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Here’s a chunky chapter 2! The idea that great thinkers are merely summarizing the Zeitgeist is, I think, a more accurate reading of history; no one lives in a vacuum. Graeber loves mentioning Rousseau submitted that treatise for an essay contest; Graeber loves his “umm actually” factoids lmao. What I would call a “Graeberism” is to point out the unsaid assumptions, both positive and especially negative, by a historical/philosophical/religious/cultural thought or practice. He employs this frequently and it occurs right on the next page as he posits the implications of the Ancien Règime’s scholars asking about the origins of inequality. I’ve read many of Graeber’s books but I still can’t train my brain quite as well as his to constantly perform this transformation. It is wild to think of such a stratified society holding a public essay contest; looks at current regime. I’ve picked away at Graeber’s posthumous book on pirates and that coincides with this chapter’s project of placing enlightenment Europe in the context of the broader world. If y’all wanna think about differential accumulation, the injection of trade goods from abroad after the Ottoman embargo for so long, gave Iberian nobles an insane sudden differential in accumulated wealth, in massive inconsistent bursts. Once this ramps up with the gold and slave trade, the volatility of these shipments, and the leveraging of the Habsburg/Iberian war machine would be a massively destabilizing factor. One can imagine the desperate measures a noble may take to ease unrest that could expand the egalitarian imagination of a peasant realizing how dependent the upper classes are on the fruits of the poor and the scale of the robbery at hand.
The idea that scholars got pilled on Chinese bureaucracy and smuggled it into European governments is both amusing and seems true. Scholars have all the incentives to push ideas for their ability to reliably reproduce their social strata as bureaucrats. The Davids’ points about inequality not showing in medieval literature are quite salient and do well to reinforce their accounting of European social structure. I wonder if there were coffee store chains in enlightenment Europe.
The stark contrast between the gregariousness of Americans and the sociopathy of the colonists is notable and obvious. The frontier coming home is often destabilizing for regimes and France is no exemption. I wonder what were the negative consequences of the collective punishment meted out by the wendat and other indigenous communities in the case of war; I’d wager it’s not as cruel as industrial prisons, gulags, slavery, or capital punishment. The idea of wealth being detached to power sounds fun and all, but deeply difficult to enforce or build durable institutions around. The notion of wealthy wendat spending wealth for honor once again echoes Graeber’s work on heroic societies. Indigenous African acephalous societies often employed similar forms of what I would call “charisma corvee labor” that are performed by wendat chiefs. Egalitarian societies often have chiefs that must schmooze locals into work, whether that is through gifts, or merely convincing them the project is necessary/beneficial. The Jesuits are one of many lovely examples of “the bad guys telling on themselves”. The Jesuit historical records decry things such as women’s liberty as horrid but to our modern eyes we can often see how institutions often don’t age very well. The thought of Americans having conversations with prohibitionist Europeans also colors amusing pictures; “wait, you all just listen to that guy?”. I feel like the cosmology of the Americans is missing from this chapter and it would help elucidate the contrast against the equality of subjects below the sovereign. Is there essentialism going on when the Huron are all described as quick witted? I guess these things are unavoidable if you want to say anything and I’d rather a positive depiction than a negative. That being said, the roles that are afforded any modicum of power often create barriers to entry. People are incentivized to mold themselves into a fashion that would pass these tests. Just as how corporate culture encourages sociopathy from the top down, good humored and charismatic chiefs can do the same!
Get me some of that freedom and communism. I think there is a great point of redefining communism in the way that they do, but it feels like there is still some residual cold war jingoism that resonates through life here in the states still; bafflingly. Consequently it feels like a fruitless hill to die on to attempt to reform the word communism in American minds; I’m still gonna try though. Roman property law is so baked into people’s brain stems and I wonder what it’ll take for people to chill out and share a little already. Kandiaronk is awesome and a postmodernist to some degree; maybe a reflection of the large urban societies in Cahokia or to the south.
The indigenous critique spurring a change in European thought certainly shifted due to the indigenous critique, the Euros only ever seemed to apply their egalitarianism to themselves though. I’m not sure if the story the Davids tell is as impactful as they make it out to be (the unpacking of European intellectualism and pop culture), but I’m by no means literate enough in the intellectual writings of the time to cross reference. I’m curious to read Wengrow’s work on ancient archeology to dismantle this notion of “the stupid savage”. This book reads quite easily!
Hi there! I’m new to the forum and I’m gonna take this section chapter by chapter through the month. R.I.P to a person that forever changed my life.
This post will be relatively short since chapter one is essentially a reiteration of much of Graeber’s work. Dismantling the binary between Rousseau and Hobbes is essential for opening the imagination to historical possibilities; I particularly enjoy the story about Romito 2! The notion that agriculture is humanity’s fall from grace has always been ridiculous and it’s good to see pushback there. There are many cases of modern isolated tribes being used as the benchmark of the past and it’s easy to see in retrospect how ridiculous that is; as a child admittedly for me not so much. Dismantling the framing of solutions around inequality helps disentangle one’s mind from unachievable possibilities. As someone finishing their bachelor’s in Psychology and History, I particularly hate Steven Pinker. Unpacking his imperial apologia is quite satisfying to read. The quests mentioned towards the end of the chapter had me thinking of Graeber’s past work about honor and quests; crossing the seas to spread one’s name and culture is still a familiar theme in today’s age of global media. I’ll be digging into chapter two later this week!
