Institutionalization is necessary but codified orthodoxy is to be resisted.

Evidence

I would like to perhaps make a distinction between the two terms that you use. I am in favor of institutionalization because one needs to go through the organizational moment—the long march through the institutions—to get people together, to build some kind of collective intellectual project. But codification makes my hackles rise, even about the things I have been involved in. People talk about “the Birmingham school” [The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham] and all I can hear are the arguments we used to have in Birmingham that we never were one school; there may have been four or five but we were never able to unify it all, nor did we want to create that kind of orthodoxy. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 755 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

I do not know whether you draw a distinction between principles and rules. But I do. Not only do I make a distinction, but I say that this distinction is real and important. Rules are practical; they are habitual ways of doing things according to prescription. But principles are intellectual; they are useful methods of judging things. Rules seek to tell an agent just what course of action to pursue. Principles do not prescribe a specific course of action. Rules, like cooking recipes, do tell just what to do and how to do it. A principle, such as that of justice, supplies a main heading by reference to which he is to consider the bearings of his desires and purposes; it guides him in his thinking by suggesting to him the important consideration which he should bear in mind. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 993 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

For Stuart, this rapid process of the internationalization, institutionalization, and professionalization of Cultural Studies was not simply an index of success but was also, as he described it, a “moment of profound danger.” It seemed to him that what had been both an intellectual and a political project, designed to produce provisional forms of analysis of a particular situation by means of an ongoing dialogic process, was being converted into a decontextualized (and effectively depoliticized) form of abstracted cultural theory. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 127 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

Related

• Institutionalization is necessary but codification into orthodoxy is always a risk. (similarity 0.92)
• Institutionalizing a critical field can strip it of political meaning (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Institutionalization enables collective work while codification imposes a false orthodoxy #corroborates (0.90) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 755
• Religion should consist of principles rather than fixed rules to preserve moral responsibility. #qualifies (0.40) — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 993
• Institutionalizing a critical intellectual project can strip it of its political force. #exemplifies (0.30) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 127