and variety. When we speak about social change, then, we’re talking, first and foremost, about the idea of structural change, change of type.