Verbatim quote · from the corpus

“Technocracy has not only not replaced finance but has been even further subordinated to it. This means that distribution from the center, what I have called “centered ordinality,” cannot be technologized away. Whoever initiates or is charged with an operation assigns and allots, and in doing so continually acquires knowledge of what must be allotted per assignment and what counts as accomplishment. On ever larger scales this involves data, not simply or even primarily quantitative, but qualitative data. What kind of data? One could say the data obtained to constant observation of individuals in conditions of stress and text, but so far this doesn’t involve a scaling up. The scaling up comes with the study of idioms, beginning with the awareness that there is nothing but idioms all the way up and all the way down. Idioms are themselves virtual scenes, or scenic generators, with their own assignments and allotments, and they are always revisions of other idioms. An actor can be uttered by an idiom as well as setting forth an utterance from it and telling which is which is a more challenging matter than determining the competence of an individual under conditions of direct observation and tried and tested modes of assessment. This is data that has to be called literary or “inscriptural.””

— Adam Katz, Programming the Same · Nov 29, 2022 · Bouvard Substack