‘Meddle Not with Themthat Are Given to Change ’:Innovation as Evil

BENOÎT GODINWorkshop on the Rhetoricof Innovation in Contemporary SocietyUniversity of Helsinki8-9 February 2010

Introduction

- Greely et al., Nature, 2008- Greeks and Romans political thought

(more on this later)- Reformation

- Edward VI, A Proclamation Against Those that Doeth Innovate, 1548

- Common Prayer Book, 1549- Act of Uniformity, 1549

Introduction (continued)

- How, when and why did innovation become a positive value?

- Project on the Intellectual History of Innovation- Innovation as a category- Representations of innovation- Origins, context, meaning, uses, values,

discourses, theories, measurements

Introduction (continued)

- A forgotten concept- German Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe

project (Brunner, Conze and Koselleck, 1972 and after)

- Dictionary of the History of Ideas (1974)- Raymond Williams’ Keywords (1976)- Ideas in Context series (like Ball, Farr and

Hanson, 1989)

Introduction (continued)

- Innovation controversy, 1636-41

- Henry Burton versus Archbishop William Laud and ‘laudians’ (P. Heylin, C. Dow)- Purity of Protestantism- Introduction of popery

Henry Burton

- For God and the King, 1636

- My Sonne, feare thou the Lord, and the King, and meddle not with them that are given to change. For their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the ruine of them both?

- An exegesis and accusation

Burton (continued)

- The exegesis- An exhortation: My Sonne, feare thou the

Lord, and the King- An admonition: and meddle not with them

that are given to change- A Reason: For their calamity shall rise

suddenly; and who knoweth the ruine of them both?

Burton (continued)

- The accusation: eight innovations- Doctrine- Discipline- Worship of God- Civil Government- Altering of Books- Means of Knowledge- Rule of Faith- Rule of Manners

Burton (continued)

- Innovation: a political (and contested) category- Ancient political thought (more on this later, again)- Proclamations and Declarations

- Edward VI (1548, 1549)- Charles I (1626, 1628, 1638)

- Burton- Political vocabulary; political issues; political effects- Crossing boundaries and using a category for one’s own

purpose- Burton as ‘innovative ideologist’

- Uses the category for polemical purposes- Uses it against the authority

Laud and laudians

- No innovation- Ad hominem: a frustrated individual- Ad populum: popularity- Invention, fancy- Misunderstanding and misinterpretation- Conjecture- History (times and circumstances)- Symbolic- Renovation- Revolution (rebellion and sedition)

Laud and laudians (continued)

- 1937: Burton brought before the Court (High Commission)

- He had his ears cut and was sentenced to imprisonement

The Parliament

- End of the controversy- After three years, he is released by

Parliament and becomes a popular hero- Orders from the House of Commons

(1941)- Proceedings of the bishops (1941)- Laud beheaded (1945)

Explaining Innovation

- Context: orthodoxy

- Meaning: ‘introducing change’

- Value: pejorative

- Uses- Prohibition (Kings)- Polemical (Burton)

- A subjective category

Genealogy

1. Politics- Greek and Roman political thought on change

(metabole, parekbasis) and stability (soteria) of constitutions: Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, Livy

- Change as intermediary; gradualism- Innovation (kainotomia)

- A metaphor (Xenophon); meaning: introducing change- Pejorative representation (individuals)

- N. Machiavelli• Princes should innovate to secure power (usefulness)• People do not innovate (resistances)• Early and fast – to make people forget (strategy)

Genealogy (continued)

2. Religion- Reformation (a new orthodoxy)

- People should not innovate

- Even the King does not innovate (Charles, 1638)

Genealogy (continued)

- Impact 1: few uses of innovation (until 20th century)- Science

- New everywhere, but:- Innovation used by enemies (novellists, etc.)- Satires

- Literary criticism: own vocabulary (invention, then imagination, creation)

- (Mechanical) arts: invention, projectors

Genealogy (continued)

- Impact 2: two vocabularies- Alteration, innovation (as novelty,

invention, opinion, fancy: individual)- Versus change (natural, social; but

intermediary)

- Reformation, restoration, renovation- Italian: XXXX; German: erneuerung- But: no substitute to innovation

- Then: revolution

Genealogy (continued)

3. Technology and theorists on modernity and progress (philosophy, sociology and economics)- Goes back to F. Bacon

- Novelty (as curiosity, subtlety) versus invention (as usefulness)- Vocabulary of restoration, but forward-looking (totally new

foundations)- ‘Strategic’ thoughts on how to deal with innovation (like

Machiavelli)- Usefulness, resistances, ‘strategy’ (slowly, as time goes – to get

people accustomed)

- But took time- Projectors: innovation as cheat; satires- Rehabilitation: D. Defoe; J. Bentham

Genealogy (continued)

- Technology’s theorists- Anthropologists: cultural change (diffusion

controversy)- Sociologists: social change (Tarde, Ogburn)- Economists: technological change

(Schumpeter, Maclaurin), then technological innovation( Manchester, Sussex/SPRU)

- Policy (and statistics)

Genealogy (continued)

4. Creativity- Idea of ability in Machiavelli- An old tradition

- Psychology of imagination (combination)- Literary criticism: imagination, creation- 1950 and after: rise of a literature on creativity; buzzword

- A few precursors: Schumpeter (creative destruction), Usher, Barnett

- But mainly indirect, through:- Invention (technology)

- Rossman on creative inventors (new subtitle in 1964)- R&D

- R defined as original, creative work (NBER, 1962; OECD FM, 1962)- R&D as proxy to innovation

Conclusion

Innovation: an everyday category- From: innovation as heresy (religion),

revolutionary (politics) and cheat (business)- To: innovation as an obsession and panacea

- Extension (social innovation)- Metaphor (biological innovation)- Greely et al.- ‘Innovation’ (instead of ‘technological innovation’):

dominant and hegemonic representation