The craftsman who uses a jig for every cut stops learning what square feels like. The friction was not inefficiency. It was education. Every technology that removes the cost of error also removes the signal that told you where you were. The desert fathers built friction into their practice on purpose. The cell. The repetition. The staying when you wanted to leave. Not because suffering was good but because suffering was information and information was the only raw material formation could use.

The architecture doesn't need to reform the powerful. It needs to make power irrelevant. Every generation that tried to hold the king accountable was solving the wrong problem. Samuel warned them what a king would do and they wanted one anyway. The answer was never a better king.

"In the beginning, grace usually hides itself... later it reveals itself little by little, warming the heart as it purifies it." - Diadochos of Photiki