VV(11): Any Sovereign or Broken Yo-Yo further cont'd ...

[Dave Monroe]

"Any sovereign or broken yo-yo" (V., Ch. 8, Sec. i, p. 217)

Continuing further in Otto Mayr, Authority, Liberty and Automatic
Machinery in Early Modern Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1986),
Chapter 5, "The Authoritarian Conception of Order," pp. 115-121 ...

And what, finally, does the mechanical clock have to do with the
original problem, the disregard for feedback mechanisms in Europe before
1700?  (115)

Common characteristics do indeed emerge.... From the beginning, the
image of the clock was linked with concepts that people held in high
regard ... (115)

... the regularity of its running ... (115)

... connection between the clock and the Divine ... (116)

>From the conviction that the world had the character of clockwork
followed the belief that nature obeyed the laws of mechanics. (116)

The clock image called forth a number of related meanings. (116)

... regularity, order, and harmony ... (116)

... one of the first concrete illustrations of a new abstraction that
was in the process of formulation, namely, the concept system. (117)

The actions of the various parts of a system always originated in the
same way: they were initiated by a single central cause. (117)

... hierarchical ... (117)

The specialties of the central authority were information, memory,
judgment, and decision. (118)

The similarity between the structure underlying this centralist and
authoritarian conception of system and the structure of clocks ... (118)

... closely related to a deep-seated and widely shared belief in
determinism. (118)

... idealized the qualities of regularity, order and harmony. (119)

... insisted on the clock as the prototype for the world ... (119)

... sought to discredit magic ... (119)

... advertised the advantages of authoritarian, centralist command
structures, be they in the body, in society, or in the universe. (119)

... illustrated and thus reinforced the general world view of
determinism. (119)

Together they outline a specific approach to the problems of
establishing order among a mass of related, interacting parts and of
organizing, maintaining, and controlling complex dynamic systems.  The
clock mechanism thus becomes an illustration of a general conception of
order ... (119)

The central authority communicates with the subordinate members of the
system through rigid cause and effect relationships that are
unidirectional and do not provide for or appreciate return signals ...
(120)

For several centuries, the clock's most important function was perhaps
to serve as an instrument of popular education and, indeed,
indoctrination. (120)

In both its roles, as a timekeeper and as a demonstration model of a
rational, purposeful action, the clock served as an important and
purposely used instrument in preparing the masses for the ways of
industrial society. (121)

Why the disregard for feedback before 1700? (121)

Hm ...