The Epistemic Bias Toward the Singular

The assumption that the close-up is the site of “moral seriousness” is a scalar dogma. While the fragment clarifies, it can also obfuscate, preventing the perception of patterns that only manifest at scale. Understanding requires a rejection of reductionism—the belief that the smallest unit is the truest one. The task of the theorist is to determine which truths are being erased by our current preference for the particular, and to recover the “rhythms” that require a broader field of vision.