ABSTRACT
If we can understand something about reactions to social changes by thinking of them in terms of bereavement, can we correspondingly learn something about the management of change from mourning customs? At the same time, since contemporary industrial society is extraordinary and perhaps unique in its disparagement of these customs, can we also understand our attitude towards change better by exploring the reasons behind our neglect of them? Never have the bereaved been left to struggle with their grief so little guided by convention. Is it only honesty which leads us to mistrust these ritual gestures, or-as I believe-also muddled unwillingness to recognise loss? Until we have first understood what we are giving up in repudiating any conventional show of grief, and what this rejection expresses, the analogy between mourning and the management of change may still seem strained-a perversely gloomy presentation of the problems of adapting. Let me try to explain why a robust, pragmatic optimism towards change is fundamentally less rational, and indeed tragically blind to the nature of social transitions.
