Sure.  This is actually a pretty standard summary of the shift away from structuralist social theories.<p>Social structures tend to be pretty stable: the same people and forces stay in power for a while.  How should we think about that stability?<p>One way is to imagine that society is like a building: a solid structure that preserves those people and forces in power.  It&#x27;s stable because it&#x27;s rigid, and time doesn&#x27;t affect it much.<p>But there&#x27;s a second option.  Think of a standing wave in a river, like the kind that whitewater kayakers like to surf on: it&#x27;s not rigid at all, but it&#x27;s still &quot;stable,&quot; welling up continually at the same spot.<p>So is our society structured like a building, or like a standing wave?<p>If we go with the standing wave idea, that brings up a lot of new questions.  We start wondering about dynamics, flow and motion.  We also start wondering about the river bottom: is there a big rock under there causing the wave, or does it just happen to emerge from the otherwise random arrangement of smaller rocks?