Power in the digital age uses evaluation as its core technology of governance
From sleep scores to credit verdicts, our day begins and ends inside an invisible network of evaluation. Foucault revealed disciplinary power, but today''s power no longer relies on walls and drills — cloaked in objective, neutral data, it lets us fasten upon ourselves an exquisite fetter named "evaluation." How does this power operate? And can we take back the right to evaluate?
The Converging Funnel of Evaluation
Key Concepts
Evaluation Power
The capacity to define and enforce standards of evaluation — power''s most central contemporary form.
It reveals that power no longer commands directly but sets a coordinate system people follow spontaneously.
Power Differential
The asymmetrical distribution of the right to evaluate — some set standards, most are evaluated.
It compels the question: who writes the rules, who profits, and who is marginalized?
Evaluation Alienation
Evaluation twists from mutual recognition into one-way certification — subjects dissolved, cognition monopolized, values distorted.
It explains why tools hijack goals: gaming the metric replaces pursuing the value itself.
Self-Fulfilling Loop
A high-risk label draws more policing; the resulting arrests then confirm the label.
Evaluation does not merely describe the world — it creates the world in its own image.
Reclaiming the Right to Evaluate
From data guerrilla tactics to a right to participate in evaluation — micro-resistance and institutional redesign together.
It is the book's way out: only by knowing the fetter's construction can we shed or reforge it.
Map of the Book
Part One: Theoretical Foundation — The Genealogy of the Power of Assessment
Part Two: Field of Experience — The Alienation of Assessment Under Digital Technology
Part Three: Resistance and the Future — The Possibility of Reclaiming the Right of Assessment
After reading, you will understand
- What gets measured gets done; what gets ranked gets disciplined
- Black-box evaluation strips away the right to appeal
- We become our own overseers and performance managers
- map[Ask of any system:who sets the standard, who profits]
- Within the fetters, dance a dance of dignity