Quodlibet
"Change Is Good"
I first heard this asinine preachment from the sort of person one would expect it from: a progressive member of the managerial class—just where C. S. Lewis put it in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader: "Have you no idea [said Gumpas in defense of the slave trade] of progress, of development?" "I have seen them both in an egg," said Caspian. "We call it 'Going Bad' in Narnia."
Scott Adams also gets it right in his Dilbert cartoons: managers typically justify their existence by making ill-considered changes that needlessly burden their employees. The Peter Principle operates somewhat nebulously but is nevertheless real. Supine adoption of the Change Doctrine is perhaps the least mistakable sign of its presence in many spheres of activity, including the churches. It is cause for rejoicing when one does not labor under its practitioners.
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor.
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more on culture from the online archives
32.6—November/December 2019
Historical Truth, Beguiling Stories & Three Kinds of Hearers by Anthony Esolen
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more from the online archives
32.4—July/August 2019
Does Biblical Language for Man Matter? by Stephen F. Noll
33.1—January/February 2020
on a Saint's Charism That Cures Toxic Perfectionism by Colleen Carroll Campbell
32.2—March/April 2019
Finding Him Again Through the Patriarchal Group by Anthony Esolen
