In one perspective, states are in the business of controlling the passions of their subjects and citizens, setting up rules to ensure they are penalized for transgressions and remain subject to a rule of reason and a rule of law. In this model, affect is out- side the state; reason is the means to sort out irrational ends. … Others, such as William Reddy, offer keen insight into how specific senti- ments drive bureaucracies, their recruitment procedures and meritocra- cies. Here affective knowledge is that on which states depend in their pursuit of “the art of knowing men.”

Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ E…, loc. 609