In my book Global Decisions, Local Collisions, written twenty years after I left factory work and returned to academia, I challenge the notion of permanence.

We create "permanencies" as a way to organize our lives, as the bases on which we live our lives day to day ... But there are times when personal development depends on the ability to break out of the various permanencies we have constructed for ourselves or society has constructed for us.

I explain the process of breaking out of the idea that human nature cannot be changed by drawing on dialectical philosophy. People have within themselves ideas that conflict or contradict existing definitions of human nature. A social struggle or conflict of some sort can unleash a process that seeks to resolve contradictions by smashing the prevailing definitions of human nature, opening the door to radical changes in the way we live and how we organize society.