The Innovation Imperative: Progress as Dogma
Innovation is the sacred word of our age. Disrupt or die. Move fast and break things. Evolve or become obsolete. In boardrooms and classrooms, on storefronts and résumés, the message is clear: to stand still is to fail.
But what if innovation isn’t always progress? What if the relentless push for the new is destroying things worth preserving? What if “disruption” is just a euphemism for destabilization?
The innovation delusion tells us that change is inherently good, that the future is always better than the past, and that technology will solve problems faster than it creates them. This narrative serves those who profit from upheaval—venture capitalists, tech evangelists, and anyone with a product to sell. But it harms those who need stability, continuity, and systems that actually work.
Consider the phrase “creative destruction,” coined by economist Joseph Schumpeter. It sounds almost poetic—old industries fall away to make room for the new, like forest fires enabling regrowth. But what this metaphor sanitizes is real: jobs lost, communities fractured, skills rendered worthless overnight. Creative destruction is only beautiful from a distance. Up close, it’s just destruction.
The tech industry perfected this delusion. Every year brings new platforms promising to revolutionize how we work, communicate, or live. Yet many of these “innovations” are simply old ideas repackaged—often worse. Ride-sharing apps didn’t invent taxis; they just made them more precarious for drivers. Food delivery platforms didn’t create restaurants; they just extracted more profit from them. AI didn’t invent writing or art; it’s learning to mimic it at scale, often by stealing from those who can’t fight back.
Innovation has also become a shield against accountability. When a company’s product causes harm—addictive algorithms, exploitative labor practices, environmental destruction—the defense is always the same: “We’re innovating too fast to stop and consider consequences. We’ll figure it out as we go.” But by the time the harm is visible, it’s embedded in the infrastructure. The innovation has already won.
The delusion affects culture beyond tech. In art, there’s pressure to constantly reinvent, to reject tradition as stagnant. In fashion, last season’s designs are already obsolete. In food, every chef must have a “take” rather than perfecting a tradition. Mastery of the old is seen as less impressive than novelty, however shallow.
But innovation for its own sake produces garbage. Bluetooth-enabled salt shakers. Apps that solve problems no one had. “Smart” devices that are dumber and less reliable than the analog tools they replace. We’ve confused complexity with improvement, assuming that if something has more features, it must be better.
The mandate for constant innovation is also exhausting. It demands that workers perpetually upskill, that businesses perpetually pivot, that everyone stay on a treadmill that speeds up every year. There’s no room to consolidate gains, to master what exists, to simply be good at something without needing to be different.
What gets lost in this delusion is maintenance. The unglamorous, essential work of keeping things running. Fixing infrastructure, preserving knowledge, sustaining systems. Maintenance doesn’t get venture funding. It doesn’t generate headlines. But it’s what makes civilization functional.
Also lost is the idea that some things are worth keeping. That tradition can be wisdom, not just nostalgia. That older methods sometimes work better than newer ones. That Indigenous practices developed over millennia might be more sustainable than Silicon Valley’s quarterly experiments.
The innovation imperative also creates disposability culture. When the new is always superior, the old becomes trash. Electronics designed to fail after two years. Software that stops supporting devices so you’ll buy new ones. Fashion cycles engineered to make last year’s clothes feel obsolete. This isn’t progress—it’s planned obsolescence masquerading as innovation.
Breaking this delusion means asking better questions. Not “Can we?” but “Should we?” Not “Is it new?” but “Is it better?” Not “Will it disrupt?” but “Will it actually help?”
It means valuing repair over replacement. Refinement over reinvention. Stability over disruption. Sometimes the most innovative thing you can do is nothing—to preserve what works, improve it marginally, and resist the siren call of the shiny and new.
True progress isn’t about constant change. It’s about thoughtful change. Change guided by ethics, by community input, by long-term thinking. Change that improves lives without destroying livelihoods. Change that builds on the past rather than bulldozing it.
The future doesn’t have to be radically different to be better. Sometimes it just needs to be slightly more just, slightly more sustainable, slightly more humane. And that kind of progress—slow, careful, inclusive—might be the most innovative thing we could imagine.