5 Principles of Institution-Building

Five principles of institution building from an unlikely source

My wife, Laura, and I finished watching the second season of the Marvel show Loki. For all the lull and mediocrity of recent Marvel stuff, Loki returned us to the good ole days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (you know, like 2018). I think the show tells a fundamentally conservative story of the importance of institutions and preserving and reforming them. Fair warning, if you want to avoid spoilers, you will want to return to this piece after watching the show. Also, the show isn’t really the point of this piece. If you haven’t seen it or don’t care to watch it, you will still be able to understand the point of what I’m saying below. Just ignore the muddled details of the story and focus on that main point.

In the story, Loki, the Norse “god of mischief” finds himself inside of an institution called the Time Variance Authority (TVA). The TVA sits outside of time and preserves the “sacred timeline” of history. TVA “hunters” track down variant people in the story of the world and “prune” them. They prune by zapping variant people with a little stick thing so that a new “branch” of time doesn’t start. They thus work to preserve “the sacred timeline.” Loki is a variant, but he befriends some of the staff at the TVA, along with another “most-wanted” variant named Sylvie. He works with them to expose the corruption of the TVA, thus saving the world. Instead of preserving just a single “sacred timeline,” Loki grabs the threads of all the variant timelines of the universe and holds them together. He saves the TVA, saves all the people in all the timelines, and defeats the bad guy. In all of this, the story tells a basically conservative story about the importance of institutions.

What is conservatism?

Conservatism is the belief that we should “conserve” things, specifically socially and culturally. Because of the cultural and political tint to the idea of “conservatism,” we should be careful not to confuse “orthodox” with “conservative.” I have repeated myself on this point, because Christian truth should not be captured by partisan politicking. That said, we should not conceive of conservatism as a merely political idea, but as a social and cultural (and, yes, even theological) instinct. We should recognize the wisdom of the past, the patterns of “common sense,” and traditions polished over generations. Specifically, conservatism values the longevity of institutions. In Loki the TVA is an institution. The show tells a conservative story, because Loki doesn’t want to destroy the TVA. He knows (rather, he has learned) that destroying it will create chaos. He wants to conserve the institution.

What is an institution?

Outside of the Bible two books have shaped my mind in the last few years. One is Dominion by Tom Holland, which we can talk about another time. Here I want to talk about the other one: A Time to Build by Yuval Levin. Levin shows the importance of institutions. “Institution” has a negative connotation for many people. Maybe you think of a mental health facility, or a large, impersonal corporation. An institution, though, simply shapes and frames our common relationships and goals. Levin explains that institutions are “the durable forms of our common life. They are the frameworks and structures for the things we do together.” A group of people is just a group of people, but the family structures a group into a lasting and meaningful form. The church frames the relationships for an otherwise random group of Christians. The military organizes the activities of soldiers. The TVA in Loki manages the timeline of the universe. The story narrates a number of examples of healthy and life-giving institutions.

Reformation over Revolution

In a scene in episode four, Sylvie and Loki argue about what to do next. Sylvie plays the role of revolutionary. She wants to burn the TVA to the ground and start over. The TVA was birthed in injustice by an evil overlord, He Who Remains. Then it morphed into a corrupt bureaucracy under the leadership of the Timekeepers, who turn out to be an institutional lie to preserve order. “It would just be easier,” she says, “to burn this place down and start from scratch.” This is the mindset of progressivism and revolution. Scrap it all and start again. Scrap the centuries of wisdom that teach us what a family is, what a person is. Start over, and engineer a new way. Reject the binary.

Instead, Loki calls for a conservative approach of reformation over revolution. “Sure. Burn it down,” he says. “Easy. Annihilating is easy. Razing things to the ground is easy. Trying to fix what’s broken is hard. Hope is hard.” Instead of just rejecting a broken or corrupt institution and starting over in revolution, we hear here a call to reform. Fixing a broken marriage is hard. Fixing a broken church is hard. Fixing a broken nation is hard. But it is worth it, because the institution is ultimately about the people in it. Destroying something and starting over can hurt a lot of people, in the name of some greater, idealistic good.

People over Process

One of the key themes in the show is Loki’s “time slipping.” He time travels without warning through the storyline. He tries to figure out how to control it, focusing on different events, times, and even his purpose. When he does finally learn to control his time slipping, he says, “It’s not about where, when, or why. It’s about who.” He refuses to sacrifice his friends or the lives at stake in the timelines of the universe. He saves the TVA and the timelines for the sake of people. Before this the TVA had prioritized the process, pruning variant people and variant timelines to preserve one sacred timeline. It pitted the institution’s goals against the good of the people the institution touched. But an institution should exists with, by, and for the people within it and outside of it. When an institution cherishes its process or institutional identity above or instead of people, it has become corrupt. It has devolved into institutionalism.

Slow over Speed

The mantra of the twenty-first century’s entrepreneurial spirit might be, “Move fast and break things.” This is the title of a book about “Big Tech,” Google, Facebook, and Amazon. This mindset opposes building healthy and durable institutions. As a friend recently tweeted, “Move slow and build things.” We see the virtue of slowness in Loki’s centuries-long quest to save the universe. He controls his time slipping, and he can repeat any moment any number of times. He spends centuries learning quantum physics, trying to fix the mechanical problem with the TVA’s “temporal loom.” He knows he has time. He can take it slowly enough to do it right. As the old fable taught us, “Slow and steady wins the race.” We should not despise the day of slow beginnings. As another cliche rightly teaches us, “Rome wasn’t build in a day.” Move slow, and build things. Families. Churches. Businesses. Cities. Nations.

Personal over Mechanical

Loki spends lifetimes trying to solve the TVA’s mechanical problem. He wants to expand the ability of the “temporal loom” to accommodate all of the timelines of the universe, not just the one sacred one. He tries over and again, in countless ways, giving himself for hundreds and hundreds of years to the job. But he finally learns that the TVA doesn’t have a technical problem. The loom will never accommodate all of the timelines, because it was designed to eliminate them. He learns that the solution must be personal. Loki himself must solve the problem, and sacrifice himself for the saving of others. Our institutions don’t primarily suffer from problems of strategy or mechanics. They need better people, who are willing to serve within them for the good of others rather than to use them for their own goals. We see this every time an NFL football team gets a good quarterback and a good coach. This should only make sense, because the heart of our universe is the personal triune God, not an equation or mechanism.

Service over Sovereignty

He Who Remains, the main bad guy, made the TVA as a way to rule; but Loki discovers that the TVA is a way to serve. Here the writers inspire us with the development of Loki’s character. Throughout the stories of the Marvel movies, he has sought to rule. He has hurt people and done terrible things to get his throne. He has been just like He Who Remains, only ineffectively. He wants to use people to get power. He wants to stand on top of the institution for his own authority.

Instead, the show ends with Loki ascending a different kind of throne, where he has the singular ability to hold the strands of time together. He thereby saves the universe by sacrificing himself, rather than sacrificing others to serve himself. Yuval Levin points out that our institutions suffer from the sickness of self-promotion. Institutions should be forms that shape us into certain kinds of people, but we have turned them into platforms for our own exaltation. Think of the pastor who uses his church for his own global ministry, or the congresswoman who uses her role for publicity rather than actual governing. A life-giving institution is about serving rather controlling, people rather than power.

Conclusion

If you’re interested in learning more, you should pick up A Time to Build by Yuval Levin. Even better, pick up your Bible and read and study the little prophet Haggai. Funny enough, before I heard of Levin’s project, I taught through Haggai and called the series, “Time to Build.” In that little book, the prophet calls God’s people to stop building their own houses and finish the task of rebuilding the Lord’s house. It applies to our spiritual lives, and our churchly lives. It also applies to our social and community responsibilities. Hope is hard. But it’s worth it.