From time to time, institutions sway and even collapse, and it is only then that we recognize their value and significance. At the family level, Thanksgiving at grandma’s house becomes an institution that holds a family together. Institutions are like that: little centers of gravity for social cohesion. Their absence results in a dissolution that can be mystifying, ie “I don’t know why the family can’t get together anymore”.
When I think about institutions, I include religious institutions like churches, Bible colleges, and seminaries. I include cultural institutions, like the Superbowl or the Oscars. At the societal level, we must include the FBI, the court system, the Houses of Congress, etc… Anything that harnesses the collective energy of people in a specific cause or task becomes an institution. And the longer an institution is around, the more ancient and historic are its customs and rituals, then the more gravitational force is exerted.
Society must have institutions in order to function. What we have observed in America over the last couple of decades is that our institutions are teetering like a tipsy housewife in high heels. They are hollowing out, experiencing mission drift, and losing their integrity. Some of this has been done intentionally by those who want to see our nation turn in a completely different direction. It is very observable in institutions that have to do with criminal justice. Leftist attorney generals began ignoring violent crimes while efforts were made to defund the police. The institutions of justice were roped into serving the perverse interests of those who were more concerned about people videoing the sale of unborn baby parts than they were interested in stopping those who were selling them. Without a reliable and trustworthy system of institutions that are fulfilling the mission of protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty, we were (I hope things have changed) on the verge of an institutional collapse from which recovery would have been difficult.
What you see in banana republics and nations that are perpetually in the throes of revolution is the lack of institutional fortitude that would hold the chaos at bay. It was surprising and relieving when the last presidential election did not result in utter chaos. The institutions held. But what happens if an institution, like the Courts, completely loses all trust? Or for that matter, what happens when a scandal breaks out in a church (over money or sex, because that’s what it always is) and trust is lost? Is it possible to recover institutional trust?
The fifth labor of Hercules is known as the Cleansing of the Augean Stables, in which Eurystheus challenges Hercules to clean King Augeas’ stables in one day. Augeas was immensely rich and owned more cattle than anyone. The trouble was that he never cleaned his stable, and anyone who has even a little experience with something like a horse stable knows that if you don’t muck it out, it becomes a repository for dung and all that dung brings with it. After some consideration, Hercules knocks a hole in opposing ends of the stable yard and then digs wide trenches to two rivers that flow nearby. The water rushes into one opening, sweeps the stable yard clean, before exiting the second opening. Thus Hercules cleanses the Augean stables without having to step in the muck.
I am making the case that restoring institutional trust requires something like the cleansing of the Augean Stables. I am not speaking of the every-day failures or even the sporadic scandals that every institution is liable to experience. The foundation of an institution begins to teeter when either 1) it fails or is compromised at so broad a level that it cannot function anymore, or 2) it fails so deeply at its core mission that all of its actions become suspect. The first can happen gradually over time, but the second tends to happen in a blaze of glory. Or un-glory. Ignominiously. That last one was a real word.
The way to recover institutional trust is by washing out the whole thing, from top to bottom. The rivers have to be unleashed and allowed to carry the filth away. As painful as it is for those who love the institution, sometimes this happens in a torrent of self-disclosure. (Haven’t we learned yet that it isn’t the crime, but the cover-up that destroys?) Sometimes it requires a tidal wave of dismissals, even though not every individual was necessarily culpable. And all of this has to be done in such an obvious way that no one has any doubts that the stables have, in fact, been cleansed.
A great modern example of a cleansing of the Augean stable was when Elon Musk purchased Twitter (now X) and released the “Twitter files” to a group of independent journalists, exposing the company’s doings for public scrutiny. While Twitter could have continued on as a platform for left-leaning political perspectives, it could not have retained its identity as a neutral platform for free speech. By exposing all that Twitter had previously done to censor free speech, Elon cleansed the Augean stables and restored the public’s trust in Twitter (much to the dismay of censorious leftists who would love to have continued to label any opinion not approved by the party line to be “misinformation”).
In many ways, DOGE is recycling this strategy. It is attempting to expose the fraud/waste while expelling those responsible for creating such a system. Whether it will have any lasting effect remains to be seen, but the strategy is essentially right.
And this brings me to my bit of counsel for those dealing with institutions that have lost credibility, whether that be a church or a charitable organization or a government entity that meets one of these two criteria (a systemic failure or a fatal failure): fight against the temptation to “save the institution” by protecting its salacious secrets. The urge to sneak wheelbarrows of dung out in the dead of night is a losing strategy. If there’s that much dung in the place, you can’t shovel fast enough to clean it up. But, like Hercules, you can wash it clean.
Only wisdom can dictate whether an institutional failure rises to this level or not. Not every problem needs to become public domain. Not every C- effort requires disclosure. Some people really do want to cause a spectacle for no good reason, and such folks need to get a life. This post is for those who want to pretend that the bruised and bleeding body of the institution they claim to love – which happens to be lying in the middle of the road for all to see – is just in need of a nap.
Nathan Writes 