“My point is that you cannot force social change at a speed that it cannot go. Social change is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Deep social change takes time.”

— Camille Paglia

Playboy interview (May 1995)
Context: My point is that you cannot force social change at a speed that it cannot go. Social change is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Deep social change takes time. And slowly the culture is changing. The MTV generation is far more tolerant, and that tolerance is growing.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Nov. 28, 2025. History

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Camille Paglia326

American writer 1947

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 348

“Socialism cannot exist without a change in consciousness resulting in a new fraternal attitude toward humanity”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Afro-Asian Conference (1965)
Context: Socialism cannot exist without a change in consciousness resulting in a new fraternal attitude toward humanity, both at an individual level, within the societies where socialism is being built or has been built, and on a world scale, with regard to all peoples suffering from imperialist oppression.

“I am a sort of revolutionary. I have a strange ambition, though. I don’t want any statues. What I want is for the world to work. I want to create a context in which government, education, and families are nurturing. I want to enable, to empower, the institutions of man. Social transformation doesn’t argue against social change. Radicalism and resistance produce obvious values. But after a while, social change chases its own tail. Social change just produces social change. After most ordinary revolutions, after most social change, the world still doesn’t work. For the world to work you must have social transformation, which creates the space for effective social change.”

Werner Erhard (1935) Critical Thinker and Author

Interview with William Warren Bartley, cited in — [Bartley, William Warren, w:William Warren Bartley, Werner Erhard: the Transformation of a Man: the Founding of est, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1978, New York, 157, 0-517-53502-5]

“The House of Saud knows full well that it cannot survive the forces of change, that it cannot withstand the inevitable tide of history and that it will in due course be swept away as the clamour for governmental transparency and social justice grows.”

Ben Emmerson (1963) British Queen's Counsel

As quoted in Saudi Arabia using anti-terror laws to detain and torture political dissidents, UN says https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-torture-political-dissidents-anti-terror-laws-un-mohammad-bin-salman-a8388226.html (8 June 2018), The Independent.

“Trade unions and strikes cannot help in times of crisis when there is no demand for this “commodity”, they cannot change the conditions which, convert labour-power into a commodity and which doom the masses of working people to dire need and unemployment. To change these conditions, a revolutionary struggle against the whole existing social and political system is necessary; the industrial crisis will convince very many workers of the justice of this statement.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Collected Works, Vol. 5, pp. 25–30.
Collected Works

“Generals are usually a conservative force who can be relied on to oppose social change.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

The Egyptians (1967), p. 93
General sources

“My intention is to use music as a tool for social change.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

The Sounds of Taqwa (2006)
Context: My intention is to use music as a tool for social change. It is always a prayer of mine that the work I produce will help, in some small way, to better the world or provide others with hope in themselves or trust in The Creator’s mercy to us all.

“When the rate of change increases to the point that real time required to assimilate change exceeds the time in with change must be manifest, the enterprise is going to find itself in deep yogurt.”

John Zachman (1934) American computer scientist

Zachman (1994) cited in: Ronald G. Ross (2003) Principles of the Business Rule Approach. p. 35

“We are witnessing most profound social change.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Speech to the UN General Assembly (7 December 1988)
Context: We are witnessing most profound social change. Whether in the East or the South, the West or the North, hundreds of millions of people, new nations and states, new public movements and ideologies have moved to the forefront of history. Broad-based and frequently turbulent popular movements have given expression, in a multidimensional and contradictory way, to a longing for independence, democracy and social justice. The idea of democratizing the entire world order has become a powerful socio-political force. At the same time, the scientific and technological revolution has turned many economic, food, energy, environmental, information and population problems, which only recently we treated as national or regional ones, into global problems. Thanks to the advances in mass media and means of transportation, the world seems to have become more visible and tangible. International communication has become easier than ever before.

“Film is often the perfect vehicle to provide education about social issues and to inspire social and political change.”

Stephanie Okereke Linus (1982) Nigerian Actress and singer

Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/exclusive-interview-with-_37_b_11591236 During an interview (December 6 2017)

“My point is that you cannot force social change at a speed that it cannot go. Social change is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Deep social change takes time.”

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Camille Paglia326

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