Science,
Culture, and Modern State Formation
by Patrick Carroll
University of California Press, Berkeley
and Los Angeles, 2006
290 pp, illus. 12 b/w. Trade, $ US 45.00
ISBN-13: 978-0-520-24753-6.
Reviewed by Enzo Ferrara
INRIM, Materials Department
Torino, Italy
ferrara@inrim.it
Contemporary civilization incorporates
endless amounts of scientific knowledge
whose power dominates over our existence
and the natural system yet sustains it.
The history of modern states in the Western
world demonstrates how the quality of
human existence can benefit of knowledge,
if it is available in full supply. But,
the powerful merging of culture, science,
and political action can maintain the
wealth of nations, as it is prone to endanger
them. The present-day cult of utilitarianism
and technology is as deleterious for poor
societies lacking scientific knowledge
as it is a menace for our descendants,
until it runs out of control the exploitation
of natural resources.
To preserve the benefits that technology
and culture can still provide to local
and global communities, it is useful to
scrutinize the way they affected the formation
of modern states and the imaginary between
the XVII and XX centuries, as proposed
by Patrick Carroll, Associate Professor
of Historical and Cultural sociology at
the University of California San Diego.
Carroll conceives the relationships between
science, state, and society through the
idea of a "science-state plexus",
i.e. the ontologically dense and intercommunicating
nature of science and government (Ch.
I, "Science, Culture, and State Formation").
According to the author, the modern state
was conceptually elaborated and materially
engineered through the transformation
of scientific thought in "experimental
politics" aimed at managing the land and
the people.
Tracing the introduction of engine science
into colonial Ireland, and showing how
that country became a laboratory for statecraft,
Carroll captures the centrality of engineering
practices in the emerging mechanical philosophy
(Ch. II, "Understanding Engine Science").
"Scopes augment human senses - he
argues [and] meters render objects
in numbers so they can be manipulated"
(p. 7). Engineers moved across Ireland
methodically, valuing the land as a commodity
and establishing its potential for economics.
As a long-term result, the relationship
between science and government emerged.
Information-gathering states integrated
social, economic, and natural, seeking
through public enterprises and education
to improve human society and its environment
and police natural and political bodies
(Ch. III, "Engineering and the Civilizing
Mission;" Ch. IV, "Engineering
the Data State").
A major suggestion of the book is to appreciate
the character of the modern state, paying
attention to its material culture. Chapter
V ("Bio-Population") focuses
on the implementation of medical institutions
and public health into the rule of natural
and political bodies. Showing how medical
police became a powerful engine of government
and integration, Carroll addresses the
further development of state as an "administration
of life [
] constantly seeking to
arrest disease and extend longevity [
],
health, safety, and population security"
(p. 9). Chapter VI ("Engineering
Ireland"), which covers agricultural
and land management, public buildings,
roads, and sanitary engineering, discusses
how "natural bodies" became
"political issues" through the
culture of engine science in a discourse
able to develop - at least theoretically
- a link between moral improvement and
material engineering.
In the "Conclusion", Carroll
returns on the subject of modern science
as a philosophy of nature and statecraft,
moving the discussion on the contemporary
techno-scientific state, which is a mutant
of its ancestor. The problem is that the
Enlightenment idea of liberating humanity
from the dictates of nature and instincts
was not later corrupted in the instrumental
sense: political domination and economic
efficiency. The differentiation between
interest and understanding - the author
warns - is problematic, but this is inherent
in human endeavors relating with science
and society. "The will to knowledge
and will to power are inseparable in the
modern period. Each directly implies and
genuinely co-constructs the other"
(p. 174).
Carrolls study has implications
for investigating, in particular, postcolonial
occupations and today occurring nation-building
ventures. But, it is helpful also to challenge
contemporary dilemmas, such as the role
of science and government in mitigating
conflicts and supporting environmental
sustainability. Additionally, addressing
towards the role played by the architects
of state and nations, it can be exploited
to reveal the command and processes (capitalism,
globalization, monopolized power, social
control state agencies) responsible for
imposing the cultural determinism of the
XXI century: the replica of a unique model
of state government, embedded within an
uncreative and frustrated approach to
scientific imaginary and social progress.