standardization

• mediocrity seeks perpetuation in

48:7.2927. Prog­ress de­mands de­vel­op­ment of in­di­vid­u­al­ity; medi­ocrity seeks per­pet­u­a­tion in stan­dard­iza­tion.

• Jesus deplored

141:5.4Many times dur­ing the train­ing of the twelve Je­sus re­verted to this theme. Re­peat­edly he told them it was not his de­sire that those who be­lieved in him should be­come dog­ma­tized and stan­dard­ized in ac­cor­dance with the re­li­gious in­ter­pre­ta­tions of even good men. Again and again he warned his apos­tles against the for­mu­la­tion of creeds and the es­tab­lish­ment of tra­di­tions as a means of guid­ing and con­trol­ling be­liev­ers in the gospel of the king­dom.

• reason for Roman decline

195:3.9Even a good re­li­gion could not save a great em­pire from the sure re­sults of lack of in­di­vid­ual par­tic­i­pa­tion in the af­fairs of gov­ern­ment, from over­much pa­ter­nal­ism, over­tax­a­tion and gross col­lec­tion abuses, un­bal­anced trade with the Lev­ant which drained away the gold, amuse­ment mad­ness, Ro­man stan­dard­iza­tion, the degra­da­tion of woman, slav­ery and race deca­dence, phys­i­cal plagues, and a state church which be­came in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized nearly to the point of spir­i­tual bar­ren­ness.