While looking through my classmates’ blog posts, one that really stood out to me was Maria Papas’s blog post “How Do Institutions Fail You?”. I liked her post because in class, a topic of discussion I found very interesting was the topic of institutions and whether or not any institution can be trusted. In her post she provided examples of quotes from different peers about what it means when an institution has failed them and it was very interesting to see different peoples’ perspectives.
When we read The Big Machine aloud in class, one line that immediately struck me was “I don’t have much faith in institutions, but I still believe in people” (LaValle, 365). This is a statement I agree with and from Maria’s examples, I can see other people seem to feel the same way. Though there are good people in the world, and maybe even some good people in bad institutions, institutions hold a greater power and therefore the group as a whole is more important. Adele, for example, ended up being a good person on the right side but was apart of the Washburn Library, which turned out to be a corrupt institution. Isa Higgins, who is also a friend of mine, said in Maria’s post, “If an institution is failing me that means it’s also probably failing a large portion of the population I identify with, so it’s never as simple as just me, it becomes a societal issue.” Isa’s statement contains the words that I myself was unable to string together when thinking about why institutions have more power than single good individuals.
Another question I thought of while reading this was, if someone seems like a good person but stays in power in a corrupt institution, are they really a good person? People who are contributing to a corrupt institution’s success are therefore supporting it. Although this could be for personal gain, they are in turn hurting the population of people affected by the institution.
There is mystery surrounding the Washburn Library, making it a hard place to trust. Institutions that seem harmless can still be corrupt in ways the public cannot see. So often there are instances where corruption comes to light. At a trusted daycare in my hometown, for example, it came out that the owner had been laundering money. For the reason that no matter how many good people there are, there are still bad people, I believe it is hard to ever put full faith and trust in any institution.