The natural tendency of every human institution is to decay.
The scientific principle of entropy teaches that all natural systems - without fresh inputs of energy – will deteriorate more quickly than their natural ageing processes would otherwise dictate.
Entropy in human civilisations
Human civilisations are no different. Their natural tendency is to decay. The key force behind this decay is man’s fallen nature. Fallenness causes the members of a civilisation to abandon the vigorous virtues for behaviours that set people against one another, or make them lazy in the face of new challenges.
Entropy happens within empires. Edward Gibbon famously chronicled Rome’s decline. Others have analysed the decadent tendencies - in Germany’s Weimar Republic - that paved the way for Adolf Hitler.
Entropy occurs down the generations as heirs of a prosperous and virtuous lineage squander what they were given.
Entropy also happens to governments as they grow weary – even sleazy - and circumstances change faster than their ability to comprehend them.
The idea of institutional decline leads conservatives to shun utopian ideas but it should not produce defeatism. Conservatives can still believe in the possibility of progress if they first act against institionalised decline. This action is necessary across two key battlegrounds: the maintenance of diversity and the promotion of virtue.
The maintenance of diversity
Civilisation is best understood as a process rather than an equilibrium state. It faces constant threats to its stability - from within and without. Shocks and threats are more easily absorbed if (1) it is not over-reliant on a few components – whether they are particular political leaders or sources of national income; and (2) if it nurtures resourcefulness within its members so that solutions to these threats might more likely emerge.
The promotion of virtue
Virtuous behaviour cannot be taken for granted. The mature citizen is not an accident but the product of dedicated parents and social institutions. Plato taught that children do not naturally have right behaviours. C S Lewis, commenting on Plato, wrote: “[The little human animal] must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting, and hateful".
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