The book Seeing Like a State by James Scott has the piercing subtitle of ‘how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed.’ It is a subtitle that elegantly summarizes the argument that our times are still marked by the ‘high modernism’ of the late 1800s and 20th century in which the belief in the power of science to solve social ills was at its height. The pertinence of this argument is all the greater in the few years since the book’s publication. We still wrestle continually with social policies advocated unequivocally by scientists that are soon discarded for a new set of policies fervently advocated. Scott wants us to temper our zealotry by his vignettes of past cycles of advocacy and failure.
Auteur: Bruce Kogut