It’s that the word “institution” conjures a formal organization first. The first image that pops into your head, especially after hearing the word, is an image of a formal organization:
A university, a hospital, a bank, or maybe a government office. For ordinary purposes, the term institution describes any more or less organized body or society, formed for religious, social, educational, professional, or other purposes.
But “institution” surely has richer and wider reverberations than these formal entities. To see these other meanings of “institution,” we need to look at how the word operates in social, cultural, and even metaphorical contexts.
The Broader Social Meaning of Institution
In addition to denoting physical or legal institutions, “institution” may also refer to a phenomenon that is supported by and supports another social mechanism which can lead to machine-like behavior. They are not tangible, but they are just as real in forming human relations. Save for example marriage, religion, and the institution of property ownership which are all social institutions.
They are institutions of rules and values that shape conduct and foster social order.
An institution here is less the building or the organization than it is the framework or system of norms and rules. Consider, for instance, marriage. You can have a church wedding or a courthouse wedding, but the institution of marriage doesn’t get wrapped up in one place. This is a socially acknowledged and culturally enforced institution to structure roles responsibilities and expectations between married persons.
Institutions as Cultural Pillars
In a more general sense, institutions may include even practices and traditions so established that they are generally accepted as authoritative or fundamental. Language as an institution of the common: That is why scholars consider language to be in the heritage of humanity.
Education is an institution, as a concept — not only the specific schools we attend. Democracy justice and family are all institutions in this larger cultural sense. These are the constructs that determine how societies operate and change.
For instance, implementing democracy is a convolution of values, traditions, and applications of law like voting, representation, and the rule of the law. These are not limited to an organization but are a structural function of society that undergirds public life.
This reading suggests that institutions are as abstract as they are active, and they come and go with the contexts that breed them.
Institutions in the Figurative Sense
Another less common but also common usage of “institution” is metaphorical, where it is used to describe a no-name who is considered to be a trademark of a specific industry, service, etc.
When people say, “She’s an institution in this town,” what they’re saying is that person is so rooted, so central, so respected that they might as well be a building, a part of the fabric of things.
This usage highlights that institutions are not things that can be personalized. People can be institutions, or personifications of particular values, histories, or traditions.
Think of a celebrity (or a similar public figure who’s been around for a while) who has become synonymous with certain movements, professions, or communities.
The Evolving Nature of Institutions
An institution, and what it means, can change over time. Take, for instance, the evolution of gender roles over the last hundred years. Where once “the masculine and the feminine were rigidly different and well-defined, now some people and some circumstances appear as if they could be either,” Cushman writes.
This demonstrates that although institutions offer form and stability, they are by no means static. They are created and evolve with changes in social mores, political tides, and technological innovations.
Newer things like social media are increasingly brought into focus as nascent institutions conditioning the ways we talk, relate, and make our way through the world. They may not have begun as institutions, but platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok have established their own sets of norms, expectations.
Conclusion
While the idea of an institution is often the building that houses a university or bank, the other definitions are just as important. An institution, as an idea, refers to established patterns of behavior with a specific value and purpose, as that can exist for all practically human time, within the domain of respect of specific norms.
Institutions may even be individuals, personifying stability or authority. Knowing these broader definitions makes us more appreciative of how those human societies work and how they can and do change.
Institutions, after all, are the foundation of civilization, whether those institutions are well-developed (social constructs), nebulous (cultural norms), or focused on real people (influential individuals).
They are bases on which one can rely, and yet which can change and grow! Understanding the range of what an “institution” is is helpful for us to understand the world that we’re living in and our place in it.
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