2026-05-10
Martin Geddes has documented how modern-day institutions can operate in degraded mode, delivering a performance that looks genuine in procedural terms but is degraded in philosophical and spiritual terms:
On The Autonomous Evil of Unthinking Institutions
His latest foray into this line of argument categorises this thinking as a "category error" - an error introduced by introducing a closure based upon answering of the inappropriate question. For example, an applicant asks a relevant question of officialdom but uses the wrong procedure to do so - instead of diverting the request into the "correct" procedure, the system responds by denying the request on procedural grounds.
Now he extends the analysis to show how "modern governance theory risks something worse than collapse: manufactured continuity that silently consumes other forms of adaptability, intelligibility and stability".
The system becomes ossified, and fails to respond to feedback and adapt appropriately.
(He reframes his argument in less academic form here)
It turns out that Martin isn't the first to come to such an analysis - Luc Lelièvre has arrived at much the same destination.
" ... the slow drift in which institutions stop responding to the people they serve and start responding only to themselves. Procedures replace judgment. Official narratives replace honest dialogue. Forms and categories replace real human experience"
"Closure looks strong. It suppresses dissent, absorbs complaints, and gives every appearance that nothing can change. But closure is also fragile, because it contradicts basic human nature"
In short, it has lost its spirituality by subsuming "service to others" beneath "service to the appearance of power of the institution".
