Institutions
Institutions refer to the various government, economic, education, and religious organizations that serve as the power structures in modern society, as well as the experts and subject matter expertise they contain.
Trust in these institutions is necessary to enable coordinate action and forward social progress. Without that trust, conspiracy, gridlock, infighting, and inaction are the result. Trust in institutions is strongly correlated with the happiness of a society.
In case you haven't picked up on it, you should click on the Trust link read more on this topic.
The Secular Institutions page addresses the need for institutions for community building without supernatural pretense.
The Organizations page lists many existing institutions working towards the goals of science and religion compatibility, universalism, secular institutions, and building the universal in-group.
Rage For The Machine
Anti-government conspiracy theories and general contrarianism with regard to our political and economic institutions are now a mainstream viewpoint. Years of negativity bias in the media, pervasive capitalist grifting, and libertarian "government is the problem" rhetoric have made people lose their trust in institutions and dramatically increased cynicism in the culture. This lack of trust becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading to a sense that the institutions cannot be fixed and must be destroyed instead.
This type of revolution does not typically lead to good outcomes. Institutions in a modern democracy represent the collective wisdom of millions of people over centuries of experience. Destroying them will only result in having to re-learn all of those lessons again the hard way.
When cynicism dominates the zeitgeist, the truly subversive view is optimism and trust in our ability to self-correct and continue to improve the way that our government and economy serves its people.