> I don't think history bears that out. Society is a soft ductile metal. If you bend it, it'll stay bent. You have to hammer it back into straightness. Talking (and browbeating and prosecuting when necessary) is how you do that.

Society is constantly in flux: it's not like a metal in any way. Rather, it's like a fluid (or a particulate flow, such as a sand pile).

If you change things about the underlying flow dynamics -- viscosity, particle size, pressure, channels, etc -- you get significant effects on the structure of the society, or in analogy, the dynamics of the flow.

You're mistaking the foam for the wave, and the tsunami as being a crashing wave. Really tunamis are just little disturbances over a wide area, and they're best addressed at that stage, not when they're a crashing wave.

However, if you adjust something about the mechanics, it will settle in to a new flow, and remove the crufty parts on top naturally as those pieces of the flow dissipate.