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> They rationalised our understanding of the world around us. They did not rebuild it square. This is a distinction without a difference. Read James C. Scott,
by throwanem 1y ago
> They rationalised our understanding of the world around us. They did not rebuild it square.
This is a distinction without a difference. Read James C. Scott, for pity's sake.
- kergonath 1y agoWell, no. I am not going to go through a collection of books by a random guy because someone said so on the Internet. If you can articulate the point you want to make, maybe. If the point cannot be made, I am not sure why I should be interested.
- throwanem 1y agoThe short version is that you have this entirely backward and the "rationalizing" you describe not only remakes the world but does so by means of gruesome violence, and it is no accident the twitchy, haunted neurotics who attached their numericalizing madness to the Red Terror, had to go to such hideous lengths to get themselves taken at all seriously. We are not required to do the same two hundred years on, simply because they happen to have been on the side that wrote the history. The long version is Seeing Like a State.
- olau 1y agoSeeing like a state does not argue against the meter system. It just explains that many of these things got traction despite the resistance against them only because the state needed them. In the case of measurement units, one was that the natural units varied in size and could be gamed, which is a big problem for fair tax collection.
- throwanem 1y agoI don't suppose I expected to need to clarify the difference between citing a work whose thesis informs my own, and quoting from a work where my thesis is actually stated. But it now being evident I was optimistic: This is the first one.