숫자로 통치한다 = Governing by Numbers

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In modern age, quantification has become a powerful way to access and understand the world. The state has played the most powerful and central role in production and use of numbers, and has increasingly relied on quantification and numbers in its governing. As revealed from the fact that the word ‘statistics’ refers to the ‘science of the state’, The modern nation-states are able to govern the population by the production and manipulation of large numerical data which reduced it’s complexity and liquidity to manageable and understandable facts and figures in a standardized way. The statistics fixed the ‘imaginary community nation’ as tangible in numbers. Numbers are regarded as having ‘mechanical objectivity’ in that their production and use should be followed certain rules, so they serve as an important standard in decision making. The use of numbers in governance has also been expanded by the need to acquire a wide range of information by number as a technology of distance, as well as the need to secure justification by mechanical objectivity. However, numbers that eliminate all the qualitative differences of objects through abstraction and simplify them to the difference of magnitude and size are accompanied by ‘ordering effects’ by it. Naturally, governing seeks directly aiming at this effects of quantification, such as ranking and performance measurement. Governing also have the effect of depoliticizing the political issues by letting ‘numbers talk’ about them. In governing of numbers, people not only become the objects of quantification but the subjects of quantification by subjectifying themselves as the ‘calculating selves’ measuring, counting and calculating themselves and others. These are be accompanied by disciplining themselves as the ‘quantified selves’ and the ‘managed selves.’ This is a more fundamental way of serving of numbers and quantifying to the governing.

국문 초록 (Abstract)

근대에 수량화는 세계에 접근하고 이해하는 유력한 방식으로 자리잡았다. 국가는 숫자 생산과 사용에서 가장 강력하고 중심적인 역할을 맡아 왔으며, 통치에서 수량화와 숫자에 점점 더 의존해왔다. ‘통계 (statistics; Statistik)’라는 단어가 어원학적으로 ‘국가에 대한 과학’을 가리키는 것에서 알 수 있듯, 근대 국민국가들은 인구의 복잡성과 유동성을 관리가능하고 이해가능한 사실들과 수치들로 환원한 자료들을 표준화된 방식으로 생산하고 가공하여 통치에 활용했다. 통계는 ‘상상의 공동체인 국민’을 숫자 속에 실체적인 것으로 고정했다. 숫자는 그것의 생산과 사용에서 일정한 규칙에 따라야 한다는 점에서 ‘기계적 객관성’을 갖는 것으로 인정됨으로써 의사결정에서 중요한 표준으로 구실한다. 통치에서도 숫자의 사용은, 원격의 기술로서 숫자에 의한 광범한 정보의 획득의 요구와 동시에 기계적 객관성에 의한 정당화의 확보의 필요에 의해 확대되고 있다. 하지만 추상화를 통해 객체들의 모든 질적 차이를 소거하고 수량적 크고 작음의 차이로 단순화하는 숫자는 그것에 의해 ‘서열화 효과’를 동반한다. 당연히 통치는 이런 서열화 효과를 직접 겨냥하여 수량화를 추구하는데, 순위평가, 성과측정 등이 그 사례이다. 또한 통치는 정치적 쟁점들에 대해 ‘숫자가 말하게’ 함으로써 그것들을 탈정치화하는 효과를 얻는다. 더 근본적으로는 수량화는 그 대상인 사람들이 단순히 객체로 머물지 않고 스스로 수량화하는 ‘계산하는 자아’로 주체화하고, 그것에 의해 ‘수량화된 자아’, ‘관리된 자아’로 규율하는 효과를 동반함으로써 통치에 심층적으로 복무한다.

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