I had a protracted chat with my elder son the opposite day. It’s pretty uncommon for us to chew the fats, although we share a home. I’m in when he’s out, and vice versa.
However the different day, over dinner, we lined the bottom. There was the same old stuff: the lamentable state of our respective sports activities groups, home politics, the price of residing. That kind of factor.
We additionally chatted about his job. And I used to be startled. His complete focus was on his Key Efficiency Indicators, or KPIs. He’s a white-collar skilled. His function doesn’t contain working in a warehouse or delivering items.
He’s executed each of these as trip jobs – and has a wholesome respect for individuals who do – however I’d assumed that he’d escaped the world of monitored restroom breaks and limitless quotas.
OK, so his present employers are human. They don’t have the stopwatch on him when he takes a consolation break. However he nonetheless exists in a world the place each facet of his productiveness is measured.
I’ve it straightforward. Write article, hit deadline, transfer on. I’ve bought targets, certain, however they aren’t relentlessly measured. So I used to be involved for him.
Measurement Defines the World We Reside in
Measurement is throughout us. That’s notably obvious to digital natives, like my son. There’s a metric for every little thing, from gross sales success to private health. And don’t get me began on sports activities.
However all that is nothing new. Measurement is one thing seemingly inherently human. We’re the quantifying animal – and have been since somebody carved tally marks on a wolf’s jawbone again within the Stone Age.
Measurement underpins our makes an attempt to impose order and understanding on the world. All that’s essentially modified is the know-how.
And as James Vincent factors out in his ebook “Past Measure: The Hidden Historical past of Measurement,” measurement has had a checkered historical past.
Measurement and Civilization
In Historic Egypt, individuals believed you may measure the bodily weight of a human soul. Extra virtually, they constructed nice chambers to measure the flooding depth of the River Nile. They’re known as nilometers. (Effectively, what else would you name them?)
These constructions allowed Egyptian officers to gauge the doubtless depth of the Nile’s flooding, and therefore the fertility of subsequent yr’s soil. Fairly very important in the event you wanted to understand how a lot meals there’d be to go round.
Additionally useful for predicting issues like civil unrest as a result of individuals had been hungry. In any case, measurement had already change into an important software for civilized authorities.
Equity for All?
As societies developed, measurement got here to embody new concepts and rules. The French Revolution launched new requirements of measurement: the meter and the kilogram. These swept away the a whole lot, if not 1000’s, of various regional requirements that had been used all through France.
For the reason that Center Ages, these requirements had favored retailers and landowners who had been already wealthy and highly effective. The meter and kilogram changed them with one thing new: equity.
Nevertheless, measurement isn’t a impartial software; it may be used for darker functions. Within the seventeenth century, improved surveying methods allowed land to be parceled out precisely and shortly. To this point, so good.
However Oliver Cromwell promptly used these methods to dispossess the rebellious Irish. European settlers then used them to applicable the lands of native individuals in America.
The British Empire was constructed on high-quality, exactly measured maps. Everybody wanted to know who owned what, and who now not did.
A Measure of Widespread Sense
I discussed this double-edged character of measurement when speaking to my son. Positive, he stated, every little thing’s measured. However that’s OK. His KPIs give him construction and course in his work.
And I remembered that fitness-measurement apps had helped his brother to stave off melancholy throughout the COVID lockdown.
So possibly my concern about my son’s KPIs was excessive. I’m his dad, and I would like him to be completely happy. And as Vincent observes, measurement is a useful gizmo. It ought to promote happiness.
So long as it does that, and we’re all conscious of its potential to do the other, it’s a great factor. And it’s not like we’re going to cease doing it any time quickly anyway.
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