Statistical analysis:Foucault and Porter

(Even the concept of "population" is itself statistically based.) Much of the tenor of our current politics (and an even high percentage of its ugliness) arise from the ability of campaign managers (including those working for sitting presidents) to cut up populations into those who might be persuaded to vote a certain way and those whose minds are already made up.

statistical analysis is supposed to guide us through the unmapped - to allow us to govern chaos, as Porter suggests - bu

in substituting the "population" (defined by the possession of certain designated characteristics) for the individual, we are all diminished.

None of us as individuals, Foucault reminds us, is the same as the statistical norm - which is a fiction, a cipher, something that does not exist and should never be held up as a goal.

And yet all too often - and with increasing frequency - statistical norms are being held up not as neutral, arithmetic abstractions but rather as specific goals towards which we should strive. An excellent example of this phenomenon is the current craze for interchangeable testing that has taken hold of the public schooling in this country. An attempt to turn educational into an indu
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