callan's review of Seeing Like a State

callan reviewed Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott (Yale Agrarian Studies)

James C. Scott: Seeing Like a State (Hardcover, 1998, Yale University Press)

Examines how (sometimes quasi-) authoritarian high-modernist planning fails to deliver the goods, be they increased …

legibility, high modernism, metis

4 stars

I enjoyed this greatly and I am dyingggg to know about criticisms of big tech and surveillance capitalism that utilize the concepts in this book—particularly around legibility and the mechanization of people/minds. If you see this and you know of any, plz share! Such a good read for those of us in the interstitial spaces between the provably known and the experientially felt, and for those thinking about the pain and problems of objectivity.

loppear replied to callan's status

@callan i feel like both Lanier's You Are Not A Gadget and Odell's How to Do Nothing spend a good amount of time on the ways that we make ourselves technically legible along Scott's line, without obviously being due to this book. Graeber's Utopia of Rules too. But I'm interested in any more direct connections/follow-ons you find out there. (I'm looking forward to reading his recent Against the Grain alongside Dawn of Everything in the new year.)

callan replied to loppear's status

@loppear thank you, good points here! Seeing Like A State is mentioned in Subprime Attention Crisis, but only briefly. There is some overlap with Extrastatecraft as well. I will keep keeping an eye out.