High Modernism

Central planners need a simplified picture of society before they can act at scale. High modernism converts that necessary simplification into certainty: experts define the goal, standardize the method, and treat local variation as friction. But people on the ground are continuously adapting to conditions the plan cannot fully represent. When implementation means obedience rather than feedback, the planner’s model stops learning while reality keeps changing. This is the danger captured by Seeing Like a State (Legibility): what is easy to administer is mistaken for what actually works.

Large systems often require expertise, coordination, and common standards. The model applies when central design becomes insulated from correction—not whenever government or experts make a plan. A plan that preserves local discretion and changes in response to evidence is different from one imposed as a finished answer.