Hi, Ants; a belated welcome aBoard. What about simply 'reconversion', or 'reversal'? Hmm- just realized I was confused by your word entity: I'd been thinking in terms of "a being". Now that I've taken in your last sentence, that changes matters. Though I have no problem with, for ex., "Society has undergone a reversal of outlook". I do think "Society has reverted to..." carries that step-down implication you didn't want. Hope this helps.