I live in the Global South and our version here of the DMV is a den of blatant corruption and inefficiency. When I lived in the US, the DMV felt like a haven compared to what it’s like in my home country. I agree with what you say about how bureaucracy’s ethos runs against more than honors the person, but my contrasting experience makes me wonder if perhaps bureaucracy can be redeemed without having to get rid of it completely?
Yeah, it’s not clear to me that organizational structures could be done away with, nor do I think that it would be desirable entirely to do that. I just want us to be able to see what this particular form of organizational structure, namely, a bureaucracy, is doing.
Are you saying that bureaucracy could opt for a beautiful version of itself? Or rather that beauty and bureaucracy are incompatible?
I apporach the question as a Christian who sees the state as monopolization of violence, force and coersion = anti-Kingdom of God = under demonic control.
Any attempt at making bureaucracy beautiful is putting lipstick on a parasite.
It is just an arm of the state.
I would say that Abraham Kuyper's neo-Calvinism of the sphere's of sovereignty is wrong when it comes to the state. It's origin story is birthed in post-Fall tyranny, not in the Garden. Kuyper's own country prospered on the back of slaves.
"Bureaucratic beauty" is an oxymoron.
The only way to make it beautiful is to make it optional.
Turn it into a service that you access only by consent.
I live in the Global South and our version here of the DMV is a den of blatant corruption and inefficiency. When I lived in the US, the DMV felt like a haven compared to what it’s like in my home country. I agree with what you say about how bureaucracy’s ethos runs against more than honors the person, but my contrasting experience makes me wonder if perhaps bureaucracy can be redeemed without having to get rid of it completely?
Yeah, it’s not clear to me that organizational structures could be done away with, nor do I think that it would be desirable entirely to do that. I just want us to be able to see what this particular form of organizational structure, namely, a bureaucracy, is doing.
Are you saying that bureaucracy could opt for a beautiful version of itself? Or rather that beauty and bureaucracy are incompatible?
I apporach the question as a Christian who sees the state as monopolization of violence, force and coersion = anti-Kingdom of God = under demonic control.
Any attempt at making bureaucracy beautiful is putting lipstick on a parasite.
It is just an arm of the state.
I would say that Abraham Kuyper's neo-Calvinism of the sphere's of sovereignty is wrong when it comes to the state. It's origin story is birthed in post-Fall tyranny, not in the Garden. Kuyper's own country prospered on the back of slaves.
"Bureaucratic beauty" is an oxymoron.
The only way to make it beautiful is to make it optional.
Turn it into a service that you access only by consent.
Thanks for the read Myles!