Bodies resist optimization because they are not machines, and neither are societies.

Evidence

An individual body can be healed, and it can become healthy. But it can’t necessarily be optimized; it’s not a machine, after all. I think the same holds true for the social body. Recalling Frazier’s exclamation in Walden Two that humanity is only 1 percent as productive as it could be (productive of what?), we might ask what goal manifest dismantling has to offer in place of the North Star of productivity. Beyond the vague cyclicality of what Purdy calls “going on living,” can there be teleology without a telos? — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 667

Categorization

• DEFINE: Frames the central question ‘teleology without a telos’ that anchor’s Odell’s replacement for productivity.