herzfeld, michael. (2005). -political optics and the occlusion of intimate knowledge.- american...

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political

Optics

and

the

Occlusion

of

lntimate

Knowledge

MICHAEL

HERZFELD

Scott is

particularly concerned

with issues of

urban

form,

however,

his

approach allows

us

to

address more

specifi-

cally the state's

revamping

of

social relationships

as sim-

plistic

categories

of conformists

and marginals

and

its

spa-

tial mapping

of

these categories

onto

urban space.

As

the

state

attempts

to

take over

social

relationships,

it

also

re-

casts

them

as reflections

of

an

underlying

essence

revealed

through

visual realization.

This

is

a shift

from

an

indexi-

cal

(relational)

to an iconic

(representational) understand-

ing

of

human

experience;

it

corresponds exactly

to

what

Gellner

(1983:37)

perspicaciously identified

as the

replace-

ment of the

social

by an

emphasis

on

presumed

cultural

affinities.

It

permits a

form

of

semiotic

management

that

retrospectively recasts

essentialist

claims

of

commonality

as

always-already in place

(Herzfeld

1997:28).

Perhaps

its

most obvious manifestation

is

the

denial-notoriously

ex-

emplifled

by Margaret

Thatcher's

reiterated attacks

on

the

very

notion

of

society -that

a nation

consists

of

anything

more than

groups of

people,

duly

classifi.ed

according to

this

same

iconicity

principle

and

consigned

to appropriate

quar-

ters on

the

ground.

Scott's

reading

of

state

visualism nicely

captures

the

relevant

dynamic.

It

also

works

productively

against

the security

fence

erected

by so many

modernist scholars,

surprisingly

includ-

ing

practice

theorists

such

as

Anthony

Giddens

(e.g.,1992),

between tradition

and

modernity.

This

self-serving

bi-

narism

of the

industrialized

world has been

elegantly

at-

tacked

on the

grounds

both

of

its rhetorical

plasticity

ABSTRACT

In

Seeing

Lke

a

Stafe

(1998),

James

Scott

provides

a comprehensive

understanding

of

the

optics

of state

power.

He

also

shows

how

the

bureaucratic

logic

of

high-modernist official

planning

occludes the

social

and cultural

worlds

both of

marginalized

citizenries

and

of the

bureaucrats

themselves,

and accurately

pinpoints

the

pernicious

reductionism

that has

accompanied

the

modernist

states

self-proclaimed

cult

of

efficiency.

As in

his

earlierwork,

however, Scott

overgeneralizes

the

idea of

resistance ;

he also, and

concomrtantly, underestimates

bureaucrats' complicity

with

local

populations

and

the consequent

modification

of

bureaucratic

schemes

(including

the

construction

of

national

heritage)

in

actual

practice.

These

absences

reflect a relative

lack of ethnographic

specificity

in the

analysis

as

well

as

a

partially

uncritical endorsement

of

the

master narrative

of

Western

history

[Keywords:

state,

bureaucracy,

modernism,

comPlicitY,

heritagel

AMES

C. SCOTT'S

ERUDITE

CRITIQUE

of

high

mod-

ernism, Seeing

Like

a State

(1998),

encompasses

an

enor-

mous

range

of

ideas,

from the

analysis

of

state

action to

the role

of

intimacy within the

constraining

formality of

high

modernism. In devising

my

title,

I

sought to articulate

in

appropriately embodied and

sensuous

form

the

work's

pervasive

sense

of restraint

defied-doggedly nonlinear

ar-

guments

bursting to

escape

the technical

limits

of

a

book's

ineluctably linear format;

personal

and

social experience

chafing

in

the

seemingly

heedless

(but

also

all-seeing)

grip

of

bureaucratic

regulation while

also finding in it

openings

for

a

complicity as

secretive

as

it

is

well-known;

and

bureau-

crats

themselves

tweaking

the

system by

following

its

rules

to

mischievous

excess.

In

the

thoroughly

tangible

sense

of-

fered

by

its

principled nonconformism, the book

models

the

style

of argument

laid out in

its

pages.l

Scott

dismembers

what, in a different

context,

Johannes

Fabian

(1983:105-109)

has

recognized as the

vi-

sualist

bias

in

high modernism.

Fabian's

concern

was

with

anthropology

itself.

Scott

instead

tackles

the

larger

context

of

nation-building and

governance.

Both, however,

address

the

political

optics

and

aesthetics

of regimentation,

ratio-

nalization,

and control.

Their focus resonates

with

exist-

ing

anthropological critiques of universalist

claims

for

ra-

tionality

(Tambiah

1990),

the modernism of the

planned

state

and

its entailment

in

the

emergence

of

social

science

(Rabinow

1989),

and the

symbolic manipulation of

bureau-

cratic

logic

(Handelman

1990;

Herzfeld

1992a).

Because

Autarctu

Aqruaopotocrsr,

Vol.

107,

lssue

3,

pp.369-376,

ISSN 0002-7294,

electronic

ISSN

1548-1433. O

2005

by

the

American

Anthropological

Association.

All rights reserved.

Please

direct

all requests for

permission

to

photocopy

or

reproduce

article content

through the

University

of

California

Press's

Rights and Permissions

website, at http.//www.ucpress.edu/.journalVrights.htm.



37O

American

Anthropologist

o

Vol.

107,

No.

3

o

September

2005

(Argyrou

1996;

Sutton

1994)

and

of its

hierarchical

implica_

tions

(Gupta

1998);

that

such

critiques

have

yet

to

achieve

the impact

on public

awareness

that

they

deserve

may

it_

self

be

a

fair

indication

of

the

success

with

which

high

modernism

has

consigned

certain

places

(such

as

Greece

and

rural

India)

to

the dustbin

of

geography,

much

as it

has

already

designated

tradition

the

official

receptacle

of

the

detritus

of

history.

Such places are

simply

consigned

to

a vaguely

defined

past,

a

conceptual

territory

that

by

definition

signals

exclusion

from

modernity.

The

past,

no

less

than

the

present,

can

be

regimented

according

to

the

spatial

requirements

of

a

visualist

mode

of

classification,

When,

for

example,

we

discover

that

even

historic

con-

servation,

allegedly

a

faithful

reproduction

of

the

past,

is

committed

to

the

production

of

open

vistas

and

functional

detachment

and

compartmentalization

(see,

e.g.,

yalouri

2OOI:152-154),

we

begin

to

appreciate

the

importance

of

Scott's

iconoclastic

study

for

understanding

the

mass pro_

duction

of

global

history.

Indeed,

it

is

a

pity

that

Scott

did

not

address_but

Seeirg

Like

a

State

is

already

lengthy-the

reconfiguration

of the

material

past

as an

increasingly

globalized

idiom

of

,,her-

itage,

behind

rvhich

lurks

an

expedient

agenda

of

polit_

ical

control

through

temporal

as well

as

spatial

marginal_

ization.

When

in

Thailand

municipal

authorities

announce

that

they

will evict

significant

segments

of the

underclasses

of the

old dynastic

city

of Bangkok

and

turn

its

central

av_

enue

into

the

Champs

Elys6es

of Asia,,,

they

are

managing

history

in

a

distinctly

monochromatic

mode.

They

are

also,

far

from

coincidentally

(and

whether

consciously

or not),

invoking

the

repressive

antecedent

of Baron

Haussmann,s

reconfiguration

of Paris-an

aesthetic

coup

that,

as

Scott

reminds

us,

facilitated

military

control

over

a

potentiallv

restive

capital.

Scott celebrates

the

riotous

nonconformism

that

ul_

timately

subverts

these

efforts

at

total

control.

A

persis_

tent

difficulty

with

Scott,s

argument

nevertheless

remains

that

of imagining

how

the

weak

exercise

effective

agency

against

such

healy

odds.

The

problem

is

not

a

new

one

in

his

work:

as

before

(see

Scott

19g5),

we

are

offered

claims

of resistance

without

attention

to intentionality

or

effect.

Agency,

as

many

authors

have

noted

(e.g.,

Abu_

Lughod

1990;

Reed-Danahay

1993),

remains

opaque.

Al_

though

Scott's

real

achievement

has

been

to

recognize

the

basic

attempt

to achieve

agency

in

the

face

of

overween_

ing

power,

the

potential

failures

of

that

process_not

to

speak

of

the

uncouthness

associated

with

various

forms

of resentment-might

actually

have

the

opposite

effect

to

that

intended

by

Scott

or

by

the

actors

he

describes.

The

diamond-in-the-rough

image

of those

labeled

by the

pow_

erful as

traditional,,

can

serve

the purpose

of locking

the

peasant

or

artisan

into

irremediabre

subordination

within

what

I

have

called

the

,,global

hierarchy

of

value,,_the

over-

whelming

cultural

consequence

of

colonialism

and

its

after-

math

(Herzfeld

ZOO4).

State

managers

of

tradition

may

gild

the iron cage

that

encloses

these

hapless

representatives

of

an

antiquated

mode

of

life;

but

escape

is

all

but impossible.

Instead,

the

designation

of

artisans

and

others

as

,,tradi-

tional

becomes

the

basis

for

denying

them practical

and

symbolic

access

to the

modernity

that

state

functionaries

at

all

levels

construe

as the

highest

good.

Such

is the

contemDt

that

Scott

(e.g.,

1998:303)

says

high

modernists

mete

out

to

tradition

and

the

practical

knowledge

that

is

associated

with

it.

Most

anthropologists

(and

I

certainly

include

myself)

wouid

probably

share

Scott,s

nostalgic

preference

for

em-

bodied

and

practical

knowledge

over

the

arid

reduction-

ism

of

bureaucratic

logic.

Merely

because

this

perspective

smacks

of romantic

self-delusion

and

a reaching

for

some

preliterate

and

precapitalist

Eden,

it

is

not

necessarily,

ipso

facto,

wrong.

With

Scott,

we

can recognize

that

the

state

practices

its

own,

highly

motivated

forms

of

nostalgia,

his_

toric

recollection,

and

expropriation

ofcultural

capital.

Rec_

ognizing

the

embodied

messiness

of

muddling

through

is

it_

self

an attempt

at

conceptual

resistance

against

these

moves.

At

the

same

time,

acknowledging

such

attempts

at

secur_

ing

agency

through

claims

to

represent

traditional

(,.real,,)

culture

provides

a

cogent

answer

to

official

arguments

that

local populations

are

refashioning

their pasts

to

suit

their

convenience;

they

are,

after

all,

only

doing

what

the

state

has

taught

them

so

well

by

example.

Some

of

the

changes

wrought

by

state

agency

do

not

concern

tradition',

so

much

as

a

streamlined

notion

of

heritage.

Official

commemoration,

for

example,

shares

with

many

naming

practices

the

perpetuation

of a particu_

lar

identity,

but

it purportedly

does

so

on

behalf

of

the

entire

body

politic.

Such

moves

are

hard

to

challenge

because

of

the

risk

of

being

charged

with

disloyalty,

and

because,

as

Scott

shows

in

his discussion

of

modernist

town

planning,

the

grid

that

they clamp

on

social

life

is

highly

pervasive

and

systematic.

The

naming

of

streets

and

monuments

is a

key

element

in

this process.

States

often appear

to

use

local

idioms

of

naming

but

convert

their

underlying

logic

for

their

own

ends.

Many

states

take

over

naming

systems

along

with

the

kinship

im-

plications

in

which

they

are

embedded,z

a

move

ttrat

Rts

the

familial

metaphors

with

which

state

authorities

seek

both

to

engage

and

to

control

citizens,affections.

In

the

same

way,

the

commemorative

naming

of streets

illustrates

the

shift

from

indexical

relations

to

iconic

homogenization

through

the

spatialized

construction

of

a

collective,

heroic

ancestry.

We

can

trace

such

changes

through

cartography

or

in

such revealing

documents

as

contracts

for

the

sale of

houses

and

land.

In

these,

the

arrival

of a

formal

state

struc_

ture

in the

European

mode

signals

the

end

of locations

iden_

tified

in

terms

of

the

contingency

of

who

happens

to

be

a

neighbor

at

the

time

of

sale;

instead,

it

yields

to

the

doc_

umentary

obsessions-attempts

to

make

society,,legible,,

at the

expense

of

reducing

its

ever

changing

characteris-

tics

to the

merest

shadow

of

their

experiential

realit1,,_that

Scott

(1998:76-83)

perceptively

identifies

as

one

of

the ma-

ior

expressions

of

modernist

management.

Scott

has

accu_

rately

pinpointed

an

important

confluence,

that

of changes

in

naming practices

with

changes

in

mapping

techniques



Herzfeld

r

Political

Optics

371

(Scott

1998:64-7I);

in

both,

he

demonstrates

the

state,s

sys,

tematic

and

coordinated

invasion

of both

these

key

spaces

of

social

identitY.

His

argument

reveals,

but

does

not

address,

the

entail_

ment

of

such

regularization

in

the

self-stereotyping

of the

West.

In

one

respect,

as

we shall

see,

the

argument

even

partially

seems

to reproduce

that image.

But

there

are

more

pressing

reasons

to rectify

the

lacuna,

because

the

tight

rela_

tionship

between

an

ideology

of

collective

selfhood

and

the

reign

of universalistic

rationalism

protects

both

from

criti_

cal

inspection;

few

are

bold

enough

to

challenge

the

criteria

by

which

they

are

iudged

rational,

because

the very

act

of

posing

such a challenge

exposes

them

to

the

charge

of irra_

tionality.

Some

national

cultures,

of

which

Greece

offers

an

instructive illustration,

have

a

very

large

stake

in

preserving

the

sense

of

this

connection.

Thus,

offlcial

Greek

historiography

portrays

a

land

res_

cued

by the

Western

powers

from

intolerable

suffering

and

cultural deprivation under Ottoman rule.

Not only did

in_

dependence

permit

the

rebirth,,

of

a

people

that

in fact

had

never

hitherto

been

enshrined

in

a

single

nation_state,

but

it also

required

the implementation

of a

bureaucratic

logic that

reflected

this

return

to

philosophical

and

concep_

tual origins. The

continuing

inefficiency

and

nepotism

of

state bureaucrats

could

be attributed

to

the

lingering

poison

of

Ottoman influence,

while

the

Greek

authorities

adopted

and

internalized

the

notion

that

Western

rationality_in

this

case,

embodied

in

a

bureaucracy

of

largely

German

in-

spiration

and

managerial

form-was

rightfully

their

own

heritage.

Especially

in

matters

of

record

keeping

and

ac_

counting,

they

were,

therefore,

especially

enthusiastic

in

reiecting

the informal

but

efficient

approximations

that

the

Ottoman

authorities

had

accepted

for

centuries,

re_

gardless

of

how poorly

the

new

documentary

idioms

re_

flected

the

reality

on

the

ground.

Indeed,

the

fact

that

tax

would

often

be

calculated

on

the

assumption

that

the

par_

ties

were

declaring

only

half

of the true

value

of the

goods

transferred-an

assumption

in

which

the

parties

naturally

enough

concurred--demonstrates

the

complicity

of

bureau-

crats

with

their

clients

as weil

as

the practical

compatibility

of

a

precise

idiom

of

documentation

with

some

deliberately

very

imprecise

forms

of financial

agreement.

In

the

Cretan coastal

town

of

Rethemnos-more

re_

cently

the

site

of

one

of

Greece,s

most ambitious

experi_

ments

in the

historic

conservation

of

domestic

architecfure

and

the

scene

of

an

ongoing

contest

about

what

propor_

tions

of

Venetian ( Western,,)

and

Ottoman

(,,Oriental,,)

elements

should

perdure-we

can

track

these

antecedent

shifts

in

formal

administrative

technique

from

Ottoman

hands

to

those

of

a

Western-orientated

Greek

elite. They

betray

little

of what

actually

happened,

but

they

do

serve

to

illustrate

a radical

shift

in

administrative

style,

one

that

is

tightly

linked

to

the

exaltation

of Western

models.

Oral

agreements,

for

example,

once

the

basis

of

many

property

transfers,

lost

any

legal

validity

they

might

once

have

had,

the

sworn

oath being

displaced

by the signed

affidavit;

but

even

written

contracts

were

insufficient if

they failed to

ren_

der

locations

in time

and

space

according

to the

absolute

criteria

ofgenealogy,

chronology,

and

cadastral

records,

in_

stead

of the

relativities

of

registered

names, generation,

and

neighborhood.

These

changes

accompany

a shift toward

the

(referential)

naming

of

streets

and

numbering

of

plots

and

houses

(see

Herzfeld

1999).

Similarly,

in another

country

deeply

enmeshed

in

the

emulation

of

a West

from

which

it wishes

nonetheless

to

distance

itselfin

key

respects,

the

Thai

authorities,

in

pursu-

ing

their

goals

of rationalizing

the

old city

center

of

Bangkok

as

a

virtual

theme

park,

use

the

absence

of

written

docu_

mentation

as

a

key

argument

to

deny

control

of

contested

spaces

to

householders

convinced,

for

their

part,

that

iong_

standing

and

widely

shared

memory gives

them

moral

ti_

tle

to

their properties.

This

example,

Iike

the

Greek

one,

shows

that

the

administrative

reconfigurations

of

which

Scott writes

so

incisively

are

caught

up, perhaps

to

a

much

greater

extent

than

he indicates

in

Seeing

Like

a

State,

in

the

ongoing

tussle

over

the definition

of

appropriate

practice

between

radically

orientalist

and

no

less

radically

occiden_

talist

models.

The

irony

is

that

in

both

cases

the ostensible

goal

of the

historic

conservation

efforts

is to

showcase

and

maintain

a

speciftcally

national

heritage.

Historic

conservation

frames

the

dynamics

of the

state's

cultural

politics

with

particular

clarity.

Because

administra_

tors

largely

saw

their

task

as

civilizing

the

natives (or

peas_

ants),

and

because

leaders

often

imitated

Western

models

of

civilization

as

a means

of

consolidating

their

own

in-

ternal

authority

and

external

access (see

esp.

Thongchai

2000),

they

invested

a great

deal

of effort

in trying

to

es_

tablish

a

mythological

lien

on the very

notion

of the

West

itself-Greece

as its putative

ancestor,

Thailand

as

a

country

that demanded

and

at

least

nominally

received

acceptance

on

equal

terms.

The practices

of architectural

conservators

inevitably

reflect

such

preoccupations.

The

emphasis

they

place

on

a

unitary

national

past

masks

radical

changes,

sug_

gesting

that

the

present

order

is

rooted

in

an

eternal

his_

tory.

Yet

the

changes

in

question

are precisely

those

that

were

necessary

for

the

centralization

of

control.

Their

pro_

ponents

have

every

interest

in

not

only

dismissing

con_

tingent

claims

as

insubstantial

but

also

denying

the con_

tingency

of

their

own position.

In

today's

Bangkok,

the

Haussmannesque

inspiration

for

ostensibly,,local,,

forms

of

monumentalization

promises to

have

iust the

effects

that

Scott

notes

for

such

projects:

a

disguising

of

persistent

prob-

lems

(1998:62),

along

with

the

marginalization

of

evicted

citizens

who

then

bid fair

to

become

a breeding ground

for

precisely

the

kind of

revolution

the

authorities

thought

they

were

nipping

in

the

bud

(1998:63).

These

are

not

accidental

moves.

Even

if we

reject

such

teleological

explanations

for social

structure

at

large,

as

in-

deed

we

should,

there

is

plenty

of

documentary

evidence

to

show

how

state

leaders

actively

construct

their

own

teleolo-

gies

and represent

them

as faits

accomplis

(see,

e.g., Kapferer

1988;

Malarney

1996).

Scott

accurately

pinpoints

modern

statecraft

as

largely a proiect

of

internal

colonization,'

marked

by

the

imperial

presumptions

of

the

,,civilizing



372 American

Anthropologist

o

Vol.

107,

No.

3

r

September

2005

mission

(1998:82);

I suggest

that

the

point

has

particular

salience

in those

countries, of

which

Greece

and

Thailand

are

exemplary,

in which a

self-styled love

of

independence

and

an official

historiography that

proclaims

independence

of Western

colonialism

themselves foster

precisely

such in-

ternal reproductions

of

global

colonialism.

Scott's

book

has

the further merit

of

demonstrating

the

multiple

levels

of

agency

that

enable

this

process

to occur;

he documents,

in

exhaustively

comparative detail,

the increasingly

self-aware

implementation

of

state teleologies

by

functionaries

with

interests

to

protect. Whether

these

interests

are

those

of

the

citizenry at large

is

a

very

different

question,

and

Scott,

rightly

in

my

view,

argues that they

are

not.

Scott

disarms much of the

criticism

that

could

be

di-

rected

at his

work

by

refusing

to disallow

modernist

projects

as

such,

insisting

only that

they

be responsive

to

larger

con-

ceptual

and social contexts.

These

contexts

are

complexes

of

larger interests,

including

those

of the

weaker

segments

of the

population.

He

sees

in

modernist

planning

a beset-

ting faith

(Scott

1998:253-254),

in

the

same

sense that

I

call

bureaucratic logic

a

cosmology

(Herzfeld

1992a).That

perspective

carries

the correct

further implication

that

the

state

cannot

function, even on

its

own terms,

in the

absence

of

the socially

embedded practical

knowledge

that

the

high-

modernist

proiect

so disparages.

This is

perhaps

the

point

of

closest

convergence

between

Scott's

and

my

respective

un-

derstandings

of the

state.

I

have

argued

elsewhere

(Herzfeld

1997,

2OO5)

at

length, moreover,

that the

state itself

could

not

subsist

but

for

the

dirty

secrets

that

provide

the

basis

of

Iived

social

experience,

an observation

about

the

cultural

logic

of nation-state

ontologies

that

corresponds

to Scott,s

(1998:261) more

directly

practical

point

that

fine

modernist

proiects

such

as

planned

capital

cities

could

not

function

without

the very

denizens whose

messiness

the

authorities

try

to hide.

The goal

is to

keep

those

unruly

citizens

out

of

sight,

perhaps

out

of

mind,

but

never

out

of

control. Total

control would

bring

collapse,

and

so

the

risk

of

rebellion

by

the

dangerous

classes

remains

ever

present,

serving

in

the

eyes

of

the

state

to

f

ustify

ever

tighter

means

of

bureaucratic

rationalization

and repression.

In this view

of matters,

it

follows

that

official

denials

that

these

dirty

secrets

exist are themselves

as

disingenu-

ous

as

they are

necessary;

they

are

the

other

side of

the

pragmatic

complicity that

Scott

describes.

Scott argues

that

the

state has needed

this

'other'

..

.

in

order to

rhetorically

present

itself as the antidote

to

backwardness (L998:331).

This

formulation,

although

fundamentally

on target,

could

easily

be

misconstrued

as

unnecessarily

functionalist

or

tele-

ological.

Instead,

or

at

least

more

usefully,

it

suggests

that

high

modernists

do a

great

deal

more

thinking

than

their

productions

of always-already-perfect

proiects

are

meant

to

reveal.

As I argue

below,

this

has

implications

for

the

pro-

duction

of

nationalist

histories,

themselves

as much

a

mod-

ernist

project

as

the

equally

reified

notions

of

,,heritage,,

and

tradition.

In any

event,

it is

clear

that

the

state

might

not

be

able

to command

the

same

degree

of loyalty

if

it

com_

pletely

suppressed

these

familiar

aspects

of

social

life;

pe

ple's

loyalty

to

the

state demands

the maintenance

of a zo

of familiar

ease,

even

if this violates

official cultural

a

moral

canons.

Dominic

Boyer

(2000)

has even

intimat

that

the

collapse

of the German

Democratic

Republic m

have

been

facilitated

by precisely

the

absence

(or,

rather,

t

suppression)

of this

illicit

familiarity.

Scott

(see

1998:20

2O7,22I-222,

26I,352)

shows

how,

time

and

again,

t

state

and its

agencies

have

been

saved

from

the cons

quences

of

their

monochromatic

vision

by

the

capacity

ordinary people

to

patch

up, muddle

through,

and

simp

cope-what

Deborah

Reed-Danahay's

(1996)

French

villa

informants, fed

up

with

the impositions

of state

logic,

c

d4brouillardise (a

term

that can

be

almost

literally

render

as getting

through

the fog ),

What

Scott perhaps

miss

is

the

eagerness

and

ability

of

state

officials,

in whom

is

arguably

too

ready

to

attribute

self-protection

as the

p

mary

and

generalizable

motive,

to

connive

at

minor infra

tions.

Yet

many

bureaucrats

muddle

along

with

their

clien

with

whom they

often

share

either

a common culture or

least,

as in

the

case

of the

Glpsy

traders described

by Yulia

Konstantinov

(1996)

for

the Bulgarian-Tiirkish

frontie

common

economic

interests

and

areas

of

social interactio

Even

under

a

dictatorial

regime,

such

as

the

196

74

mllitary

dictatorship

in

Greece,

compticity

of

this kin

serves

to

demarcate

areas

of

bearable

life

and

to

undermin

the impulse

to resist.

The

colonels

may

not

have unde

stood

this

basic point-their

repressive

attitude

to

beard

miniskirts,

and lewd

iokes

showed

as

much-but

their ow

inefficiency

in this

regard

appears

to

have

saved

them

f

a

time.

Had

they

not

embarked

on a

foolish

confrontatio

with

Turkey over

Clprus,

and

had they

not

engaged

in

i

cessant

internal

bickering,

they

might,

indeed,

have

,,mu

dled

through

for

a

great

deal

longer

than

they actually

<l

But their

own

venality

probably

saved

them

from

an

eve

earlier

humiliation

than the

fiasco

that

eventually

did

lea

to their

downfall

seven

and

a half painful years

after

the

initial

power

grab.

The

tangled

skeins

of

complicity

will

o

cupy historians

for

many

years

to

come, even

though th

majority

of

them

will

probably

never

see

the

light

of

day

at least

as

long

as

they

successfully

morph

into

similar

interested

accommodations

with

the

colonels,

democrat

successors.

As

the

transitions

of

Czarist to Soviet and

no

capitalist

Russia

demonstrate,

power

relations long

surviv

particular

ideologies

of

governance.

From

these

observations,

three principal

areas

of

m

residual

disquiet

with

the

presentation

of

Scott,s

argumen

emerge: (1)

the

absence

of

an

ethnographic

sensibility to

ward

the

state

functionaries

equivalent

to

that

accorde

peasants

and

other

manual

workers;

(2)

a

consequent

fa

ure

to

explain

how

so many

local

projects

within

high

modernist

states

survive

and even

flourish

(although

ther

are

hints

that

Scott

views

a

vaguely

conceived

,,democracy

as

the

answer);

and

(3)

the

implications

of Scott,s

turn

a

classical

Greek

concept

to

descdbe the

elusive

forms

practical

knowledge.

The

last

of

these

might

seem mino

in

fact,

as

I

propose

to argue,

it is

indicative

of

a

besettin



nroblem

in

which

we

all

find

ourselves enmeshed,

and to

iuni.ir

,t.t.

peculiar

arts

of

academic resistance

should

now

be

rnore

forciblY

directed'

LeIme

take

up

these

points

in

turn.

The

first

issue

con-

cerns

the

surprisingly

monochromatic

treatment

of

bureau-

crats

in

Seeing

Like

a State.

Treating bureaucrats

in

this

way is

a

familiar

device;

indeed,

in some

sense

it

signals

a

form

of

conceptual

resistance,

a

narrower but

perhaps

more demon-

strable

rendition

of Scott's original sense

of resisfance

in gen-

eral.

The

conceptual

problem resembles

that

associated with

the

notion

of

reference

in

linguistic

analysis.

If

we

shift

to

a

use

or

action

understanding

of meaning,

we

do

not re-

iect

reference

as

such;

instead, we recast it as

itself a form

of

social

practice.

In

the

same

way,

if

we

see bureaucrats

as

all-too-human

agents,

we

do not

ignore

or

reiect

their

besetting

normativity

but,

instead, understand

the latter as

a

practice-a

form

of

practical

essentialism,

behind

which

skilled

operators

can act

in accordance

with

specific

per-

sonal

interests. Such

a

vision

is

broader

than

the

usual

con-

vention

of

treating

all bureaucrats

as

corrupt

or

unimagina-

tive.

It

allows

for

the

recognition of

those

bureaucrats-and

they

are

numerous-who

view

themselves as servants of the

people

and

who

make

every

effort

to

mitigate

the

harshness

of

laws

that

are

not

always

sensitive

to local

particularities.

It

also

accommodates

certain other bureaucrats, those whose

actions

are

more in

keeping

with

the

conventional stereo-

type,

who

manipulate

the rules to achieve

selfish ends

or

to

avoid

any form of

unnecessary

labor. But

the important

point

is

that

in this

perspective

we

can

view

both

kinds

of

bureaucrats

as agents

exercising

choice

in varying

degrees

of self-awareness and

for

a

wide

range

of

ends.

The

point

deserves

elaboration,

especially

as

it

has

so

often

been

misunderstood

(e.g.,

Beidelman

1995).

Bureau-

crats

use

the literalness and

simplification of

official direc-

tives

for instrumental

ends that

may

diverge

significantly

from

those envisaged

by

their

framers.

Some

do

so because

they

believe

that

the

system treats their

clients

unfairly;

others

simply

play

the

system for

their own

ends.

This has

nothing

to

do with

motivation

or moral

judgment

of

bu-

reaucrats

as a class,

except

insofar

as it enables

us to identify

the

specific

effects of specifrc actions.

Speaking contingently

of

our

own

era,

it

does

have a

great

deal to do

with

audit

cultures

(see

Strathern

2000;

cf. Scott

1998:100),

the rise

of

which

only

exacerbates

the

problem

by

providing

ever

more

comprehensive

means

of

disguising personal actions

behind

a

pose

of

accountability.

What

the framers of

high modernism

might

conceptu-

alize

as

corruption or venality

sometimes

also

works

to

help

clients

trapped

by the

unimaginative

and

socially

irrelevant

formulations

of the

high

modernists.

To accept that

corrup-

tion

in

this

sense can beneftt

individual

actors

may

also,

and

not

incidentally,

entrap

them in a

hegemonic

structure

of

the

type

that, for

example,

conservative

politicians

in

Greece

today

have

invested

a

great

deal of energy

in

preserv-

ing

even

as

they claim

to

dismantle it.

A perhaps

exrreme

(but

therefore

highly

revealing) example

is

the

repeated

as-

sault

in

the

Greek

parliament

on institutionalized

animal

Herzfeld

r

Political

Optics

373

theft and

way

in which

politicians

have baptized

the chil-

dren of the most

prominent

thieves

in

order to lock in

their

votes

and

those

of their often numerous

agnates. It is

pre-

cisely those

who

are

mostly

widely

suspected

of using

their

influence to

get

sheep

thieves

out of

iail,

however,

who de-

clare themselves opposed

to the

practice-a

circumstance

that

occasions

much

hilarity on

the part

of

the

thieves

themselves,

who

understand

fully

why

such

declarations

are

politically

necessary

and legally meaningless.

These

un-

ruly

citizens

enioy bonds of

real

sympathy

with

the

power

brokers, who,

they

understand

perfectly

well,

are

far from

saintly; they

probably

suspect, too, that this

arrangement

locks

them out of the modernist

project.

They

certainly

know that

the

politicians'willingness

to

engage

in a

mutu-

ally

profitable

arrangement

at

the

expense

of the

modernist

project

of the

state is

what

makes

an

otherwise marginal

social existence

relatively

bearable

within that state.

That,

in short,

is

the

deal

that they

largely

find

themselves

con-

strained

to

accept. Scott's

rather

abstract representation

of

the

state,

in

which the only

visible

actors are sometimes

either strong

leaders

such

as

V.

I.

Lenin

and

Julius

Nyerere

or

eccentric ideologues such

as the architect

Le

Corbusier,

leaves

out

the

common

cultural matrix

of such

forms of col-

lusion, which in

some

cases

may

stretch

to the

very

top of

the political pyramid

but

incorporates

many

intermediaries

as

well.

This

collusion is

also

the basis of my

point

about

the

persistence

of

proiects

that

do

not accord

with

the

logic

of

the high-modernist state.

In

Scott's account,

which in

this

respect may

be

liable to

some of

the criticisms

already

ad-

dressed to his

treatment of

resistance,

the heroic farmer or

artisan

continues to work

away at

a

multiple

set

of

crops

in

a

productively

messy

environment, ultimately

saving the

state

(or

at least the

worker's

own family) from

total

col-

lapse and

destitution.3

Doubtless there

is some

truth

to

this

portrait,

just

as

there is

surely

a

good

deal

of

truth

to the

ac-

cusation

that kulaks,

as the

Soviet

state peioratively

labeled

relatively prosperous

or

independent

peasants,

not

infre-

quently

used

their

entrepreneurial skills at the

expense

of

their

neighbors.

When

the

argument is

applied to

the

attempt to

pre-

serve

ethnic

identity

in the

face

of

government attempts

to impose homogeneous

nationality, one

version

of

the

legibility

demanded

by the

nation-state

in Scott's

read-

ing,

we

see

that the

pressure

to

conform

can produce

its

own co-optations

of

the

same essentialist

logic.

Thus, self-

constituted minorities

redefine

themselves in remarkably

statist terms;

this,

as

Jean

Jackson

(1995)

has

noted,

may

be their only recourse

against

state

violence.

They may

also

reproduce

similar

violence against

their

neighbors.

Some-

times

such

violence

is further

bolstered

by the

enthusiasm

of dominant powers

for

the

convenience

of

such

ethnic

re-

ductionism, as happened

in Bosnia

and Kosovo. But

rather

than

seeing these

developments

in

either heroic

or

(as

so

often

happens

in

the media)

demonic terms,

as

the

prod-

ucts

of either a latter-day rendition

of the

noble

savage

as

a freedom

fighter or

as

a

genetically

determined

atavism,



374 American

Anthropologist

o

Vol.

107, No.

3

o

September

2005

lve

n'ould

do far

better

to see the emergence

of

minority

identities--even

beleaguered

ones-as

a

product

of

that

cul-

tural commonality

that state actors

share with

their

client-

subjects. That

lve

often fail to

see that commonality

is a

mark

of the

state's

hegemonic

success in

promulgating

a

conceptual

separation

between

science

and

folk,

high

religion

and superstition

or

popular

religion

(Stewart

1989),

and

rationality

and

muddle. This

is

a struggle

over

the definition

of

order; and order

is, paradoxically

in

terms

of its

own rhetoric,

never

fixed

but

always

negotiated

by so-

cial

actors whose

own

identity

may

oscillate

between that

of

state functionaries

and

that of

ordinary

folks.

In

this context,

I am not

persuaded

that

the

poorly

deflned

notion

of

democracy

(Scott

1998:89)

adequately

protects

the high-modernist

proiect

from

its

worst

abuses.

Indeed,

some

commentators

(e.g.,

Connors

2003,

on

Thai-

land)

view

the

project

of

democracy itself

as

a tool

of

hege-

mony.

The

recent

invocations

of

democracy

and

liberty

in

the service

of

goals

that seem anything

but

democratic

produce reactions

that

perhaps

indicate

that the

strategy

is

rr-earing

rather

thin; it nevertheless

remains pervasive

at

manv

levels.

Finalll',

and

as

an

illustration

of the

degree

to

which

we

remain

enmeshed

in

precisely

the

messiness of

the

dynamic

Scott

has

done

so

much to expose,

his

own invocation

of

a

classical

Greek

pedigree-even

a

tricksterish one-for

unof-

ficial, practical,

embodied

knowledge

suggests

how deeply

an

already existing

hierarchy

of cultural value

overdeter-

mines

our

choices

of

argumentation

styles. Why

this re-

course to high antiquity?

Inasmuch

as Scott

is

assuredly

no

purveyor

of Eurocentric

dogma,

his reproduction

of it

here is

all the more

compelling a

piece

of

ethnographic

ev-

idence

for

its persistent

power.

Could

Scott

himself

here be

exemplifying the

effects

of hegemony?

It

certainly

seems

as

though,

like

so

many

others, he has

inadvertently

bought

into

the

West's

master

narrative

about

the

importance

of

ancient Greece, with

its

corollary

in

the

political

and

cul-

tural

irrelevance

of the modern land.

Even

quite

recently,

scholars

of modern Greek

culture

have sometimes

translit-

erated

the

modern

language

using the

conventions

derived

from

its

phonologically very

different

precursor.

The

occlusion of

the

modern

Greeks

is

particularly

sug-

gestive

here

because,

if there

is

one

feature

that

they claim

for

themselves

with

pride,

it

is

precisely the

ability

to mud-

dle

through,

and

to

slide

under

all

sorts

of

barriers

set

up

by

authority.

They

would

have

provided

far more

detailed

gdst

to Scott's mill than

what is left

in the

West's

account

of their

alleged

ancestors.

Whether

as sheep

thieves treat-

ing

visiting

policeman

to a

meal of

the

stolen meat

that

was

to

have constituted the evidence

against

these mis-

creants,

or

as Karagiozis shadow theater

puppets

using the

pretensions

of

the powerful

to

gain

short-term

advantages

(Danforth

1976), or

even

as

self-styled

traditionalists

pre-

senting

themselves

as

diamonds

in

the

rough

in

order

to

squeeze

some

money

out of smoothly

capitalistic

clients,

Greeks

often

portray

themselves as

doing

precisely

what

Scott

attributes

to

the ancient forebears

wished

on

them

by their Western

patrons. There

is a deep

historical irony

in

this move.

It is precisely

the

antiofficial modality known

as

poniria

( cunning )

that

condemns

the

bearers of

tra-

ditional

ways

of

being

to marginality within a

state

al-

ready

treated

as

marginal-because

it is

ancient -within

the larger

ambit of geopolitical

dynamics (Herzfeld

2OO4).

In

the

sense

of

social

cunning,

poniria

is

the modern

equivalent

of metis

(Scott

1998:177).

It

is

not opposed

in

the same

way

to tekhni,

the modern

variant of

the ancient

technE,

and

indeed

may

be

the

very

basis

on

which

tekhni

is

acquired. There

is a large

ethnographic

literature

about

it,

dating

back to

the

beginning

of serious

ethnographic

research

in post-World

War

II

Greece. Ironicatly,

however,

Scott has chosen,

guided

by

two

incontestably

wise

classi-

cists,

to

revert instead

to the

master

narrative of

Western

emergence,

a

narrative

that

is

also

invoked

as

the

lineage

of

that

same

scientistic

rationalism

against

which he

in-

veighs

with

such

well-documented precision.

Odysseus

was

a

trickster;

but

at least he

was a

classical

trickster,

whereas

his latter-day

equivalent,

the

shadow-theater antihero

Karagiozis,

is

virtually

a Turk

(and

indeed occidentalizing

Greeks

tried for long

to hellenize

him

through

a

literal trans-

lation

of his Turkish name

as

Mavromatis

fblack-eyed]

or

get

rid

of him

altogether).

Scott

is

no doubt

relying

on the fact

that

most

of his

readers

will have

heard

of

Odysseus,

few

of

Karagiozis.

But

this,

I suggest, is

an assumption

the

effects

of

which

should

be

the target

of

some

deliberate

academic

resistance. We

live

in

an age

when

most

Western

scholars

can no

longer

read

ancient

Greek in

the

original

(and

are

often

surprised

to flnd

that their immediate

predecessors

frequently

could).

The

loss

of

classical

knowledge,

however,

has

simply driven

the

underlying

assumptions

further

underground rather

than

uprooting

them

altogether.

Indeed,

by reducing

the

ancient

heritage

to

a

few

easily

regurgitated

pieties

that today have

virtually

no capacity

to

evoke

specific

ancient texts or

ar-

tifacts,

the

reduced-resolution

image

of the

classical

past

arguably

sustains

attitudes

of

Western

cultural

hegemony

all the

more

effectively. In

the

absence

of

specific knowl-

edge of

the long

tussle

between

Christianity and its

Hellenic

(pagan)

precursors,

for

example, it

all

too easily

harmo-

nizes

with

the

anti-Islamic,

crusading rhetoric of Western

high modernism. In the

United

States

it feeds

neoconserva-

tive

performances

of

deep

religiosity;

in

Europe

it

sustains

certain highly

placed

officials' overtly

Christian-inspired

reluctance

to

countenance

reiection

by

supposedly

secu-

lar

nation-states-notably

France's

rejection

of attempts

by

Turkey

and Bosnia,

both

largely

Islamic

countries

albeit

with

secular

constitutions,

to

enter

the European

Union.

If

readers feel

that they have

no

idea who

Karagiozis

is,

that

response

is

at

least

more

honest

than,

in most cases,

think-

ing

that

they do

know

something

about

Odysseus.

And

if

Westerners

indeed

do

not know about

Karagiozis,

what

does

this

say

about their

continuing

refusal

to countenance

the

presence

of

an

Islamic

Turkish presence

in

Europe ?

The



t

present

age

demonstrates

all

too well

how

effectively

the

systematic

recycling

of ignorance

secures

acquiescence

in

a

particular

cultural

hegemony

worldwide.

When

Western-

ers

still

read

the

classical

authors,

they

were

at

least

also

schooled

in an idiom

of

criticism-a

word

that

seems

to

have

acquired

pejorative

overtones

even

in

significant

seg-

ments

of

the

academic

world.

It

n-ould be

easy

to

belabor

the

point

and thus

to fall

into

the

hegemonic

trap

that

it represents:

defensiveness

as

a

mark

of cultural

defeat

always-already

achieved.

I have

no

desire

to

do

that, and

in

any

case

Scott

deserves

an

argument

that

focuses

more

explicitly

on what

he

has

to

say

about

the state.

But

it

is

important

to

show

that

mod-

ernist

rationalism

rests

on

assumptions

no

less

symbolic

or

cosmological,

and no less

embedded

in

ideologically

moti-

vated

stories

of cultural

origins,

than what

it

opposes.

This

issue

is

necessarily

epistemological

as much

as.it

is

political.

Thus,

the

kind

of

knowledge

that

Scott

designates

as typi-

cal

of

m€tis is not

only found

throughout

the

world,

but

is

also,

as

Akhil

Gupta

(1998)

has

so

cogently

argued,

com-

patible

n.ith

rvhat

we

usually

regard

as

scientific

knowledge,

itself

easill' categorlzed (if

lve

are

to

maintain

the

classiciz-

ing

idiom) as

techne.

To

oppose

metis

to

rational

planning

is

to

subscribe to

the

radical

binarism

of

folk

and

scientiflc

knowledge

(Gupta

1998),

or folk

and

ecclesiastical

religion

(Stewart

1989)-to

make

the

point

all the

more

forcefully

through

an

ironic

juxtaposition.

Such

binarisms

themselves

arise from

hegemonic

assumptions

of a

now-global

order.

We

should instead,

I

suggest,

treat

the processes

of

episte-

mological

simplification

that

Scott

describes

so

accurately

(and

with

a wonderful

reflection

of

Geertzian

rhetoric)

as

thin

(Scott 1998:256-257,

3O9

ff.),

in

terms

thar

tren-

chantly

dissolve

the binary

opposition

between

,,expert,'

and indigene,

reference and

,'use,,,

or

indeed

,,literal-

ity

and

metaphor.

(As

Gupta shows,

even

to

speak

of

hybrid

or

mixed

systems

is implicitly

to

accept

the

underly-

ing

mutual

exclusivity

of the

binary

rhetoric.)

In

this

sense,

we

can

indeed

accept

the

fusion

of Odysseus

and

Karagiozis

in

a

single

image-not

as a

legitimating

genealogy

rooted

in

an

officially

respectable

past,

but

as

a

reminder,

doubt-

less

infuriating

to the

high modernists,

of

the persistence

of

subversive

disorder

in

human

life.

For

all their

protestations

to the

contrary,

bureaucrats

are

themselves

usually implicated

in

that

disorder.

Citi-

zens,

including

bureaucrats,

are

part

of the

state;

inasmuch

as

it

is

a historical

product,

the

state

is, as

Scott

is

the

first

to

recognize,

incurably

messy.

It is

only

a

hegemonic

discourse

that

isolates

a

picturesquely

disordered

tradition

within

some

implausibly

tidy

modernity

and

then

exiles

it

to

the

margins. To

overcome

the

nostalgic

overtones

in

Scott's

tendency

to

reify

traditional,'

forms of

knowledge,

we

must

thus

also

insist

on

keeping

the

other

part

of his

ar_

Sument

firmly

in

sight:

his

refusal

of

modernity,s

claims

to

some

kind

of

extracultural

status,

which

has its

own

contingent,

cultural

underpinnings

in

a

long-hegemonic,

Western-derived

way

of

thinking.

The

exponents

of

Herzfeld r

Political

Optics

375

globalization

hide

the

contingency

of

its hierarchical

ar-

rangements

of

value,

but

these are

easily

spotted

through

attention

to their specific,

local

histories.

Tanzanian

,,villa-

gization,

for example,

was

promoted

by

leaders

who

,,were

more

consumers

of

a

high-modernist

faith

that

had

orig-

inated elsewhere

much

earlier

than

they were

Droducers,,

(scott

1998:247).

Scott

has

certainly

recognized-although

perhaps

too

schematically,

even given

his

frank

acknowledgment

of the

book's already

considerable

size-the

cultural

values

of

ac-

tors

exercising

local

knowledge,

and the

importance

of see-

ing

science

and

scientiflc

planning

as

themselves

socially

embedded

practices

(1998:32O,

327). But

he

has

not

paid

enough

attention,

I suggest

(oddly

for the

coiner of

hidden

transcripts

[Scott

1990]),

to

the specific

cultural and

social

circumstances

of the

bureaucratic

brokers who,

whether

for

reasons

of

self-interest

or

empathy with

both sides,

protect

the

institutions

of

the

high-modern

state

and

the sensibili-

ties

of

its

most

r,.ulnerable

citizens

from

the

consequences

of

an

outright

clash. These

brokers do

not

always

perform

such

a

benign role;

sometimes

they

even

foment

confrontation.

In

either case

their

presence,

their

own

poniria-their

own

metis

in

Scott's

chosen

terms-deserves

careful

analysis

in

its

own right.

The

reason

for

this

should

be clear.

Brokers

are

engaged

in an

active process

of negotiation.

If anyone

knows

how

to

work

to rule

(to

take

Scott's

[1998:256,310-311]

sug-

gestive

demonstration

of workers'

Karagiozis-like

ability

to

understand

and

manipulate

their circumstances

to

creative

ends),

it

is

surely those

busy

bureaucrats

whose professional

life seems

to

be all

about

rules.

They can

bring

everything

to

a

standstill, and

their

insistence

that

they

are

following

rules

reproduces,

mocks,

and

simultaneously

frustrates

their

masters'

desires,

which

are thereby

revealed

as

perhaps

also

not

entirely

as

consistent

with

the rule

of law

(or

the

laws

of

rule)

as

the

rhetoric

would

seem

to imply.

Disclaimers

to

the

contrary,

these

modernist

managers

of

tradition

have

their

own forms

of social

competence

for

muddling

through and

adapting

to

circumstance.

In many

societies,

there is

a close

cultural correspondence

between

that

kind

of

knowledge

and

the

local

knowledge,,

of

the

most

dispossessed

segments

of the

population.

While

Scott

is,

in fact,

careful to

pay

his

respects

to certain

kinds

of

for-

mal,

experimental,

and

scientific

knowledge,

one key value

of

his

insight

lies

especially

in

his

recognition that

the lab-

oratory

and

the

planning

office are also

social

contexts.

But

I would urge

that

we

now

pursue

still

further

the

path

that

Scott has

laid out for

us. This

means

doing two things.

It means

inserting

a

critical

ethnographic

eye in

more

in-

teractions

between

bureaucrats

and

both their clients

and

their

legislative

masters.

And

it

means

talking

about

the

local knowledge -the

intellectual traditions and

the

poniria-of

those

cunning

planners

and

scientists

who have

managed

to

persuade

so

many

citizens

of

so

many

coun-

tries to

honor

them for

their

vision -a suggestively

op-

tical

form

of

praise

that reinstates

the

fallacy of

misplaced



376 American

Anthropologist

o

Vol.

107, No.

3

r

September

2005

concreteness

at the very

heart of

a falselv construed

dream

of pure

abstraction.

MrcHrel

Henzrsto

Department

of Anthropology,

Harvard

University,

Cambridge,

MA

02138

NOTES

1. This is an

instance

of

iconicity in its technical sense

(see

Herzfeld

1997:56-58).

As I have

argued elsewhere

(Herzfeld

1992b),

anthro-

pological

texts

often

reproduce,

in

whatJakobson would

have

rec-

ognized

as diagrammatic

form

(see

Waugh

1980), the

organiza-

tional

characteristics of

their central themes.

2.

Here,

I

would

emphasize

the

patrilineal

bias more

fully

than

he

does

(but

cf. Scott

1998:114).

3.

This

heroic traditionalist is

Lila

Abu-Lughod's

(1990)

romantic

figure;

but, on this,

compare

to

Scott

7998:7.

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