Survival, Growth, Development and Evolution

Survival, growth, development, evolution are four distinct stages in which we examine the process of social change to enhance our understanding. The stage of survival is self-evident. A family that has moved into the upper middle class may struggle to maintain its status at that level. Its progress from lower to middle class is development, but its struggle to remain at the higher level is survival.

Democracy in several countries that attained freedom after 1945 did not survive. When the social structure is fixed and the energy of survival is overflowing initiating growth, survival is assured.

Growth is a horizontal extension of the existing structure non-stop. Internet is passing through a period of growth. Universal education is growing and has not yet reached its limit.

After democracy is accepted, many institutions in the country will still stick to the old type of management. When ways of democracy are extended to them, it is growth of democracy inside the nation.

Services on the Internet are offered free. It is not a growth of ways of business. Business, thus, evolves its methods or through that the very business evolves.

Marriage came into the society as an institution several centuries or millenniums ago. But, at the lower levels of the society marriage was not compulsorily resorted to or held sacrosanct. Men and women changed partners more readily than a marriage contract allowed. Marriage being accepted by the lowest of social stratum in any country as the upper classes has accepted it is the growth of the institution of marriage in the society.

Arranged marriages giving way to love-marriages is a development, nor a mere growth.

Man seeking woman not for the purposes of getting a child or living a secure social life but for his love and only love is Romance. It is marriage evolving in its content.

• Survival is to preserve what is.
• Growth is to extend horizontally what is.
• Development is to seek new ways radically different from the old.
• Evolution is to grow into a new higher structure, which is radically different from development.

We see these various stages are found in each of these four stages. Evolution struggles to survive, grow horizontally, develop new ways of existence and can evolve higher levels of existence.

The rules of survival and growth are the same but work in the reverse.

1. Survival has two phases:
   1. while the community grows one may aim only at survival.
   2. while the community disintegrates the phenomenon of survival takes place.
      They can be termed as survival during periods of growth and survival during disintegration or positive and negative survival.
2. Negative survival consumes several times greater energy than positive survival.
3. Intensity of energy per unit area of action as a co-efficient is the same for survival, growth and evolution though as an absolute quantity there is a phenomenal difference.
4. The same rule in different periods acts differently in its results or appearance though in essence the rule remains the same.
5. Opinions, attitudes, understandings, values, accomplishments vastly differ according to the period. A thorough study reveals the full scope of human nature.
6. The truism "Human intelligence has reached its peak when man was born" will be true not only for intelligence, but for all aspects of human capacity.
7. Satisfaction at any of these stages is full and appears of equal value.
8. Collective survival reveals the rules of social behaviour.
9. Individual survival reveals the aspects of human nature.