The Metric System: Why, Why Not, and Who Cares

Among all of the tweets I saved for yesterday's belated May round-up, there was one I had forgotten about that needs its own post. Verge writer James Vincent, @jjvincent, posted a thread at the end of the month about the metric system, based on part of his book, Beyond Measure.

I remember learning about the metric system in 7th grade science, and finding out more about it in a college history class on the French Revolution. I have mixed feelings about it vs. our arcane way of doing things in the U.S. For instance, I think Fahrenheit degrees and the 0 to 100°F range are much better for describing something meaningful in terms of human comfort than basing everything on the temperature where water freezes or boils. I could get used to meters, since they are basically yards, though something like a foot is a humanly useful length, while a third of a meter doesn't mean much. I could get used to kilometers vs. miles, though.

Anyway, James Vincent posted about the history of anti-metric sentiment, as he put it, "how it connects to political power, republicanism, the French revolution, conspiracy theories, and Brexit":

One thing that needs to be understood first is that, for millennia, control over weights and measures has genuinely been a huge deal for nations — not just for the practical benefits that standardized units provide, but as a symbol of sovereignty. For most of history, ensuring people had access to consistent units of measure is as important as maintain roads or punishing criminals....

At this point he gives several examples in history. ("Rulers" are called that for a reason, he says.)

Then there's the French Revolution.

The metric system was created to solve practical problems. Most notably: a profusion of units in Ancien Régime France that were exploited by the nobility and that stymied trade. But it was also a profoundly political project: intended to embody republican virtues.

Instead of measuring length using the pied du Roi (literally ‘the foot of King’ – a unit dating back to Charlemagne) French revolutionaries introduced the metre (derived from Enlightenment science and defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the Equator to North Pole).

Metric units were part of a revolutionary remaking of the world that was supposed to shape the thinking of ordinary citizens....

In the 19th century, this political engineering was not lost on observers in the UK and US debating the issue of metrication. Forces opposed to metric units began to portray them as a foreign and atheistic imposition on the natural order of the world.

A great example of this sentiment comes from the US-based International Institute for Preserving and Perfecting Weights and Measures: an anti-metric pressure group that wrote pamphlets, gave speeches, and lobbied politicians against adopting metric units.

The group’s motivations are revealed wonderfully in their theme song: “A pint’s a pound the world around.”

So there's a fact I didn't know... the origin of that saying, which I still use to remind myself of that fact when remembering the weight of a gallon (eight pints). And, more importantly, that controlling weights and measures was exploited by nobility, because... of course it was. I always thought the revolutionaries were just trying to make things over to a new way of thinking: I didn't realize that this way of standardizing made things fairer and less subject to manipulation by the powerful.

...for much of its history, anti-metric sentiment has been intertwined with a belief that Imperial units have been divinely bestowed on mankind by God. Pounds and ounces are a “sacred heritage.” 

Which fits with the Divine Right of Kings pretty well, I would think.

Then there's a bit about Pyramidology being ascribed as the reason for the traditional way of doing things... Which slides into the conspiracy theory that the metric system was about creating One World Government. Yes, even back in the 19th century!

That continues to crop up to this day, and is exploited by the Right, Vincent says:

So, my opinion on the news that [Boris] Johnson wants to “reintroduce” Imperial measures is that it’s blue passports all over again: a symbolic throwback intended to reassure the base during a crisis and distract political rivals. In short: it’s business as usual.

But the history of anti-metric sentiment is truly wild and pricks many conservative sore spots — from fears over loss of political sovereignty, to a general feeling the world is moving on and left you behind. The Tories know what they’re doing with this stuff.

Vanity or not, people care about measurement. And — though I would say this — I think the whole thing shows the significance of this topic in our lives. Units of measure aren’t just practical tools: they’re cultural and political objects and deserve to be better understood.

Units of measure: very important as a culture war subject, I agree. But I also think that if they could somehow be changed overnight, whatever they were changed to would be naturalized and completely forgotten as a topic within a brief time.