3081 words, 10 posts
What compels humans to quantify everything?
Everywhere I look, especially on magazines, I see numbers splashed upon pages, as if they further increased the validity of the magazine. Look at us, they say, our magazines use numbers and therefore we are more credible. Upon opening them up, one is witness to '101 Ways to Contort Your Body' or '39 Foods That Will Make You Slim- Instantly!' or even '10 Tips for Dating in the Animal Kingdom'. As useful and relevant as these all are,I sometimes have difficulty with societies innate desire to put a number to everything.
I'm not getting all 'Petit Prince' (a book that is particularly vociferous on the subject of numbers and how they are generally corrupting society) here, but certainly there has to be a limit? Why can't we just live with the abstract and the undefined? Why does the blurry have to be brought into sharp focus, so that every aspect and focus of everything is clearly and minutely detailed and outlined?
Everywhere I look, especially on magazines, I see numbers splashed upon pages, as if they further increased the validity of the magazine. Look at us, they say, our magazines use numbers and therefore we are more credible. Upon opening them up, one is witness to '101 Ways to Contort Your Body' or '39 Foods That Will Make You Slim- Instantly!' or even '10 Tips for Dating in the Animal Kingdom'. As useful and relevant as these all are,I sometimes have difficulty with societies innate desire to put a number to everything.
I'm not getting all 'Petit Prince' (a book that is particularly vociferous on the subject of numbers and how they are generally corrupting society) here, but certainly there has to be a limit? Why can't we just live with the abstract and the undefined? Why does the blurry have to be brought into sharp focus, so that every aspect and focus of everything is clearly and minutely detailed and outlined?
posted by gah at 8:12 PM
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