6 January

“In Nothing We Trust”, the motto of our times. Without institutions, superstition, chaos and conspiracies replace trust. Have a look at the graphic for the US alone. The definition of an institution is “stable, valued, recurring patterns of behaviour”. It’s not just organisations, it’s any stability, PATTERNS (one of my obsessions) of behaviour that derive from generations of accumulated experience - families, languages, customs, legal systems, disciplines, knowledge etc. All of those are under relentless attack by a culture obsessed with the present day only, and lives and lifestyle within that present day. A total lack of respect for custom, habit, expertise. And for generational thinking, which is what institutions protect - accumulated wisdom from the past, thought for the future. They’re the way the past and future are active in our present, and we keep smashing them.