Cato Unbound » Blog Archive » The Trouble with the View from Above
"The window and door tax illustrates something else about "state optics"; they achieve their formidable power of resolution by a kind of tunnel vision that brings into sharp focus a single aspect of an otherwise far more complex and unwieldy reality. This very simplification makes the phenomenon at the center of the field of vision more legible and hence more susceptible to careful measurement and calculation. Combined with similar observations, an overall, aggregate, synoptic view of a selective reality is achieved, making possible a high degree of schematic knowledge, control and manipulation."
"The emphasis, throughout, is on the processes whereby hierarchical organizations, of which the most striking example is the state, create legible social and natural landscapes in the interest of revenue, control, and management."
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