Before The Clash of Civilizations, Harvard professor Samuel Huntington gained fame (or in some cases, notoriety) with his book Political Order and Changing Societies, which was first published in 1968. There’s one passage that has stuck with me ever since I read it years ago:

When an organization confronts a changing environment, it must, it is to survive, weaken its commitment to its original functions. As the organization matures, it becomes “unset” in its ways.

In practice, organizations vary greatly in their functional adaptability. The YMCA, for instance, was founded in the mid-nineteenth century as an evangelistic organization to convert single young men who, during the early years of industrialization, were migrating in great numbers to the cities. With the decline in need for this function, the “Y” successfully adjusted to the performance of many other “general service” functions broadly related to the legitimizing goal of ‘character development.’ Concurrently it broadened its membership base to include, first, non-evangelical Protestants, then Catholics, then Jews, then old men as well as young, and then women as well as men!” As a result the organization has prospered, although its original functions disappeared with the dark, satanic mills.

Huntington then says that people within an organization must at some point choose between loyalty to the original mission, or to the continuation of the organization.

That’s why I think that every ideologically motivated organization ought to include a self-destruct clause: After a given time (10 years, perhaps), it ought to be dissolved. Rarely does an organization wind itself down; the John M. Olin Foundation was notable in this regard.

I thought of Huntington when I read, in the Washington Post, “The YMCA is now known officially as just ‘the Y’.  The Chicago-based U.S. nonprofit announced Monday that it is changing both its logo and name to “the Y,” marking its first branding change in 43 years.”