Substance and form

An existential dilemma — indeed a paradox — first adverted to in the libretto of Puttanesca Rigatoni’s now largely forgotten comic opera La Vittoria della Forma sulla Sostanza (often performed, if performed at all, in German, as Die Eroberung der Form durch Substanz) the modern world is blighted by the comforting embrace of boxes to tick, checklists to complete, and audit trails to measure, all of whom substitute for a qualitative assessment of a state of affairs the measurement of its superficial dimensions.

See also

• Closely related to the technology paradox