[evunveot]

>trying to change things

>trying to understand things as they are

Some might regard the following as overly charitable to the latter, but I think you could map those two strategies to political progressivism and conservatism (left and right), respectively. The ideal is probably a bit of both: without the 'trying to change' you don't have new ideas; without the 'trying to understand' you lose the lessons of the past.

To my recollection Civilization hasn't addressed left vs. right politics except in a surface "here's how the simulation parameters change" kind of way, but I sense that there might be an interesting game mechanic there as far as what happens when your culture veers too far in either direction.