I can gesture in the direction of some points that make it appeal to me:
I like the concept of legibility. It’s a new one for me and I find it useful
I like the lack of clear-cut heroes and villains—it is complicated
I like the attention paid to what can be expressed in what language and the observation that there are real concerns which cannot be readily expressed in the language of rationality
I like the recognition of the role that power plays in social arrangements, regardless of what’s “rational” or not
I like the pushback against the idea—very popular among rationalists, mind you—that we have a new shiny tool called math and logic which will solve everything so we can ignore the accumulated local knowledge deadwood
All in all it’s smart book written by someone on the other side of the ideological fence (AFAIK James Scott is a Marxist, though not entirely an orthodox one) which makes it very interesting.
I can gesture in the direction of some points that make it appeal to me:
I like the concept of legibility. It’s a new one for me and I find it useful
I like the lack of clear-cut heroes and villains—it is complicated
I like the attention paid to what can be expressed in what language and the observation that there are real concerns which cannot be readily expressed in the language of rationality
I like the recognition of the role that power plays in social arrangements, regardless of what’s “rational” or not
I like the pushback against the idea—very popular among rationalists, mind you—that we have a new shiny tool called math and logic which will solve everything so we can ignore the accumulated local knowledge deadwood
All in all it’s smart book written by someone on the other side of the ideological fence (AFAIK James Scott is a Marxist, though not entirely an orthodox one) which makes it very interesting.
Goodness, you said something definite! :)
Ooops, sorry ma’am, won’t happen again :-P