The series Lodge 49 prompted me to think that institutions like the Masons in the United States, or other fraternal orders that were extremely common in the 19th century were a valuable counterweight to corporations and other large institutions in the US. There's a large segment of the population, I think, that actually hates institutional/corporate life maybe because of a genetic predisposition. I'd include myself in that group. To me, going off to live off the grid or in the woods is endlessly tempting. I'm sort of working toward that in a slow and planned way.
On the other hand, there are people who totally invest their life in institutions and see them as a sort of tribe replacement or mechanism for the sort of immortality that's available to humans--a picture on a wall or a statue or a name plaque on a building.
The fraternal orders or small town churches of a prior era were a middle ground between the corporations and bureaucratic/legalistic creatures of today. Of course there are still churches and fraternal orders and other civic or small organizations like sports clubs, but membership in many such organizations has been on decline for years, probably because they compete with corporations and governments for resources and attention.
The Grange is a really interesting case because of its success, then a refusal to grab the ring of power, basically. It's also an interesting case, because like the NGOs of today, it lobbied for the creation of governmental institutions to do the things it could have done itself.
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