Human beings sometimes change for the better, but institutions always get worse.

I was just reading about that 16th century clash between Calvinism and Lutherism. Calvin and Luther got along just fine, but after their deaths, their followers couldn't stop fighting. The Great Men themselves seemed to have the insight, confidence, and love of unity necessary to navigate their differences peacefully, but their followers lacked such nuance or love. It got me thinking: why do institutions always seem to deteriorate in the generations after their founders pass on?

Walt Disney is another example. The man himself created magic wherever he went and seemed incapable of taking a misstep. Certainly he propelled his company from obscurity to one of the great organizations of modern history, not only in filmmaking but in television, theme parks, merchandising, and so on. Yet now, just a couple of generations after his death, the Disney company seems to have lost its way. It use to be that everyone copied Disney; now it's Disney doing the copying. The torch has passed to Pixar--and Disney either can't, or doesn't have the sense, to hold onto its last available light source.

The Reformation itself, which Luther and Calvin spearheaded, came in response to the deterioration of Christianity. Even Jesus' own great movement had decayed in the centuries since he walked the earth; by the 15th century it was--with rare exceptions--a disgusting farce: rampant with greed, governmentally oppressive, morally debauched, militarily violent. If even Jesus' own movement is doomed to institutional decay, how can any leader hope to found something of lasting value?

This question shivers my bones when I look at contemporary America. Our founding fathers were inspired, and the system they established is still the best the world has seen. It has served us very well these last two hundred years. But are we doomed to follow in the footsteps of the other great powers of world history--Britain, Rome, Greece, Persia, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt? A decaying America seems unthinkable, yet history says it's inevitable.

Why do institutions always decay? I wonder if it has something to do with this idea of regression towards the mean.

It takes a remarkable person to found a new organization or movement. The more remarkable the person, the more remarkable the movement. Yet, the more remarkable the founder, the less likely that is his successors will be as remarkable as he. After his departure, his movement comes to be entrusted to leaders who are quite unlike the founder, and they inevitably drop the ball to a greater or lesser degree.

Why are they inevitably inferior? Because although these leaders may still be outstanding--after all, the remarkable founder selected and trained them--they are still unlike him in that they, necessarily, are exactly the sort of people not to found a remarkable, revolutionary movement. If they were that sort of people, they wouldn't have joined his movement or ridden on his coattails.

A founder is a person who is so unhappy with what is currently going on--and so inspired/driven/confident by his own vision--that he has to found something new. But the people who join his movement, rise up in it, and eventually take the reins are by definition more joiners than founders. Their goals and skills are at least as much to do with sustaining the organization as with breaking new ground.

I heard on the radio, driving home the other night, that Walt Disney was fairly cavalier about money. He was a genius financier, yet he never quenched ambition with niggling practicalities. He trusted that if you were making a bright enough light, no amount of dust would dim it. That's a founder way of thinking. Yet a corporation like Disney Corp, post-Walt, with its stock price and shareholders, its beloved brand to protect, and its prior successes readily available for exploitation, quickly turns its mind to nickels and dimes, to protecting money as well as creating great ideas. It cares about making light, but it also cares about counting motes of dust. Institutions, unlike their founders, have something to lose; they gain a share in the status quo.

Look again at Christianity. Where did Jesus worry about practicalities? "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin." "Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?" Jesus does not think in terms of practicalities or force--at least not in the way we usually think of it.

Yet by the 15th century, the Popes had one of the most powerful armies on earth. They no longer named themselves after saints, but after Caesars. They were the richest people on the earth. They threw lavish and lewd parties for their courts, and openly kept harems of concubines and stables of illegitimate children.

All institutions decay. See if you can find an exception. (The Illuminati, maybe? -chuckle-) They decay because whatever once made them great becomes harder and harder to sustain, until all that's left is the memory of past glory. You can never point to an institution and say, "They've licked it. They've found the Golden Fleece. They'll just keep getting better and better from now on."

But I'm still hoping Pixar will buck the trend.