"There is nothing new under the sun."

 "Change is bad and weakens the moral fiber of society."

"Only a revolution will bring the change America needs."

"The more things change, the more they stay the same."

"All change comes from the economy."

"The government is the only arena where people can freely discuss and bring social change."

Societies have definitely changed. If you compare 21st century American society with the hunter-gather societies of 2500 years ago, you would have to conclude that social change happens. Yet, as the quotes above indicate and your author highlights, there are a lot of different opinions about social change and how it comes about . or whether change should come about at all!

Most of us really don't want to go back to the way things were say 400 years ago in Western Europe. We kind of like having aspirin around for our headaches and we certainly appreciate the emergency room after we've been in an accident. And most of us like the personal changes as well . 400 years ago the women in this class would be married at 14 or working in a brothel! Education would be out of the question, except for the very rich. But there are a lot of people today who fight change. They want to have things stay exactly the way they are (probably the way things were in their imagined past!). Why do you think that is?

Why do societies change? What brings change about? How do we know when something has changed? These are some of the questions this section asks.

• Social Change