Order as a Technology of Power

This article examines how the Western philosophical ideal of order, which is shaped from antiquity through the medieval “esse est ordo” to modern rationalism, was projected into colonialism and reappears in contemporary surveillance regimes in smart cities. Using a conceptual-genealogical approach, I analyze three layers: 1) the emergence of the order/chaos dichotomy in Western metaphysics, where order becomes an ontologically and morally superior category; 2) the way in which French colonial urbanism materialized this dichotomy—for example, by interpreting Muslim cities as “chaotic” and transforming them into controllable and disciplinary spaces; and 3) the current digital transformation of this ideal within smart city infrastructures, which, through Big Data and algorithmic governmentality, create an environment of permanent prediction and categorization. I show that today’s technological regimes are not just a new form of surveillance but a continuation of the same epistemic project that previously legitimized colonialism. The digital “order” is not a neutral technical goal but a normative framework that creates new forms of moral and political dominance, particularly through the categorization of “others” and the normalization of controllability as an ideal of urban life

Colonialism · Normative · Politics · Smart city · Urbanism · Digital Education and Society · Digital Media and Philosophy · Smart Cities and Technologies