What the World Needs Now: Flourishing Institutions
When something is meaningful it is complex. A meaningful relationship is not superficial. Best friends have shared histories, tensions, and joys. That’s why an outsider cannot interpret an inside joke between close friends.
It is not just meaningful friendships that are complex. Every relationship we value as especially meaningful has depth. From our relationships with certain products to our relationships with religious or governmental institutions — the more meaningful, the more complex.
In order for us to appreciate and enjoy meaningful things, we must have agency. Agency is our ability to understand and take action for a purpose.
In our relationship to a meaningful thing, we must be able to understand its value and take action that reinforces the relationship.
For example, a proverb says, “Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.” The scoffer does not have agency. He cannot understand the meaningfulness of a reprimand and hates the person who delivers it. Not so, the wise man, who has agency. He values candid feedback and loves the person who gives it.
In plain language, agency is when we have the ability to see a good thing and not let it get away.
Just like with meaningfulness, agency is not just about human friendships. Our ability to see a good thing and not let it get away pertains to the most basic workaday choices as well as the most important vocational and life decisions.
Now, here’s the kicker.
The most meaningful things, which require the most personal agency to pursue, come from institutions.
Societies flourish when individuals have agency and use it to pursue meaningful things. That creates a positive feedback loop that further nurtures agency and increases meaningfulness, which in turn, reinforces institutions.
Negatively, when institutions breakdown, don’t expect good things or personal freedoms.
Several recent articles (business, government, education) contribute to the view that institutions are not doing well.
What should we do?
I have some ideas and will share them in subsequent posts. I would love to hear from you. Is my thesis correct: institutions nurture agency and increase meaningfulness? Are institutions really in decline? What do you think can be done about it?
