Innovation

[Aristogenics]

Man has learned through millions of years of evolution and social experience that a stable environment is preferable. It ensures peace of mind, social continuity, freedom of action, and a ready command of our immediate surroundings. It is the misfit, the deviant, the innovator, and the lunatic who disturb peace of mind by introducing unaccustomed elements into human life.

Ugly surroundings, bad air, noise pollution, cultural homelessness, physical weakness, overstimulation, and the constant introduction of new and unaccountable elements into human life can be more oppressive than any form of poverty. More important than any comfort or possession is a stable environment, beautiful surroundings, peace of mind, healthy instincts, deeply held beliefs concerning our duty and destiny in the world, harmonious living in an organic and homogeneous community, and the development of an honourable character.

Innovation only becomes bad when it ceases to develop these qualities. How many of our modern innovations, whether they be the social experiments of democracy and "freedom", or the mechanical innovations of the industrial revolution, have tended to develop desirable qualities in the common people?

[Carl G]

Man has learned through millions of years of evolution and social experience that a stable environment is preferable. It ensures peace of mind, social continuity, freedom of action, and a ready command of our immediate surroundings. It is the misfit, the deviant, the innovator, and the lunatic who disturb peace of mind by introducing unaccustomed elements into human life.

Agreed.

Ugly surroundings, bad air, noise pollution, cultural homelessness, physical weakness, overstimulation, and the constant introduction of new and unaccountable elements into human life can be more oppressive than any form of poverty.

Here you begin to mix qualities. The first six items on your list can form a group, but the seventh (the constant introduction of...) doesn't necessarily fit. That is because all of the first six can form a stable environment, such as in a prisoner of war camp. Not a healthy environment, granted, but a stable one. The seventh item is your original point, but now you have introduced a value system into your picture of stability. This does not strengthen your argument because it has been demonstrated time and again that stable but oppressive societies are quite common.

More important than any comfort or possession is a stable environment, beautiful surroundings, peace of mind, healthy instincts, deeply held beliefs concerning our duty and destiny in the world, harmonious living in an organic and homogeneous community, and the development of an honourable character.

Here you go further into the valuation of what constitutes a good life, but now you have abandoned the original point about stability. Again, one can have stability and oppression coexisting, and this is far more common than the Utopian scenario you paint. In fact arguments can be made that the vision you put forth is radical and disruptive to most of today's stable societies (requiring revolution! to enact), and certainly that stability does not require those qualities -- look at the average prison society, for example.

Innovation only becomes bad when it ceases to develop these qualities. How many of our modern innovations, whether they be the social experiments of democracy and "freedom", or the mechanical innovations of the industrial revolution, have tended to develop desirable qualities in the common people?

Again, desirable qualities in the common people is a debatable term. Certainly docility might be as important for the stability of certain societal models, perhaps moreso than ugly surroundings. Just look around at most cities today.

Finally, stability itself is an illusion. Every model changes as circumstance shifts, and to one degree or another there is nothing anyone can do about that, for we are at the effect of larger forces. "Innovation" is therefore built into the overarching system within which we all live. Ultimately, though, of course, the system itself is stable. But within it we are at the whim of change.