Institution
A generic name for groups, clubs, churches, schools, universities, societies; the subdivisions and holons that make a community. They include professional networks and associations—Émile Durkheim’s “corporations”. “Institution” is in this sense similar to social capital, and the groups, friendships and connectedness that it seeds.I49
There is, however, a form of institution—the institution-with-a-mission—which exists, not for the benefit of its members but to advance another aim which stands the best chance of being achieved if its members surrender their interests to it. The members of such an institution are useful to it insofar as they contribute to those ends; they therefore have to be at one with the institution in terms of opinion, partially or comprehensively sacrificing independent critical judgment to it; the person loses his or her identity and suffers metamorphosis into a creature of the institution. Franz Kafka’s suggestion of a suitable institutional character in this sense was that of a cockroach.I50
And the institution’s breadth of judgment narrows down accordingly. The effect is a regrettable condition. It affects companies with a mission to dominate a market (using their size or a capturing technology such as genetic modification). It also affects pressure groups and campaigning institutions of all kinds, governments included; they lose their minds, overstate their case, and see the world as a system which can be substantially—or sufficiently—understood, wrapped up and sorted in terms of their own aims.
It is important to understand what an institution-with-a-mission is, because there are good reasons to believe that we are all living in one, whether we are on a payroll or not.
Related entries:
Community, Metamorphosis, Instrumentalism, Social Entropy.
« Back to List of Entries