Writing’s material-mental split parallels how modern state authority was conceived

Evidence

In chapter 5, in the context of the military occupation of Egypt by the British, I will deal with the problem of political certainty or meaning. I want to consider how the new methods and new conception of order, examined in the preceding chapters, brought about the effect of a realm of meaning and authority. I propose to explore this by drawing a parallel from the same period with the question of meaning and authority in written texts, arguing that a new kind of distinction between the material and the mental also came to govern the nature of writing. I will use this parallel to argue that it was in terms of this strange distinction that the nature and authority of the modern state were to be conceived and achieved. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 87

Categorization

• XREF: The material/mental distinction in writing and state authority connects to the broader theme of representation and the ‘world as exhibition’ treated elsewhere; echoes Plato’s pharmakon and Derrida’s treatment of writing.