Seals at the Theater

How does the public come to know what it knows? Why do we believe some people and not others? And how do scientists, politicians, and the public interact in these arenas of civic epistemologies?

Hilgartner offered a novel metaphor for public discourse, based on that of the theater. Theaters are places populated by characters, people with qualities distinctly chosen to present a specific narrative. Theaters use sets, lights, and other tricks to separate the world into a frontstage and backstage. The frontstage is dependent on backstage to generate it's narrative, but nothing can be more damaging to the illusion of stagecraft than showing the backstage, the actors getting into costume, the sets that are nothing more than painted plywood, the wires, all of that. In the political realm, strategic leaks can disable an organization. Leaking has gone beyond the tactical deployment of a fact to discredit an opposition, and come into it's own as a strategy of unconventional warfare.

How does this relate to science? Scientific knowledge is supposed to be better than "ordinary" facts, or mere belief. It is supposed to be based on objective methods of discovery and truth, and relate in clear ways to the natural world. But this was not always the case, Boyle had to invent many of the methods of science as a public display to convince people of the truth of his science. It is only within the past hundred years that the lab became closed as a matter of course, that the lab became the backstage to the larger production of credibility in both natural and social realms. Michael Polyani described a "Republic of Science" holding to these high standards, and thereby trusted by the public, but within the republic there is no trust, rather organized skepticism of various degrees of aggressiveness.

Hilgartner describes how critics of the National Academies of Science attempted to shine a light on the 'backstage' of the reports, to reveal to the public how interested, how incomplete, and how simply wrong they were. The 2000 election represents a similar instance, where the existential threat to democracy was that the process of the recount would pull down the staging of the political theater that legitimates the transition of power every cycle.

It is easy to conduct boundary work to separate out the scientists and politicians. These are jobs, requiring some form of special expertise. But what distinguishes civic epistemologies from traditional theater is that it is participatory, though in large part the public remains passive, the audience can throw things at the actors, get up on stage and argue about the lines and blocking. The case of Sellafield, local farmers argued that national scientists lacked vital facts about the realities of sheep farming, but were essentially sidelined. Deep mistrust from decades of nuclear opposition had hardened into an unbreachable cordon.

So, how then to proceed? While an interested and educated public can be a valuable contribution to the process of discovering truth and enacting policy, the world is not entirely a stage. That which works in narrative can fail when applied in the ultimate laboratory of the real world. Center stage is held by those who give the public what they want, the necessary stories. But interested groups, whether they be patients with AIDS, or unemployed young have a shot at understanding and changing the world. The problem with democratic politics is that it has devolved into a circus, two ringmasters throwing fish at crowds of seals (to continue to mangle an image). But if we were interested, that is, we had well defined interests in the outcome of policies, and we decided our loyalties on those grounds, we might see a politics more rational, and ultimate more effective at governing.

Club Med and Civic Discourse

I talked a little about Italy in my last blog post and was reminded of that country again today in a radio piece on the country and how it seems more divided today than when unification first happened almost 130 years ago. Regional pride and identities are still very strong, but are being challenged by new rising immigration and the deterioration of respect for the central government, a situation that may sound all too familiar to Americans. The recent unrest in Tunisian has created an influx of refugees and job seekers across southern Italy. As Tunisia, Egypt and other countries struggle to redefine themselves as free societies, I wondered what allowed America to survive so long and come out public discourses like the Florida ballot challenge relatively unscathed. The civic epistemologies that define American life include the understanding that our leadership will change every four years and the people have the chance to change out government slowly or en masse as the challenges that capture the public attention arise.

In the Middle East, I was struck by the longevity of the leaders being replaced, 20-40 years is not uncommon for an Arab despot apparently, but the public waited until these leaders were advanced in years and probably on the way to retirement before choosing to assert themselves. This cultural dynamic is based on a traditional form of government, not on elected officials I know, but still it seemed that they are reacting forces outside their borders as much as the frustration within their borders. The rise of knowledge and the capability for the population to gain an understanding of other forms of government may be the catalyst that is sparking this surge in revolutions.

As in the US election process in Bush vs Gore, the population seemed to be encouraged by the medias desire to say something. The constant drone of reporters saying that protests are occurring, but nothing is coming from them creates a vacuum that needed to be filled, much as the creation of the Phillipines was created from the vacuum of blank space on the map in Anderson’s assessment of the rise of nationalism in last week’s reading. As new knowledge creeps into the public sphere in these nations, their civic epistemologies will change to demand new proof that their governments are acting in the people’s interests. In the Miller article this week, he described how communities construct and validate their politically relevant information. This production of knowledge encourages the co-production of new social order and drives the desire for new forms of government.

The transition of the Middle Eastern autocratic state appears to be following the same transition to nation state that we saw in other nations as their citizenry express desires for social development for all and this calls for the creation of new institutional structures to meet those desires.

Dislodging Science

Has science wedged itself between a rock and hard place in regards to being viewed and accepted as a creditable producer of knowledge? Does science blindly place itself in this predicament? How can science dislodge itself?

I am not saying that this happens in 100% of every single case—the readings for this week made sure that this was not the case. But it serves some purpose to understand the cases that science does this unto itself in order to help prevent or clean up after.

Brian Wynne’s article proposed that science does not show the ability to be reflexive in its position in society. In fact, it was actually the lay people (farmers) that showed they were capable to be reflexive (more than science that is).

“The issues and problems in public understanding of science thus cannot be divorced, as scientific bodies repeatedly assume they can, from the epistemological issues of the social purposes of knowledge, and what counts as ‘sound knowledge’ for difference contexts” (p 43)
What scientists seemed to overlook was that experience, judgments, and understanding of science’s organization led to how one might understand science.

The farmer’s cultural outlook was discordant with science’s culture of standardization and control. Science’s certainty did not allow for flexibility, standardization left out difference of farms, local knowledge was ignored. Watching science being conducted on their own land did not help as they saw the “true science.” They thus felt that their way of life was under threat from outsiders.

Stephen Hilgartner highlighted how scientific expertise is not the only input into creditability. It seemed at the Academy both tried to cover those elements that might hurt their credibility and/or didn’t know/ignored that other inputs were possible. For example, they tried to keep disagreement behind the curtain (spotlighting lack of consensus can hinder creditability). Yet, they seemed to forget that “public identities” might enlist stereotyping.

A slightly different take was done by Clark Miller who seemed to focus more on the positive than the negative in regards to science’s location in society. American civic epistemology’s attention on “seeing is believing” still exists even though many tried to refute this during the 2000 election: “The ideal goal is to establish a transparent process that will create public confidence in the final vote tally” (p414). Nonetheless, this transparency can come with some risk for any indiscretions can be exploited.

What can be done to help science free itself when it gets stuck—better yet, prevent itself from being stuck—in these situations? It seems as though the recommendations (explicitly or in explicitly given) range from immediate to long term response. Wynne emphasizes how understanding local history is necessary. A lot of miscommunication and conflict can be prevented if science understood the society it’s operating in (in essence, avoiding culture shock!). Hilgartner can teach science how their norms and values aren’t necessarily the same as society and that sweeping everything under the rug is not a way to gain creditability. Miller talked about mass media coverage importance by stating how knowledge is collective” via mass media (pg519)—I have issues though on how collective it can be with such a divergence of news outlets broadcasting a wide range of “opinions”.

In regards to long-term action, Miller’s article becomes useful. He states that “dynamic social arrangements and institutions” allow for creditability in resolution (p507). In other words: democratic values! It is in this environment that “civic epistemology” can thrive as political communities create, discuss, and validated relevant knowledge via social and institutional practices (p1896).

In short, science needs to act now and deal with the “small” and “simple” issues in the short run while creating and supporting a democratic environment for long-term changes to occur. Sounds easy enough, right?

Sociological Imagination vs. Co-production

The term “sociological imagination” is a term coined by C. Wright Mills in 1959. Regarded as an, “…introductory concept to explain the nature of sociology and its relevance in daily life”, it is also considered as the capacity to see things socially, how they interact, and influence each other. Importantly, Mills reminds us, “…that things in society may lead to a certain outcome”, having the duel consideration that present and historical realities are composed of a profound confluence of factors and influences. Likewise, this is relevant to both the anticipation and guidance of future outcomes. Similar to Krasner’s regime theory, Mills points out the important for “…understanding what causes led to that outcome; (not limited to), social norms, what people want to gain (motives), social context” and the total convergence of interests.

Although more generalized, social imagination is also conceptually similar to the idiom of “co-production” proposed by Sheila Jasanoff. According to Jasanoff, co-production, “…calls attention to the social dimensions of cognitive commitments and understandings, while at the same time underscoring the epistemic and material correlates of social formations.” Like social imagination, co-production does not claim predictive powers, “…a way of interpreting and accounting for complex phenomena”. Uniquely, co-production, “…offers new ways of thinking about power, highlighting the often invisible role of knowledges, expertise, technical practices and material objects in shaping; sustaining, subverting or transforming relations of authority.” Incidentally, has anyone seen the large poster, located just outside the CSPO office, the bowling-pin juggling robot with the message, something like, “Subvert, Transform…”? Sound familiar?

Mills also stresses the essence of objectivity and versatility of thought, in order to appreciate the pedigree of a particular development or outcomes. He wrote, “You must pull yourself away from the situation and think from an alternative point of view… [having] …the capacity to shift from one perspective to another—from the political to the psychological; from examination of a single family to comparative assessment of the national budgets of the world; from the theological school to the military establishment; from considerations of an oil industry to studies of contemporary poetry.”

Clark Miller is noted for saying, “Politics is a competition for the social imagination”. (Feb 14, 2011) Often, this competition manifests as a struggle for public goods with actors competing to influence science policy. Too often, when choosing scientific investment portfolios and research strategies, rather than an effective management of scares resources there is, “a struggle for influence and funding among various political actors”, each competing to maximize their share of the public goods. (Sarewitz, 2007)

Rather than a focus on real-world priorities or forming a cooperative effort to produce an R&D investment portfolio organized around specific objectives to contribute to public well-being, entrenched interests are merely fighting in what resembles a zero sum game to acquire resources for themselves at the expense of the public and other competing interests. This is characterized as “the vulgarities of politics” (Sarewitz, 2007), both ineffectual and counterproductive, yet in an apathetic sense this is considered “normal”; what Thomas Kuhn referred to as “normal science”; science policy that reinforces the status quo.

Weather theories or idioms, these concepts remind us to appreciate the complexities of where we are going and where we’ve been, presumably in a way that we can achieve intellectual operability on the important factors that lead to sound decision making. With the limited scope of this short blog I will propose a comment on the validity and usefulness of mentioned theories and idioms, and allow Emanuel Castells to have the last word. He writes, “Theories and ideologies must always be rectified and adjusted according to experience, never as schemata to be reproduced. Societies are, and will always be, shaped by social actors, mobilized around interests, ideas and values, in an open, conflictive process.” (Castells, 1997, p.43)

Ref:

Castells, M (1997). End of Millennium: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, Inc.

Coats & Passmore (2008). Public Value: The Next Steps in Public Service Reform. London

C.W Mills, first chapter “Sociological Imagination”

Sarewitz (2007). Does Science Policy Matter? Issues in Science and Technology

Sheila Jasanoff 2004). States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and Social Order: Routledge

Policy is continuity.

Policy is continuity.

The direction that policies could take is vast, unlimited variables could be considered depending on the particular context and issue to be addressed, but there is an element that remains untouched, lusty whenever a decision is to be made, continuity. Continuity is the tool that has been thought in this set of readings. Achieving continuity is perhaps the ultimate goal of any given policy, regardless the field of work or the party that will be deciding. Decisions are made to last. In other, strategic words, good decisions will last for all the time required to support or achieve the initial goal. Let us think in any administration managing any issue, say, environmental depletion; this problem jeopardizes the continuity of the administration in question, if they are not capable of confronting the complication another administration will be appointed (by the people, by private regimes, etc. ) proper policies are based on its faculty to solve and give continuity to the decision process. It is at the same time complicated to understand the inception of that process, here is a hypothesis though; in a sociological framework, decisions to be made must contain a degree of diligence for the commons, any policy that manifests from those decisions are, in origin aiming to the continuity of the society that is formulating those policies. Whatever the policy a society will establish, it must contain this prime component.

If we could use this idea as a theory, it would be a very slippery road to cross a point.

Lets use an example, military conflicts, war. The decision of going to war based on domestic policies is making possible the continuity of the society to be engaged in war? Dichotomizing the answer, in one hand it could be established that it is absolutely imperative for this society to survive, to fight a war that is threatening the most elemental conditions for continuing to be a society. Thus, yes continuity again will be the base of the decision. In the other hand it also could be established that there is no reason whatsoever to put people in danger and to spend resources, that will eventually be needed for this society to continue existing, then no it is not utterly necessary for this society to take part in a military conflict. We could use diplomacy. That is another decision, another type of policy. It is right here where the question rises, when policies formulated, what are the reasons why we decide in to any given direction?

Hypothesis number 2. A very clear distinction must be made between the nature and the condition of a policy. War could be fought, for example, agains smaller countries to grant access to resources, that could never be absent, otherwise society could not continue to produce and survive the way they currently do. That is the nature of the policy, it represent continuity per se. However, and consequential to the core, the condition of the policy signifies the actual course of the decisions. As an exercise using this theoretical framework, let us track back to landmark decisions, in the history of a society. Spain during the conquer of the Americas: the nature of the policy to grant money to expeditions overseas was to explore and to find resources for the Spanish crown, the condition of subsequent decisions such as the evangelization and eventual extermination of indigenous peoples was purely a condition established by the Spanish crown to accomplish the fundamental goal of the original policy. Was a bad idea to travel overseas to explore and find resources? No; if we bear in mind that, in gesture of anticipatory governance the Spanish administration knew that in due curse, more resources could be needed, thus in order to survive, the Spanish society (in this period of time represented by the king) decided to provide continuity to the Spanish commons.

The nature of policy is as important as the condition of the policy. The nature of most policies in a rational sense, must aim towards continuity and survival of the group, or even as an individual, i.e. having a personal policy to quit smoking during weekdays and only smoke marihuana on Sunday, because of the desire of a healthier life. The nature of the policy is positive, aims to virtue, the conditions for that are another story, a very important one to understand the way we decide and reasons behind those decisions.

Language and Cartography- snapshots in time

James C. Scott uses the idea of language both literally and metaphorically to explain a method of control in his book “Seeing Like a State”. Cartography is another tool that both Scott and Anderson use to illustrate how a state can both quantify and exert power over a region and its people. When combined, they produce varied results, depending upon the context. I’ll use the experiences of the US, Ireland and China to illustrate this point. In each case, both language and roads have been used as a means of unifying or even subjugating the people.

During the Qin dynasty in China (221 BC–206 BC) the first emperor of China instituted many reforms to standardize weights, measures and written language. The written language was made simpler and thus, easier to disseminate. While James’ account of the French standardization process talks of the creation of the metric system and ultimately, a unified, democratic French citizen, the results of standardization were different in China. The Qin dynasty was known for creating roads, canals and large sections of the Great Wall, but this was achieved upon the backs of forced laborers. The roads were used for military success against neighboring foreign challengers to the state as well as domestic insurrections. The invention of paper and the compass later gave the Chinese an edge when creating and utilizing maps for navigation. Under communist rule, the Chinese state forced all provinces to use their official language in all state communications media, thus unifying the people. In recent decades, some areas have openly flaunted this rule, especially in the southern regions. I would speculate that economic concerns have mitigated the state’s desire to strictly control language. As long as the regions prosper, they are less likely to revolt. Thus, language becomes a less important tool in subjugating the people.

Ireland was mapped out and pillaged during the British colonization period of the 1600s. The people were forced to change from a clan structure into an organized state that the British could more easily control. Again- language, roads, and cartography played major roles in this transformation. Roads were obviously used for military domination, but also for commerce. The mapping out of Ireland was more for the colonists than the native inhabitants. Interestingly enough, during the late 20^th century Ireland experienced an economic surge and a corresponding surge in the use of their native Gaelic language. Nationalist pride was one impetus for the resurgence of Gaelic, or simply “Irish” and the language was once again taught in the schools and even instituted in daily life in the western counties. Today, the “Gaeltacht” districts are places where Irish is spoken and official state business may be conducted in Irish. Tourists are advised to identify the place names in both Irish and English as even road signs are often listed only in native Irish within the Gaeltacht districts.

Finally, the United States of America has the fabled story of the Lewis and Clark expedition. They were set with the task of exploring the new western territories and reporting back to the central government with maps and first-hand data of the people and lands which lay west of the Mississippi. Again, this was not for the benefit of the local inhabitants, but rather for the colonists who would take the land and settle there themselves. Eventually, the native Americans were subjected to forced relocation and eradication of their native languages. The “Indian schools” were used to impose uniformity and European sensibilities upon the children of the native people. Language was a major part of this strategy of integration. Again, during the late 20^th century there has been a movement to regain indigenous languages among the Native Americans, but this has not always come from a uniform sense of prosperity. Casinos have contributed to some tribes economic well being, but not across the country. It would be interesting to see if there were a larger language correlation among the more wealthy tribes than those who did not prosper as much.

So, using Scott’s vision of language and maps, we get different stories with similar themes throughout history. Both are powerful tools in the making of a state, but neither is set in stone. Maps are only snapshots in time, albeit powerful tools. Language can be standardized but again, time and the inclinations of native peoples may be more resilient than is comfortable for a state. Even the Roma Gypsies in Europe continue to be a thorn in modern France’s stately side with their nomadic ways and foreign language.

Identity and Discourse

How do collective identities come to be made and solidified through the application of essentially social technologies? How does this reordering of identity come to be adopted by those it is imposed on, and further perpetuated by those inhabiting a locale? Are the “old fictions” of previous identities these “new fictions” supplanting normatively superior to the new identities, or at least more “original”?

Identity, as we have come to know through the contributions of various 20th century philosophers, is socially constructed, and, without having a completely solid empirical foundation, is subject to reformulation by societal forces. “Original” identities can therefore be influenced by “new” identities that were not natively formed by the subjects they are imposed on. As outlined in many of the readings for this week, social technologies (and by that I mean techniques used to influence existing societies or build new identities where there were none) have been semi-consciously and consciously used by those seeking to generate a sense of belonging among certain peoples. For Anderson, the census, mapmaking, and museums were used by early colonizers of South and Southeast Asia to impose ordered categories where they found none. This was likely done to reduce complexity (in that areas which housed thousands of distinct “peoples” were categorized to reduce the total groups to something more manageable for colonial rule), but had the further effect of perpetuating the new identity among the previously fractious people. The census assigned the categories, maps solidified identities within geographic borders, and museums carried forth the new identity from generation to generation.

In much the same way, Alatout’s explanation of how groundwater discourse was used to, at first, bring immigrants to the newly constituted Israel and, later, to centralize control over the Israeli people and territory illustrates that interpretations, as opposed to the wholesale manufacture, of physical objects can be used to establish identities and how those identities relate to the structures of power. Groundwater discourse was reformed to emphasize scarcity, and so logically needed a regulator of these scarce resources to be distributed efficiently. In this way, social relations in Alatout’s example were constituted by technical measurements, much the same way as Anderson outlined in his example. The fact that a physical thing was used in Alatout’s example to accomplish this, as opposed to a social fiction in Anderson’s example, doesn’t negate the fact that socio-technical structures were ultimately used to accomplish both effects on identity.

In a way, I’ve answered the first two questions I posed above. Identity is a discourse, and so is formed, imposed, and perpetuated through argument, whether that argument is expressed purely through language or in societal power relationships through the aforementioned socio-technical structures. What about the last question? Can we consider any certain identity discourse normatively superior to another, in and of itself? Or is an identity discourse rendered “bad” or “good” through how it is created/perpetuated? Scott’s and Anderson’s articles seem to imply a negative normative judgment of the new discourse without considering how that new discourse was adopted. I’m not sure if I agree with this. Can we really render a normative judgment on a discourse itself?

Moving forward

Author James Scott clearly illustrates the inherent difficulties when viewing interests while blinding ourselves to the periphery of information available, the artifacts that directly impact the object of interest. In the authors example of forestry science, the primary interests resided in fiscal regulation and predictability. The irony of the situation emerged when 100 years after the first or second round of trees had developed the whole system of forestry science failed due to the very reason why it succeeded in the first number of years, lack of diversity. While time may have passed since the days of forestry science, are there other areas of government or private sector interest that may follow the same fate as the forests; leaving very little viable and a whole host of social issues?

Looking at the focus of government funded organizations such as NIH or DOE, it is feasible to see how their goals may restrict their vision of a situation and the dangers of doing so, as illustrated by James Scott. Referring back to forestry science, while the need of the state for regulation, predictability of finances and a whole host of other justifications for stripping the forests are quite plausible, the impact of the technology created social and ecological issues stemmed from oversight of the intricate relationship between nature and society.

The United States government budgets large sums of money for the NIH, which is then distributed to fight the war on cancer and while this may provide applauding results in the field of cancer research for our generation, one could question whether or not it will continue to do so with such a narrowed focus upon goals. Is it possible that the goal in which the state has in cancer research will become so involved in the process that genes may become another "economic resource to be managed efficiently and profitably?" Often social actors with clear agenda’s to structure society to make it more efficient can do so with the purest intentions but are still vulnerable to fail to see the most important and intricate pieces of the puzzle. So how can society move forward with confidence that the blinders have been removed?

The Census and Me

As I am presenting tomorrow, I will save my thematic analysis for then. For now, I will expound upon my own experience working for the US Census. Benedict Anderson's hugely successful Imagined Communities works through how nation-states envision their identity through inclusionary/exclusionary practices. The census was used as a tool for inventorying human capital for the use of taxation and military conscription. This quote speaks to the "imagined" in the title:

Hirschman's facsimiles of the identity categories of successive censuses from the late nineteenth century up to the recent present show an extraordinarily rapid, superficially arbitrary, series of changes, in which categories are continuously agglomerated, disaggregated, recombined, intermixed, and reordered (but the politically powerful identity categories always lead the list)(164).

The way in which governments construct measurements to order society in particular ways can be well-intentioned as in the below two cases. Two primary changes within the 2010 US census were the addition of the relationship status unmarried partner(worded differently on form) and the question "Is person #1 of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin? For the purposes of this census, Hispanic is not a race." Further taxonomies included selected countries of origin and an additional write-in option. The first question could be viewed as a catalyst for granting equal legal rights to unmarried couples (regardless of sexual orientation). The second question was at least designed for the provisioning of language resources to those municipalities with a certain percentage of Spanish speaking residents. The ways in which this data is used may in fact be for other purposes, but that is the rationality given by some actors regarding these questions.

Most folks, when confronted with the next question of race, would insert one of the above categories, though some specified countries of origin or other answer instead. According to the Census webpage, the first time a write-in "some other race" only came into being in 2000. These few changes as evidenced in the US census speak to how categories change to suit needs and desires of both the people and the government.

My experience with the census was mixed. I did feel like I was a part of something larger, and important. Minnesota was poised to lose a House of Representatives seat, so I was keen to count every house on my list. I don't believe I can go into too much detail about protocol, but we had to visit each residence a number of times and do some detective work if the person was not home. I found out firsthand just how diligent the US is in counting every person that lives within it's borders. Efforts are also made to count the homeless, but of course this number can never be accurate.

The categories on the short US Census: age, sex, home ownership status, relationships with other residents, Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin, and race can be seen as making legible certain characteristics about a population which may or may not resonate with how a person identifies themselves. For example, I could feel more affinity to someone who shares a similar worldview to me (which could not be gleaned from a few simple questions on a census form) than someone of my same age, race, and sex. There was a long-form census which some of the unlucky residents of my grid had already completed (folks needed to fill out both the short and the long forms as they were tabulated differently), which included other superficial identity markers such as education level, income, religion, etc.

The point of this story is that the act of tabulating the people in a given territory requires boundary-making with regards to what information is important for the rulers of a society to know and what is not. (Have you registered with the military if you are a male and over 18 exists on the census remains a function of the contemporary census.) The census, map, museums, and others ossify constantly fluctuating identity affiliations and become an instrument of the institutionalization of a snapshot in time (albeit a blurry, incomplete one). Is a solution to ask publics what categories they would rather see on the census? Efforts to simplify the social into neat and tidy lines will always fail to deliver in my point of view. The question then becomes how to incorporate ever complex notions of identity into state policies in a fashion that will not discount/create hierarchies?

Tale of Two Cities

The social imagining of cities and society has been paralleled by the development of social institutions and the role of government in society. In reading Anderson and Scott this week we see the progression of mapping tools as metaphors for the progress of institutions. Early societies grew organically and the cities followed along. City centers in European and other developing regions grew in rings as villages gave way to towns and towns gave way to cities. Life was a glorious interwoven mess of class and function. Technology was distributed and did not require any more infrastructure than access to natural resources. Roads and pathways between city developments were haphazard and followed natural geographic formations. As cities grew and expanded leaders and potentates began to impose new technologies on top of these existing systems to create key infrastructures.

Roman aqueducts and French sewers are the obvious formations, but as we reach the tipping points of the formation of the great nation states and begin to see industrial societies form the well laid out metropolitan areas of current cities, Scott points out the shortcomings of this approach. The well laid out city grids creates pockets of industry, residential and other functionally segregated areas. As Descartes pointed out, this is similar to the industrialized forestry of the 18th century Europeans. As we reduce diversity in the cityscape, the trees can suffer from lack. Current urban blight and decaying industrial centers are like the failed single crop tree systems of the outdated forestry methods. The new technology of current life requires more infrastructure for water, power, and transportation and is more highly reliant on the efficient movement of those services, so we build our cities and neighborhoods around them and try to integrate society on top of the reality. This has resulted in mixed success of course as suburban isolation tries to simulate the diversity of village life or even American Main Street life from just a few decades ago.

The ability of the state to plan on these levels and create the system it desires. I traveled to Italy last year, and noted one of these disparities. In Rome we visited the Vatican and saw the impact of St. Peter’s Square and the view of the Basilica as you approach from the river. It’s breathtaking. I also learned that the reason the view is so nice is that Mussolini had the surrounding neighborhood cleared to make the area more congenial to visitors. The neighborhood before had been one of those organic growths with real life happening all around. Now it looks great, but serves mostly to get tourists in and out efficiently. We also visited Florence and the great Duomo there. Also a truly magnificent structure, with an historic impact that holds up even against the Vatican. But the city grew around it in the organic manner of all early cities, and you can’t get a view of the building as you walk up it to it. The view is constricted by turning roads and the surrounding life. It is a very pedestrian friendly place and you have to walk to get there. And I had a very un-Italian thought then, maybe Mussolini should have cleared out a little of Florence there as well. I kept that thought to myself.

Cities, People, Language and Administrative Control.

Although the administration of large socio-technical systems such as cities is a complex undertaking, it does not happen by some magical or hidden force that is beyond our comprehension. The tendency of people to throw up their arms in the face of complexity because things are just too complex to fully grasp hides beneath it a more dubious intent: that we shouldn't try to structurally or historically understand the development of cities because we may find a set of political and economic decisions that undermine the ideals and values we have come to champion. James Scott's chapter entitled "Cities, People, and Language" maps a clear relationships between city planning, demography and the standardization of language across specific political domains. All this is said to be done with the clear purpose of administrative control. Scott charts the emergence of what we could call rationo-technocratic urban planning. We might argue that this planning was an attempt to impose an "overall abstract form" onto the seemingly disorderly medieval city. I say seemingly because as Scott notes, "The fact that the layout of the city, having developed without any overall design, lacks a consistent geometric logic does not mean that it was at all confusing to its inhabitants." It may have been confusing to outsiders, but that is simply because local knowledge of the city remained an insular phenomenon learned through the daily experience of an urban terrain. You know your neighborhood and all the little pathways to navigate it because you grew up there. This fact, Scott argues, is important to the maintenance of local political autonomy.

In order to restrict localized power, state authorities took it upon themselves to develop the means for standardizing city planning to help organize to administer to large urban spaces. Policing a predictable grid is much easier than trying to navigate through winding, narrow streets, especially in the face of a political insurrection. For me this is the most interesting fact about modern urban planning, which Scott exemplifies in Haussmann's redesigning of Paris in the 19th-century. Large boulevards were not created so much for efficient traffic flow as it was a means of quickly moving the military to different points in the city in order to put down insurrection.

City planning is not, of course, simply for the purpose of controlling rebellions. A mapped grid of property throughout a city is also ideal for real estate trading and speculation. And tied to any set of economic transactions there is a legal-judicial system that helps control and administer their smoothness. If we're talking about massive amounts of economic activity as we naturally will be in the context of a city, then we will need to make sure that the people involved in those transactions are equally identifiable and controllable. Naming practices, standardized language and traffic patterns are three methods of administration that Scott focuses on and for good reason. From these we get complex demographic information and neat flows of people and goods throughout cities. These functions are ultimately an extension of privilege, which is why planners are so comfortable taking a god's-eye view of large-scale projects. The vantage-point pretends at control over everything that one can map.

We can tell this administrative story well, but what doesn't get done (even though Scott recognizes its existence) is a description of the practices of resistance that take place both before and after state and private planning projects. And if resistance is not there, or if it is extremely marginalized, then what are the reasons for this? Perhaps the lack of coverage of resistant praxis is due to its anti-administrative nature: it doesn't want to be tracked down and compartmentalized. Perhaps a demography of resistance is ultimately paradoxical in nature; perhaps it is something known only from within the local, daily experience of it.

States of Scarcity and the Atmospheric Sink

Geopolitics in the Middle East is far from simple, ideology, history, personal ties, and strategic calculus all combine to make the region one of perpetual conflict. But the situation redoubles in complexity when scientific matters enter the equation. The transformation of Israel from a “water-rich” to a “water-scarce” state, as explored by Alatout, as well as its central role in building institutions and identities, is one such complex process. Alatout's research provides insight into Middle Eastern history and politics, and a model for why contemporary attempts to regulate carbon dioxide are so controversial.

Zionism, the foundational narrative of Israel, is predicated on a notion of plenty, a Biblical land of “milk and honey” which could easily absorb the exiles of the great Jewish diaspora. The old school of water management, personified by Simcha Blass, was pioneering in orientation. The ideology of Jewish settlement required an abundant supply of water, and if water was not forthcoming, than it would be made forthcoming by exploratory drilling and grand water works. Israel had water resources of 3000 MCM/yr, an ample bounty.

Aaron Weiner represented a new school of thought, which based on empirical measurement of water sources, estimated that there was a mere 1500 MCM/yr. Water was the limiting factor of growth in Israel, and consequently would have to be managed by a central state bureaucracy, would have to be secured against Arab aggression, and would have to be allocated to the most economically productive sectors. “Water scarcity was the 'natural' alibi and lent its legitimizing power to a group of Israelis who were in favor of defining an Israeli identity in non-Zionist terms, in industrial rather than agricultural terms, and in favor of urban development rather than agricultural development.”

I'm not going to talk about water politics in terms of Israel and Palestine, simply because I only know that allocating these limited resources is a contentious issue. But more to the point, consider attempts to regulate CO2, which have many of the same ideological consequences. The status quo position is that the atmosphere is a limitless sink, that industrial activity does not significantly. But anything that says otherwise, even something as simple as measuring CO2, carries the implicit position that the atmosphere is a finite resource, and that to control it some sort of central bureaucracy must be set up. This is why climate science is so contentious, because even before the results are in, acknowledging the possibility of results creates new institutional demands, demands anathema to much of American politics.

And oh yeah, the question you've all been wondering: How much water is there? According to the official accounts, somewhere between 1500 and 1800 MCM. So it appears that Weiner was correct. Water shortage is the State of Israel.