In many patterns of development, there appears a succession of stages, alternating between spurts of rapid change and quiet plateaus of consolidation. This is observed, for example, in child development: intellectual development according to Piaget, emotional development according to Erikson, and moral development according to Kohlberg, all proceed through these stepwise changes. In young children, the emotional development is driven by the drive for autonomy and initiative, which energizes the spurts, and the need for security (trust) and achievement (industry), which motivates the plateaus. The balance between the two drives or needs itself varies throughout development, with one or the other predominating at different stages. Two contrary drives are sufficient to explain wave-like or oscillating lines of development. In Kohlberg’s scheme, too, conforming or pleasing (stage 3) and obeying laws or a social contract (stages 4 and 5) is “conservative” (plateau-like), while pursuing individual pleasure (stage 2) and obeying individual conscience (stage 6) seems “radical” (spurt-like or spontaneous).

In evolutionary theory, Stephen Jay Gould (1980) has proposed the idea of “punctuated development”. Since the transition stages ITom one species to another are usually missing from the fossil record, he postulated that the change must be very rapid in terms of geological time. This makes sense conceptually also; for what use or selective advantage would be a bird’s wing half-formed? The transitional forms or “missing links” must be very fragile and probably most don’t make it through the storm of change. Finally, if the new structure by some chance survives the transition, it stabilizes as a new species and enters a plateau of quiet existence.

In the history of civilizations, Toynbee prefaces his extensive treatment of this with the parable of the climber: a man ascending a mountain negotiating steep cliffs at times, then ambling along horizontal ledges with magnificent views in between. The general direction is up, but with pauses to recover strength and push on to the next cliff. Individual civilizations go through cycles of rise and fall like individual life- times, but the cross-civilizational trend is like that of the climber. Another parable Toynbee uses is that of a wagon-wheel: it goes through a cycle in each rotation, yet it moves forward along the road.

The general pattern in all these examples is that of a staircase: the spurt of rapid change is the yertical “rise”, the plateau of stability is the horizontal “run”. The contrast of revolution versus evolution is not a real one: revolution is part of evolution, but only one part of it. The two concepts are related as part is to the whole.

Erickson and Kohberg diagrams

Erickson Stages of Child and Youth Development
Stage	Phase Type	Age (in years)
1. Basic Trust	Plateau run overcome fear	0-2
2. Autonomy 3. Initiative	Crisis (rise) Overcome dependency	2-6
4. Industry	Plateau (run)	6-11 (mid-childhood)
5. Identity	Crisis (rise) Overcome confusion	12-18 (teen years)
6. Intimacy	Plateau (run) Overcome loneliness	18-25 (?) (marriage)
7. Generativity		25-35 (child rearing)
	Crisis which he does not specify (rise)	perhaps age 40 (the mid-life crisis)
8. Maturity	Plateau (run) Overcome fear of death	40 -?

Kohlberg Stages of Moral Development (How individuals satisfy right behavior)
1. Fear of punishment	young child
2. Seeking rewards	older child
3. Conformity to please others	still older child (and a few adults
4. Obeying law and order	some adults end here
5. Observing social contract rules	some develop further
6. Living universal conscience ethics	some develop further

Prigogine (Jantsch) explains the mechanism of rapid transitions (rises) as due to accumulations or accentuations of fluctuations from the previous stable state, until a flip occurs to a new stable state, which may be either a collapse to a much lower state (e.g. thermodynamic equilibrium or death), or a jump (like the quantum jump of an electron in an atom excited by light) to a higher state. This choice has been called by several names: crisis (Chinese word: danger and opportunity), catastrophe or transformation (Dorothy Baker’s scheme of the development of civilizations), breakdown or breakthrough. Robert Theobald has called it “The Rapids of Change” referring to our time of future shock and uncertainty.

Run and rise is tied in with the nature of the feedbacks operating in a system. On the plateaus, most cycles have negative feedback, which maintains homeostasis. In the animal organism, negative feedback preserves constant levels of temperature, sugar levels in the blood, levels of sodium and potassium ions in nerve cells. In the Earth’s ecology, negative feedbacks maintain the water cycle, the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle. On the rises, positive feedbacks (escalations, accelerations, explosions) appear, which disturb homeostasis and tend to flip the system to a different state, which they may succeed in doing if enough of them point in the same direction.

While homeostasis is basic to life, rapid change is basic to evolution, and therefore negative and positive feedbacks are both necessary. Negative feedbacks necessarily predominate, even in the stormy rises, otherwise the system would be torn to pieces; a certain degree of stability is essential.

Translating this into socio-political terms, we have largely conservatism (maintaining traditions inherited from our ancestors through the mechanisms of cultural evolution), but a small element of radicalism, which is also necessary to provide the flexibility for adapting to environmental changes; the radicals provide a reserve of diversity which may become relevant in a changed environment, even if irrelevant now. A totally adapted stable conservative system could not survive environmental change. A totally radical system would blow itself to bits !hrough explosions, called “revolutions”.

Life always thrives in a mid-region between freezing and boiling, between inactivity and hyper-activity, between apathy and enthusiasm, between solid and gas. (See essay “The Goldilocks Effect” in Section VIII.) But it runs along a jagged line in this zone, with the rises pointing toward hyper-activity and the runs toward placidity. Life is precariously balanced between these extremes. It may weave along the road, but must not land in the ditches on each side. episodes of Pangea occurred in Pre-Cambrian times when only unicells existed, in fact mainly Prokaryotes, and these are not well preserved in fossils.

Some rises in the history of life have been highly destructive. The eight great extinctions, of which the Permian was the most severe (90% of species gone) and the Cretaceous the best known (the end of dinosaurs), have been great crises. The movement of continents — the periodic formation and dissolution of Pangea — may be linked to some of the extinctions, by bringing large continents sometimes into cold polar regions or raising sea levels. This “supercontinent cycle” (see essay “Cycles” in this section) may also be linked to diversification and radiation of new species, as land bridges could be crossed and new niches filled. It seems that the rapid “explosion” of multicellular animal species in the early Cambrian was linked to a time of Pangea break-up and the drifting apart of continents. Possibly Pangea unity and a wide dispersion of continents (as in our own era) are times of evolutionary plateaus, and times of rifting and drifting apart, as well as times of reassembling, are urnes of change. But there are not enough data; most episodes of Pangea occurred in Pre-Cambrian times when only unicells existed, in fact mainly Prokaryotes, and these are not well-preserved in fossils.

There is no doubt that we are in the rapids of change now, at several levels. Another great wave of extinctions is occurring currently, mainly man-made. Society is moving to a post-industrial stage, whatever that may mean. (Two suggestions speak of a high-tech alternative or “the new Dark Ages”; but a “Green alternative” is also possible.) (See essay “Ages and Transformations” in Section VIII.) Ideology is in turmoil; even if (and this is hypothetical) democracy “won” over communism, Moslem ideologies and nationalism are in a super-heated state in many parts of the world. There are changes in family structure, education, health care, everywhere we look.

Since we are in a crisis, response is needed. Ervin Laszlo said recently (in a conference speech) that we must not panic, but must find rational means of steering from the white-water rapids into calmer waters. Most people neither panic nor steer, because they are either not aware of the crisis or practice denial. But there have been panicky statements (some so sorrowful as to be almost inarticulate; e.g. Joan Gussow’s dream about walking with her children into the thick fog of the future and losing contact). And Theobald’s book is a good example of an attempt at steering.

It is impossible to tell as yet whether our response is adequate. This is why my own mood and judgment changes almost from day to day. My friend Gertrude Mills from Halifax once told a story about herself and her girl-cousin finding themselves drifting into the open sea in a small boat when they were little girls. Her cousin was terrified and prayed, while determined little Gertrude was paddling as hard as she could toward shore. They were rescued. Years later, the cousin was living in quiet retirement, though fervently hoping for peace; while Gertrude was working hard for the World Federalists. “Well,” said the cousin to Gertrude, “I am still praying and you are still paddling”.

Tossed around by white water, we clench our teeth, pray and paddle.