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JON BALDWIN recommends a provocative assertion of how working-class culture can rethink knowledge
The downside of data
A book on the 'metric society' details the use of statistics and digital information for malign political, social and economic ends, says ANDY HEDGECOCK
These are vivid accounts of people’s experiences of far-right violence along with documentation of popular resistance, says MARJORIE MAYO
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE, JOHN GREEN and ANGUS REID review An Army of Women, Julie Keeps Quiet, The Friend and The Ugly Stepsister
GORDON PARSONS squirms at a production that attempts to update Shakespeare’s comedy to a tale of Premier League football
Above a Gothic bar just down from Brighton station, something spooky is happening, suggests JAMES WALSH
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MIK SABIERS enjoys the theatrical feminist six piece who have a lot of fun that the audience feeds off as the set rolls on
The Metric Society: On the Quantification of the Social
by Steffen Mau
(Polity, £15.99)
FICTIONAL dystopias often feature characters suffering direct persecution at the hands of clearly identified oppressors — think The Trial, Brave New World and The Truman Show.
But Steffen Mau’s The Metric Society focuses on the growing trend for self-monitoring and ways in which we collude in our own subjugation.
In considering the role of statistics and digital algorithms in amplifying the inequalities of neoliberalism, the book reflects on value systems, the history of data management and the misuse of quantitative evaluation in extending market-led competition into every area of life.
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