I had no idea that cubicles were a
Utopian statement, but I'm not really surprised that they are. More
surprising is that someone out there is doing their PhD work on the
cubicle as a statement of culture. Had to happen. Just had to
happen.
"Those with moral
aspirations for the cubicle—from countercultural Californians
like Tom Peters to Midwestern Protestants like Max De
Pree—sought to defend some idea of “humanity”
against the inhumanity of bureaucracy. Yet, to say that bureaucracy
is inhuman has not always been an objection to it. As defined by
Max Weber a century ago, bureaucracy makes its great contribution
to the world precisely by ignoring the human spirit. Operating
according to fixed rules, policies, and positions, bureaucracy in
its purest form functions, as Weber wrote, “without regard
for persons.” As bureaucracy “develops more perfectly,
the more the bureaucracy is ‘dehumanized,’ the more
completely it succeeds in eliminating from official business love,
hatred, and all purely personal, irrational, and emotional elements
which escape calculation.” The central impulse of bureaucracy
is to fashion a world in conformity to the impersonal abstraction
and precise relationships of an organizational
chart."
Here's the link
