Summary
This book outlines and explains the three paradigms that "innovation" and it's etymological ancestors underwent in western civilization.
Classical View: Innovation was predominantly political. It was defined as political change and was a suspicious concept but advisable in specific scenarios.
Reformation View: innovation was predominantly a religious concept. It was defined as deviation from the good (heresy/revolution) and was an evil idea that no one wanted to be associated with.
Modern View: innovation is predominantly a technological/utilitarian concept. It is defined as making progress towards the good and is a positive idea that everyone wants to be associated with.
On Method
This is an etymological study of the word "innovation" and not an intellectual history of the concept of "innovation". The latter would take our notion of innovation (technological change, loosely) and try to understand prior cultures' attitude towards that concept even if it is labeled under an etymologically unrelated word. This is no such book: instead, it examines the etymological roots of "innovation" (Kainotomia, innovo, etc.) even if they refer to different concepts: political rather than technological, stepwise rather than piecemeal, etc.
Because, for most of western civilization, "innovation" was considered to be an undesirable & deviant concept, it was defined more by its detractors than its practitioners. Thus, there is very little explicit theorizing. The study of innovation prior to the 20th century does not only/mostly reside in the study of great works as, say, the study of the concept of selfhood would be. An investigation must take on the shape of a social history, inquiry into public discourses (e.g. political pamphlets) in addition to the classics.
The Classical View
Contra Godin, I do believe the Ancients (greek antiquity to Machiavelli) presents a consistent view on innovation (doing something never been done before for the first time):
Primarily political concept and, because of that …
Defacto suspicious in all domains but especially in politics (in certain instrumental or artistic domains it is lauded by the same suspicion carries over)
Should be done only to correct a wrong or in response to calamity
Intended to stabilize
The last two bullet points are the biggest delta from modernity. In modernity innovation is something you do in the face of stability (stagnation) intended to disrupt.
The dominant view is set forth by Plato and Aristotle and what Godin sees as rebuttals against this view (Machievelli, Romans, Xenophon, Polybius) are actually consistent in my reading.
Plato
Plato very much wants to freeze his society in time. In the Laws (what could be interpreted as the best possible society) he presents a utopia that does not change. Not only are explicit political concepts such as laws frozen in time, but so is all "culture" such as dance, festival calendars, children's games and even the number of families.
Plato's arguments against innovation has two thrusts 1. Once you figure out what the Good is any deviation is bad 2. There is a natural tendency for people to like novelty but novelty introduces differences in opinion within a community which creates chaos. (1 is on the content of the community, 2 is the form of the community -- we might say that a community where everyone agrees on one bad value may still be better than a community where people have differing but equally bad values).
For Plato, innovation is only warranted 1. when natural change/fate forces you to react 2. you are correcting a wrong.
Aristotle
Aristotle encourages innovation in certain parts of society such as crafts. But discourages in laws.
It is discouraged in laws because
Innovations primarily benefit the innovator
We already know what the good looks like
Laws need to be sacrosanct and will not be respected if they keep changing
Slippery slope argument
Xenophon
Xenophon seemingly embraces innovation in his Ways and Means but upon further inspection 1. his innovation is an economic one (how better to encourage mining) which is not exclusively political 2. even so he tries to downplay its novelty and admits its riskiness. He is very much proposing this despite and not because it is an innovation.
Roman View
The etymological antecedent of innovation (innovare) seemingly takes on a positive connotation in Latin. Upon closer inspection the word does not mean doing something radically new for the first time, one of its dominant uses if not THE dominant use is to describe a reactionary return to a previous state. That is, bringing forth a radical change but one in emulation of something great done before.
Machiavelli
Again, Machiavelli seems at first glance to encourage the prince to innovate. Indeed, innovation is one of the arrows in the quiver of virtu. But it is necessary only because of the political instability brought forth by Fortuna. The goal of innovation is not to disrupt (as it is in modernity) but to seek stability.
Polybius
Polybius invents a new word to describe innovations in a positive light. Upon closer inspection 1. what he is praising often is instrumental innovation 2. when he praises people what he is praising isn't necessarily that they are doing something new but that they are doing something better.
The Reformation View
There is also a consistent "reformation view" of innovation to speak of. Innovation is, under this view, thought to be a deviation from some natural/good state of affairs. Within its definition is the idea that it is not only suspicious but bad.
Henry Burton
The Reformation saw the transformation of innovation from a suspicious concept that one may, on special occasions, partake in, to an evil concept that may never be touched.
Innovation was primarily a religious concept and took on the connotation of deviation from the natural/good order. Innovation (under the Aristotelean model) was considered a slippery slope, a gradual process that leads you to falsehood over a long time.
Henry Burton, English minister's, political pamphlets was the first controversy in innovation and brought innovation into the everyday language. It was the severe connotations of "innovation" in the religious sphere that devalued it in all spheres. Burton warned against innovation in: doctrine, discipline, worship of God, civil government, altering of books, means of knowledge, rules of manners, rule of the faith.
The associations of "innovation" was so negative that other disciplines had to invent different words that basically described innovation but didn't use the word: "invention", "discovery", "imagination".
Republicanism as Innovation
As Burton's and other controversies made innovation into everyday language, 17th century failed attempts at republicanism in England transferred much of the pejorative notion of innovation into the political realm, making it a political concept.
Just as innovation was conceived of a violation/deviation from religious truth, that same intuition became transplanted. Innovation is a violation of political boundaries. This marks a stark contrast from the view of antiquity. In the view of antiquity innovation itself was not defined negatively (just political change) even if it did have negative consequences. In this reformation view, innovation's definition itself is negative. Political change vs. political deviation.
Innovation was no longer gradual (Burton's view) but was sudden and also took on a violent dimension.
In the religious domain, innovation was synonymous with heresy. In the political domain, it was synonymous with revolution (also deeply negative connotations).
The Modern View
The rehabilitation of "innovation" can be interpreted as coming from two forces. One general force that changed many concepts and the specific connotative change of innovation from religion/politics to utility.
Within the definition of innovation was the idea of progress, making positive movements towards a goal. (you can see that the definition is flipped, the reformation sees it as deviation from the good, the modern view sees it as progression towards the good)
The General Change 18th-19th Century: Saddletime
Historian Koselleck identified the period between 1750 and 1850 as "saddletime" where many philosophical intuitions were flipped on its head.
Change is everywhere
Religion (Reformation), politics (revolutions), economics (industrial revolution), science (scientific revolution). While everything was perceived as continuous before, people now become conscious or aware of changes in every sphere of society. They accept change, even promote changes.
Change is radical and revolutionary.
While it was previously thought that change is mainly gradual and evolutionary (Nisbet, 1969), change is now sudden. Revolutions become the emblem of change.
Change is future-oriented, progressive (as opposed to time agnostic, or reactionary)
Change is productive (useful) rather than destructive (of customs) or, if destructive, is so in a positive manner. Radical change and revolutions announce new possible futures (Koselleck, 1969; Lusebrink and Reichardt, 1988; Ozouf, 1989; Reichardt, 1997).
Humans are responsible for change/their destiny.
Humans become conscious of their own action. While change was previously explained by God, nature or necessity, humans become aware of history and their capacity to shape their own destiny (Koselleck, 2002a).
Innovation (which was synonymous with revolution in the political realm) became rehabilitated through this period. It was not the only one: revolution itself went from a negative connotation to a positive one (alongside many other words).
The Specific Change 19th Century: Bentham's Rehabilitation
Bentham had four main arguments that helped rehabilitate innovation:
Dyslogism: That it was being used merely as a political attack word unreflectively.
Perfectionism: We don't know what the good is.
History: Look at all the past innovations.
Utility: one of the main battlegrounds that he focused on rehabilitating innovation was in the entrepreneurial realm.
The Specific Change 19th Century: The Useful Arts
Innovation became predominantly used by those engaged in the useful arts (teaching, metallurgy, medicine, etc.), it was associated with utility.
At this time, innovation didn't encompass scientific breakthroughs nor the commercialization piece but just the act of making advances in useful arts grounded on science or scientific methods/principles.
The Specific Change 20th Century: Technological Innovation
Innovation began to encompass the entire process of scientific breakthroughs --> innovations in the useful arts --> commercialization.
Why the Paradigm Shifts
We can attribute the paradigm shifts to three causes 1. the dominant sphere of innovation 2. Saddletime 3. Perfectionism.
The Scapegoat Mechanism / The Dominant Sphere
This cause can be teased out with the question: does this intellectual history represent a continuity or a break?
On one hand it is a continuity: we currently still think of political innovation as suspect and Xenophon still thought of instrumental innovation as good.
On the other hand it is a radical break: innovation went from suspicious to evil to radically good.
How do we reconcile these two readings?
The way we reconcile is by bringing in Girard's notion of the scapegoat mechanism (it's most general form at least). There are cataclysmic events in society that provide us with the fundamental substratum objects of good/evil. The associations permeate society and form, what we can reasonably call, the "culture" of the society. When you think of the scapegoat mechanism as not just murdering victims but the murdering of concepts (as girard must, since he concieves of rationality as the last religion).
The intuition is that depending on what the dominant realm we associate innovation with, the attitude and logic we think occurs in that domain becomes transplanted into other domains. Ie. One should be suspicious of innovation in politics, prevent innovation in religion, and accelerate innovation in technology but when one of the poles becomes dominant, the connotations "bleed over". Burton believed we should not innovate in laws and culture (in addition to religion). We currently think of change/innovation as good in the political/social domain.
What enabled this transference of connotations between the primary and ancillary domains is the word "innovation" itself. Words are vessels for political intuitions. You can see this by how other disciplines had to invent their own version of "innovation" to describe the same phenomena but with different connotations.
This is what I will focus on, not because I think it is most explanatory, but I think it is most instructive to what we ought to do now.
Sattelzeit
There was a deeper transformation that changed a whole family of concepts' connotations:
"Between 1750 and 1850 there occurred a “shift in the conception of time and a reorientation towards the future . . . against which structural changes are perceived, evaluated and acted upon” (Koselleck, 1977; Richter, 1995: 35–38). Many words change meaning and become positive. Such is the case with revolution, but also with innovation."
Perfectionism/Conception of Time
A key question that changes our attitudes towards innovation is: do we know what the good is? If the answer is "yes" (and that we have done it before or are already doing it) the attitude towards innovation is generally negative/suspicious and this lends to a past-focused orientation towards time. If the answer is "no", you usually end up with a future-focused orientation towards time and innovation is welcomed. This cuts against the spheres (politics/technology) as both mill (politics) and Bentham (technology) argued for innovation based on a skepticism.
Those who want to stop innovation believe that they are quite close:
Berkley: "That our constitution is absolutely perfect, it would be ridiculous to assert. Perfection belongs not to lapsed humanity. That a better constitution may be conceived, we do not positively deny . . . It may, however, be consistently asserted that so few and so unimportant are the defects, so many and so valuable the perfections, of the nicely balanced British Constitution, as to render it highly probable that any innovations in its system will be more likely to injure than to improve it . . . No plan of representation could possibly be devised in which the whole nation would agree. Why then should we hazard the consequences of an innovation, which it is barely possible might do some good; but which is much more likely to create discord . . . My Son, fear thou the Lord and the King, and meddle not with them that are given to change."
Recall, Aristotle said that all possible forms of organization have been discovered, this is like Plato's point about we already know what the good is and looks like:
“All possible forms of organization have now been discovered. If another form of organization was really good it would have been discovered already” (Politics II: v, 1264a).
Look at how Bentham is gesturing at how many innovations in the past helped us to where we are now, there must be more to come: Bentham reprimands Smith for condemning “as rash and ill-grounded all those projects by which our species have been successively advanced from the state in which acorns were their food, and raw hides their clothing, to the state in which it stands at present”. For a third time, Bentham refers to the fallacy on innovation and concludes: "Sir, let me beg you, whether whatever is now the routine of trade was not, at its commencement, project? Whether whatever is now establishment, was not, at one time, innovation?" And so he argues for usury.
A good parallel here would be Mill having a similar argument for free speech. Look how much things we thought were right were actually wrong, therefore we should be open to new ideas. He argued for freedom of speech.
Mill is the ideas innovator to Bentham's economic innovator, their argument both takes the form of: look of what we thought of as optimal previously that turned out not to be so, surely we are far from perfection. Thus we must be open to innovations.
How this Intellectual History Speaks to Us
Like all good intellectual histories, this one rescues certain ideas from antiquity that help us correct our views. Specifically, it teaches how exaggerated our positive appraisal of innovation is. After seeing how laughable the negative appraisal of innovation in the reformation view is, the natural tendency is to correct this bias and I think there are two ways that this is corrected: 1. certain general critiques of innovation 2. critiques of innovation within specific spheres.
General Critiques of Innovation
Innovations are created to benefit the innovator. E.g. social media. Innovation is a usurpation of power. We should be default suspicious because its about gaining power of one group over another.
To Aristotle, another innovator criticized by name is the architect Hippodamus because of his view, among others, that “honour ought to be awarded to those who invent” or discover some advantages to the country (Politics II: viii, 1268b). To Aristotle, “It is [always] possible for people to bring in proposals for abrogating the laws or the constitution on the ground that such proposals are for the public good” (Politics II: viii, 1268b). Only ambition drives Hippodamus “always to be different from other people”. To Aristotle, the lesson is clear: “Since men introduce innovations [neoterizein] for reasons connected with their private lives [modes of living], an authority ought to be set up to exercise supervision over those whose activities are not in keeping with the interests of the constitution” (Politics V: viii, 1308b).
A term that recurs among all three Royalists (and King Charles’s Eikón basiliké) is design. The innovator has a design in mind. The meaning of design is a project, a suspicious project—another term that suffered from bad press (‘projectors’ were the untrusted innovators-entrepreneurs of the time). There is no reference to creativity here, but rather a machination, a subversion, a conspiracy. Poyntz, as we saw, talks in terms of a (dangerous) “experiment”, as well as design. So do the anonymous author W. W. and Goddard. Design, a key word of the political world in England and the US in the 1760s–70s (Bailyn, 1967: 94–159), would continue to characterize innovation in the next century, and then the notion of “scheme” would be added, as in Thomas Bancroft’s The Danger of Political Innovation and the Evil of Anarchy (1792). “I trust it may be expected from the good sense of English- men that they will reject their suspicious schemes of Reform and Innovation” (Bancroft, 1792: 14).
Innovations are dangerous to the innovator. We need to reconcile this with 1. the above view 2. with the fact that innovations aren't socially dangerous to the innovator anymore. On 1. we can say that innovations are dangerous even if their intention is self-benefit. On 2. we can say that there are two ways to define innovation: to do what is new OR to do what is not agreed upon. In modernity what is agreed upon is to do the new (for many domains). Thus modernity socially de-risks many innovations. Ie. Its only dangerous to do what is not agreed upon, in antiquity that overlapped strongly with the new, in modernity, there are many new things that one could do that is expected, agreed upon and thus is safe. The other cut would be to reject this and say that innovation is still dangerous. Ie. My friend getting sued by competitors.
Innovation should only be done when necessary because it brings great danger to the innovator: "Those who become ruler through their own abilities experience difficulty in attaining power, but once that is achieved, they keep it easily. The difficulties encountered in attaining power arise partly from the new institutions and laws they are forced to introduce in order to establish their power and make it secure . . . Taking the initiative in introducing a new form of government is very difficult and dangerous . . . The reason is that all those who profit from the old order will be opposed to the [introduction of a new order], whereas all those who might benefit from the new order are, at best, tepid supporters of him. This lukewarmness arises partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the law on their side, partly from the skeptical temper of men, who do not really believe in new things unless they have been seen to work well. The result is that whenever those who are opposed to change have the chance to attack the innovator [innovatori], they do it with much vigour, whereas his supporters act only half-heartedly; so that [the innovator, se per condurre l’opera loro] and his supporters find themselves in great danger."
If you know what the good is, don't deviate from it.
“All possible forms of organization have now been discovered. If another form of organization was really good it would have been discovered already” (Politics II: v, 1264a).
Slippery Slope: it's impossible to just do a bit of innovation. Once you open the flood gates, you can't shut it back in (the apocalyptic reading).
It is essential in particular to guard against the insignificant breach. Illegality creeps in unobserved; it is like small items of expenditure which when oft repeated make away with a man’s possessions. The spending goes unnoticed because the money is not spent all at once, and this is just what leads the mind astray . . . One precaution to be taken, then, is in regard to the beginning. (Politics V: viii, 1307b)
Revolution, or faction, arises from “small matters”: “The false step is at the beginning, but well begun is half done, as the proverb says, so that a small error at the start is equivalent in the same proportion to those of the later stages” (Politics V: iv, 1303b). It has an effect on the whole State: “A change so gradual as to be imperceptible . . . It very often happens that a considerable change in a country’s customs takes place imperceptibly, each little change slipping by unnoticed” (Politics V: iii, 1303a). Aristotle repeats the description elsewhere as follows: “The change occurring either quickly or gradually and little by little, without being realized” (Politics V: vii, 1306b).
Specific Critiques of Innovation
Innovation in politics/society/culture/religion (normative innovation)
The form of a harmonious society is normative agreement (independently of what the values actually are). Innovation is necessarily harmful to this relation amongst members.
For certain spheres, they require a form sacrality to function. Marriage, Law are perhaps examples. Their, power/appeal/meaning comes from stasis.
There are some occasions that call for change and there are some laws which need to be changed. But looking at it in another way we must say that there will be need of the very greatest caution. In a particular case we may have to weigh a very small improvement against the danger of getting accustomed to casual abrogation of the laws . . . There is a difference between altering a craft and altering a law . . . [It] takes a long time [for a law] to become effective. Hence easy change from established laws to new laws means weakening the power of the law. (Politics II: viii, 1269a).
Innovation in technology (instrumental innovation). These are not derived from the text:
Nick Bostrom has this view of technological innovation as pulling balls blind out of a bag: some of them will kill you, some of them will save you etc. And that's what technological innovation is like, we can't see the consequences of our inventions.
The first rebuttal to this is that we don't pull innovations out of the hat "blind". Modern capitalistic innovations come from mechanisms that are far from random. One fact about such a mechanism is that someone must pay for it. One might think that it needs to be helpful at least to someone in the beginning.
The pushback to this is there are some mechanisms (like the creation of weaponry) has a prior that is harmful: weapon will only be invented if it is more effective at destruction. But even if this is so, it tells us that we are more agential in this process than randomly pulling balls out of a bag blind. There are at least probabilistic things we can do on the mechanism piece that can skew innovations on the harmful/helpful scale.
Misc
Desire for Novelty
Throughout history, writers tended to agree that people are interested in novelty. That's not to say some writers, as Machiavelli does, don't also argue that people tend to favor the familiar. This is simply to argue against the idea that the desire for the new/novelty is a modern phenomena. What is a recent invention seems to be our encouraging and affirming of this love of novelty. It was always a suspicious drive.
Children “hold in special honour he who is always innovating or introducing some novel device”. But “the biggest menace that can ever afflict a state” is changing “quietly the character of the young by making them despise old things and value novelty” (Laws VII: 797b). -- Plato
Quintillian, echoing Aristotle, describes how people are naturally attracted to and seduced by novelty.
Henry Fly, using the “popular fury of 1780” in England and the French Revolution as examples, discussed how the “love of novelty” “plunge[s] a whole nation into the most dreadful calamities”.
Technology is Inherently Progressive
One reading of progressivism is that it took the positive connotations of innovation and projected that upon the social realm. The intuition in technology/utility is that there is always a better way to do things. Also something to be said about quantification and how that method contains within itself an end (increase/growth) -- see invention of improvement notes for more on this.
Capitalism and Innovation
One of the most important insights then of this intellectual history is that for a long time, innovation was not the constitutive quality of what defined capitalistic societies. Smith did not emphasize it for example. Schumpeter and Marx both did. In the 20th century did innovation became probably theorized. Smith's answer to the wealth of nations wasn't innovation and technology it was more about organization, incentives, training (division of labor). Now, the defendants of capitalism primarily point to innovation as the reason.
Human and Natural Change
One of the key insights when comparing Machiavelli and modernity is that despite both seeming to praise innovation they do it to achieve the exact opposite ends. Machiavelli innovates for stability, the default is political chaos. We innovate for disruption, the default is economic stagnation.
Human change/innovation then always happens against the backdrop of natural change. Curious to think through what the natural change is if humans leave it alone (note by natural change, I often mean natural political change, what is the default state of things without a superior agent's intervention):
Moderns think it is stagnation
Machiavellie thinks it is political chaos
Plato has his anacyclosis
Ovid's default state is an ontology of metamorphoses
Chapter by chapter notes:
Introduction
In contrast to our solely positive attitudes towards it, innovation prior to the 20th century was considered bad, undesirable, and deviant.
As a result it was used only by its detractors, innovators never labeled themselves that way. Before 20th century, innovation was defined by its detractors, now innovation is defined by its proponents. There is even less theorizing about it explicitly. And thus, the study of innovation prior to the 20th century does not only/mostly reside in the study of great works as, say, the study of the concept of selfhood would be. An investigation must take on the shape of a social history, inquiry into public discourses (e.g. political pamphlets) in addition to the classics.
Innovation's rehabilitation happened at the very moment that the term started to be thought of instrumentally rather than normatively. Ie. Innovation had a bad connotation when it was primarily thought of as an innovation of ends. But when we started thinking about innovation as achieving the same end in a different way it became positive.
Godin dates innovation's transformation to 1750 - 1850 what German historian Koselleck coined Sattelzeit (saddle time) where the most fundamental change was a change in the conception of time and an orientation towards the future. Innovation's rehabilitation was an offshoot of this more fundamental change. Concepts like "revolution" were changed in the same brush stroke, alongside this idea of material progress.
The story of innovation is non linear in three senses of the term. The first is that the large "stroke" of people's attitudes towards innovation went from slightly negative to the ancient Greeks to slightly positive to the Medievals to extremely negative during the reformation to extremely positive now -- it's an oscillation instead of linearity. The second is that even in this period of rehabilitation (sattelzeit) the change was not overnight but a gradual, stepwise process of rehabilitation. The last is that, like any concept, innovation was always contested, there were always opposing voices to the dominant attitude.
1 Kainotomia and Conceptual Innovation in Ancient Greece
Innovation -- or, what could reasonably be translated as such -- appears infrequently amongst texts in Greek antiquity. Thucydides (Histories), Aristophanes (Ecclesiazusae), Plutarch (Lives) all mention it but in passing. Four authors in particular treat innovation more systematically and self-consciously that deserve closer inspection.
Xenophon
Xenophon's Ways and Means is a work of political economy presented to the Athenian Council as advice for how to better Athens's economic situation after losing a major war.
His self-conscious labelling of innovation (Kainotomia) is used on the following proposal: Athenians are not making as many mines as they use to because the war made them all poorer. The state should nationalize the ownership of slaves (people who use the mines) to be lent out to entrepreneurs to help them derisk the labor part of the equation. Instead of having to use private slaves, the entrepreneurs could, much more cheaply, rent slaves.
The word which Xenophon uses to describe this innovation is Kainotomia (New-Cutting) this is used literally in the sense of cutting new mines but others will use this metaphorically in terms of cutting new avenues. There are many words that were/are used to describe innovation in Ancient/modern greek in addition to Kainotomia (which is still used as the dominant word).
Even though Xenophon uses the term here in a descriptive, maybe slightly positive way (since this is his proposal after all). It is clear from his other utterances that it is not innovation itself that must be affirmed but this particular innovation. If anything, he shows that because he recognizes this to be innovation, people will/should be suspicious:
He tries to downplay its novelty: “were my proposals adopted, the only novelty [καινόν, kainon], would be that . . .”
He admits its riskiness and that one ought "proceed gradually [rather] than to do everything at once.”
Also notable that even though this is political change, it is an instrumental rather than a normative change.
Plato
Plato's negative attitude towards innovation is fully audible in his Laws. He wants to build the perfect society and then freeze it in time.
His city will have exactly 5040 families.
Singing, dancing, festivities must remain fixed: “We must do everything we possibly can to distract the younger generation from wanting to try their hand at presenting new subjects, either in dance or song”. Plato argues for laws on “natural correctness” to counter “the tendency of pleasure and pain to indulge constantly in fresh music” (Laws II: 657b).
To Plato, the Egyptians have developed good laws to this end: drawing a calendar of festivals and authorizing certain songs and dances (Laws VII: 799a–b; II: 656c–57b). The Egyptians have also “forbidden to painters and all other producers of postures and representations to introduce any innova tion . . . over and above the traditional forms” (Laws II: 656e). Plato rec- ommends that “no one shall sing a note, or perform any dance-movement, other than those in the canon of public songs, sacred music, and the general body of chorus performances of the young—any more than he would violate any other ‘norm’ or law . . . If he disobeys, the Guardians of the Laws and the priests and priestesses must punish him” (Laws VII: 800a).
Foreigners are met with suspicion. “The intermixture of States with States naturally results in a blending of characters of every kind, as strangers import among strangers innovations [novel customs]” (Laws XII: 950a). Strangers are most welcomed, unless they bring in innovations in the city: Magistrates “shall have a care lest any such strangers introduce any innovation [neoterizein]” (Laws XII: 953a).
The reason for this negative attitude can be seen in Plato's argument below. I think it has two thrusts 1. Once you figure out what the Good is any deviation is bad 2. There is a natural tendency for people to like novelty but novelty introduces differences in opinion within a community which creates chaos. (1 is on the content of the community, 2 is the form of the community -- we might say that a community where everyone agrees on one bad value may still be better than a community where people have differing but equally bad values).
First, people love innovation. Children “hold in special honour he who is always innovating or introducing some novel device”. But “the biggest menace that can ever afflict a state” is changing “quietly the character of the young by making them despise old things and value novelty” (Laws VII: 797b).
Second, innovation leads to political instability. “If children innovate [neoterizein]7 in their games, they’ll inevitably turn out to be quite different people from the previous generation; being different, they’ll demand a different kind of life, and that will then make them want new institutions and laws” (Laws VII: 798c).
Third, there is need to contain or control innovation: When the laws under which people are brought up have by some heaven- sent good fortune remained unchanged over a very long period, so that no one remembers or has heard of things ever being any different, the soul is filled with such respect for tradition that it shrinks from meddling with it in any way. Somehow or other the legislator must find a method of bringing about this situation in the state. (Laws VII: 798b).
Innovation is only warranted in two circumstances:
Human change is required if natural change (fate, natural calamity, chance, etc.) thrust upon a new situation: Chances and accidents (calamities, diseases and wars), not men, make laws and “often force on innovations” [revolutions] (Laws IV: 709a). At that very moment, men use their “skills” to “seize any favorable opportunity” (Laws IV: 709c). Even stronger, perhaps natural, degenerative change is inevitable (anacyclosis) and human change must do its best to counteract it.
Plato here is critiquing normative change. He is worried that changes in games and music will make people desire different types of lives.
Aristotle
Aristotle takes a more moderate approach. Encouraging innovation in certain parts of society and discouraging it in others.
Good in the crafts: “A case could be made out in favour of change. At any rate if we look at the other sciences, it has definitely been beneficial—witness the changes in traditional methods of medicine and physical training, and generally in every skill and faculty” (Politics II: viii, 1268b).
Bad in the laws.
He gives four arguments for why innovation is not desirable in law:
Innovations are introduced primarily to benefit the innovator disguised as public benefit:
To Aristotle, another innovator criticized by name is the architect Hippodamus because of his view, among others, that “honour ought to be awarded to those who invent” or discover some advantages to the country (Politics II: viii, 1268b). To Aristotle, “It is [always] possible for people to bring in proposals for abrogating the laws or the constitution on the ground that such proposals are for the public good” (Politics II: viii, 1268b). Only ambition drives Hippodamus “always to be different from other people”. To Aristotle, the lesson is clear: “Since men introduce innovations [neoterizein] for reasons connected with their private lives [modes of living], an authority ought to be set up to exercise supervision over those whose activities are not in keeping with the interests of the constitution” (Politics V: viii, 1308b).
All possible forms of organization have been discovered, this is like Plato's point about we already know what the good is and looks like:
“All possible forms of organization have now been discovered. If another form of organization was really good it would have been discovered already” (Politics II: v, 1264a).
Laws need to be sacrosanct:
There are some occasions that call for change and there are some laws which need to be changed. But looking at it in another way we must say that there will be need of the very greatest caution. In a particular case we may have to weigh a very small improvement against the danger of getting accustomed to casual abrogation of the laws . . . There is a difference between altering a craft and altering a law . . . [It] takes a long time [for a law] to become effective. Hence easy change from established laws to new laws means weakening the power of the law. (Politics II: viii, 1269a).
Slippery slope. He argues that what appears to be revolutions in the change of constitutions are caused by innocuous, imperceptible changes built up over a long time. His analogy is of the spendthrift. That is why we must defend against even the smallest of changes.
It is essential in particular to guard against the insignificant breach. Illegality creeps in unobserved; it is like small items of expenditure which when oft repeated make away with a man’s possessions. The spending goes unnoticed because the money is not spent all at once, and this is just what leads the mind astray . . . One precaution to be taken, then, is in regard to the beginning. (Politics V: viii, 1307b)
Revolution, or faction, arises from “small matters”: “The false step is at the beginning, but well begun is half done, as the proverb says, so that a small error at the start is equivalent in the same proportion to those of the later stages” (Politics V: iv, 1303b). It has an effect on the whole State: “A change so gradual as to be imperceptible . . . It very often happens that a considerable change in a country’s customs takes place imperceptibly, each little change slipping by unnoticed” (Politics V: iii, 1303a). Aristotle repeats the description elsewhere as follows: “The change occurring either quickly or gradually and little by little, without being realized” (Politics V: vii, 1306b).
Polybius
Polybius is the exception to this. The word he uses for innovation is kainopoein (Godin speculates it is to be rid of the negative connotations of Kainotomia). It is used mostly in Polybius' historical work to describe new weapons, new projects -- often in a positive light. Most notably, Polybius applies kainopoein to his own work. He emphasizes the radicality of his project "No writer of our time has undertaken a general [world] history.”
Polybius isn't inconsistent with the prior views: what's good is instrumental innovation, devising new change. And it seems he isn't so much proud of the fact that he is doing something new as something important, spectacular etc. perhaps in the same mind as a Greek hero would brag about lifting a rock larger than any one that's ever been lifted.
The Greek View
I think there is a "Greek view" to be articulated more than Godin's emphasis on the differences may suggest. It seems that most of these authors think…
Negative
General distrust of innovation in all fields
Specific heed against innovation in politics
The ideal state does not need to innovate
Positive
Good in instrumental activities (crafts, ways of organizing slaves, war tactics)
Good when correcting a deficiency
What is lurking behind innovation (man-made) is the general notion of change that is divine and natural. Godin suggests Greeks generally thought of former as unwanted and latter as good.
2 Innovo: On the Vicissitudes and Varieties of a concept
This chapter details Latin conceptions of innovation from the Roman empire to 16th century.
Prior to the fourth century Innovo was not used yet, many other terms such as Novitas, Novare was used to describe novelty, innovation. The attitudes in this period were ambivalent, but mostly continued the attitude of the Greeks, some exemplars:
Quintillian, echoing Aristotle, describes how people are naturally attracted to and seduced by novelty.
Novelty is both natural but also deeply strange. Think Ovid's metamorphoses. It's both the natural "ontology" of the world but also something alien and freightening. Although, this seems to be commenting more on natural change rather than man-made change.
The negative political connotation carried over in, for example, Livy's political writings. He critiques citizens who were “desirous of innovation in every thing [qui omnia novare cupiebant]”.
The most interesting development came in the fourth century with the proliferation of the word Innovo (where we get innovation from). Innovo spawned from the ancient greek word Kainizein which emphasized not creativity but originality: to be first at doing something. In Latin hands, this word is translated to RE-newal: not the first appearance of a new thing but of a re-appearance of an old thing.
Most of the positive connotations of innovo were in this special sense: a re-introduction of a lost good. Few illustrative examples:
Bible: Saint Jerome was asked to make a new standard translation of the Latin Bible, the Vulgate. He did so, it's very interesting to see what he chose to translate using Innovo.
Job 29:20 when he repeats his faith that his wealth will be restored: (gloria mea semper innovabitur et arcus meus in manu mea instaurabitur) you shall see, my friends, my glory shall be renewed/innovated and my bow shall regain its youth.
The returning of the Jews to Jerusalem. Lamentations 5:21: “Bring us to yourself, oh Lord, and so bring us to Jerusalem (converte nos Domine ad te et converteremur, innova dies nostros sicut in principio) bring us to yourself, oh Lord, and we shall return, renew our days as at the beginning/as before."
Wisdom 7:27 (considered apocryphal by protestants) describes how wisdom rejuvenates (innovates) the world in a cyclical fashion: "(et cum sit una omnia potest et permanens in se omnia innovat et per nationes in animas sanctas se transfert amicos Dei et prophetas constituit)
since it [wisdom] is unique, it can do anything; stable in itself, it renews everything, and it circulates among the nations within pious souls and forms friends of God and prophets."
Ecclesiastes 36:6. Exhortation against Greek philosophy to return to Jewish tradition: "(
innova signa et immuta mirabilia) renew your signs and repeat your wonders."
Poetry: Grammarian Honoratus commenting on Virgil's Aeneid.
Aeneas uses a snake crawling out of the ground having cast out its skin bursting with youth to describe the Greeks who sack Troy. This is a process of renewal/innovation:
(Constat enim serpentes innovari virtute pelle deposita) we know basically that, their skin having been cast off snakes are renewed in strength/vigour.
The feast to celebrate the romance of Dido and Aeneas is described as Innovabantur (renewing) the sacred rites of Bacchus.
Legal
Pope Gregory VII wanted to purify the clergy's customs against corruptions such as simony. He did so by renewing prior legal statues, this was his language: this rule "which has long been neglected in the Church because of our sins and which has been twisted by a culpable habit, we desire to restore it (restaurare) and put it into effect (innovare) for the glory of God and the salvation of all Christianity . . . so that the bishop duly-elected according to the doctrine of truth cannot be described as a thief and a brigand.”
The Latin View and the Greek View
It appears that the Latin view is, in many ways, a continuation of the Greek view. The only reason it seems so different (innovation being praised in the former and derided in the latter) is because the Latin Innovo means a re-introduction -- which is certainly still man-made change but a specific species of it.
3. Innovation, or How to Stabilize a Changing World
Prima facie, Machiavelli's championing of innovation seems to represent a radical break from this Greco-Roman suspicion of innovation but, upon closer inspection the disagreement is less so about the normative judgement on innovation.
Innovation as a Part of Virtu, as Political Change
Innovation is an arrow in the ideal prince's quiver of virtu to be a successful ruler. It is political change: introducing new laws, new codes, destroying the old order, etc.
This is how the word innovation is being used: "To deal effectively with his enemies, to gain allies, to conquer (whether by force or by cunning), to inspire both devotion and respectful fear in the people, to be obeyed and respectfully feared by troops, to neutralise or destroy those who can or must be expected to injure you, to replace [innovare] old institutions with new ones, to be both severe and kind, both magnanimous and open-handed, to disband loyal troops and form a new army, to maintain alliances with kings and other rulers in such a way that they will either be glad to benefit you or be slow to injure you."
One might think that because Machiavelli is advising the Prince to innovate (to reject classical ideals of virtue, to enact new laws, to tear down the old) that he is pro-innovation which represents a radical break from the Greco-Roman view but this would be overlooking the backdrop of Machiavelli…
Fortuna and Stability
Virtu (part of which is innovation) is an antidote to fortuna: the unpredictable vicissitudes of fate. The 14th century florence of Machiavelli was defined by rapid change (Medicis were ousted twice, foreign conflict, internal discord) and Machiavelli himself experienced many changes of fate. His "political ontology" was one of continued crisis which rulers had to react to. That is to say, Machiavelli is not praising innovation qua innovation but innovation in response to new circumstances, underlying change (a sentiment echoed by Aristotle).
Very briefly, Machiavelli separates states into Republics and Princedoms. Princedoms are split into hereditary and new. Machiavelli is giving the advice to innovate in the case of a new princedom (e.g. a conquered one) it is almost a necessary evil you have to do to get it in order. On the other hand, in hereditary states you shouldn't innovate. It's clear from this sentence that innovation leaves a bad taste in people's mouths and the more you don't have to do it the better: “The length and continuity of his family’s rule extinguishes the memories of the causes of [past] innovations [innovazioni]” (The Prince II).
Innovation should only be done when necessary because it brings great danger to the innovator: "Those who become ruler through their own abilities experience difficulty in attaining power, but once that is achieved, they keep it easily. The difficulties encountered in attaining power arise partly from the new institutions and laws they are forced to introduce in order to establish their power and make it secure . . . Taking the initiative in introducing a new form of government is very difficult and dangerous . . . The reason is that all those who profit from the old order will be opposed to the [introduction of a new order], whereas all those who might benefit from the new order are, at best, tepid supporters of him. This lukewarmness arises partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the law on their side, partly from the skeptical temper of men, who do not really believe in new things unless they have been seen to work well. The result is that whenever those who are opposed to change have the chance to attack the innovator [innovatori], they do it with much vigour, whereas his supporters act only half-heartedly; so that [the innovator, se per condurre l’opera loro] and his supporters find themselves in great danger."
In fact, the best way to innovate is to do it 1. suddenly and 2. hidden manner by keeping the appearances of the old order (Bacon would go against this, arguing gradual and open change) because it is so distasteful: "He who desires or proposes to change the form of government in a state and wishes it to be acceptable and to be able to maintain it to everyone’s satisfaction, must needs retain at least the shadow of its ancient customs, so that institutions may not appear to its people to have been changed, though in point of fact the new institutions may be radically different from the old ones . . . Since novelties cause men to change their minds, you should see to it that changes retain as much as possible of what is old, and that, if changes are made in the number, the authority and the period of office of the magistrates, they should retain the traditional names" (The Discourses).
In short, for Machiavelli the goal of innovation is stability. It's the same goal as Plato to have an unchanging, orderly state. It should be done to the extent it is needed for stability.
The Ancient View
Summarizing these three chapters, I think there is a meaningful "ancient view" of innovation that is distinct from the modern view.
The difference between the two is this: innovation in modernity is to disrupt and innovation (in so far as it is championed at all, which it rarely is) in antiquity is to stabilize. Innovation is the constant state of what we want our societies to be today but innovation was only used to stop needing to innovate in the past. The ideal society innovates in modernity, the ideal society never has to innovate in antiquity.
My explanation for this difference is where the primary domain of innovation resides. If innovation is primarily economic, instrumental, if we live in a utilitarian world then of course we could do better, make more, etc. This intuition gets projected onto politics: we want MORE freedom, MORE inclusion, MORE recognition. But if innovation is primarily political, then it makes sense there is a natural stopping point, a natural limit for what the GOOD relationship/friendship etc. looks like. This gets projected onto the economic domain of just following what has been done before.
4 “Meddle Not with Them That Are Given to Change” Innovation as Evil
With Luther's reformation being engendered in the early 16th century, the English reformation followed closely after (triggered by the fact that the pope wouldn't annul Henry VIII's marriage).
The Catholics of course accused the Protestants of innovating but the Protestants also accused the Catholics as adding worldly elements upon the pure teaching of Christ. It was the "Church of Rome." This latter Critique was used between English protestants to attack each other as the English Church did not have as clean of a cut from the Catholic Church as other protestant countries have had.
Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries there were rival factions of English protestants accusing each other of popery. In the mid 16th century, Edward VI issued A Poclamation Against Those that Doeth innovate.
But the peak of anti-innovation sentiment occurred in early/mid 17th century. A representative sample of the sentiment at the time is English minister Henry Burton's political attack pamphlets he wrote where he laid out five reasons against the innovators:
Guilty by association: “If we be silent and doe not detect them, nor labour to defeate them . . . we shall be found guilty” and “so pertake of the like punishment” (Burton, 1636b: 93).
Smallest innovations snowballs to great dangers (drawing from Aristotle): "Political innovation leads to tyranny (Burton, 1636b: 93) and religious innovation to ruin, troubles and discontent in the State (Burton, 1636b: 95). Here Burton uses Aristotle’s Politics (Book V: viii) (not Republic as he erroneously suggests), in which the Greek author “compares changes in a State, which at first seeme but small and insensible, to the expenses of a house, and the wasting of a man’s substance by little and little, which in a short time consumes all” (Burton, 1636b: 93–94).
Deviation from the natural order of things (this is to be the dominant view of innovation): innovations overthrows “the State of Church and Common wealth, and mingle heaven and earth together” (Burton, 1636b: 99, 164).
Theological consequences: “may set up Antichrists throne againe . . ., Popery piety, and Superstition holiness” (Burton, 1636b: 99).
Past innovations lead to decadent Catholicism: Burton also looks at the history of the church and argues that past changes and innovations—he cites Virgil’s De Inventoribus Rerum with regard to popes’ inventions—led to the “infection” of superstition and idolatry: ceremonies, tables, altars, robes and bowing. According to Burton, these kinds of innovation had not stopped. On the contrary, the “spirit of Rome” continues corrupting the worship of God, troubling the peace of the church, captivating “man’s consciences with their humane invention”, exercising tyr- anny and seeking the ruin of Christ’s kingdom (Burton, 1636b: 109).
What Burton did was to take a political concept innovation -- meaning a defiant rebellion against established order -- and apply it to the religious realm and all men who sought change. He warned against innovation in: doctrine, discipline, worship of God, civil government, altering of books, means of knowledge, rules of manners, rule of the faith. Burton launched one of the first controversies of innovation and from that point on innovation became an everyday word.
The people who Burton attacked vehemently denied they were innovating and instead argued what they were doing was renewal, return to the true state.
The associations of innovations were extremely negative, so much so that other disciplines had to develop other terms: "The pejorative connotation of the word gave rise to a whole vocabulary on ‘renovation’, ‘restoration’ and ‘reformation’ (Erneuerung in German) in lieu et place of innovation. In fact, English Protestants denied that they had created a new religion and talked instead of a reformed one. In the ensuing centuries, innovation continued to be seen as negative. Violent, dangerous, pernicious, zealous, unscriptural and schismatic are only some of the terms used to talk of innovation among eighteenth- and nineteenth- century divines. Pejorative associations also abounded in clerical titles of the same period: ignorance and innovation, superstition and innovation, usurpation and innovation, revolution and innovation. In that same time, there were very few uses of innovation in a positive sense, whether in science, literary criticism or mechanical arts, each developing its own ‘disciplinary’ vocabulary—the terms discovery, imagination and invention, respectively."
This is perhaps why innovation and invention seem so redundant in our own age when innovation becomes rehabilitated. Because invention was used essentially as a word for innovation in mechanical arts that didn’t have a negative connotation. When innovation was a bad word, other words had to be invented in domains that wanted to convey the same meaning but not with the same connotation. Now that innovation is a positive word, every domain appropriates the language.
The Primary Domain of a Word
Innovation practically became synonymous with heresy. People's attitudes towards it were much more negative than the view of antiquity. It was considered evil. It appears the reason is because of the primary domain it was established in.
Innovation might be unneeded in politics but useful in extreme scenarios. That's what the ancients primarily thought of innovation as, human political action to obtain any new end. But when the primary domain of innovation is in religion -- a domain that prized authenticity and adherence to a tradition much more than politics it's little surprise that innovation took on the meaning of deviation from natural and good order.
What's important is how the connotations and sentiments of the primary domain seep into other domains. Burton was not just critiquing religious innovation, he became staunchly against innovation in politics all other manner of life as well.
Connotations of Innovation
Religious
Evil/Deviation from the good
Slow and gradual
Innovation was considered a slow and gradual process borrowing from the Aristotlean tradition. An evil that slowly crept in. "Another element of interpretation takes into account a shared perception of the time: Innovation was regularly defined as a slow and gradual process, but one which, over time, gets up out of proportion. Little things do mat- ter. Put differently, over the long term, ‘minor’ innovations have cumulative and undesirable effects. To Burton, alterations and innovations “doe fill the. peoples minds with jealousies and feares of an universall alteration of Religion” (Burton, 1636b: 147).
Acting out of a concern for novelty
Both heresy and innovation are talked of, among others, in terms of evil, sickness and dis- ease, and innovators as flatterers and seducers and eager for novelty. The lexicon of heresy is also full of pejorative references to novelty: art and craft, invention, and love of novelty (see Appendix 4).
Liberty/the choice of the individual vs. orthodoxy and tradition
As the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid put it, innovation is a “liberty which, even when necessary, creates prejudice and misconstructions, and which must wait the sanction of time to authorize it” (Reid, 1796).
5 Republicanism as Innovation … or Not Innovation
16th, 17th century religious debates introduced innovation into the common language. 17th century failed attempts at republicanism in England transferred much of the pejorative notion of innovation into the political realm, making it a political concept.
Innovation is what the Royalists used to critique the Republicans. The Republicans never self-identified as innovators. This was a concept only used by its detractors.
The definition of Innovation
Innovation is a violation of political boundaries. I think this was borrowed from the religious definition as violating some just order. In the view of antiquity innovation itself was not defined negatively (just political change) even if it did have negative consequences. In this reformation view, innovation's definition itself is negative.
The anonymous writer develops his whole argument against innovators based on the violation of boundaries.9 On several occasions he stresses the duty of people to keep within their just and proper “bounds”. To Goddard too, the innovator “has no religion”; he is a “dissenter”. “I do not think the Papists . . . so dangerous to our Government, as the Dissenters” (Goddard, 1684: 340). The papists “hath no ill influence upon our Civil Government” (Goddard, 1684: 350).
Innovation is violent, sudden, and large.
Secondly, and not its least characteristic, innovation in this view is ‘violent’. This characteristic distinguishes innovation from what it had meant previously, particularly in religion. To be sure, in the 1630s–40s innovation in religion was discussed as ‘dangerous’ due to its consequences on doctrine and discipline, not because it was violent—although it was regularly stressed that innovation leads to wars. From then on, innovation is necessarily sudden and violent. Innovation is ‘revolutionary’. It is necessarily great or major change— while ‘minor’ or symbolic novelties were also innovation to ecclesiasts.
Innovation is a suspicious project from questionable motives. Entrepreneurs (economic innovators were criticized here)
A term that recurs among all three Royalists (and King Charles’s Eikón basiliké) is design. The innovator has a design in mind. The meaning of design is a project, a suspicious project—another term that suffered from bad press (‘projectors’ were the untrusted innovators-entrepreneurs of the time). There is no reference to creativity here, but rather a machination, a subversion, a conspiracy. Poyntz, as we saw, talks in terms of a (dangerous) “experiment”, as well as design. So do the anonymous author W. W. and Goddard. Design, a key word of the political world in England and the US in the 1760s–70s (Bailyn, 1967: 94–159), would continue to characterize innovation in the next century, and then the notion of “scheme” would be added, as in Thomas Bancroft’s The Danger of Political Innovation and the Evil of Anarchy (1792). “I trust it may be expected from the good sense of English- men that they will reject their suspicious schemes of Reform and Innovation” (Bancroft, 1792: 14).
Innovation is motivated by a love of novelty.
Henry Fly, using the “popular fury of 1780” in England and the French Revolution as examples, discussed how the “love of novelty” “plunge[s] a whole nation into the most dreadful calamities”.
If, through the religious conflicts, innovation became synonymous with heresy then, through the failed attempts at republicanism, innovation became synonymous with revolution.
6 Social Innovation from Scheme to utopia
In the 19th century, the term social innovation started catching on. Note, most people consider social innovation as being used after technological innovation because innovation's connotations had become so technological. This is true but a re-emergence. Social innovation actually appeared first. It gave way to technological innovation and social innovation re-emerged as being defined against technological innovation.
Social innovation was used in England (primarily) and elsewhere to describe socialists. Detractors of socialists wanted to borrow the negative connotations built up over the last few centuries in their political attacks against socialists.
But social innovation, mostly in France, also took on a slightly positive connotation as social reformer (especially when undertaken by the state) as trying to redesign society for the furtherance of human flourishing. Keep in mind this was all in the aftermath of the French revolution.
Social innovation emerged in the 19th century, it was mostly a negative concept, with some regional positive associations.
7 Re-imaginging Innovation
By the 19th century innovation accumulated 4 important connotations:
Political (as inherited from the Greeks)
Heretical (as inherited from the reformation)
Violent (as inherited from the failed attempts at republicanism)
Plotting/Scheming (as inherited from the failed attempts at republicanism)
The rehabilitation of innovation started happened between 1750 and 1850 what Koselleck termed Sattelzeit. Not just innovation but a whole host of words changed its meaning.
No author single-handedly resuscitated innovation but Bentham made significant contributions. He had written out The Book of Fallacies to argue against fallacies in the language/thinking in politics of his day. In it, he explicitly rehabilitates innovation, there's even a chapter on innovation in his book titled "The Hobgoblin Argument, or, No Innovation!"
Argument from Dyslogism
The first argument which Mill gives is a formal critique. He distinguishes words that are neutral, eulogistic (positive connotation), and dyslogistic (negative connotation). Most words start off neutral but then take on eulogistic/dyslogistic connotations.
It appears dyslogisms imply a negative connotation that is not fully warranted (like "innovation") and this is Bentham's critique of how innovation is being used as a scare word in politics:
Such sophisms take many forms, one of which is the fallacy of danger, as Bentham calls it, the subject matter of which is “to repress discussion altogether, by exciting alarm”. By using a single word, in this case innovation, the fallacy turns a thing into a monster: anarchy (Bentham, 1824: 144). This is a special form of the fallacy petition principii, used here employing a single word. The word alone and in itself affirms that the object to which it is applied is an object of approbation or disapprobation. This generally occurs imperceptibly. “A man falls into it but too naturally . . . The great difficulty is to unlearn” (Bentham, 1824: 215).
Certainly there is some truth in the fallacy. There may be some reasons to oppose a legislative measure: A new legislative measure “always carries a certain quantity of mischief”. To oppose a measure for mischief constitutes a just reason, if well founded. But generally, the opponent “set[s] up the cry of Innovation! Innovation! hoping by this watchword to bring to his aid all whose sinister interest is connected with his own” (Bentham, 1824: 147). To Bentham, the conservative “pass[es] condemnation on all change” by “the indiscriminating appellative” new (Bentham, 1824: 149–50). “The horror of innovation”, concludes Bentham, “is really a disease” (Bentham, 1824: 151).
Argument from Past Innovations
Bentham argues that to dislike innovation a-priori is to almost reject everything that has come before: “Innovation means a bad change, presenting to the mind, besides the idea of a change, the proposition, either that change in general is a bad thing, or at least that the sort of change in question is a bad change” (Bentham, 1824: 143–44). But: "To say all new things are bad, is as much as to say all things are bad, or, at any event, at their commencement; for of all the old things ever seen or heard of, there is not one that was not once new. Whatever is now establishment was once innovation."
Argument from Utility/Technology/Project
Bentham focused his rehabilitation of innovation in the technological/economic realm (see above comments on Smith). Technological innovator/entrepreneur was called a "project." In this domain, its much easier to see why innovation is good. It's about achieving the same thing in a better way.
Bentham critiques smith on this exact point: Bentham challenges Adam Smith on the question of projectors (Letter XIII). He accuses the Scottish economist of having, like most people in England, a pejorative understanding of projects and projectors, ranking the latter with “prodigals” and thus conveying “the idea of reprobation”. To Bentham, a project is rather the pursuit of wealth by invention and always “has this circumstance against it, viz. that it is new”. In Bentham’s view, Smith has condemned “as rash and ill-grounded all those projects by which our species have been successively advanced from the state in which acorns were their food, and raw hides their clothing, to the state in which it stands at present”. For a third time, Bentham refers to the fallacy on innovation and concludes: "Sir, let me beg you, whether whatever is now the routine of trade was not, at its commencement, project? Whether whatever is now establishment, was not, at one time, innovation?"
Because of this Bentham was ahead of his time in also trying to rehabilitate usury because usury was what enabled projectors/entrepreneurs to bring their ideas into fruition.
This focus on technological innovation marked two transformations of the underlying concept. One was a transition of innovation from political change to economic utility. It was also a transition from change qua change (Greek) or change as deviancy (reformation) to change as progress.
Perfectionism
One change in philosophical assumption that I am seeing is the answer to the question "how close we are to perfection?"
Those who want to stop innovation believe that they are quite close:
Berkley: "That our constitution is absolutely perfect, it would be ridiculous to assert. Perfection belongs not to lapsed humanity. That a better constitution may be conceived, we do not positively deny . . . It may, however, be consistently asserted that so few and so unimportant are the defects, so many and so valuable the perfections, of the nicely balanced British Constitution, as to render it highly probable that any innovations in its system will be more likely to injure than to improve it . . . No plan of representation could possibly be devised in which the whole nation would agree. Why then should we hazard the consequences of an innovation, which it is barely possible might do some good; but which is much more likely to create discord . . . My Son, fear thou the Lord and the King, and meddle not with them that are given to change."
Recall, Aristotle said that all possible forms of organization have been discovered, this is like Plato's point about we already know what the good is and looks like:
“All possible forms of organization have now been discovered. If another form of organization was really good it would have been discovered already” (Politics II: v, 1264a).
Look at how Bentham is gesturing at how many innovations in the past helped us to where we are now, there must be more to come: Bentham reprimands Smith for condemning “as rash and ill-grounded all those projects by which our species have been successively advanced from the state in which acorns were their food, and raw hides their clothing, to the state in which it stands at present”. For a third time, Bentham refers to the fallacy on innovation and concludes: "Sir, let me beg you, whether whatever is now the routine of trade was not, at its commencement, project? Whether whatever is now establishment, was not, at one time, innovation?" And so he argues for usury.
A good parallel here would be Mill having a similar argument for free speech. Look how much things we thought were right were actually wrong, therefore we should be open to new ideas. He argued for freedom of speech.
Mill is the ideas innovator to Bentham's economic innovator, their argument both takes the form of: look of what we thought of as optimal previously that turned out not to be so, surely we are far from perfection. Thus we must be open to innovations.
8 Innovation Transformed: from word to concept
For many, Burke Chief amongst them, innovation was synonymous with revolution. In the 19th century these two terms get rehabilitated together. Neither innovation nor revolution are solely pejorative anymore. They even become positive.
They became positive the precise moment they became instrumental, when innovation was thought of in terms of utility and it started to mean change as in progress. It also expands beyond the political to innovation in law, language, etc. Innovation was any new movement that is useful/has good effects. It's unclear whether this was primarily material and spread into social/political or they grew together.
What underlies this, Godin argues, is what Koselleck examined as this century between 1750 and 1850 of saddletime. Four philoosphical notions took hold:
Change is everywhere
Religion (Reformation), politics (revolutions), economics (industrial revolution), science (scientific revolution). While everything was perceived as continuous before, people now become conscious or aware of changes in every sphere of society. They accept change, even promote changes.
Change is radical and revolutionary.
While it was previously thought that change is mainly gradual and evolutionary (Nisbet, 1969), change is now sudden. Revolutions become the emblem of change.
Change is future-oriented, progressive (as opposed to time agnostic, or reactionary)
Change is productive (useful) rather than destructive (of customs) or, if destructive, is so in a positive manner. Radical change and revolutions announce new possible futures (Koselleck, 1969; Lusebrink and Reichardt, 1988; Ozouf, 1989; Reichardt, 1997).
Humans are responsible for change/their destiny.
Humans become conscious of their own action. While change was previously explained by God, nature or necessity, humans become aware of history and their capacity to shape their own destiny (Koselleck, 2002a).
9 When Science Had Nothing to Do with Innovation, and Vice Versa
The thesis of this chapter is that up until the 19th century, innovation was not used as scientific language. Innovation first became positive through the useful arts and only then did it seep into scientific vocabulary.
The View of the Scientists on Innovation
Bacon recognized what he was doing is new. Godin argues that since the Renaissance there was a self consciousness that their age was distinct from their medieval predecessors. It amounted to what many have called the pathos of novelty which began to take hold.
Yet, Bacon never used innovation to describe what he was doing. He was very careful to steer clear of it, because innovation carried with it a strong political connotation. He considered technological innovation to be much better than political innovation: "can reach out to the whole human race, whereas political improvements affect men in particular localities only, and while the latter last for but a few generations, the former as good last forever. Moreover improvements of political conditions seldom proceed without violence and disorder, whereas inventions enrich and spread their blessings without causing hurt or grief to anybody."
Bacon recognizes the dangers of political innovation and the seductive (often false appeal of novelty) and ends up in a middle position: “Some intellects are captivated by admiration of antiquity, some by love and infatuation for novelty; but few are judicious enough to steer a middle ground, neither ruining what the ancients rightly laid down nor despising what the new men rightly put forward” (NO: 56). To be sure, “knowledge which is new and foreign from opinions received, is to be delivered in another form than that which is agreeable and familiar” (AL: 235). But this has to be done with “a mind of amendment [improvement] and proficience [progress], and not of change and difference [dispute]” (AL: 299).
This is the common view shared by scientists until the late 19the century (Bacon wrote these mid 17th century) TLDR innovation is political and suspicious and has nothing to do with science. Even though the fetishization of novelty, originality etc. has already taken hold, innovation itself is still not positively used.
How Innovation entered into the Useful Arts
Innovation entered into science and became rehabilitated through the useful arts (engineers, physicians, medicine, education). It was prominent first in practical manuals/treatise written by practitioners. They used it to discuss 1. practical, progress which is original 2. that is grounded on science/scientific method:
First, the practical—as opposed to the theoretical, as the Dictionnaire medical puts it. Accountant Hippolyte Vannier, for example, qualifies his new method explicitly as “practical”. The anonymous work on metallurgy claims that “La plupart [des ouvrages traitant les diverses manières d’employer les fers et les aciers] sont faits par de savants théoriciens qui ne donnent que des définitions au lieu de procédés pratiques” (Most [of the works dealing with the various methods of using iron and steel] are produced by theoretical savants who produce nothing but definitions instead of practical processes) (Anonymous, 1888: Préface). Second, the practical rests or should rest on scientific principles. Vallée contrasts the principles of the ancients to “positive medicine”, on which his innovation on the stethoscope rests. Louis Frédéric Raguet de Liman (1854) stresses the need for “sciences positives” [positive sciences] in clockmaking.55 Didacus describes his teaching (of gymnastics) as “rationnel et méthodique [rational and methodical]”, namely based on anatomy and physiology. Touchard-Lafosse and Roberge attribute industrial innovations to the scientific method.
Linking it to the practical arts further contributed to innovation being talked about in terms of utility. This is also why science was linked with technological innovation. Because the definition above is basically science (result or method) applied to useful arts. This was the 19th century view of innovation.
Note that this is not exactly the commercialization story. In the 19th century innovation just meant applying science to useful arts and didn't have connotations of commercialization yet (even if technology already had). Innovation took on this additional economic connotation in the mid 20th century.
10 The Vocabulary of Innovation
This chapter can be skipped. A summary of how the concept of innovation has transformed across these three epochs and the related words that innovation was defined against (reformation, imitation), built upon (change, action), and synonymous with (revolution, heresy).
The most interesting part of this chapter is the relationship between imitation and innovation -- that the two are thought to be in tension -- which highlights Girard's contribution to this field.
11 Appropriating Innovation
Innovation, after WWII, primarily meant technological innovation. Technological innovation expands beyond the narrow definition of innovation in the 19th century (improvements made upon the useful arts grounded on science or scientific method). The expansion of the concept went in both directions. It aimed to describe the process of fundamental scientific discoveries --> inventions/improvements upon useful arts (this was the sole definition) --> commercialization.
Innovation is now a process (a people process where proper organization and management is key).
Application Over Science
What joined this redefinition of innovation was the elevation of application/engineering/management over hard science. Since the 17th century, people always thought of science as the primary way progress is made but that changed in the 20th century.
John Clifford Duckworth is a perfect example of an engineer looking conceptually at technological innovation. Managing director of the UK National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) from 1959 to 1970, Duckworth claims that “the future national welfare of our country depend[s] largely on the speed with which industry could turn to new, commercially viable, processes and products . . . [Yet] the pure scientist appears to be held in higher esteem than the engineer and technologist . . . [There is a] lack of status of the professional engineer as compared with the scientist” (Duck- worth, 1965: 186). Similar views were expressed in the United States in the early 1960s, by Herbert Hollomon (discussed later in the chapter), among others. To Duckworth, “inventions and innovations are not necessarily meritorious in themselves, but only so far as they contribute to higher efficiency and enable us to compete more effectively in world markets” (Duckworth, 1965: 188). This is the task of the manager. “I have no regrets whatever at having deserted the more academic scientific pursuits, and I would advise any young scientist or engineer, who has other than purely academic abilities to move unhesitatingly towards application and management. In my view, it is wrong to say—as is often done—that it is a waste of a scientist when he enters management” (Duckworth, 1965: 186).
Innovation is not a linear process either, science is not the pole which "pushes" innovations out. Innovations are generated by demand-pulls as much by science-pushes.
Innovation is driven by society or social needs (demand), not by science; hence the debate in the 1960s–70s on science-push versus demand-pull, which pitted engineers, managers and management schools “against” the science-technology scholars (Godin and Lane, 2013). “Most tech- nological change, most innovation, most invention, and most diffusion of technology”, states Herbert Hollomon (successively head of General Electric Engineering Laboratory, First Assistant Secretary for Science and Technology at the US Department of Commerce, founder of the US National Academy of Engineering, then professor of engineering at MIT) “are stimulated by demand . . . and [are] only indirectly science- created” (Hollomon, 1967: 34).7 From then on, the place of science in the process of innovation shifted from being the first step to a coupling factor with demand, or one factor among many, and with feedback loops rather than strictly linear. To study this process, Morton—and others like Donald Schon (1969, 1971) and Robert Burns (1975)— promoted a systemic view of innovation (Morton, 1964, 1966, 1971), an idea that remains influential today in studies of technological innovation (e.g., national systems of innovation).
Innovation and Capitalism
One of the most important insights then of this intellectual history is that for a long time, innovation was not the constitutive quality of what defined capitalistic societies. Smith did not emphasize it for example. Schumpeter and Marx both did. In the 20th century did innovation became probably theorized. Smith's answer to the wealth of nations wasn't innovation and technology it was more about organization, incentives, training (division of labor).
In the 20th century technological innovation is good for groups and society, it brings positive revolutionary changes to the national economy and is the source of wealth.
This is why innovation studies is so often about policy. It's in the nations best interest to promote innovation.
12 Innovation Studies: Invention of a specialty
This chapter is less interesting to me. It's an overview of the landscape of innovation studies. One strand stemming from the economics of Joseph Schumpeter and another strand stemming from Chris Freeman that discusses the policy angle (how to encourage more innovation).
Conclusion
This is just a summary of the book but the most interesting commentary here is on how certain words 1. take on a life of their own, mean things beyond what they descriptively mean 2. become hollowed out through overuse:
In contrast, from the nineteenth century onward, innovation started to refer to central values of modern times: progress and utility. As a consequence, many people started appropriating the concept for their own ends. A concept that acquires a positive connotation in one sphere is soon used in others.3 In his book The Idea of Progress in Antiquity, Ludwig Edelstein suggests that “ideas themselves, once they are formulated, have a life of their own” (Edelstein, 1967: xxvii). Yet there is danger here that a word, as a “rallying-cry”, may become “semantically null” (Lewis, 1960: 86). “Terms of abuse cease to be language” (Lewis, 1960: 328). Some words, Lewis sug- gests again, have nothing but a halo, a “mystique by which a whole society lives” (Lewis, 1960: 282). The word seeps into almost every sentence. Over the twentieth century, innovation has become quite a valuable buzzword, a “magic” word. But, as John Pocock puts it on the word revolution, “the term [innovation] may soon cease to be current, emptied of all meaning by constant overuse” (Pocock, 1971: 3).