🌿 Garden Note: The Cost of Knowing Better

A short note on power, hierarchy, and the silence that follows

“We already know that.”
– the most expensive sentence in institutional life.

A garden doesn’t grow because the tallest tree commands it to.
It grows where light and air and care allow new life to take root.

In hierarchies, too often decisions are made not because they are right—but because they come from above. The logic of rank replaces the logic of reason. Feedback dies before it reaches the top. Questions fade into silence. The throne must not be challenged.

In Jasay’s Garden, we wonder:
🪴 Can institutions learn if they stop asking questions?
🌱 What grows when obedience replaces observation?