Dear Friends,
It seems to me, the worst thing that can happen to an organization, is success. Because success means the irrelevance of that organization. To an organization irrelevance is the death knell. No one, who has spent time and energy putting together a group of people, who ultimately succeed, wants to see it disintegrate. This is a fundamental fact of organizations. This is why we see so many that exist as ghosts, they still have a small cadre of devoted followers, but the reason the group was started, has long been rendered moot. However, some are not as much ghosts… as lichs, vicious and evil, trying desperately to reignite the societal problems that begot them, thus making them relevant again.
Most organizations start as a noble enterprise, one devoted to righting some societal or cultural wrong. They work often in the name of God to see that the lot of Mankind is raised. In their birth they understand that, it is only when all are served… are all served. Groups that arise from this type of virtuous founding are often successful.
Success breeds political power. Political power is a magnet to the sociopath who seeks to lord over his or her fellow man. As the organization evolves and matures, the less virtuous attributes of the founders get passed on, instead of the more virtuous ones, because the next to come on are those who are attracted to the power instead of the cause.
As power takes the place of the cause in an organization, it becomes more dedicated to it’s own longevity, than the reason it was founded. If society outruns this group’s reason to exist, it will point to nonexistent injustices, as a reason for it’s continued political relevance. Some, who have really strayed outside the ranch so to speak, will actually try to recreate the conditions, usually of violence, that begot them in the first place.
This is truly a sad state of affairs because it sullies the honorable names of the founders of those organizations. The crass Elite that take over every group of human beings, are immune to the cries of the suffering, in fact, they play the weeping like an instrument of politics.
The misery is only the resonating strings, society’s heart, the resonator. We, with our short memories, are prone to remember the latest leaders, not the virtuous founders. The Elite play their instrument for their audience and it brings tears to to eyes of the beholders. The founders my be spinning in his or her graves… but the new Elite, mesmerize the multitude with suffering, they instigated.
It is unfortunate, it is not in the fundamental nature of groups and organizations, to recognize when they have become redundant… and announce their happy end. Society would be better served and our culture would be less cluttered, with various dated grievances. Stumbling on the arguments of the past, and not moving forward, hinders our ability to grapple with the problems of today, and predict the issues of tomorrow. It would be a great benefit to society if people in charge of organizations acted in this enlightened way.
If those groups that are redundant let go of their members, those members would have the time and energy to join new groups, that are dedicated to tackling today’s problems, or tomorrows troubles. This is how the market system works through the creative destruction of firms. This dynamic, that comes into play in the capitalist system, is not active in the charitable, religious or justice oriented spheres. This is one reason the market system is so much more efficient, at meeting human needs and why the Elite in those other spheres of human operations, hate the market. We all hate when our failures are highlighted by success.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
