Permanence or Change: What Makes the World Tick?

Abstract

Permanence has been the dominant cosmological and social model throughout European history. This value model is founded on centralized control of power and truth, and potential success and prosperity for the individual human being is dependent upon acceptance and subordination. New development is strictly controlled and regulated. Successions of civilizations and empires have been based on this construction of being and the world. An almost diametrically opposite understanding of being was always present, however. In Heraclitus’ model of the world as Change, humans are no longer passive and subordinate receivers but active change- and future-makers. Change is no longer seen as dangerous, but rather as the prime mover of the world and therefore, also the fountain of knowledge and insight. Change is the only eternal truth and value, Heraclitus argues. Thus, strategies for meaningful and productive action must also be eternally changing. This article discusses the views of Change propagated by Heraclitus and his most famous follower, Friedrich Nietzsche. It shows how a radical change of perspective and aim, a change from models aiming for Permanence to models with a much greater allowance for and appreciation of Change, can lead to explosions of human creativity and innovation.