Fuller refers to this matter in various texts. In 1942 he wrote "I Figure", in which he says:
"one of the major changes to be wrought in world thinking by this war is the acceptance of the concept of change itself, relative to which equilibrium is the word which describes controlled design arrangements of dynamically desirable complementary associations."
(Reader, p.116)
In Synergetics he complains about the customary static point of view, seeing it as derivable from Newton's first law of motion, which,
"posits a cosmic norm of at rest: change is... taken spontaneously as being inherently abnormal and is yet interpreted by many as being cause for fundamental social concern" (Synergetics 2, 935.13).
It might be argued that, at least for questions of historical change, we need to develop another concept of change altogether, perhaps along dialectical lines:
"If change is to be understood at all it is necessary to abandon the view that objects are rigidly opposed to each other, it is necessary to elevate their interrelatedness and the interaction between these 'relations' and the 'objects' to the same plane of reality. The greater the distance from pure immediacy the larger the net encompassing the 'relations', and the more complete the integration of the 'objects' within the system of relations, the sooner change will cease to be impenetrable and catastrophic, the sooner it will become comprehensible."
(Lukács, 1923, p.154)
See also Change Curves.
© Paul Taylor 2001