Imperial agents find satisfaction in pure functioning, not in achieved ends

Evidence

Might imperial dispositions indeed have at their core such a “vital lie”? This is not the colossal lie that Arendt describes for Eichmann and the political engineers of Nazi Germany. Rather it is a “lie for life,” not about religious gods but secular ones, about political myths, empire’s “noble” projects, as Valck called them, and the do-good deeds of those who carried them out. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1419 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Imperial agents are the counterpart to bureaucratic Orientalist institutions; Totalitarian politics eclipsed imperial profiteering through purposeless efficiency; Imperial dispositions are trained habits of attention channeled by rules of relevance (+1 more)

Related

• Imperial governance rests on a vital lie about empire’s noble projects (similarity 0.87)
• Empire produces and maintains strategic ignorance as a ruling technology (similarity 0.81)
• Hollow prestige without real superiority arose in Hellenic imperial decline (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Totalitarian politics eclipsed imperial profiteering through purposeless efficiency #expands (0.80)
• Imperial dispositions are trained habits of attention channeled by rules of relevance #expands (0.78)
• Imperial governance rests on a vital lie about empire’s noble projects #qualifies (0.72) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1419