ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the implications of the analogies, metaphors, and subtle differences of synonyms used to portray change as flux or motion in time. They are palimpsests that have continually gained and lost nuances of meaning over the last 2,500 years. As a result, we rely on a series of sometimes contradictory concepts of change regarding both what happened and the processes involved. Is it nature or just human nature? Is it teleological, resulting from some inherent potential culminating in some final end-product, like adulthood, civilization, or modernity; the result of a series of unique events; the repetition of cyclical tendencies; or dialectical and contingent? Is it slow, gradual, and continuous or sudden metamorphosis? Is it a consequence of motors internal to society itself or of external forces and events that impinge from outside to modify, direct, or disrupt the course of change? Is there a normal course of change as opposed to one that is not normal or unique?
