I don’t find it convincing. Even though it’s long, I don’t recognize any of the examples as being ‘Ra’ ness and I can’t think of any examples of ‘Ra’ in my own experience, the concept draws a complete blank. The name ‘Ra’ is also not that great as unlike some of the other reifications going around like Yvain’s ‘Moloch’, which at least have some intuitive connection with their concept, ‘Ra’ seems pretty much arbitrary. In contrast, the first time I read about the prisoner’s dilemma/tragedy of the commons, it hit me like an epiphany and I went ‘of course! this explains everything, from people littering and cutting across the grass to war!’ (And since Moloch is just coordination problems in general, it made equal sense to me.)
EDIT: Obormot and saturn2 on IRC note that ‘Ra’ seems in her telling to slightly overlap with the whole complacent-elite meritocracy going on in the Ivy League & Wall Street, of the Twilight of the Elites type.
Have you read James C. Scott’s The Art of Not Being Governed? I recommend it in general, but I think his description of southeast Asian empires has them displaying a lot of Ra-ness. People in empires are self-described as being better even when their lives as similar to—but worse—than the lives of people outside the empire.
The thing is, it isn’t ethnocentrism. Sometimes the people inside the empire and outside the empire are of the same ethnicity. It’s just that people inside the empire have a very strong system of self-congratulation.
I don’t find it convincing. Even though it’s long, I don’t recognize any of the examples as being ‘Ra’ ness and I can’t think of any examples of ‘Ra’ in my own experience, the concept draws a complete blank. The name ‘Ra’ is also not that great as unlike some of the other reifications going around like Yvain’s ‘Moloch’, which at least have some intuitive connection with their concept, ‘Ra’ seems pretty much arbitrary. In contrast, the first time I read about the prisoner’s dilemma/tragedy of the commons, it hit me like an epiphany and I went ‘of course! this explains everything, from people littering and cutting across the grass to war!’ (And since Moloch is just coordination problems in general, it made equal sense to me.)
EDIT: Obormot and saturn2 on IRC note that ‘Ra’ seems in her telling to slightly overlap with the whole complacent-elite meritocracy going on in the Ivy League & Wall Street, of the Twilight of the Elites type.
Have you read James C. Scott’s The Art of Not Being Governed? I recommend it in general, but I think his description of southeast Asian empires has them displaying a lot of Ra-ness. People in empires are self-described as being better even when their lives as similar to—but worse—than the lives of people outside the empire.
I’ve read Seeing like a State but not that one. I’m not sure how that kind of ethnocentrism is Ra-like.
The thing is, it isn’t ethnocentrism. Sometimes the people inside the empire and outside the empire are of the same ethnicity. It’s just that people inside the empire have a very strong system of self-congratulation.