-sorry I haven’t gotten back to y’all yet! I’ve been doing my best to digest all of this!
Jonathan, your daughter’s video on apoptosis was lovely, and I am definitely saving it for any chance I might get to teach an intro class again!
Shoot, I realize now that we’re getting into matters of epistemology, that the model of the mega-machine is being used to describe a process of simplifying human interactions over time, with the intent (from the perspective of power) to produce perfectly predictable outcomes (a process I still do not think of as very machine-like, frankly).
You are absolutely right in that trying to categorize every person and define them based on their functions as some form of cell is far too literal an application, and at that point it seems I’d be playing the same game that Marxists are when they try to invent distinctions between classes.
My concerns with Ulf’s work remain, and I expect that I’ll have to do some digging there! Perhaps we could sift out some problems by applying their thought experiment for the origin of social power to historical instances of the formation of social power?
[Of course, this means plenty more reading for me, if I’m to be of any help here!]