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Response and Reflection
Mukerji, C. (2003).
Intelligent Uses of Engineering and the Legitimacy of State Power,
Technology and Culture, 44, pp. 655-76.
The prose "Intelligent Uses of Engineering and the Legitimacy of State
Power" provides an extremely interesting perspective in the evolution
legitimate and illegitimate power. Mukerji first discusses the
facets of power in relation to a state. He uses Weber's
definition of power, the exercise of legitimate violence, as a
basis to explain these facets. He makes a powerful point that
power cannot be examined in terms of "not simply from the fit of
rulers, people, and territory", but rather from strategic uses of
material advantages—engineering for power. He uses the
example of the horrible 9/11 events as a basis to demonstrate
illegitimate power.
Mukerji then discusses "although military engineering might seem to lie
entirely on the pragmatic side of state building, in early modern
Europe army engineers in fact designed their fortresses to be utopian
social environments as well as defensive structures." He
describes how these structures not only serve as a basis for defense,
but to demonstrate the legitimacy of the rulers. In such case,
the World Trade Centers served as symbols of the United States efficacy
and power. These devices of power were undermined with
illegitimate power posed by terrorists.
Mukerji also brings to light the technology and power that legitimized
the Roman empire by discussing the connection to France post collapse
of the Roman empire. He suggests that the archiecture throughout
the regions were passed down through generations of Roman influence,
and the "redesigned towns were converted into intelligent expressions
of political will—grounded in the landscape to define it as a
place of power and giving it an orderliness that was meant to be
socially invigorating as well as aesthetically appealing." He
describes that as morally infused engineering. I have to admit that I
found it annoying that the images used to illustrate his ideas were
entirelly pixilated. I am not sure if it published this way in
print version, but two different copies of the electronic version in
PDF were this way.
This leads to a lengthy discussion on mesnagement, a term that was not
clearly defined in the prose, but I came to understand as a political,
social, and cultural focus on the use of the government to improve the
way of life of the populous by developing aesthetically pleasing
regions throughout the state... a sort of moral engineering that
provided rulers legitimate power. The term was coined by
Serres. Mukerji provides an example of a how a region in Southern
France legitimized itself through the development of an elaborate canal
system. The people of this region were resistance to pay taxes
and new laws. Yet, the capacity to develop the canal system with
minimal support, provided them a basis of illegitimate power.
After spending a lengthy time discussing France, Mukerji moves back to
a discussion on the United States and discusses how the American
government has exercised some of these ideas with the establishment of
the Geological Survey, Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Engery,
and many ofther federal level organizations. He suggests we have lost
touch of the importance of mesnagement in the legitimacy of our
power. He says that engineering "has always been realized in part
by ordinary people using common skills for passionate purposes", but
the event of 9/11 has such "reappropriations of our infrastructure are
both low tech and high strategy, displaying an intelligence threatening
to our way of life."
I think Mukerji makes a powerful point. Our engineering has
always provided the United States a legitimacy of power recognized
throughout the world. The same source of our power was used
against us. |