"The great high-modernist episodes that we have examined qualify as tragedies in at least two respects. First, the visionary intellectuals and planners behind them were guilty of hubris, of forgetting that they were mortals and acting as if they were gods. Second, their actions, far from being cynical grabs for power and wealth, were animated by a genuine desire to improve the human condition-a desire with a fatal flaw. That these tragedies could be so intimately associated with optimistic views of progress and rational order is in itself a reason for a searching diagnosis. Another reason lies in the completely ecumenical character of the high-modernist faith. We encounter it in various guises in colonial development schemes, planned urban centers in both the East and the West, collectivized farms, the large development plans of the World Bank, the resettlement of nomadic populations, and the management of workers on factory floors."
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People from New JerseyPolitical scientists from the United StatesAnthropologists from the United StatesYale University alumniYale University faculty
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Chap. 10. Conclusion
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_C._Scott
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James C. Scott
James C. Scott (December 2, 1936 – July 19, 2024) was an American political scientist and anthropologist specializing in comparative politics. He was a comparative scholar of agrarian and non-state societies, subaltern politics, and anarchism. His primary research centered on peasants of Southeast Asia and their strategies of resistance to various forms of domination.
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