Power hid itself as order by 1873 Egyptian education

Evidence

The Inspector-General of Schools, appointed in March 1873 to organise a national system of school inspection, compared these techniques of order and surveillance to the uniform and invisible force of a magnetic fluid. ‘The pedagogic influence of the master on the pupil’, he wrote, ‘is like a magnetic fluid which transmits itself in a manner that is slow, hidden, and permanent … without external manifestation. At the moment when you attempt to surprise it, it may be absent, because it does not like to be under surveillance. Remove yourself and it will return, reactivated once more; the current will be reestablished.’ The appearance of order means the disappearance of power. Power is to operate more and more in a manner that is slow, uninterrupted and without external manifestation. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 279

Categorization

• XREF: Directly echoes Foucault’s analysis of the Panopticon — power works best without visible surveillance. Also connects to the earlier chapters on colonial ordering.
• SHARE: The magnetic fluid metaphor from the 1873 Inspector-General is a delightful period image worth sending to someone interested in the history of education or colonial administration.