De-numerating The State:

Poetics Expropriating formulaic Composition Problem

Positivism remains a deeply ideological rationale for present day inequalities. According to its founder, Auguste Compte, Positivisms precept basically asserts that science should be the guiding discourse for managing society. Those who are most versed with the rational management of society and its resources are the industrialists who should be guided by the social scientists in terms of the decisions that the industrialists will make about how society should be structured. As for the workers, should there be a problem, it is up to the workers to inform the social scientists who in turn help the industrialists to address the problem. This hierarchical view creates a meritocracy wherein those who labor basically have the least say in terms of how their work and the society in which they live should be organized. One aspect of this ideology is present day societys reliance upon statistics. The belief that the actions of persons can be measured and categorized into collective opinions, trends, and beliefs, guides much of the policy of both state and capital, Government and Corporation. In statistics, the actions of persons are clustered into categories and given numerical weight or quantity. Often the numbers are mistake for truth, delineating not just opinions, data on crime, distribution of economic resources, and economic trends of the market. The underlying method views persons as conformist if not determined without agency to creatively change their situation. In the process, the numbers are made to express a measure of these collectivities, while projecting, with measured accuracy, how long these collectivities and their practices will persist. If ones actions do not fall into these collectivities then , ones actions are dismissed as not being representative of the train. Such moments are rare since the categories are so broad as to fit almost every human being.

Hypothesis
What if numbers were used as another language, as statisticians have pointed out? What is numbers were used not as a measure, the means of which is not evident in the formulaic representation, while the result is given all priority? What if the formulas generating the numbers were used to express a discursive relation? What if the formula were used not to generate a result or even quantify an a proposed relation but rather to speculate or even propose a relation for debate? What if the numerical result meant nothing, while the relation expressed by the formula represented the whole function of the formula? What if there were formulas for which it was impossible to assign actual quantities to its integers but from which a relation was explicated and explored? What if the formula represented variables which were impossible to quantify ( such as fear or thinking) but which were presented to understand the

relation between variables (such as fear/thinking means that the greater the fear the more thinking is overwhelmed, while the greater the thinking, the more the fear is reduced in intensity? In the case of the formulaic, discourses of power often focus on explicating the results to prove the legitimacy of such power without explicating the means as to how such results were obtained. In the case of statistics, discourses of power explicate on the percentages obtained from the mathematical calculations with only reference to the range of results that differ from the average. These differences are considered deviations whereas the average is considered the measure of what should be standard. If there is a small deviation then the result is accurate; if there is a large deviation then the result is considered inaccurate and new factors are measured for greater accuracy. What is not questioned is the language of such analysis that divides reality into data and measures of accuracy and inaccuracy. What if the deviation was the desirable result? What if a wide spread of results was considered rich in possibilities for further questioning, precisely because no standard result could be obtained? Reading results for their differentiation and variation, and creating formulas to generate differentiation and variation brings out the speculative possibility rather than the normative and standardized measures in mathematical formulation. Using formulas to explain social relations via their operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, brings out the linguistic aspect of mathematical formulation as a discourse describing and theorizing about the means of constructing social discourses and relations. Mathematical formulation becomes a language open to query, critique, debate, and problematizing, rather than a measure whose means are assumed to be a precise means of measure. What is undertaken is a reading of the negated in the formulaic, which is the speculative, against the means of negation which is the articulation and explication of the result. In the case of the latter, the means by which the result is obtained may be shown but never speaks for itself about what it is describing in the thing being measured. When we say 1 + 1 = 2, we assume it means increment, but in terms of how that increment occurs the process is never allowed to speak. Is the increment obtained by joining two objects together or separating one object into two different objects? While Wittgenstein would analyze the practice of adding two things or separating one thing into two, the question is what is the plus sign saying about the relation between two things? In the case of 2x3, for example, what is the times sign saying about how the actual divisions are made? How is the multiplication different from the division, not just in action but in the description of the actions? How is the increment of multiplication different from addition? How is the decrease in division different from subtraction? The question then becomes not merely the action taken, but the relation between the operations and their differences in what these operations are saying or meaning. The experiment becomes how does one translate the equations into a

description of an action and a relation? How does one then use the equations, not to quantify a particular result, but rather to express by its own processes the activity generating the relation between two objects, agencies, or phenomena. The experiment becomes then how to use the formulaic as a language that is capable of being explicated by other discourses, but also of articulating according to its own grammar a semantic construction or description of phenomena, agencies, or objects outside of itself.

Explication
1) If multiplication expresses and performs tautology where 1 x 1 = 1, 0 x anything=0, and 2 x anything can be divided by two, three x anything can be divided by three, and so on 2) and Addition expresses and performs proliferation where 0+ anything = itself, 1 + 1= 2, and any quantity plus a quantity represents an increase 3) and Subtraction expresses and performs negation where anything - zero = itself. a quantity minus itself = zero or self negation, and any quantity minus another quantity is the negation of the former by the quantity of the later and Division expresses and performs a dialectical tension or hegemony where a parity is 1/1=1 but 1/0 = no relation and therefore is impossible (?), 0/1 = 0 or a null relation, and a quantity divided by another quantity is a proportion or a relation of opposing values, such that an increase in the numerator increases is done to the reduction of the denominator and vice versa hence 4/2 = 2 and 2/4 = .5 5) then 6) Ideology = multiplication = Tautology ReProduction = Addition = Proliferation Domination = subtraction = (self) negation Power = Division = hegemony

All four operations compose the operand or social institution. What the social roles are and according to what operation these roles will relate will determine which social institution will be composed. A social institution is merely an organization of persons operated upon by the four operations of multiplication, Addition, subtraction, and Division, or ideology, reproduction, domination, and power.

7) The basic formula for a social institution would be: Ideology (XxY) ___________________ + Reproduction = Social Institution Domination (A - B) In the formula, division occurs as a relation between domination and Ideology. In other words, as the domination increases, the ideology becomes smaller in proportion if it remains the same. In this way, the social institution itself decreases in value or strength as the as the need for direct social control or domination increases. If the ideology increases, however, the social institutions value or strength increases as the need for social control is less given the increase of credibility or faith in an ideology. If reproduction increases, the relation itself increases, which can strengthen the composition of a social institution. In other words, even if the domination is much stronger than the ideology, thus making for a weak value, nonetheless, the fact that its reproduction value is high, meaning that the relation between ideology and domination is proliferated throughout society, makes it much more difficult for the social institution to collapse. This proliferation would explain the persistence of many oppressive ideologies in history. Yet, here is the problem, for such reproduction is costly, both in terms of training managers and labor, and in supplying the resources to sustain such reproduction. Hence, the inherent negation 2A-A in reproduction which adds itself onto the relation between ideology over domination. Hence, in education, the operation is the Reproduction of ideology, or teaching x regurgitation over the control via grades and tenure minus the amount of layoffs done to keep labor obedient to administration and to cut costs of the whole structure. Certification reproduces the institution both reenforcing the belief that education prepares students while acting as a reward from ones obedience and willingness to be socialized. 10) The formula for Education or the reproduction of knowledge would be:

Teaching x regurgition (X x Y) ________________________________+ Certification control - Layoffs