Thursday, July 24, 2008

Changes

They say that the only thing permanent in life is change.

Now before one goes on and claims the apparent contradiction, keep in mind that the more things change, the more things stay the same. Bravo Snake Plissken, despite being the stereotypical chauvinistic and gritty anti-hero, you surely showed a bit of depth with that nugget of wisdom.

People change, times change, the paradigm shifts and everything goes to hell, and back again. Whether it's the End of History as the old grand narratives of the Cold War, the two World Wars or the many wars of antiquity have come and gone, or a Clash of Civilization wherein the Age of Information has us in constant conflict due to our diverse belief systems, the natural progression, it would seem, is that of conflict.

There can really be no change if there is no conflict, on the personal or socio-political level. Lovers won't break up if there is no conflict, direct or indirect. It may be due to infidelity or simply the two moving in opposing directions. Nations and countries are mostly built around conflicts, war, protest or the people having an opposing view of the incumbent regime. It is not a question of violence, but rather the presence of an anti-thesis to challenge the existing model.

This of course begs the question, can change actually be proactive? Considering the idea of being proactive was born due to the ineffectivity of reactive behavior, that kind of makes the question null and void. Change for the sake of change maybe considered a proactive stance but then again, considering how such policies are merely for show then I guess that puts that idea in the crapper as well.

Is change then aligned to conflict and to a point, entropy? Perhaps there is truth to the saying that one does not need to fix what was never broken. Following that logic and applying that to people, can we truly change without being broken at first?

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